Awesome African American Rock And Soul Musicians

"Read about important African American musicians including: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, and Prince"--Provided by publisher.

"Read about important African American musicians including: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, and Prince"--Provided by publisher.

"Readers will learn about a variety of African American jazz musicians including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock"--Provided by publisher.

"Read about Phillis Wheatley, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Jay Wright, Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove"--Provided by publisher.

"Read about ten important African American actors including: Robeson Robeson, Ossie Davis, Dorothy Dandridge, Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Jamie Foxx, and Halle Berry"--Provided by publisher.

While much in the history of music builds on what came before it, each generation witnesses musical innovations that define a genre and can endure long after their creation. The individuals profiled in this lively volume have been responsible for some of the most inspired and lasting works in the history of music, those that have remained timeless even as musical styles, genres, instruments, and technologies have evolved. The stories of such icons as Guido D’Arezzo, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Jay-Z, and Adele, among many others, are concisely presented, along with descriptions of their greatest contributions to music.

As Shaw correctly states, no single volume covers the history of black popular music in its entirety, and most studies have focused on the white mainstream. American pop music is in fact a blend of black and white musical influences that can be better understood if explored from a black perspective. Shaw examines five key black stylesminstrelsy, spirituals, ragtime, jazz, and bluesanalyzing the origins and developments of each, profiling important artists and songs, and exploring the "white synthesis." Often the "synthesis" has amounted to little more than a soulless white imitation of inspired black stylistic innovations.