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Books > Music > Contemporary popular music > Rock & pop > Soul & Gospel
I Hear a Symphony opens new territory in the study of Motown's
legacy, arguing that the music of Motown was indelibly shaped by
the ideals of Detroit's postwar black middle class; that Motown's
creative personnel participated in an African-American tradition of
dialogism in rhythm and blues while developing the famous "Motown
Sound." Throughout the book, Flory focuses on the central
importance of "crossover" to the Motown story; first as a key
concept in the company's efforts to reach across American
commercial markets, then as a means to extend influence
internationally, and finally as a way to expand the brand beyond
strictly musical products. Flory's work reveals the richness of the
Motown sound, and equally rich and complex cultural influence
Motown still exerts.
In 2007, Ruben Molina published the first-ever history of
Mexican-American soul and R&Bmusic in his book, Chicano Soul:
Recordings and History of an American Culture. Ten yearslater,
Chicano Soul remains an important and oft-referenced study of this
vital but oftenoverlooked chapter of the greater American musical
experience. Chicano soul music of the1950s and 1960s still
reverberates today, both within Chicano communities and
throughoutmany musical genres. Molina tells the story of the roots
of Chicano soul, its evolution, and itsenduring cultural infl
uence. "Brown-eyed soul" music draws on 1950s era jazz, blues, jump
blues, rock 'n' roll, Latinjazz, and traditional Mexican music such
as ranchera, norteno, and conjunto music. With its rareand gorgeous
photos, record scans, concert bills, and impressive discography (to
say nothingof its rich oral histories/interviews), it is one of
those rare works that speaks to both generaland academic audiences.
Living the Life I Sing: Gospel Music from the Dorsey Era to the
Millennium discusses the foundations of gospel music and how the
form has developed across time to create a genre that reaches far
beyond its geographical borders. In addition, it addresses the
future of the genre and considers its place in the general music
industry. Section One explores the development of Gospel music,
including its transition from the secular path of the blues to a
path of sacred spirituality. Section Two focuses on the rise and
role of the Black church in spreading Gospel music. Topics include
the development of a Gospel methodology, the resistance of the
Black press to "swinging" spirituals, the promise of and challenges
to contemporary Gospel , and the value of live recording. Living
the Life I Sing compiles an outstanding selection of resources to
chronicle Gospel music from its blues-based foundation to its role
in the lives of a post-millennial generation. The book is
well-suited to courses on African-American music, those on the
music business, religious music, and African-American history. It
can also be used in music workshops.
'The main reason I have written this book is because I want people
to know the process behind making my second album. I fight every
day to show people what I see inside my head, my vision and what I
want to create.'Revolve is a first-person account from the
platinum-selling singer-songwriter John Newman, documenting the
creative process involved in writing his second album.In the book,
John explores the influences of his Yorkshire upbringing, where
Northern Soul and Motown moulded his musical ear. From Settle to
London, this unique behind-the-scenes narrative charts the build-up
to the release of his break-out single 'Love Me Again', his No.1
album 'Tribute' and his first world tour.Revolve then details the
making of his much anticipated second album, from creating and
sketching the concept, writing the lyrics and recording in LA.
Exclusive photography captures John's experiences, alongside songs
scrawled on envelopes, early gig posters and his own personal
drawings. Revolve provides the in-depth story of John's musical and
personal evolution so far.'My first encounter with John Newman was
on my daily afternoon break from a studio session to buy a Tesco's
flapjack. I found him outside my studio complex with Mr Hudson, who
he was making a record with. They were making fun of my car, as it
had been shat on that day by an army of gulls. We've both come a
long way since then; I had my car cleaned, and he has become one of
the most exciting performers and songwriters of his generation.' -
Calvin Harris
Barry Vincent was both a Love Child of the 1960s & a Soul
Brother. In this colorful book you get plenty of the idealism of
the flower-power love generation, and also the self-rightous
indignation of proud black nationalism. There are many feelings
that can't be expressed in words but music is the perfect medium to
get the listener involved. This is a reason that there are so many
performance instructions which are actually moods and attitudes.
Music allows you to capture a feeling, document a time and place,
paint a picture - sometimes better than the visual arts. Music is a
language that sometimes says things that words simply can't
communicate. Make your experience eternal by writing it down. Let
us thank those that have upheld traditions, carried on culture,
language, forms and feelings that would have otherwise been
neglected, and sometimes even sadly lost forever. Barry shares the
optimism of the Flower Power era and the consciousness of the Civil
Rights movement in beautiful songs and positive stories and sounds.
Many studies of African-American gospel music spotlight history
and style. This one, however, is focused mainly on grassroots
makers and singers. Most of those included here are not stars. A
few have received national recognition, but most are known only in
their own home areas. Yet their collective stories presented in
this book indicate that black gospel music is one of the most
prevalent forms of contemporary American song. Its author Alan
Young is a New Zealander who came to the South seeking authentic
blues music. Instead, he found gospel to be the most pervasive,
fundamental music in the contemporary African-American South.
Blues, he concludes, has largely lost touch with its roots, while
gospel continues to express authentic resources. Conducting
interviews with singers and others in the gospel world of Tennessee
and Mississippi, Young ascertains that gospel is firmly rooted in
community life. " Woke Me Up This Morning " includes his candid,
widely varied conversations with a capella groups, with radio
personalities, with preachers, and with soloists whose performances
reveal the diversity of gospel styles. Major figures interviewed
include the Spirit of Memphis Quartet and the Reverend Willie
Morganfield, author and singer of the million-selling "What Is
This?" who turned his back on fame in order to pastor a church in
the heart of the Mississippi Delta. All speak freely in
oral-history style here, telling how they became involved in gospel
music and religion, how it enriches their lives, how it is
connected to secular music (especially blues), and how the
spiritual and the practical are united in their performances. Their
accounts reveal the essential grassroots force and spirit of gospel
music and demonstrate that if blues springs from America's soul,
then gospel arises from its heart.
At its most intimate level, music heals our emotional wounds and
inspires us. At its most public, it unites people across cultural
boundaries. But can it rebuild a city? That's the central question
posed in New Atlantis, journalist John Swenson's beautifully
detailed account of the musical artists working to save America's
most colorful and troubled metropolis: New Orleans. The city has
been threatened with extinction many times during its
three-hundred-plus-year history by fire, pestilence, crime, flood,
and oil spills. Working for little money and in spite of having
lost their own homes and possessions to Katrina, New Orleans's most
gifted musicians-including such figures as Dr. John, the Neville
Brothers, "Trombone Shorty," and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux-are
fighting back against a tidal wave of problems: the depletion of
the wetlands south of the city (which are disappearing at the rate
of one acre every hour), the violence that has made New Orleans the
murder capitol of the U.S., the waning tourism industry, and above
all the continuing calamity in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (or,
as it is known in New Orleans, the "Federal Flood"). Indeed, most
of the neighborhoods that nurtured the indigenous music of New
Orleans were destroyed in the flood, and many of the elder
statesmen have died or been incapacitated since then, but the
musicians profiled here have stepped up to fill their roles. New
Atlantis is their story. Packed with indelible portraits of
individual artists, informed by Swenson's encyclopedic knowledge of
the city's unique and varied music scene-which includes jazz,
R&B, brass band, rock, and hip hop-New Atlantis is a stirring
chronicle of the valiant efforts to preserve the culture that gives
New Orleans its grace and magic.
Brilliant, cultured, brash, and irreverent, Ahmet Ertegun was a
legend in the music world. Blessed with great taste and sharp
business acumen, he founded Atlantic Records and brought rock 'n'
roll into the mainstream. He quickly became as renowned for his
incredible sense of style and nonstop A-list social life as for his
pioneering work in the studio.
Ertegun discovered, signed, or recorded many of the greatest
musical artists of all time, among them Ruth Brown; Ray Charles;
Bobby Darin; Sonny and Cher; Eric Clapton; Buffalo Springfield;
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Led Zeppelin; and the Rolling
Stones.
Ertegun lived grandly but was never happier than when he found
himself in some down-and-out joint listening to music late at
night. As colorful and compelling as its subject, "The Last Sultan
"is the fascinating story of a man who always lived by his own
rules.
Go-go is the conga drum-inflected black popular music that emerged
in Washington, D.C., during the 1970s. The guitarist Chuck Brown,
the "Godfather of Go-Go," created the music by mixing sounds
borrowed from church and the blues with the funk and flavor that he
picked up playing for a local Latino band. Born in the inner city,
amid the charred ruins of the 1968 race riots, go-go generated a
distinct culture and an economy of independent, almost exclusively
black-owned businesses that sold tickets to shows and recordings of
live go-gos. At the peak of its popularity, in the 1980s, go-go
could be heard around the capital every night of the week, on
college campuses and in crumbling historic theaters,
hole-in-the-wall nightclubs, backyards, and city parks.
"Go-Go Live" is a social history of black Washington told
through its go-go music and culture. Encompassing dance moves,
nightclubs, and fashion, as well as the voices of artists, fans,
business owners, and politicians, Natalie Hopkinson's
Washington-based narrative reflects the broader history of race in
urban America in the second half of the twentieth century and the
early twenty-first. In the 1990s, the middle class that had left
the city for the suburbs in the postwar years began to return.
Gentrification drove up property values and pushed go-go into
D.C.'s suburbs. The Chocolate City is in decline, but its heart,
D.C.'s distinctive go-go musical culture, continues to beat. On any
given night, there's live go-go in the D.C. metro area.
Do you remember when certain songs connected you to that special
someone and related to a certain time and location as if the
recording artist knew what you were going through? Those were the
days of doo-wop, better known as the good old days. The songs were
magical, they touched you. Songs like: "Tears On My Pillow"-by
Little Anthony & The Imperials, "Lovers Never Say Goodbye"-The
Flamingoes, "Oh What a Night"-The Dells, "For Your Precious
Love"-Jerry Butler & The Impressions. Even a song like "Soldier
Boy"- by the Shirelles today relate to our troops, friends and love
ones in combat. Fighting to preserve our freedom. The magical
legacy carried over into the sixties and seventies. "Yes I'm
Ready"-Barbara Mason, "Hey There Lonely Girl"- Eddie Holman, "Storm
Warning"- The Volcanos, "Love Aint Been Easy"-The Trammps. These
songs and the late Weldon McDougal III inspired me to write the
true story of "The Volcanos" and "The Trammps." You will read about
the beginning of my hunger to be in show business, the success and
the unheard-of phenomenon that took place behind- the-curtains with
"The Volcanos" and The Grammy Award Winning "Trammps." Jerry Blavat
would say "You Only Rock Once" Read on and relive the days of
doo-wop, disco, and memories. It's show time So Let the show
begin..............
In January of 1979, the great soul artist Donny Hathaway fell
fifteen stories from a window of Manhattan's Essex House Hotel in
an alleged suicide. He was 33 years old and everyone he worked with
called him a genius. Best known for "A Song for You," "This
Christmas," and classic duets with Roberta Flack, Hathaway was a
composer, pianist, and singer committed to exploring "music in its
totality." His velvet melisma and vibrant sincerity set him apart
from other soul men of his era while influencing generations of
singers and fans whose love affair with him continues to this day.
The first nonfiction book about Hathaway, Donny Hathaway Live uses
original interviews, archival material, musical analysis, cultural
history, and poetry to tell the story of Hathaway's life, from his
beginnings as a gospel wonder child to his final years. But its
focus is the brutally honest, daringly gorgeous music he created as
he raced the clock of mental illness-especially in the performances
captured on his 1972 album Donny Hathaway Live. That album
testifies to Hathaway's uncanny ability to amplify the power and
beauty of his songs in the moment of live performance. By exploring
that album, we see how he generated a spiritual experience for
those present at his shows, and for those with the privilege to
listen in now.
Memphis Boys chronicles the story of the rhythm section at Chips
Moman's American Studios from 1964, when the group began working
together, until 1972, when Moman shut down the studio and moved the
entire operation to Atlanta. Utilizing extensive interviews with
Moman and the group, as well as additional comments from the
songwriters, sound engineers, and office staff, author Roben Jones
creates a collective biography combined with a business history and
a critical analysis of important recordings. She reveals how the
personalities of the core group meshed, how they regarded
newcomers, and how their personal and musical philosophies blended
with Moman's vision to create timeless music based on themes of
suffering and sorrow. Recording sessions with Elvis Presley, the
Gentrys, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Box Tops, Joe Tex,
Neil Diamond, B. J. Thomas, Dionne Warwick, and many others come
alive in this book. Jones provides the stories behind memorable
songs composed by group writers, such as "The Letter," "Dark End of
the Street," "Do Right Woman," "Breakfast in Bed," and "You Were
Always on My Mind." Featuring photographs, personal profiles, and a
suggested listening section, Memphis Boys details a significant
phase of American music and the impact of one amazing studio. Roben
Jones of Gallipolis, Ohio, has published poetry in various
magazines and in Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia
Poetry, 1950-1999.
When Sam Cooke was shot dead in a cheap motel in Hollywood, he was
one of America's most successful pop stars. He left a world in
which he had been born poor and had become very rich from the
success of such records as "You Send Me" and "A Wonderful World",
yet his body lay unrecognised in a morgue for two days. This
biography follows Cooke's life in a racist America where his voice
was one of the first to reach beyond the segregated audiences and
command a white following, Cooke himself becoming a player in the
fledgling civil rights movement. This award-winning biography is a
full and sometimes shocking story of a man whose songbook is
revered by great performers such as Otis Redding, Rod Stewart and
Aretha Franklin.
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