Black resonance : iconic women singers and African American literature / Emily J. Lordi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lordi, Emily J., 1979-

Solano, Nicole, Author.

Series:

American Literatures Initiative.

American Literatures Initiative

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--African American authors--History and criticism.

American fiction.

African American women singers in literature.

African American women in literature.

Music in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (303 p.)

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Ever since Bessie Smith's powerful voice conspired with the "race records" industry to make her a star in the 1920's, African American writers have memorialized the sounds and theorized the politics of black women's singing. In Black Resonance, Emily J. Lordi analyzes writings by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gayl Jones, and Nikki Giovanni that engage such iconic singers as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, and Aretha Franklin. Focusing on two generations of artists from the 1920's to the 1970's, Black Resonance reveals a musical-literary tradition in which singers and writers, faced with similar challenges and harboring similar aims, developed comparable expressive techniques. Drawing together such seemingly disparate works as Bessie Smith's blues and Richard Wright's neglected film of Native Son, Mahalia Jackson's gospel music and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, each chapter pairs one writer with one singer to crystallize the artistic practice they share: lyricism, sincerity, understatement, haunting, and the creation of a signature voice. In the process, Lordi demonstrates that popular female singers are not passive muses with raw, natural, or ineffable talent. Rather, they are experimental artists who innovate black expressive possibilities right alongside their literary peers. The first study of black music and literature to centralize the music of black women, Black Resonance offers new ways of reading and hearing some of the twentieth century's most beloved and challenging voices.

Contents:

Introduction: Black resonance

Vivid lyricism: Richard Wright and Bessie Smith's blues

The timbre of sincerity: Mahalia Jackson's gospel sound and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

Understatement: James Baldwin, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Haunting: Gayl Jones's Corregidora and Billie Holiday's "strange Fruit"

Signature voices: Nikki Giovanni, Aretha Franklin, and the Black Arts movement

Epilogue: "At Last": Etta James, poetry, hip hop.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-8135-6251-1

OCLC:

863038960