Various Artists' Red Hot + Blue

Professor John S. Garrison (Independent Scholar, USA)

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English

Bloomsbury Publishing USA
03 October 2024

Music reviews & criticism; Jazz; Individual composers & musicians, bands & groups; HIV & AIDS: social aspects

Series: 33 1/3

Red Hot + Blue is a meditation on music’s capacity to find us, transform us, and help us make sense of our historical moment. Blending memoir and cultural history, Garrison recalls his coming out at the height of the AIDS crisis alongside the music industry’s first major response to the epidemic. In 1990, a groundbreaking effort by musical artists sought to combat the silence and stigma about the disease. The resulting tribute album to legendary composer Cole Porter was evocatively titled Red Hot + Blue, capturing both the joy and melancholy that accompany love during turbulent times. It re-imagined those iconic songs — including “Don’t Fence Me In,” “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” “Night and Day” — not just to celebrate the composer but also to offer a shared vision for survival. In this book, Garrison reflects on his own life story through the lens of Porter’s life and music to illuminate the emotional landscape we all navigate in the search for love.

Red Hot + Blue returns us to the early 1990s to reveal how the love songs of the past can be revived to speak to new audiences in times of need. The book is the portrait of an album, a pandemic, and a young gay man’s coming of age in the era of both.

By: Professor John S. Garrison (Independent Scholar USA)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 164mm, Width: 120mm, Spine: 10mm
Weight: 140g
ISBN: 9798765106631
Series: 33 1/3
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 03 October 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Images Author's Note Introduction: Something for the Boys 1. Let's Not Talk About Love 2. Always True to You in My Fashion 3. Another Opinion, Another Show 4. It's Just Like the Good Old Days 5. I'm Yours 6. Anything Goes 7. So Near and Yet So Far Epilogue: The AIDS Epidemic and Red Hot Today Coda

John S. Garrison is the author of seven books, including Glass (Bloomsbury, 2015) and The Pleasures of Memory in Shakespeare’s Sonnets (2024). In 2021, he was named a Guggenheim Fellow.

Reviews for Various Artists' Red Hot + Blue

John S. Garrison's deep-dive into the history and legacy of the seminal 1990 album Red Hot + Blue interweaves criticism, personal memoir, and biography to create something that feels entirely new: an ingenious literary mixtape. I was transported back in time to the apex of the AIDS pandemic, a period that was both terrifying and hopeful. Garrison's haunting meditation on the songs themselves, the artists involved, and, crucially, the complex life story of Cole Porter, is an invaluable work of cultural and musical history. I loved it. * Bill Hayes, author of Insomniac City: New York, Oliver Sacks, and Me *