Elisabeth Welch : soft lights and sweet music / Stephen Bourne.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bourne, Stephen, 1957 October 31-

Series:

Filmmakers series ; no. 120.

Filmmakers ; no. 120

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Welch, Elisabeth.

African American singers--Biography.

African American singers.

African American actresses.

African American actresses--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 153 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, [2005]

Summary:

From her stage debut in 1922 to her final professional appearance in 1996, Elisabeth Welch was an important figure in the world of popular song. In 1923 she launched the Charleston, and throughout the Jazz Age she was associated with some of the great names of the Harlem Renaissance, including Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Ethel Waters. On Broadway she popularized Cole Porter's scandalous "Love for Sale," and in 1933 she introduced "Stormy Weather" to British audiences. That same year she began a career in English musical theatre (Cole Porter's Nymph Errant) that lasted sixty years.

In 1930s Britain, Ivor Novello wrote songs for her, Paul Robeson was her leading man in films, and she enjoyed popularity as a cabaret star of London's cafe society. In the postwar years, she reigned supreme in sophisticated revues in London's West End. Her appearance in Derek Jarman's 1979 film version of Shakespeare's The Tempest won her a whole new legion of fans. At the age of 81, she returned to the Broadway stage, and her performance in Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood earned her a Tony nomination.

In Elisabeth Welch: Soft Lights and Sweet Music, Stephen Bourne celebrates the stage, screen, and radio career of this African American actress and singer, who always defied categorization. She did not fit the definition of jazz, torch, pop, or ballad singer but defined her art quite simply as "telling a story in song." Whatever she sang, she demonstrated that she had no peer in the art of interpreting songs by the likes of Cole Porter, Noel Coward, Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern.

Contents:

Girlie

The jazz age

Paris

Cole Porter, Ivor Novello, and Noël Coward

Soft lights and sweet music

Paul Robeson

Keep the home fires burning

A marvellous party

Derek Jarman and The tempest

Renaissance

Finale

Invisible women : a survey of black women in British films.

Notes:

Includes filmography (pages 113-116), discography (pages 128-130), bibliographical references (pages 139-141) and index.

ISBN:

0810854139

OCLC:

57406323