Portland Public Library

The songs of blind folk, African American musicians and the cultures of blindness, Terry Rowden

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 143-163) and index

portraits

index present

non fiction

The songs of blind folk

bibliography

318192028

Terry Rowden

Corporealities. Discourses of disability

African American musicians and the cultures of blindness

This book explores the ways that the lives and careers of blind and visually impaired African American musicians and singers have mirrored the changes in America's image of African Americans and the social positioning and possibilities of the entire black community. The book offers a historically grounded consideration of African American performers and their audiences, and the ways that blindness, like blackness, has affected the way the music has been produced and received. It considers the controversial nineteenth-century prodigy Blind Tom Bethune; blues singers and songwriters such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, who achieved an unprecedented degree of visibility and acceptance in the 1920s and '30s; spiritual and gospel musicians such as the Blind Boys of Alabama; celebrated jazz and rhythm and blues artists Art Tatum, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ray Charles; and Stevie Wonder. --, Page [4] of cover

Blind Tom and the cultural politics of visibility -- Blind in blue : blindness and identity in the blues tradition -- The souls of blind folk : blindness and blind people in African American spiritual and gospel music -- Blindness and the rhetoric of "genius" : Art Tatum, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Ray Charles -- The inner and outer visions of Stevie Wonder