Head Nodding Prose for the Summer, Volume One.
Soul Covers: Rhythm and Blues Remakes and the Struggle for Artistic Identity
Michael Awkward
Michael Awkward, the Gayl Jones Collegiate Professor of Afro-American Literature and Culture at the University of Michigan, has a built a career on the notion of "close" readings. In other words, he takes quite seriously that every word and gesture matters, when one examines the culture of African-Americans. Though he has been primarily concerned with black women's literature throughout his career--in many ways initiating the field of black male feminist criticism--in his new book he turns his attention to the music of Al Green, Aretha Franklin, and Phoebe Snow, highlighting songs that the artists chose to cover during the period of 1964-1976. In the case of Franklin it was al album length tribute to the music of Dinah Washington, while Green, during the height of his popularity, chose to cover Country music standards like Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" and Kris Kristofferson's "For the Good Times." --songs which Green used a template to write songs that expressed his own "country boy" sensibilities. In the case of Snow, easily the lesser known of the trio, Awkward examines the "something in between"--Snow is a Jewish singer-songwriter with "kinky" hair who rarely tried to disturb perceptions that she was an "authentic" Soul singer, particularly on her album Second Childhood. Soul Covers is not for casual fans of Soul music, but for those who interests might best be described as devout.
Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life
Davarian Baldwin
The Harlem Renaissance period of the 1920s has often been held up as the pinnacle of 20th Century black expression and legitimately so, given the ways that figures such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston and many others tried to concretely shape the larger culture. But as Davarian Baldwin shows, Harlem often cast a large shadow on the places and spaces around the country where blacks were gaining voice and influence--on their own terms. As such Chicago's New Negroes is a tribute to the entrepreneurial and intellectual spirit of black Chicagoans that matched the artistic spirit of their Harlem brethren. Here Baldwin is particularly in tune with the pursuit of leisure--that which was as much about blacks viewing themselves as equals to whites, as was the pursuit of full citizenship. Thus figures like Negro League visionary Rube Foster, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, Madame CJ Walker (who made pressed hair an emblem of true womanhood), Thomas Dorsey (who conceptualized the gospel music industry in the late 1930s after years as a blues pianist), and boxer Jack Johnson are rightfully elevated to the status of standard-bearers of modern blackness. Baldwin is particularly astute in his discussions of the significance of "The Stroll"--the physical location in Chicago where blacks literally performed their sense of being Black Moderns.
Voices Rising:
Celebrating 20 Years of Black Lesbain, Gay, Biseual & Transgender Writing
Edited by G. Winston James and Other Countries
In recent years, Redbone Press has staked a critical reputation as a supportive home for a generation of black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered writers, including critic superb Ernest Hardy
, novelist sharon bridgforth, and poet Samiya Bashir. Thus it is only fitting that Redbone Press would publish Voices Rising, a volume that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the founding of Other Countries, an artistic collective dedicated to the artistry of gay men of African heritage. The third volume in a series, Voices Rising is the first that is fully inclusive of the voices of black women. The collection is simply a must-read for those truly interest in recognizing the fullest breadth of black expression in our contemporary moment.
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