From one of this country's most important intellectuals comes a brilliant analysis of the blues tradition that examines the careers of three crucial black women blues singers through a feminist lens. Angela Davis provides the historical, social, and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of Gertrude ""Ma"" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday as powerful articulations of an alternative consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American culture.
The works of Rainey, Smith, and Holiday have been largely misunderstood by critics. Overlooked, Davis shows, has been the way their candor and bravado laid the groundwork for an aesthetic that allowed for the celebration of social, moral, and sexual values outside the constraints imposed by middle-class respectability. Through meticulous transcriptions of all the extant lyrics of Rainey and Smith-published here in their entirety for the first time-Davis demonstrates how the roots of the blues extend beyond a musical tradition to serve as a conciousness-raising vehicle for American social memory. A stunning, indispensable contribution to American history, as boldly insightful as the women Davis praises, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism is a triumph.
By:
Angela Y. Davis
Imprint: Vintage Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 200mm,
Width: 130mm,
Spine: 23mm
Weight: 420g
ISBN: 9780679771265
ISBN 10: 0679771263
Pages: 428
Publication Date: 26 January 1999
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
ELT Advanced
,
A / AS level
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
I. I Used to Be Your Sweet Mama: Ideology, Sexuality and Domesticity II. Blame It On the Blues: Bessie Smith, “Ma” Rainey and the Politics of Blues Protest III. Mama’s Got The Blues: Rivals, Girlfriends and Advisors IV. Here Come My Train: Traveling Themes in Ma Rainey’s Blues V. Preaching the Blues: Spirituality and Self-Consciousness VI. Up In Harlem Every Saturday Night: Blues and the Black Aesthetic VII. When A Woman Loves A Man: Social Implications of Billie Holiday’s Love Songs VIII. Strange Fruit: Music and Social Consciousness Lyrics to Songs Recorded by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey Lyrics to Songs Recorded by Bessie Smith Notes Works Consulted Index Permissions Acknowledgments
Angela Y. Davis is a political activist, scholar, author, and speaker. She is an outspoken advocate for the oppressed and exploited, writing on Black liberation, prison abolition, the intersections of race, gender, and class, and international solidarity with Palestine. She is the author of several books, includingWomen, Race, and ClassandAre Prisons Obsolete?She is the subject of the acclaimed documentaryFree Angela and All Political Prisonersand is distinguished professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
