4:35 pm UTC Feb. 1, 2021
The Blues. Jazz. Gospel. Soul. R&B. Funk. Rap. So much of the greatest music ever made was born and raised in the American South. It grew out of the soil in the Mississippi Delta, careened off liquor-soaked bars in New Orleans, and echoed out of juke joints from Alabama to Arkansas. Studios in Memphis and Muscle Shoals spread the sounds, and Motown polished them for the masses. As OutKast s Andre 3000 would eventually and eloquently declare a full century after Tennessee s Fisk Jubilee Singers began exporting American Black music across oceans The South got something to say.
‘Go Tell It on the Mountain’
By Tim Colliver - tcolliver@aimmediamidwest.com
One of the many nativity displays that appear in the front yards of Highland County homes, this one is on US 50 just east of Hillsboro.
Tim Colliver | The Times-Gazette
Editor’s Note: It’s been said that Christmas is one of the few holidays that has its own “soundtrack.” The Times-Gazette today presents part 10 of a special 12-part series entitled “The 12 Carols of Christmas” that will appear daily through Christmas Eve, relating the stories behind some of the best-loved sacred songs of the season.
The Negro spiritual, a unique form of American hymnology, paved the way for a popular Christmas carol that had been performed by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee as far back as 1879.
Who Is Ma Rainey? How the Mother of the Blues Became an Icon Author: Latifah Muhammad Updated: 9:00 AM MST December 18, 2020
Ma Rainey’s title as the “mother of the blues” is an ode to her unremitted genius in transforming the genre despite a relatively short recording career. Now streaming on Netflix,
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis as the brazen blues legend and Chadwick Boseman in his final film role, has brought new attention to Rainey’s mystifying story.
Adapted from August Wilson’s Broadway play of the same name, the film explores an intense 1927 Chicago recording session between Rainey and her band members, with Davis delivering an unapologetic portrayal of the singer.
By Latifah Muhammad Donaldson Collection/Getty Images
Ma Rainey’s title as the “mother of the blues” is an ode to her unremitted genius in transforming the genre despite a relatively short recording career. Now streaming on Netflix,
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis as the brazen blues legend and Chadwick Boseman in his final film role, has brought new attention to Rainey’s mystifying story.
Adapted from August Wilson’s Broadway play of the same name, the film explores an intense 1927 Chicago recording session between Rainey and her band members, with Davis delivering an unapologetic portrayal of the singer.