Download or read book Kennedy s Blues written by Guido van Rijn and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2009-09-23 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kennedy's Blues: African American Blues and Gospel Songs on JFK collects in a single volume the blues and gospel songs written by African Americans about the presidency of John F. Kennedy and offers a close analysis of Kennedy's hold upon the African-American imagination. These blues and gospel songs have never been transcribed and analyzed in a systematic way, so this volume provides a hitherto untapped source on the perception of one of the most intriguing American presidents. After eight years of Republican rule, the young Democratic president received a warm welcome from African Americans. However, with the Cold War military draft and the slow pace of civil rights measures, inspiration temporarily gave way to impatience. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, the March on Washington, and the groundbreaking civil rights bill all found their way into blues and gospel songs. The many blues numbers devoted to the assassination and the president's legacy are evidence of JFK's near-canonization by African Americans. Blues historian Guido van Rijn shows that John F. Kennedy became a mythical hero to blues songwriters despite what was left unaccomplished.

Download or read book Kennedy s Blues written by Guido van Rijn and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2009-09-23 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kennedy's Blues: African American Blues and Gospel Songs on JFK collects in a single volume the blues and gospel songs written by African Americans about the presidency of John F. Kennedy and offers a close analysis of Kennedy's hold upon the African-American imagination. These blues and gospel songs have never been transcribed and analyzed in a systematic way, so this volume provides a hitherto untapped source on the perception of one of the most intriguing American presidents. After eight years of Republican rule, the young Democratic president received a warm welcome from African Americans. However, with the Cold War military draft and the slow pace of civil rights measures, inspiration temporarily gave way to impatience. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, the March on Washington, and the groundbreaking civil rights bill all found their way into blues and gospel songs. The many blues numbers devoted to the assassination and the president's legacy are evidence of JFK's near-canonization by African Americans. Blues historian Guido van Rijn shows that John F. Kennedy became a mythical hero to blues songwriters despite what was left unaccomplished.

Download or read book Blues Journey written by Walter Dean Myers and published by Live Oak Media (NY). This book was released on 2005-08-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A blues poem that revisits the history of the African American experience.

Download or read book Kennedy His Life and Legacy written by Ben Nussbaum and published by Fox Chapel Publishing. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the untimely death of America's most popular president, Kennedy: His Life & Legacy is a candid look at the charisma and excitement that captured the nation during John F. Kennedy's one thousand days of Camelot. Editor Ben Nussbaum has compiled a collection of riveting chapters that discuss the influence and money of the Kennedy clan, the politics and unique circumstances that led to JFK's election, his presidency, his family, and his assassination. The book convincingly debunks the major conspiracy theories that mushroomed on our nation's darkest day, when the much-loved young president was violently slain in the streets of Dallas, Texas. Concise and colorful, this 96-page book offers readers a snapshot of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and a glimpse at what made Americans fall in love with the thirty-fifth president during a time not only of great population and economic growth but also of pressing international conflicts with Vietnam, the U.S.S.R., and Cuba. Over five decades since JFK's election, he remains the most highly rated President, according to a Gallup poll; during his brief presidency, his approval rating of 70.1 was the highest of any post-World War II chief executive.A handsome young Boston native, from one of America's wealthiest and most influential families, JFK declared on the day of his inauguration that the country was now "a new generation of Americans," and citizens responded enthusiastically to the new president's positive outlook, charisma, and confidence. By 1960, the United States of America had emerged as the world's only superpower, and JFK, as the first president born in the twentieth century, represented hope, prosperity, and strength to the world at large. He used the country's new popular medium;television;to his great advantage, appearing in ninety percent of the country's living room as a charming, well-educated, worldly world leader. The book presents JFK as the nation's first Hollywood president;a celebrity who braced the nation for changes and challenges of the New Frontier, encouraging Americans to dream about stars, far-off planets, and a moon that an American would soon be the first to walk upon.In Kennedy, His Life & Legacy, Nussbaum presents John F. Kennedy, our youngest president;forty-three upon his inauguration;as a U.S. Navy war hero, the inspired author of Profiles in Courage, and a talented, thoughtful statesman and then demystifies the hero by showing how he used his charisma and power to downplay his youth and inexperience, his lackluster performance in Congress, and his unattractive Catholicism. Kennedy did well, too, to hide his dark side;his years as a rash and wild womanizer, his poor health, and the elitism that stemmed from his family's virtually limitless wealth. The book unapologetically recounts JFK's playboy escapades, taking place before and during his presidency;in the Oval Office, the Lincoln bedroom, and the White House pool. The author names names: Mary Pinchot Meyer, Judith Campbell Exner, Jill Cowen, Priscilla Wear, Pamela Turnure, and of course, Marilyn Monroe. The family's great wealth, however, easily offset the president's moral bankruptcy, and the White House staff along with Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, and other high-profile celebrities miraculously kept all of JFK's sexcapades quiet until years after his death. In painting a realistic human portrait of JFK, the book discusses the president's relationships with his father, Joseph; his younger brother Robert; his wife, Jacqueline; his Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as various world leaders, and how the devotion of his wife and family helped to shield his political and personal image from disgrace. The head of the Kennedy family, a self-made tycoon, and a foreign ambassador, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. fueled not only the family's private planes and fleets of automobiles but also their ambition and competitive spirits. The father of nine, Joe made national politics a family affair and financed his sons' campaigns himself. Three of his four sons became major national politicians who sought the presidency.The book discusses the country's fascination with Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, JFK's devoted wife and heartbroken widow, a quiet but sophisticated First Lady whose unique sense of style captured the fashion world and catapulted Oleg Cassini to greater international fame. As the book reveals, Jackie Kennedy well knew about her husband's extravagant indiscretions and actually worked hard to protect his image;and her own.Other chapters, fully illustrated and often accompanied by detailed timelines, are devoted to major events or people in the president's life: the Space Race, Cuban Missile Crisis, the harrowing attack on JFK's PT-109 in the Pacific, the establishment of the Peace Corps, Robert Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, and JFK's battle with Addison's disease. A fascinating chapter on the historical events of November 11, 1963 offers a heart-stopping account of JFK's assassination and a detailed timeline of the events of that day. Inevitably, the book addresses the new age ushered in by the birth of conspiracy theories surrounding the president's assassination, in part due to the findings of the Warren Commission itself. With swiftness and clarity, the text debunks several major conspiracy theories, revealing both truths and falsehoods. Among the many popular possible conspirators covered are: the FBI, the CIA, the Mafia, those who hated the Vietnam War, those who loved or hated Fidel Castro, the Communists, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. The author purports that the FBI did not mount a plot to assassinate JFK, but the agency worked diligently in the aftermath to cover up the possibility that such plot existed.Despite revelations about JFK's image, character, and limitations since that dark day in November 1963, John F. Kennedy's life, presidency, and death retain a powerful hold on the nation's heart and memory. Kennedy: His Life & Legacy celebrates this all-too human American president who became a larger-than-life hero, one who continues today to fascinate new generations of Americans and citizens of the world.

Download or read book King of the Blues written by Daniel de Vise and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full and authoritative biography of an American—indeed a world-wide—musical and cultural legend “No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues.”—President Barack Obama “He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced.”—Eric Clapton Riley “Blues Boy” King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister’s guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, encouraged by his cousin, the established blues man Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge. King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in 90 countries over nearly 60 years)—in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including his landmark gig at Chicago’s Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color. Daniel de Visé has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King’s inner circle—family, band members, retainers, managers, and more—and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby “Blue” Bland simply called “the man.”

Download or read book The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy written by Michael J. Hogan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-03 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his new book, Michael J. Hogan, a leading historian of the American presidency, offers a new perspective on John Fitzgerald Kennedy, as seen not from his life and times but from his afterlife in American memory. The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy considers how Kennedy constructed a popular image of himself, in effect, a brand, as he played the part of president on the White House stage. The cultural trauma brought on by his assassination further burnished that image and began the process of transporting Kennedy from history to memory. Hogan shows how Jacqueline Kennedy, as the chief guardian of her husband's memory, devoted herself to embedding the image of the slain president in the collective memory of the nation, evident in the many physical and literary monuments dedicated to his memory. Regardless of critics, most Americans continue to see Kennedy as his wife wanted him remembered: the charming war hero, the loving husband and father, and the peacemaker and progressive leader who inspired confidence and hope in the American people.

Download or read book Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Volume 8 written by David Horn and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 8 is one of six volumes within the 'Genre' strand of the series. This volume discusses the genres of North America in relation to their cultural, historical and geographic origins; technical musical characteristics; instrumentation and use of voice; lyrics and language; typical features of performance and presentation; historical development and paths and modes of dissemination; influence of technology, the music industry and political and economic circumstances; changing stylistic features; notable and influential performers; and relationships to other genres and sub-genres. This volume features over 100 in-depth essays on genres ranging from Adult Contemporary to Alternative Rock, from Barbershop to Bebop, and from Disco to Emo.

Download or read book Chasing Sound written by Susan Schmidt Horning and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-12-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How technically enhanced studio recordings revolutionized music and the music industry. In Chasing Sound, Susan Schmidt Horning traces the cultural and technological evolution of recording studios in the United States from the first practical devices to the modern multi-track studios of the analog era. Charting the technical development of studio equipment, the professionalization of recording engineers, and the growing collaboration between artists and technicians, she shows how the earliest efforts to capture the sound of live performances eventually resulted in a trend toward studio creations that extended beyond live shows, ultimately reversing the historic relationship between live and recorded sound. Schmidt Horning draws from a wealth of original oral interviews with major labels and independent recording engineers, producers, arrangers, and musicians, as well as memoirs, technical journals, popular accounts, and sound recordings. Recording engineers and producers, she finds, influenced technological and musical change as they sought to improve the sound of records. By investigating the complex relationship between sound engineering and popular music, she reveals the increasing reliance on technological intervention in the creation as well as in the reception of music. The recording studio, she argues, is at the center of musical culture in the twentieth century.

Download or read book Chicago Blues written by David Whiteis and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through revealing portraits of selected local artists and slice-of-life vignettes drawn from the city's pubs and lounges, Chicago Blues encapsulates the sound and spirit of the blues as it is lived today. As a committed participant in the Chicago blues scene for more than a quarter century, David Whiteis draws on years of his observations and extensive interviews to paint a full picture of the Chicago blues world, both on and off the stage. In addition to portraits of blues artists he has personally known and worked with, Whiteis takes readers on a tour of venues like East of Ryan and the Starlight Lounge; home to artists such as Jumpin' Willie Cobbs, Willie D., and Harmonica Khan. He tells the stories behind the lives of past pioneers including Junior Wells, pianist Sunnyland Slim, and harpist Big Walter Horton, whose music reflects the universal concerns with love, loss, and yearning that continue to keep the blues so vital for so many.

Download or read book A Catalog of Music Written in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr written by Anthony McDonald and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1983, Ronald Reagan signed into law a federal holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Three years later, the holiday was first formally observed by the federal government. In response to the growing number of musical celebrations surrounding the holiday, Anthony McDonald published in 1996 the first edition of The Catalog of Music Written in Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Now, more than a decade since its second edition in 1999, McDonald presents his definitive third edition of the catalog. McDonald organizes information on music suitable for concert performances by symphony orchestras, school music departments, church choirs, or solo performers, including works that celebrate not only Martin Luther King Day, but Black History Month as well. His selections comprise musical work written to honor King, as well as other Americans engaged in the struggle for equality and freedom such as Abraham Lincoln, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and John F. Kennedy. McDonald also incorporates works that more broadly address African American history and culture, such as William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony. This third edition contains a considerable number of revisions, updates, and new work and includes entirely new sections devoted to jazz and blues songs, sample programs of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day concerts, and a discography, along with appendixes of works listed by orchestration, subject, and a list of publishers and sources. A Catalog of Music Written in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr. is the ideal tool for symphony orchestras, choruses, music departments, and other performing groups and organizations seeking to present concerts that celebrate Martin Luther King Jr., his legacy, and African American history more broadly.

Download or read book President Johnson s Blues written by Guido van Rijn and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Civil Rights Music written by Reiland Rabaka and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there have been a number of studies that have explored African American “movement culture” and African American “movement politics,” rarely has the mixture of black music and black politics or, rather, black music an as expression of black movement politics, been explored across several genres of African American “movement music,” and certainly not with a central focus on the major soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement: gospel, freedom songs, rhythm & blues, and rock & roll. Here the mixture of music and politics emerging out of the Civil Rights Movement is critically examined as an incredibly important site and source of spiritual rejuvenation, social organization, political education, and cultural transformation, not simply for the non-violent civil rights soldiers of the 1950s and 1960s, but for organic intellectual-artist-activists deeply committed to continuing the core ideals and ethos of the Civil Rights Movement in the twenty-first century. Civil Rights Music: The Soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement is primarily preoccupied with that liminal, in-between, and often inexplicable place where black popular music and black popular movements meet and merge. Black popular movements are more than merely social and political affairs. Beyond social organization and political activism, black popular movements provide much-needed spaces for cultural development and artistic experimentation, including the mixing of musical and other aesthetic traditions. “Movement music” experimentation has historically led to musical innovation, and musical innovation in turn has led to new music that has myriad meanings and messages—some social, some political, some cultural, some spiritual and, indeed, some sexual. Just as black popular movements have a multiplicity of meanings, this book argues that the music that emerges out of black popular movements has a multiplicity of meanings as well.

Download or read book Bars Blues and Booze written by Emily D. Edwards and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2016-04-27 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bars, Blues, and Booze collects lively bar tales from the intersection of black and white musical cultures in the South. Many of these stories do not seem dignified, decent, or filled with uplifting euphoria, but they are real narratives of people who worked hard with their hands during the week to celebrate the weekend with music and mind-altering substances. These are stories of musicians who may not be famous celebrities but are men and women deeply occupied with their craft--professional musicians stuck with a day job. The collection also includes stories from fans and bar owners, people vital to shaping a local music scene. The stories explore the "crossroads," that intoxicated intersection of spirituality, race, and music that forms a rich, southern vernacular. In personal narratives, musicians and partygoers relate tales of narrow escape (almost getting busted by the law while transporting moonshine), of desperate poverty (rat-infested kitchens and repossessed cars), of magic (hiring a root doctor to make a charm), and loss (death or incarceration). Here are stories of defiant miscegenation, of forgetting race and going out to eat together after a jam, and then not being served. Assorted boasts of improbable hijinks give the "blue collar" musician a wild, gritty glamour and emphasize the riotous freedom of their fans, who sometimes risk the strong arm of southern liquor laws in order to chase the good times.

Download or read book Rabbit s Blues written by Con Chapman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his eulogy of saxophonist Johnny Hodges (1907-70), Duke Ellington ended with the words, "Never the world's most highly animated showman or greatest stage personality, but a tone so beautiful it sometimes brought tears to the eyes--this was Johnny Hodges. This is Johnny Hodges." Hodges' unforgettable tone resonated throughout the jazz world over the greater part of the twentieth century. Benny Goodman described Hodges as "by far the greatest man on alto sax that I ever heard," and Charlie Parker compared him to Lily Pons, the operatic soprano. As a teenager, Hodges developed his playing style by imitating Sidney Bechet, the New Orleans soprano sax player, then honed it in late-night cutting sessions in New York and a succession of bands lead by Chick Webb, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Luckey Roberts. In 1928 he joined Duke Ellington, beginning an association that would continue, with one interruption, until Hodges' death. Hodges' celebrated technique and silky tone marked him then, and still today, as one of the most important and influential saxophone players in the history of jazz. As the first ever biography on Johnny Hodges, Rabbit's Blues details his place as one of the premier artists of the alto sax in jazz history, and his role as co-composer with Ellington.

Download or read book Kennedy and the Promise of the Sixties written by W. J. Rorabaugh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-16 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores life in America in the early Sixties when Kennedy was President.

Download or read book Rock Roll in Kennedy s America written by Richard Aquila and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2022-11-29 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rousing, poignant look at the cultural history of rock & roll during the early 1960s. In the early 1960s, the nation was on track to fulfill its destiny in what was being called "the American Century." Baby boomers and rock & roll shared the country's optimism and energy. For "one brief, shining moment" in the early 1960s, both President John F. Kennedy and young people across the country were riding high. The dream of a New Frontier would soon give way, however, to a new reality involving assassinations, the Vietnam War, Cold War crises, the civil rights movement, a new feminist movement, and various culture wars. From the former host of NPR's Rock & Roll America, Richard Aquila's Rock & Roll in Kennedy's America offers an in-depth look at early 1960s rock & roll, as well as an unconventional history of Kennedy's America through the lens of popular music. Based on extensive research and exclusive interviews with Dion, Bo Diddley, Brenda Lee, Martha Reeves, Pete Seeger, Bob Gaudio, Dick Clark, and other legendary figures, the book rejects the myth that Buddy Holly's death in 1959 was "the day the music died." It proves that rock & roll during the early 1960s was vibrant and in tune with the history and events of this colorful era. These interviews and Aquila's research reveal unique insights and new details about politics, gender, race, ethnicity, youth culture, and everyday life. Rock & Roll in Kennedy's America recalls an important chapter in rock & roll and American history.

Download or read book Before Elvis written by Larry Birnbaum and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential work for rock fans and scholars, Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll surveys the origins of rock 'n' roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Unlike other histories of rock, Before Elvis offers a far broader and deeper analysis of the influences on rock music. Dispelling common misconceptions, it examines rock's origins in hokum songs and big-band boogies as well as Delta blues, detailing the embrace by white artists of African-American styles long before rock 'n' roll appeared. This unique study ranges far and wide, highlighting not only the contributions of obscure but key precursors like Hardrock Gunter and Sam Theard but also the influence of celebrity performers like Gene Autry and Ella Fitzgerald. Too often, rock historians treat the genesis of rock 'n' roll as a bolt from the blue, an overnight revolution provoked by the bland pop music that immediately preceded it and created through the white appropriation of music till then played only by and for black audiences. In Before Elvis, Birnbaum daringly argues a more complicated history of rock's evolution from a heady mix of ragtime, boogie-woogie, swing, country music, mainstream pop, and rhythm-and-blues--a melange that influenced one another along the way, from the absorption of blues and boogies into jazz and pop to the integration of country and Caribbean music into rhythm-and-blues. Written in an easy style, Before Elvis presents a bold argument about rock's origins and required reading for fans and scholars of rock 'n' roll history.