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In The Meaning of Soul, Emily J. Lordi proposes a new understanding
of this famously elusive concept. In the 1960s, Lordi argues, soul
came to signify a cultural belief in black resilience, which was
enacted through musical practices-inventive cover versions,
falsetto vocals, ad-libs, and false endings. Through these soul
techniques, artists such as Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Nina
Simone, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Minnie Riperton performed
virtuosic survivorship and thus helped to galvanize black
communities in an era of peril and promise. Their soul legacies
were later reanimated by such stars as Prince, Solange Knowles, and
Flying Lotus. Breaking with prior understandings of soul as a vague
masculinist political formation tethered to the Black Power
movement, Lordi offers a vision of soul that foregrounds the
intricacies of musical craft, the complex personal and social
meanings of the music, the dynamic movement of soul across time,
and the leading role played by black women in this
musical-intellectual tradition.
Who runs the world? The Beyhive knows. From the Destiny's Child
2001 hit single "Survivor" to her 2019 jam "7/11," Beyoncé
Knowles-Carter has confronted dominant issues around the world.
Because her image is linked with debates on race, sexuality, and
female empowerment, she has become a central figure in pop music
and pop culture. Beyoncé: At Work, On Screen, and Online explores
her work as a singer, activist, and artist by taking a deep dive
into her songs, videos, and performances, as well as responses from
her fans. Contributors look at Beyoncé's entire body of work to
examine her status as a canonical figure in modern music and do not
shy away from questioning scandals or weighing her social
contributions against the evolution of feminism, critical race
theory, authenticity, and more. Full of examples from throughout
Beyoncé's career, this volume presents listening as a political
undertaking that generates meaning and creates community. Beyoncé:
At Work, On Screen, and Online contends that because of her
willingness to address societal issues within her career, Beyoncé
has become an important touchstone for an entire generation—all
in a day's work for Queen Bey.
Who runs the world? The Beyhive knows. From the Destiny's Child
2001 hit single "Survivor" to her 2019 jam "7/11," Beyoncé
Knowles-Carter has confronted dominant issues around the world.
Because her image is linked with debates on race, sexuality, and
female empowerment, she has become a central figure in pop music
and pop culture. Beyoncé: At Work, On Screen, and Online explores
her work as a singer, activist, and artist by taking a deep dive
into her songs, videos, and performances, as well as responses from
her fans. Contributors look at Beyoncé's entire body of work to
examine her status as a canonical figure in modern music and do not
shy away from questioning scandals or weighing her social
contributions against the evolution of feminism, critical race
theory, authenticity, and more. Full of examples from throughout
Beyoncé's career, this volume presents listening as a political
undertaking that generates meaning and creates community. Beyoncé:
At Work, On Screen, and Online contends that because of her
willingness to address societal issues within her career, Beyoncé
has become an important touchstone for an entire generation—all
in a day's work for Queen Bey.
In The Meaning of Soul, Emily J. Lordi proposes a new understanding
of this famously elusive concept. In the 1960s, Lordi argues, soul
came to signify a cultural belief in black resilience, which was
enacted through musical practices-inventive cover versions,
falsetto vocals, ad-libs, and false endings. Through these soul
techniques, artists such as Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Nina
Simone, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Minnie Riperton performed
virtuosic survivorship and thus helped to galvanize black
communities in an era of peril and promise. Their soul legacies
were later reanimated by such stars as Prince, Solange Knowles, and
Flying Lotus. Breaking with prior understandings of soul as a vague
masculinist political formation tethered to the Black Power
movement, Lordi offers a vision of soul that foregrounds the
intricacies of musical craft, the complex personal and social
meanings of the music, the dynamic movement of soul across time,
and the leading role played by black women in this
musical-intellectual tradition.
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.
Ever since Bessie Smith’s powerful voice conspired with the
“race records” industry to make her a star in the 1920s,
African American writers have memorialized the sounds and theorized
the politics of black women’s singing. In Black Resonance, Emily
J. Lordi analyzes writings by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James
Baldwin, Gayl Jones, and Nikki Giovanni that engage such iconic
singers as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, and
Aretha Franklin. Focusing on two generations of artists from the
1920s to the 1970s, Black Resonance reveals a musical-literary
tradition in which singers and writers, faced with similar
challenges and harboring similar aims, developed comparable
expressive techniques. Drawing together such seemingly disparate
works as Bessie Smith’s blues and Richard Wright’s neglected
film of Native Son, Mahalia Jackson’s gospel music and Ralph
Ellison’s Invisible Man, each chapter pairs one writer with one
singer to crystallize the artistic practice they share: lyricism,
sincerity, understatement, haunting, and the creation of a
signature voice. In the process, Lordi demonstrates that popular
female singers are not passive muses with raw, natural, or
ineffable talent. Rather, they are experimental artists who
innovate black expressive possibilities right alongside their
literary peers. The first study of black music and literature to
centralize the music of black women, Black Resonance offers new
ways of reading and hearing some of the twentieth century’s most
beloved and challenging voices.
Ever since Bessie Smith's powerful voice conspired with the ""race
records" industry to make her a star in the 1920s, African American
writers have memorialized the sounds and theorized the politics of
black women's singing. In Black Resonance, Emily J. Lordi analyzes
writings by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gayl
Jones, and Nikki Giovanni that engage such iconic singers as Bessie
Smith, Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, and Aretha Franklin.
Focusing on two generations of artists from the 1920s to the 1970s,
Black Resonance reveals a musical-literary tradition in which
singers and writers, faced with similar challenges and harboring
similar aims, developed comparable expressive techniques. Drawing
together such seemingly disparate works as Bessie Smith's blues and
Richard Wright's neglected film of Native Son, Mahalia Jackson's
gospel music and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, each chapter pairs
one writer with one singer to crystallize the artistic practice
they share: lyricism, sincerity, understatement, haunting, and the
creation of a signature voice. In the process, Lordi demonstrates
that popular female singers are not passive muses with raw,
natural, or ineffable talent. Rather, they are experimental artists
who innovate black expressive possibilities right alongside their
literary peers. The first study of black music and literature to
centralize the music of black women, Black Resonance offers new
ways of reading and hearing some of the twentieth century's most
beloved and challenging voices.
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