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For much of this century, blues musicians like W. C. Handy, Booker White, Lillie May Glover, B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Muddy Waters, and even Elvis Presley gravitated to Beale Street, in Memphis, Tennessee, to learn and practice their art. For many of them, the environment they encountered and helped to create there provided an escape from the poverty, despair, and anonymity that had marked their lives. Beale Black and Blue is an intimate and lively history of Beale Street and of the musicians who made its name synonymous with the blues. In the first part of the book Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall provide a social and political history of Beale Street from the turn of the century through the 1970s, from its heyday as an important center of black commerce and culture to its latter-day decline brought on in part, ironically, by the successes of the civil rights movement, which helped integrate blacks into the wider society. Following this section is a series of interviews with many of the musicians who were drawn to Beale Street. Despite the hardships and mistreatment some of them endured, they reflect fondly on their lives and careers. For anyone interested in the history of one of America's most important and enduring art forms, Beale Black and Blue is a book not to be missed.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Kathy Milonas
reviewed Beale black & blue on January 21, 2015
Beale black & blue
Caveat one: This is a textbook. You won't like reading it if you don't like reading textbooks.
Caveat two: Goodreads lists the author incorrectly!! How do I fix that?
I found this book while doing some online research on the origin of the blues for my short story, "The Origin of the Blues" - rather what it says on the tin. Obviously, I found the sections on the blues to be the most interesting, as well as the beginning section with all its tantalizingly scant evidence for the very first music of African Americans. I also have a great fondness for the music of the 20s, so that section was riveting. It's nice to own a textbook, because I highlighted and underlined a lot toward the beginning and almost all of the blues section. I would recommend this as a good first resource if you're looking to explore any African American music topic in depth as it has an excellent bibliography. Of course, being a survey history, it doesn't go into depth itself. Time and again I got all excited about a hint of intrigue - a popular singer shot in a speakeasy. What? Why? Oh, now we're on to discussing the next popular singer.
It has provided me with a list of topics to explore in more detail in the academic library I have access too, as well as more ideas for my short story, which may be too short to hold them all.
I also got excited every time Cleveland was mentioned, which seemed to peak in the 20s and 30s. Ah, that's my town. We used to be someplace. Oberlin Conservatory gets a lot of mention, and the Cleveland Symphony and CIM get mentioned in the later chapters. (Here ends the section only interesting to Cleveland residents.)
I felt the book kinda fell down on the later chapters - I don't think the author was quite as interested in modern music as she was in jazz and gospel. The paltry paragraphs on rhythm and blues and rock in particular disappointed, though there is at least a few pages on the origins of rap. I wonder if a later edition wouldn't have more about rock and a longer exploration of the origins of rap and hip-hop.
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