Download or read book Bad Man Ballad written by Scott Russell Sanders and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen-year-old Eli Jackson and a thirty-one-year-old lawyer in early-nineteenth-century Ohio set out to find a murderer who might be a "Bigfoot."
Download or read book Stagolee Shot Billy written by Cecil Brown and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although his story has been told countless times--by performers from Ma Rainey, Cab Calloway, and the Isley Brothers to Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and Taj Mahal--no one seems to know who Stagolee really is. Stack Lee? Stagger Lee? He has gone by all these names in the ballad that has kept his exploits before us for over a century. Delving into a subculture of St. Louis known as "Deep Morgan," Cecil Brown emerges with the facts behind the legend to unfold the mystery of Stack Lee and the incident that led to murder in 1895. How the legend grew is a story in itself, and Brown tracks it through variants of the song "Stack Lee"--from early ragtime versions of the '20s, to Mississippi John Hurt's rendition in the '30s, to John Lomax's 1940s prison versions, to interpretations by Lloyd Price, James Brown, and Wilson Pickett, right up to the hip-hop renderings of the '90s. Drawing upon the works of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, Brown describes the powerful influence of a legend bigger than literature, one whose transformation reflects changing views of black musical forms, and African Americans' altered attitudes toward black male identity, gender, and police brutality. This book takes you to the heart of America, into the soul and circumstances of a legend that has conveyed a painful and elusive truth about our culture.
Download or read book Dave Barry s Book of Bad Songs written by Dave Barry and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The humorist asked his readers to share their least favorite tunes and chronicles the hilarious responses. When funnyman Dave Barry asked readers about their least favorite tunes, he thought he was penning just another installment of his weekly syndicated humor column. But the witty writer was flabbergasted by the response when over 10,000 readers voted. “I have never written a column that got a bigger response than the one announcing the Bad Song Survey,” Barry wrote. Based on the results of the survey, Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs is a compilation of some of the worst songs ever written. Dave Barry fans will relish his quirky take. Music buffs too will appreciate this humorous stroll through the world’s worst lyrics. The only thing wrong with this book is that readers will find themselves unable to stop mentally singing the greatest hits of Gary Puckett. Praise for Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs “Barry is his usual puckish self, but the real surprise here is how funny many of the survey respondents are.” —Kirkus Reviews “Who can resist such a book?” —Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Black Jack written by Charles R. Smith, Jr. and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-06-22 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art and poetry combine to tell the story of boxer Jack Johnson, who became the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion in the early part of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Writing from the Center written by Scott Russell Sanders and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-22 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing from the Center is about one very fine writer's quest for a meaningful and moral life. The center he seeks and describes is geographical, emotional, artistic, and spiritual - and it is rooted in place. The geography is midwestern, the impulses are universal. Where and how do we find meaning? Where does a writer find inspiration? How can personal, artistic, family, and community needs be blended to create a harmonious life? What aids exist in such a ""located"" life against despair? How should a writer relate to and represent his place? Twelve interrelated essays probe these questions from different perspectives. ""Buckeye"" examines the resonance of objects and the mysteries of relationships and death. ""Imagining the Midwest"" surveys how other writers have seen and related to their region. ""The Common Life"" makes an eloquent case for community values. ""Sanctuary"" is an eloquent and painful consideration of environmental degradation. ""Writing from the Center"" and ""Letter to a Reader"" deal with Sanders's decisions to locate in the Midwest, to know his place, and to write about it in both fiction and nonfiction.
Download or read book Adventures of a Ballad Hunter written by John A. Lomax and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing up beside the Chisholm Trail, captivated by the songs of passing cowboys and his bosom friend, an African American farmhand, John A. Lomax developed a passion for American folk songs that ultimately made him one of the foremost authorities on this fundamental aspect of Americana. Across many decades and throughout the country, Lomax and his informants created over five thousand recordings of America’s musical heritage, including ballads, blues, children’s songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs. He acted as honorary curator of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress, directed the Slave Narrative Project of the WPA, and cofounded the Texas Folklore Society. Lomax’s books include Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, American Ballads and Folk Songs, Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly, and Our Singing Country, the last three coauthored with his son Alan Lomax. Adventures of a Ballad Hunter is a memoir of Lomax’s eventful life. It recalls his early years and the fruitful decades he spent on the road collecting folk songs, on his own and later with son Alan and second wife Ruby Terrill Lomax. Vibrant, amusing, often haunting stories of the people he met and recorded are the gems of this book, which also gives lyrics for dozens of songs. Adventures of a Ballad Hunter illuminates vital traditions in American popular culture and the labor that has gone into their preservation.
Download or read book The Ballad of Robert Charles written by K. Stephen Prince and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-02-10 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a brief moment in the summer of 1900, Robert Charles was arguably the most infamous black man in the United States. After an altercation with police on a New Orleans street, Charles killed two police officers and fled. During a manhunt that extended for days, violent white mobs roamed the city, assaulting African Americans and killing at least half a dozen. When authorities located Charles, he held off a crowd of thousands for hours before being shot to death. The notorious episode was reported nationwide; years later, fabled jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton recalled memorializing Charles in song. Yet today, Charles is almost entirely invisible in the traditional historical record. So who was Robert Charles, really? An outlaw? A black freedom fighter? And how can we reconstruct his story? In this fascinating work, K. Stephen Prince sheds fresh light on both the history of the Robert Charles riots and the practice of history-writing itself. He reveals evidence of intentional erasures, both in the ways the riot and its aftermath were chronicled and in the ways stories were silenced or purposefully obscured. But Prince also excavates long-hidden facts from the narratives passed down by white and black New Orleanians over more than a century. In so doing, he probes the possibilities and limitations of the historical imagination.
Download or read book Alan Lomax written by Ronald Cohen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan Lomax is a legendary figure in American folk music circles. Although he published many books, hundreds of recordings and dozens of films, his contributions to popular and academic journals have never been collected. This collection of writings, introduced by Lomax's daughter Anna, reintroduces these essential writings. Drawing on the Lomax Archives in New York, this book brings together articles from the 30s onwards. It is divided into four sections, each capturing a distinct period in the development of Lomax's life and career: the original years as a collector and promoter; the period from 1950-58 when Lomax was recording thorughout Europe; the folk music revival years; and finally his work in academia.
Download or read book Check list of Recorded Songs in the English Language in the Archive of American Folk Song to July 1940 written by Archive of Folk Song (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1942 with total page 622 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Check list of Recorded Songs in the English Language in the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song to July 1940 written by Archive of American Folk Song and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Danger Mouse s The Grey Album written by Charles Fairchild and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book marks the tenth anniversary of The Grey Album. The online release and circulation of what Danger Mouse called his 'art project' was an unexpected watershed in the turn-of-the-century brawls over digital creative practice. The album's suppression inspired widespread digital civil disobedience and brought a series of contests and conflicts over creative autonomy in the online world to mainstream awareness. The Grey Album highlighted, by its very form, the profound changes wrought by the new technology and represented the struggle over the tectonic shifts in the production, distribution and consumption of music. But this is not why it matters. The Grey Album matters because it is more than just a clever, if legally ambiguous, amalgam. It is an important and compelling case study about the status of the album as a cultural form in an era when the album appears to be losing its coherence and power. Perhaps most importantly, The Grey Album matters because it changes how we think about the traditions of musical practice of which it is a part. Danger Mouse created a broad, inventive commentary on forms of musical creativity that have defined all kinds of music for centuries: borrowing, appropriation, homage, derivation, allusion and quotation. The struggle over this album wasn't just about who gets to use new technology and how. The battle over The Grey Album struck at the heart of the very legitimacy of a long recognised and valued form of musical expression: the interpretation of the work of one artist by another.
Download or read book Ballad of a Sober Man written by J D Remy and published by Annelise Publications. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A successful emergency physician full of narcissism and ego wakes up in detox, his life having burned to the ground. Dr. J.D. Remy-physician, father, husband, and medical missionary-awakens one morning to find himself in rehab for alcoholism. His destructive behavior has resulted in the loss of his marriage, children, career-and almost-his life. Faced with the challenges of rebuilding a foundation, Dr. Remy must accept that he is an alcoholic and summon the courage to tame the demons that caused such dire circumstances. Over time, he makes new connections in sobriety and rekindles friendships from his former life. With the aid of old friends and his new sober network, he navigates his program as a professional in long-term recovery. He must overcome unemployment, a devastating divorce, the estrangement of his children, social stigma, and the coronavirus outbreak. Armed with the gift of desperation, a strong twelve-step program, and his recovery "mosh-pit," he learns to accept and let go, confronting the worst of his character flaws to emerge on the other side as a better version of himself. Ballad of a Sober Man is a raw and realistic memoir of one man's difficult journey through recovery, as he interacts with an eclectic cast of characters, finds romance in a brave new world, and battles a global pandemic...
Download or read book Long Steel Rail written by Norm Cohen and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 774 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Impeccable scholarship and lavish illustration mark this landmark study of American railroad folksong. Norm Cohen provides a sweeping discussion of the human aspects of railroad history, railroad folklore, and the evolution of the American folksong. The heart of the book is a detailed analysis of eighty-five songs, from "John Henry" and "The Wabash Cannonball" to "Hell-Bound Train" and "Casey Jones," with their music, sources, history, and variations, and discographies. A substantial new introduction updates this edition.
Download or read book An Arrangement of Skin written by Anna Journey and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These are intimate, delicate essays about the many skins we inhabit, illuminating even in their darkness." —The Boston Globe Anna Journey revels in the flexibility and hybridity of the essay form, swerving artfully among topics—a recollection of a personal rupture and ensuing call to a suicide hotline opens into a consideration of taxidermy and lyric time; a mother’s penchant for telling macabre stories at the dinner table connects to campfire songs and the cultural importance of American roots music; and a tattoo artist named after a pirate–themed rum reminds us how we inscribe our skins and spirits through the intimate gestures of ink.
Download or read book Time in the Blues written by Julia Simon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-18 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spontaneity, immediacy and feeling characterize the blues as a genre. Whether it's the movement of call and response, the expressive bends and wails of voice and instruments or the synergistic relationship between audience and performers, the blues embody a kind of "living in the moment" aesthetic. At the same time, the blues genre has always responded in a unique way to its historical moment, its formal characteristics, figures, and devices constantly emerging from--and speaking to--the social relations emanating from Jim Crow segregation, sharecropping, racist violence, and migration. Time in the Blues presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the specific forms of temporality produced by and reflected in the blues. Examining time as it is represented, enacted, and experienced through the blues, interdisciplinary scholar Julia Simon addresses how the material conditions in the early twentieth century shaped a musical genre. The technical aspects of the blues--ostinato patterns, cyclical changes, improvisation, call and response--emerge from and speak to the Jim Crow era's economic, social, and political relations. Through this temporal analysis, Simon addresses how the moment-to-moment aspect of time in blues performance relates to the genre's location within historical time, with careful examinations of the historical performance and reception of blues music from the 1920s to the present day. Simon examines the structuring of time, and analyzes temporality to open the broader questions of desire, agency, self-definition, faith, and forms of resistance as they are articulated in this music. Ultimately, Time in the Blues, argues for the relevance, significance, and importance of time in the blues for shared values of community and a vision of social justice.
Download or read book Murder Ballads Old and New written by Steven L Jones and published by Feral House. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Murder Ballads Old & New: A Dark and Bloody Record is an exploration of an age-old topic— our human need to document the horrors of the world around us. The murder ballad, here expanded to include songs about traumatic loss in modern variants and multiple styles, including punk, post-punk, alt-country, and folk. The book is a graveyard stroll past tombs both well-kept and half-hidden. Murder Ballads Old & New excavates facts about killers, victims, and the folkloric storytellers who disseminated their tales in song. Author Steven L. Jones focuses the tragic ballad as “an act of remembering and a soul-reckoning with the ineffable.” Songs examined range from obscure tunes from the founding days of the United States to familiar canonical songs learned in schoolrooms and honkytonks. Jones tackles each song in a manner that’s equal parts musicological, psychosocial, and genealogical as he uncovers stories that reveal larger contexts and maps the lineages of songs and themes, forebears, and ancestors. Murder Ballads Old & New includes a wide range of songs and performers from the relatively unknown (Boiled in Lead, Freakons, Nelstone’s Hawaiians) to the ironically famous (Johnny Cash, Lou Reed, Sonic Youth). Highlights include tales of Muddy Waters guitar sideman Pat Hare, whose incendiary blues boast “I’m Gonna Murder My Baby” proved grimly prophetic. And honky-tonk pioneer Eddie Noack, whose morbid stab at late-career rebirth, “Psycho,” couldn’t match the bottomless tragedy of his own life. As well as Depression-era holdup man Pretty Boy Floyd, Schubert’s mythical Erlkönig, and the Manson Family. Murder Ballads Old & New is a compelling delve into the perennial American fascination with True Crime. Includes archival and historical black & white images.
Download or read book Voicing the Popular written by Richard Middleton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-05-07 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does popular music produce its subject? How does it produce us as subjects? More specifically, how does it do this through voice--through "giving voice"? And how should we understand this subject--"the people"--that it voices into existence? Is it singular or plural? What is its history and what is its future? Voicing the Popular draws on approaches from musical interpretation, cultural history, social theory and psychoanalysis to explore key topics in the field, including race, gender, authenticity and repetition. Taking most of his examples from across the past hundred years of popular music development--but relating them to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century "pre-history"--Richard Middleton constructs an argument that relates "the popular" to the unfolding of modernity itself. Voicing the Popular renews the case for ambitious theory in musical and cultural studies, and, against the grain of much contemporary thought, insists on the progressive potential of a politics of the Low.
