Angela Y. Davis

Paul K Davis

Examines the lives and art of Black women blues singers and argues that they expressed a Black, working class, feminist perspective

Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism

Lindy

It's one of those books that gets cited everywhere and is considered foundational to scholarship around blues women (and I understand why) but was underwhelming to me once I actually read it. In particular, I'm not impressed by how Davis would often assert that she could tell, through careful study of inflection, that a singer meant something ironically (e.g.), but would not go on to describe that inflection. These days, it's easy to search for the song on your streaming service of choice and judge for yourself, but when the book was written, some of the music discussed was not yet available on compact disc. It's just not persuasive.

Jazz, it is widely accepted, is the signal original American contribution to world culture. Angela Davis shows us how the roots of that form in the blues must be viewed not only as a musical tradition but as a life-sustaining vehicle for an alternative black working-class collective memory and social consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American middle-class values. And she explains how the tradition of black women blues singers - represented by Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday - embodies not only an artistic triumph and aesthetic dominance over a hostile popular music industry but an unacknowledged proto-feminist consciousness within working-class black communities. Through a close and riveting analysis of these artists' performances, words, and lives, Davis uncovers the unmistakable assertion and uncompromising celebration of non-middle-class, non-heterosexual social, moral, and sexual values.

Sonia Grgas

Actually a 4.5. Loved this one! Recommended for those for whom Australia in the 1950's sounds appealing.

Emily fowler

Examines how Black female blues singers expressed a working class, feminist perspective

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

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