Synopses & Reviews
Can a type of music be andquot;ownedandquot;? Examining how music is linked to racial constructs and how African American musicians and audiences reacted to white appropriation,
Blues Music in the Sixties shows the stakes when whites claim the right to play and live the blues.
In the 1960s, within the larger context of the civil rights movement and the burgeoning counterculture, the blues changed from black to white in its production and reception, as audiences became increasingly white. Yet, while this was happening, blackness--especially black masculinity--remained a marker of authenticity. Crossing color lines and mixing the beats of B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Janis Joplin; the Newport Folk Festival and the American Folk Blues Festival; and publications such as Living Blues, Ulrich Adelt discusses these developments, including the international aspects of the blues. He highlights the performers and venues that represented changing racial politics and addresses the impact and involvement of audiences and cultural brokers.
Review
andquot;Meticulously documented and engagingly written,
Blues Music in the Sixties: A Story in Black and White is a book that I have been waiting for since the 1980s. In these six case studies Adelt addresses important issues about race relations, rock music, the folk revival, and the music business during the decade when so many white music enthusiasts 'discovered' many forms of black American music, perhaps most importantly the blues.andquot;
Review
andquot;Ultimately, this book is not so much a traditional musicology as a study in reception dynamics and the politics of authenticity. As such, it's a valuable addition to the work of folks like Charles Keil and George Lipsitz.andquot;
Synopsis
the story of who and what made Ellington's composition so compelling and how one piece of music reflected the feelings and shaped the sensibilities of the postwar generation. Written from the point of view of the audience, based on interviews with fans and music professionals.
Synopsis
It may be that the song most baby boomers identify from July 1956 is a simple twelve-bar blues, hyped on national television by a twenty-one-year-old Elvis Presley and his handlers. But it is a very different song, with its elongated fourteen-bar choruses of rhythm and dissonance, played on the night of July 7, 1956, by a fifty-seven-year-old Duke Ellington and his big band that got
everybody on their feet and moving as one. More than fifty years later, "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue," recorded at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, still makes a profound statement about postwar America--how we got there and where it all went.
Backstory in Blue is a behind-the-scenes look at this epic moment in American cultural history. It is the story of who and what made Ellington's composition so compelling and how one piece of music reflected the feelings and shaped the sensibilities of the postwar generation. As John Fass Morton explains, it was music expressed as much by those who performed offstage as by those who performed on.
Written from the point of view of the audience, this unique account draws on interviews with fans and music professionals of all kinds who were there and whose lives were touched, and in some cases changed, by the experience. Included are profiles of George Avakian, who recorded and produced Ellington at Newport 1956; Paul Gonsalves, the tenor sax player responsible for the legendary twenty-seven choruses that enabled the rebirth of Ellington's career; and the "Bedford Blonde," Elaine Anderson, whose dance ignited both the band and the crowd.
Duke Ellington once remarked, "I was born at Newport." Here we learn that Newport was much more than the turning point for Ellington's career. It was the tipping point for a generation and a musical genre.
Synopsis
Certificate of Merit for the 2009 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research
It may be that the song most baby boomers identify from July 1956 is a simple twelve-bar blues, hyped on national television by a twenty-one-year-old Elvis Presley and his handlers. But it is a very different song, with its elongated fourteen-bar choruses of rhythm and dissonance, played on the night of July 7, 1956, by a fifty-seven-year-old Duke Ellington and his big band that got everybody on their feet and moving as one. More than fifty years later, "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue," recorded at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, still makes a profound statement about postwar America--how we got there and where it all went.
Backstory in Blue is a behind-the-scenes look at this epic moment in American cultural history. It is the story of who and what made Ellington's composition so compelling and how one piece of music reflected the feelings and shaped the sensibilities of the postwar generation. As John Fass Morton explains, it was music expressed as much by those who performed offstage as by those who performed on.
Written from the point of view of the audience, this unique account draws on interviews with fans and music professionals of all kinds who were there and whose lives were touched, and in some cases changed, by the experience. Included are profiles of George Avakian, who recorded and produced Ellington at Newport 1956; Paul Gonsalves, the tenor sax player responsible for the legendary twenty-seven choruses that enabled the rebirth of Ellington's career; and the "Bedford Blonde," Elaine Anderson, whose dance ignited both the band and the crowd.
Duke Ellington once remarked, "I was born at Newport." Here we learn that Newport was much more than the turning point for Ellington's career. It was the tipping point for a generation and a musical genre.
Synopsis
In the 1960s, within the larger context of the civil rights movement and the burgeoning counterculture, the blues changed from black to white in its production and reception, as audiences became increasingly white. Yet, while this was happening, blackness-especially black masculinity-remained a marker of authenticity. Blues Music in the Sixties discusses these developments, including the international aspects of the blues. It highlights the performers and venues that represented changing racial politics and addresses the impact and involvement of audiences and cultural brokers.
About the Author
Ulrich Adelt is an assistant professor of American Studies and African American and Diaspora Studies at the University of Wyoming. He has published articles in a number of journals, including American Quarterly and the Journal of Popular Music Studies.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Being Black Twice: Crossover Politics in
B. B. Kingandrsquo;s Music of the Late 1960s
2 Like I Was a Bear or Somethinandrsquo;: Blues Performances
at the Newport Folk Festival
3 Trying to Find an Identity: Eric Claptonandrsquo;s
Changing Conception of Blackness
4 Germany Gets the Blues: Race and Nation
at the American Folk Blues Festival
5 Enough to Make You Want to Sing the Blues:
Janis Joplinandrsquo;s Life and Music
6 Resegregating the Blues: Race and Authenticity
in the Pages of Living Blues
Conclusion