Black women and music : more than the blues / edited by Eileen M. Hayes and Linda F. Williams ; foreword by Ingrid Monson.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Hayes, Eileen M.

Williams, Linda F. (Linda Faye), 1952-

Series:

African American music in global perspective

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American women--Music--History and criticism.

African American women.

African American women musicians.

Music.

Physical Description:

x, 261 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2007]

Summary:

This collection is the first interdisciplinary volume to examine black women's negotiation of race and gender in African American music. Contributors address black womens activity in musical arenas that pre-and postdate the emergence of the vaudeville blues singers of the 1920s. Throughout, the authors illustrate black women's advocacy of themselves as blacks and as women in music. Feminist? Black feminist? Contributors take care to stress that each term warrants interrogation.

Individual essays concern the experiences of black women in classical music and in contemporary blues, the history of black female gospel-inflected voices in the Broadway musical, and "hip-hop feminism" and its complications. Focusing on underexamined contexts, authors introduce readers to the work of a prominent gospel announcer, to women's music festivals (predominantly lesbian), and to women's involvement in an early avant-garde black music collective. In contradistinction to a compilation of biographies, this volume critically illuminates themes of black authenticity, sexual politics, access, racial uplift through music, and the challenges of writing (black) feminist biography. Black Women and Music is a strong reminder that black women have been and are both social actors and artists contributing to African American thought.

Contents:

New perspectives in studies of black women and music / Eileen M. Hayes

Part I. Having her say : power and complication in popular music. Hip-hip soul divas and rap music : critiquing the love that hate produced / Gwendolyn Pough ; Black women electric guitarists and authenticity in the blues / Maria V. Johnson ; Langston Hughes and the black female gospel voice in the American musical / Charles I. Nero

Part II. When and where she enters : black women in unsung places. That text, that timbre : introducing gospel announcer Edna Tatum / Deborah Smith Pollard ; Black women, jazz, and feminism / Linda F. Williams ; Women of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians : four narratives / Nanette de Jong ; Black women and "women's music" / Eileen M. Hayes

Part III. Revisiting musical herstories. Black women in art music / Teresa L.Reed ; Leontyne Price : prima donna assoluta / Elizabeth Amelia Hadley ; Harriet Gibbs Marshall and three musical spectacles / Sarah Schmalenberger.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780252031847

0252031849

9780252074264

0252074262

OCLC:

70284411