SIDE A. Toward a black feminist intellectual tradition in sound -- "Sister, can you line it out?": Zora Neale Hurston notes the sound -- Blues feminist lingua franca: Rosetta Reitz rewrites the record -- Thrice militant music criticism: Ellen Willis & Lorraine Hansberry's What might be -- SIDE B. Not fade away: looking after Geeshie & Elvie / L.V. -- "If you should lose me": of trunks & record shops & black girl ephemera -- "See my face from the other side": catching up with Geeshie and L.V. -- "Slow fade to black": black women archivists remix the sounds -- Epilogue: Going to the territory.
Summary:
Daphne A. Brooks explores more than a century of music archives to examine the critics, collectors, and listeners who have determined perceptions of African American women on stage and in the recording studio. Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on these acclaimed figures -- a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other black women concerned with the work of their musical peers. Zora Neale Hurston appears as a sound archivist and a performer, Lorraine Hansberry as a queer black feminist critic of modern culture, and Pauline Hopkins as America's first black female cultural intellectual. Brooks tackles the complicated racial politics of blues music recording, collecting, and rock and roll music criticism. She makes lyrical forays into the blues pioneers Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith, as well as fans who became critics, like the record-label entrepreneur and writer Rosetta Reitz. In the twenty-first century, pop superstar Janelle Monae's liner notes are recognized for their innovations, while celebrated singers Cecile McLorin Salvant, Rhiannon Giddens, and Valerie June take their place as serious cultural historians. Above all, Liner Notes for the Revolution reads black female musicians and entertainers as intellectuals. At stake is the question of who gets to tell the story of black women in popular music and how-- Provided by publisher
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.