"Rowden has wedded ethnomusicology and disability studies to
offer a fresh approach to the study of African American popular
music. "The Songs of Blind Folk" undermines many of the defining
mythologies and tropes of blind musicians, including the perception
that they are successful because they compensate for the loss of
vision."
---Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University
"Illuminates how the enduring phenomenon of blind African
American musicians emerged from brutal conditions, how these
musicians were deployed in the burgeoning American iconography of
race and 'freakdom, ' and how they negotiated this hazardous
cultural terrain . . . the book is timely, well-historicized, and
rich in insight."
---Kari Winter, University at Buffalo
"The Songs of Blind Folk" explores the ways that the lives and
careers of blind and visually impaired African American musicians
and singers have mirrored the changes in America's image of African
Americans and the social positioning and possibilities of the
entire black community. The book offers a historically grounded
consideration of African American performers and their audiences,
and the ways that blindness, like blackness, has affected the way
the music has been produced and received. Author Terry Rowden
considers the controversial nineteenth-century prodigy Blind Tom
Bethune; blues singers and songwriters such as Blind Lemon
Jefferson, who achieved an unprecedented degree of visibility and
acceptance in the 1920s and '30s; spiritual and gospel musicians
such as the Blind Boys of Alabama; celebrated jazz and rhythm and
blues artists Art Tatum, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Ray Charles; and
finally, perhaps the best known of all blind performers, Stevie
Wonder.
Terry Rowden is Assistant Professor of English at the City
University of New York, Staten Island. He is coeditor of
"Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. "
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!