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Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles Into Being--And Sang Back to Them Ever After
Hardcover
Series: American Music History
General MusicPop/RockMusic Reference
ISBN13: 9780271095615
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Published: Nov 14 2023
Pages: 272
Weight: 1.25
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
From the beginning, the Beatles acknowledged in interviews their debt to Black music, apparent in their covers of and written original songs inspired by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, the Shirelles, and other giants of R&B. Blackbird goes deeper, appreciating unacknowledged forerunners, as well as Black artists whose interpretations keep the Beatles in play.
Drawing on interviews with Black musicians and using the song Blackbird as a touchstone, Katie Kapurch and Jon Marc Smith tell a new history. They present unheard stories and resituate old ones, offering the phrase transatlantic flight to characterize a back-and-forth dialogue shaped by Black musicians in the United States and elsewhere, including Liverpool. Kapurch and Smith find a lineage that reaches back to the very origins of American popular music, one that involves the original twentieth-century blackbird, Florence Mills, and the King of the Twelve String, Lead Belly. Continuing the circular flight path with Nina Simone, Billy Preston, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Sylvester, and others, the authors take readers into the twenty-first century, when Black artists like Bettye LaVette harness the Beatles for today.
Detailed, thoughtful, and revelatory, Blackbird explores musical and storytelling legacies full of rich but contested symbolism. Appealing to those interested in developing a deep understanding of the evolution of popular music, this book promises that you'll never hear Blackbird--and the Beatles--the same way again.
1 different editions
Also available
Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles Into Being and Sang Back to Them Ever After
Kapurch, Katie
Smith, Jon Marc
Paperback
Also from
Kapurch, Katie
Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles Into Being and Sang Back to Them Ever After
Kapurch, Katie
Smith, Jon Marc
Paperback
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