Staging the Blues : from Tent Shows to Tourism / Paige A. McGinley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McGinley, Paige A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Blues (Music)--History and criticism.

Blues (Music).

Performance practice (Music)--Southern States--History--20th century.

Performance practice (Music).

History.

Southern States.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 286 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

Text in English.

Summary:

Singing was just one element of blues performance in the early twentieth century. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and other classic blues singers also tapped, joked, and flaunted extravagant costumes on tent show and black vaudeville stages. The press even described these women as "actresses" long before they achieved worldwide fame for their musical recordings. In staging the Blues, Paige A. McGinley shows that even though folklorists, record producers, and festival promoters set the theatricality of early blues aside in favor of notions of authenticity, it remained creatively vibrant throughout the twentieth century. Highlighting performances by Rainey, Smith, Lead Belly, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee in small Mississippi towns, Harlem theatres, and the industrial British North, this pioneering study foregrounds virtuoso blues artists who used the conventions of the theater, including dance, comedy, and costume, to stage black mobility, to challenge narratives of racial authenticity, and to fight for racial and economic justice. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: Beale on Broadway

Real personality: the blues actress

Theater folk: Huddie Ledbetter on the stage

Southern exposure: transatlantic blues

Highway 61 revisited: blues tourism at ground zero.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-269) and index.

ISBN:

9780822357315

0822357313

9780822357452

0822357453

OCLC:

872382650