All prior histories on the blues have alleged it originated on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Not true, says author Chris Thomas King. In The Blues, King present facts to disprove such myths. For example, that as early as 1900, the sound of the blues was ubiquitous in New Orleans. The Mississippi Delta, meanwhile, was an unpopulated sportsman's paradise—the frontier was still in the process of being cleared and drained for cultivation. Moreover,...

"In another time and place, E. Gab Blackman and William Sousa "Sou" Bridgeforth might have been as close as brothers, but in 1950s Nashville they remained separated by the color of their skin. Gab, a visionary yet opportunistic radio executive, saw something no one else did: a vast and untapped market with the R&B scene exploding in Black clubs across the city. He defied his industry, culture, government, and even his own family to broadcast Black...

"A fusion of history, culture, and song in a practical travel guide for music lovers who want to understand more of what helped shape what they are seeing, hearing, and experiencing as they tour the cradle of the blues in Mississippi and beyond. By appreciating the roots of this most American style of music, readers will have a richer experience listening to songs and visiting blues' holy and sacred sites"-- Provided by publisher.

"Blues Mamas and Broadway Belters examines racialized embodied singing techniques and their transmission, dwelling with the ways that black women singers theorized the voice in US musical theater performances from 1900 to 1970. Approaching voice from a performance studies perspective, Masi Asare sketches biographies of singers such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, and others, focusing on the different types of training...

Este libro es tanto una guía turística como una crónica periodística amena y convincente por las variadas historias de pueblos, ciudades y también de personajes que fueron los artífices de la música popular estadounidense que creció en las riveras del Misisipi. Desde el góspel y los espirituales negros pasando por el blues, el jazz, y rhythm and blues hasta el soul, el country o el rock. Un viaje excepcional que nos lleva desde Memphis y...

Examines the history of the Negro in America through the music he created.

"[The author] examines the lives, music, legacies, and interactions with Elvis Presley of the four innovative Black artists who created a style that would come to be known as Rock 'n' Roll: Little Junior Parker, Big Mama Thornton, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, and ... Calvin Newborn"-- Flap page 1 of dust jacket.