It S Cotton Blossom Time

S. Earl Wilson III is the author of eight books prior to this one. All his previous books, with the exception of two, have been fiction. In this book, this Mississippi writer, a Morehouse College graduate, pens a uniquely loveable and humorous recollection of the travels and adventures of the renowned Cotton Blossom Singers of the Piney Woods School of Piney Woods, Mississippi, during the fifties. Here, he invites you to travel along, sing, endure the hardships and pain, and rejoice in the success of these six special young girls as they pave the road for the benefit of others. This story is not a must-read––it is a should-read. You’ll be elated if you do and sorry if you don’t!

S. Earl Wilson, III, is the author of eight books prior to this one. All of his previous books, with the exception of two, have been fiction. In this book, this Mississippi writer, a Morehouse College graduate, pens a uniquely loveable and humorous recollection of the travels and adventures of the renowned Cotton Blossom Singers of the Piney Woods School of Piney Woods, Mississippi, during the fifties. Here, he invites you to travel along, sing, endure the hardship and pain, then rejoice in the success of these six special young girls as they pave the road for the benefit of others. This story is not a must-read - it is a should-read. You'll be elated if you do and sorry if you don't!

S. Earl Wilson, III, is the author of eight books prior to this one. All of his previous books, with the exception of two, have been fiction. In this book, this Mississippi writer, a Morehouse College graduate, pens a uniquely loveable and humorous recollection of the travels and adventures of the renowned Cotton Blossom Singers of the Piney Woods School of Piney Woods, Mississippi, during the fifties. Here, he invites you to travel along, sing, endure the hardship and pain, then rejoice in the success of these six special young girls as they pave the road for the benefit of others. This story is not a must-read it is a should-read. You'll be elated if you do and sorry if you don't!

Thanks to the pioneering tours of the Creole Band, jazz began to be heard nationwide on the vaudeville stages of America from 1914 to 1918. This seven-piece band toured the country, exporting for the first time the authentic jazz strains that had developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The band's vaudeville routines were deeply rooted in the minstrel shows and plantation cliches of American show business in the late 19th century, but its instrumental music was central to its performance and distinctive and entrancing to audiences and reviewers. Pioneers of Jazz reveals at long last the link between New Orleans music and the jazz phenomenon that swept America in the 1920s. While they were the first important band from New Orleans to attain national exposure, The Creole Band has not heretofore been recognized for its unique importance. But in his monumental, careful research, jazz scholar Lawrence Gushee firmly establishes the group's central role in jazz history. Gushee traces the troupe's activities and quotes the reaction of critics and audiences to their first encounters with this new musical phenomenon. While audiences often expected (and got) a kind of minstrel show, the group transcended expectations, taking pride in their music and facing down the theatrical establishment with courage. Although they played the West Coast and Canada, most of their touring centered in the heartland. Most towns of any size in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana heard them, often repeatedly, and virtually all of their appearances were received with wild enthusiasm. After four years of nearly incessant traveling, members of the band founded or joined groups in Chicago's South Side cabaret scene, igniting the craze for hot New Orleans music for which the Windy City was renowned in the early 1920s. The best-known musicians in the group--cornetist Freddie Keppard, clarinetist Jimmy Noone and string bassist Bill Johnson--would play a significant role in jazz, becoming famous for recordings in the 1920s. Gushee effectively brings to life each member of the band and discusses their individual contributions, while analyzing the music with precision, skillful and exacting documentation. Including many never before published photos and interviews, the book also provides an invaluable and colorful look at show business, especially vaudeville, in the 1910s. While some of the first jazz historians were aware of the band's importance, attempts to locate and interview surviving members (three died before 1935) were sporadic and did little or nothing to correct the mostly erroneous accounts of the band's career. The jazz world has long known about Gushee's original work on this previously neglected subject, and the book represents an important event in jazz scholarship. Pioneers of Jazz brilliantly places this group's unique importance into a broad cultural and historical context, and provides the crucial link between jazz's origins in New Orleans and the beginning of its dissemination across the country.

A gunfighter rides into legend in this western from USA Today bestselling author Ralph Compton. It was the 1870s—Jesse and Frank James led daring raids on banks and trains. Doc Holliday’s name struck dread in the hearts of men, and Wild Bill Hickok played poker with bullets in the hole. A young killer named Billy the Kid was hunted by a determined lawman, and a General named Custer took the Seventh Cavalry into Dakota Territory. One man rides this untamed frontier like a shadow of death. His name is Nathan Stone, and he had learned to kill on the vengeance trail. He would have stopped after settling the score with his parents’ savage slayers. But when you’re the greatest gunfighter of all, there’s no peace or resting place. And it’s Nathan Stone’s destiny to fight for survival against the most famed and feared figures from Texas to the Black Hills—on both sides of the law... More Than Six Million Ralph Compton Books In Print!

A gunslinger gets bloody payback in this western from USA Today bestselling author Ralph Compton. Nathan Stone experienced the horror of Civil War battlefields. But the worst lies ahead. When he returns to Virginia, to the ruins of what was his home, he discovers his father butchered and his mother and sister stripped, ravished, and slain. The seven renegades who did it rode away to the West. Half-starved and afoot, he takes to their trail. Nathan Stone’s deadly oath—blood for blood—will cost him seven long years, as he rides the lawless trails of an untamed frontier. His skill with a Colt will match him with the likes of the Jameses and the Youngers, Wild Bill Hickok, John Wesley Hardin, and Ben Thompson. Nathan Stone will become the greatest gunfighter of them all, shooting his way along the most relentless vengeance trail a man has ever ridden to the savage end…and this is how it all begins. More Than Six Million Ralph Compton Books In Print!

Carefully Taught looks at American history as depicted in forty Broadway musicals. Presented chronologically according to the musical timeframe, award-winning theater critic and author Cary Ginell dissects the stories, characters, and songs to not only examine how Broadway viewed historical events, epochs, and personalities, but also to capture how dramatic license separated fact from fantasy. The chosen musicals fall into a variety of categories: biographies of famous Americans, (Andrew Jackson and Fiorello LaGuardia), stories with national conflicts (Hamilton, South Pacific), events that captured the attention of the American public (Floyd Collins, Newsies), and sociological studies or satires of specific eras (The Music Man, Hair). Many books have been written about Broadway, but Carefully Taught, from the song "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" in South Pacific, uniquely approaches American history from two vantage points: the point of view of the playwright and composer accompanied with the context of how these events were seen when they were produced versus how they are seen today. Ginell’s research of contemporary theater reviews and in-depth studies of productions’ back stories play off his knowledge gained from his quarter century as a theater critic in Southern California.The combination is a complete overview of American history on the stage from the coveted balcony seat.

Contending that cultural producion gives voice to racism, the authors--anthropologists Carol Tator and Frances Henry and attorney Winston Mattis--here examine how six controversial Canadian cultural events have given rise to a newly empowered radical or critical multiculturalism.