Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field

Mark Burford (Associate Professor, Associate Professor, Reed College)

$85.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Oxford University Press Inc
15 December 2019

Baroque music (c 1600 to c 1750); Choral music; Sacred & religious music

Nearly a half century after her death in 1972, Mahalia Jackson remains the most esteemed figure in black gospel music history. Born in the backstreets of New Orleans in 1911, Jackson during the Great Depression joined the Great Migration to Chicago, where she became an highly regarded church singer and, by the mid-fifties, a coveted recording artist for Apollo and Columbia Records, lauded as the World's Greatest Gospel Singer. This Louisiana Cinderella narrative of Jackson's career during the decade following World War II carried important meanings for African Americans, though it remains a story half told. Jackson was gospel's first multi-mediated artist, with a nationally broadcast radio program, a Chicago-based television show, and early recordings that introduced straight-out-of-the-church black gospel to American and European audiences while also tapping the vogue for religious pop in the early Cold War. In some ways, Jackson's successes made her an exceptional case, though she is perhaps best understood as part of broader developments in the black gospel field. Built upon foundations laid by pioneering Chicago organizers in the 1930s, black gospel singing, with Jackson as its most visible representative, began to circulate in novel ways as a form of popular culture in the 1940s and 1950s, its practitioners accruing prestige not only through devout integrity but also from their charismatic artistry, public recognition, and pop-cultural cachet. These years also saw shifting strategies in the black freedom struggle that gave new cultural-political significance to African American vernacular culture. The first book on Jackson in 25 years, Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field draws on a trove of previously unexamined archival sources that illuminate Jackson's childhood in New Orleans and her negotiation of parallel careers as a singing Baptist evangelist and a mass media entertainer, documenting the unfolding material and symbolic influence of Jackson and black gospel music in postwar American society.

By: Mark Burford (Associate Professor Associate Professor Reed College)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 752g
ISBN: 9780190095529
ISBN 10: 0190095520
Pages: 496
Publication Date: 15 December 2019
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgements Preface 1 Introduction: Miss Jackson and her art (Gospel Singing) 2 Family Affairs, Part 1: The Clarks of Louisiana 3 Family Affairs, Part 2: Black Baptists and Chicago Gospel 4 Gospel Singing as Black Popular Culture 5 Apollo Records and the Birth of Religious Pop 6 Mahalia Jackson's Apollo Recordings 7 Hearing Voices 8 Gospel According to Bill Russell 9 Singing comes as natural as breathing : The Mahalia Jackson Show 10 The World's Greatest Gospel Singer 11 I'm just Mahaly to you all : The Meanings of Fame Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Mark Burford is Associate Professor of Music at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he is also chair of the American Studies program. His research and teaching focuses on twentieth-century popular music in the United States, with particular focus on African American music after World War II, and late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Austro-German concert music.

Reviews for Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field

Burford's study is built on a solid foundation of historical sources, ranging from an array of interviews and contemporaneous reviews to Jackson's expansive catalogue of commercial recordings and radio/television broadcasts. The private journal of the singer's confidant and unofficial assistant, Bill Russell, offers fresh insight into her daily life and personal views on music and religion during the critical mid-1950s period. ... Burford has set a high bar for future scholarly inquiry. -- Ray Allen, American Music Review In Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field, Burford (Reed College) draws from troves of previously unavailable interviews, archival collections, and other historical resources to provide readers with an insightful and in-depth analysis of Jackson's life and career. In so doing, the author also tracks the rise of black gospel music and the social and political culture of the US in the post-WW II era. Burford's critical analysis transcends the typical biographical treatment and offers a dynamic and engrossing glimpse into the America in which black gospel music sprouted and blossomed. Summing up: Highly recommended -- CHOICE Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field provides a careful and sensitive analysis of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson that positions her at the center of significant sonic and cultural shifts that redefine mid-century America. This is not the conventional biography, but a critical study that uses Jackson and more importantly her voice as a theoretical lens through which one can interrogate the politics of identity, the racialized and gendered politics surrounding the reading of black women's voices and bodies, as well as the communal and cultural implications that arise when the culture of a people shifts from the insular environments that birthed it to the broader spectrum of mainstream popular culture. --Tammy L. Kernodle, Professor of Musicology, Affiliate Faculty of American Studies, Black World Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Miami University Mahalia Jackson has finally received the book she deserves - thorough, precise, nuanced, and insightful. Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field expands our understanding of this great singer and the religious-musical history that she helped define. --Thomas Brothers, Professor of Music, Duke University and author of Help! The Beatles, Duke Ellington and the Magic of Collaboration