A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race and the Soul of America - Softcover

Craig Werner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841950505 ISBN 13: 9781841950501

Publisher: Payback Press/Canongate Books Ltd., 2000

Synopsis

Mahalia Jackson, James Brown, Diana Ross, the Righteous Brothers, the Jackson Five, Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, and Aretha Franklin--since the early 60s, Black popular music has become increasingly intertwined with American culture, both drawing from it and shaping it. From Ray Charles to Ice Cube, Craig Werner draws lively character sketches of major musicians, intricately filling in the background historical events. From the inspirational soul music of the Civil Rights Movement and the Motown moment which aided and sped integration in its own way, to the angry "gangsta" rappers of today who dare to speak the uncensored truth, the songs are telling us the state of the world, and Werner helps train our ears to distinguish it. Emphasizing how musicians of all races have drawn on gospel, jazz, and the blues, "A Change Is Gonna Come" is a celebration of cultural tradition and an illustration of the way it can embrace us all.

About this title

About the Author:

Craig Werner is a professor of African-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, where he teaches courses on Black Music and American Cultural History. He is the recipient of the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

From Publishers Weekly:

An ambitious and comprehensive look at the deep connection between race and music in America, Werner's book is filled with provocative insights. Why, for instance, did "funkateers and feminists, progressives and puritans, rockers and reactionaries" band together in an "unholy alliance" against disco, destroying "the last remaining musical scene that was in any sense racially mixed"Aa scene that made crossover stars of women, African-Americans and gay men? Werner (Up Around the Bend), a professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is enlightening without being overwhelming. Tracing the gospel, blues and jazz "impulses" through American, English and Jamaican music, he shows how the threads of music spun under the oppression of slavery and inequality have been woven into all types of popular and innovative music. One of the high notes of the book is his vivid description of how, as disco petered out, hip-hop and rap emerged in the burnt-out, battle-scarred terrain of the South Bronx. Cut off from the increasingly "upwardly mobile" Studio 54 scene, the locals developed their own dance music, drawing on snippets from the history of popular music and particularly on the techniques of Jamaican street-party DJs. Werner's breadth of knowledge is impressive. He writes with equal clarity aboutAand respect forAgospel icon Mahalia Jackson (who "placed black women and their voices at the center of the freedom struggle") and Public Enemy (who expressed a "combination of political intelligence and street realism"). In America, where most people live in spaces rigidly defined by race and ethnicity, Werner shows how music still has the power to bring people together.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Payback Press/Canongate Books Ltd.
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1841950505
• ISBN 13: 9781841950501
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 440