Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 by Tim Brooks

1 rating since posting on Thursday, March 16, 2006
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 by Tim Brooks
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ESSENTIAL READING for MUSIC LOVER'S
Well,

I think I just hit an info gold mine!

I want to let you know about it.

It is a book from the University of Illinois Press and it is packed with tons of info about the earliest black recording artists...many I have never (YET) heard OR heard OF!

I have not read the whole BIBLE yet...in fact, I have only begun.
There is a wealth of well-researched material on an almost lost crucial chunk of music history.

Tim Brooks writing style is informative without being tediously academic....(it is enjoyable reading!).

One artist of special interest covered in this book is the boxer Jack Johnson - a renegade and recording artist who never let the color lines stop him from what he wanted to do. My great great Uncle was "The Great White Hope"....also known as Jim Jeffries - who fought Jack Johnson in perhaps THE MOST publicized "race fight" in boxing history.

It gives me great pleasure to say that my Great Great Uncle LOST THE FIGHT to **Jack Johnson! Jack Johnson was unstoppable as a boxer and oh how I would love to hear him sing! This book is the first I have found to delve into this little known area of Jack Johnson's life as a recording artist.

There is a chapter on George W. Johnson, the first black recording artist and many who came after him such as Bert Williams, George Walker, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, W. C. Handy, James Reese Europe, Wilbur Sweatman, Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Booker T. Washington, as well as a host of lesser-known voices.

I will have much more to say as I work my way into it.....would love to know if anyone else in hear HAS read it....?

Would love to discuss it with any of you WHO WILL read it.

yrs

~confetta

BUY IT HERE:

UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS PRESS
www.press.uillinois.edu/s04/brooks.html

OR

AMAZON:
www.amazon.com/gp/product...595-4154402
___________________________________________________________

LOST SOUNDS: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919
Tim Brooks
Appendix by Dick Spottswood

"An act of cultural reclamation--the great lost heroes of black performance."
-- New York Times

The first in-depth history of the involvement of African Americans in the early recording industry, this book examines the first three decades of sound recording in the United States, charting the vigorous and varied roles black artists played in the period leading up to the Jazz Age. It all begins in Part One: "George W. Johnson, the First Black Recording Artist."

Applying more than thirty years of scholarship, Tim Brooks identifies key black artists who recorded commercially in a wide range of genres and provides illuminating biographies of some forty of these audio pioneers. Brooks assesses the careers and impacts, as well as analyzing the recordings, of figures including George W. Johnson, Bert Williams, George Walker, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, W. C. Handy, James Reese Europe, Wilbur Sweatman, Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Booker T. Washington, and boxing champion Jack Johnson, as well as a host of lesser-known voices.

Because they were viewed as "novelty" or "folk" artists, nearly all of these African Americans were allowed to record commercially in their own distinctive styles, and in practically every genre: popular music, ragtime, jazz, cabaret, classical, spoken word, politics, poetry, and more. The sounds they preserved reflect the actual emerging black culture of that tumultuous and creative period.

The stories gathered here give a previously unavailable insight into the early history of the recording industry, as well as the racially complex landscape of post-Civil War society at large.

Lost Sounds also includes Brooks's selected discography of CD reissues, and an appendix from Dick Spottswood describing early recordings by black artists in the Caribbean and South America.

A volume in the series Music in American Life

Tim Brooks is the recipient of the 2004 ARSC Lifetime Achievement Award. (The Association for Recorded Sound Collections)

Tim Brooks is Executive Vice President of Research at Lifetime Television. He is coauthor of The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows and The Columbia Master Book Discography, and the author of Little Wonder Records: A History and Discography. He is past President of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections and is a frequent contributor to the ARSC Journal.

Dick Spottswood is a freelance author, broadcaster, and record producer. He is the author of our seven volume reference work, Ethnic Music on Records.

"This is a work without precedent, a work without equal, a work whose modest title belies both its remarkable achievement and its profound historical importance."
-- Nick Tosches

"I thrill to the discoveries as they leap off the page. Tim Brooks is a tenacious sleuth as he follows leads to forgotten voices of the past."
-- Edward A. Berlin, author of King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and his Era

"Brooks has uncovered a wealth of fascinating detail about the record business, its artists and the range of music they recorded 100 years ago. This engaging work of thorough scholarship is essential reading for anyone interested in the birth of commercial recording and African American music in the early part of the 20th century."
-- Samuel Brylawski, Head, Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress

"Meticulously researched and compellingly presented, Lost Sounds is a major contribution to the histories of recording and black Americans. Tim Brooks has shed light on hitherto obscured territory."
-- Dan Morgenstern, Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University

"Tim Brooks has drawn on a staggering array of primary sources to create this wonderful compendium of information. Lost Sounds makes a significant contribution to the field."
-- Norm Cohen, author of Traditional Anglo-American Folk Music: An Annotated Discography of Published Recordings


**ALSO OF INTEREST: UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS - The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2005)
Starring: Jack Johnson, Keith David Director: Ken Burns

www.amazon.com/gp/product...595-4154402 - , posted 03/16/06

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