Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Y. Davis: 9780679771265

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Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

By Angela Y. Davis

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Category: Music

Paperback $18.00

Jan 26, 1999 | ISBN 9780679771265

Ebook $10.99

Oct 05, 2011 | ISBN 9780307574442

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Paperback $18.00

Jan 26, 1999 | ISBN 9780679771265

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$18.00

Jan 26, 1999 | ISBN 9780679771265

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Oct 05, 2011 | ISBN 9780307574442

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About Blues Legacies and Black Feminism

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.

About Blues Legacies and Black Feminism

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.

Also by Angela Y. Davis

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Also by Angela Y. Davis

See all books by Angela Y. Davis

About Angela Y. Davis

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… More about Angela Y. Davis