Clifford R. Murphy

The product of a hardscrabble childhood, J. Mayo “Ink” Williams parlayed an Ivy League education into unlikely twin careers as a foundational producer of Black music and pioneering Black player in the early NFL. Clifford R. Murphy tells the story of an ambitious, upwardly mobile life affected, but never daunted, by white society’s racism or the Black community’s class tensions. Williams caroused with Paul Robeson, recorded the likes of Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and lined up against Chicago Bears player-coach George Halas. Though resented by the artists he exploited, Williams combined a rock-solid instinct for what would sell with an ear for music that put him at the forefront of finding, recording, and blending blues and jazz. Murphy charts Williams’s wide-ranging accomplishments while providing portraits of the cutthroat recording industry and the possibilities, however constrained, of Black life in the 1920s and 1930s. Vivid and engaging, Ink brings to light the extraordinary journey of a Black businessman and athlete.

The Indelible J. Mayo Williams

Henry Glassie

Douglas Dowling Peach

Ola Belle Reed (1916-2002) was one of the all-time greatest performers of Appalachian music. "Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line" combines Reed's 1960s recordings, some of the earliest she ever made and available here for the very first time, with modern-day field recordings of her descendants and those she inspired within her Appalachian community. This deluxe edition highlights Reed's deep repertoire-folk ballads, minstrel songs, country standards and originals-and traces the impact her music made and is still making today. The two-CD set is accompanied by a luxurious publication tracing Reed's influence and the folklorists who have tracked it: Henry Glassie, who first heard Alex and Ola Belle play in 1966 at the back of the Campbell's Corner general store, and Clifford R. Murphy, who, four decades later, recorded Reed's modern successors in Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

Clifford R. Murphy

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