Soul Covers

Awkward Michael Awkward

Description

Soul Covers is an engaging look at how three very different rhythm and blues performers-Aretha Franklin, Al Green, and Phoebe Snow-used cover songs to negotiate questions of artistic, racial, and personal authenticity. Through close readings of song lyrics and the performers' statements about their lives and work, the literary critic Michael Awkward traces how Franklin, Green, and Snow crafted their own musical identities partly by taking up songs associated with artists such as Dinah Washington, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, and the Supremes.Awkward sees Franklin's early album Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington, released shortly after Washington's death in 1964, as an attempt by a struggling young singer to replace her idol as the acknowledged queen of the black female vocal tradition. He contends that Green's album Call Me (1973) reveals the performer's attempt to achieve formal coherence by uniting seemingly irreconcilable aspects of his personal history, including his career in popular music and his religious yearnings, as well as his sense of himself as both a cosmopolitan black artist and a forlorn country boy. Turning to Snow's album Second Childhood (1976), Awkward suggests that through covers of blues and soul songs, Snow, a white Jewish woman from New York, explored what it means for non-black enthusiasts to perform works considered by many to be black cultural productions. The only book-length examination of the role of remakes in American popular music, Soul Covers is itself a refreshing new take on the lives and work of three established soul artists.

Sujets

• Blues

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 04 mai 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822389491
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Refiguring American Music

soul covers

A series edited by Charles McGovern and Ronald Radano

Michael Awkward

soul covers Rhythm and Blues Remakes

and the Struggle for Artistic Identity

(Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Phoebe Snow)

Duke University Press Durham 2007and London

© 2007 Duke University Press Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper♾ Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Scala with Impact display by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

For my belles, Camara and Leah

Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Preface:“How the Parts Relate to the Whole”  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Introduction:“I Live in the Lyrics” On Truth, Intent, Image, Identity, and Song Covers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

“She’s the Next One” Aretha Franklin’sUnforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington and the Black Women’s Vocal Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

“Something like Wholeness” Al Green’sCall Meand the Struggle for Thematic Integrity . . . . . . . 81

“Miss Snow, Are You Black?” Second Childhoodand the Cultural Politics of Musical Style in the Post–Civil Rights Era  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Coda:“Going Home” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Bibliography  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Index  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

c

on

t

en

t

s

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

acknowledgments

té çààçéŝ à ŝé ŝôu ŝéŝ éé à éôà é- ô çôé ô é  à àŝ à ô àé ŝôç àéŝéŝ, àéŝŝ-  çué, ôé, ô ôéà ôéŝ ô ô é çôuçàé é éôŝ ôuŝ  àç éà. té uŝçà ŝôuŝ à éà éx- uéŝ uŝé ô éŝé éŝé ôuŝ é éçôé ôjéçŝ ô éàuàô— àéçàô, ŝà, éçôô, çôééŝô, éuéé, à éŝô—ô éàé ŝôçé éàéŝôéŝ, ô ô éàuàô çô- ŝéŝ à çuçà éàué ô é ôuu ééàé à ŝôu ôéŝ. wàéé é àuôŝ, ôéŝŝôà à àéŝô àé, ŝà àôu éŝé àçŝ ô àéŝŝ à éçéô, î àé ô ŝuŝéçé à é àé éŝŝ é