The Ballad of Billy Lee

The Ballad of Billy Lee PDF

Author: Len Lamensdorf

Publisher:

Published: 2020-06-29

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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Billy Lee, an African-American slave, was at George Washington's side for over 30 years. Though never a relationship between equals, it was an intimate and enduring connection. A superb horseman, bold soldier and literate aide, Billy stood next to Washington when he crossed the Delaware, galloped at Washington's side when they rode into battle, a slave. armed with a pistol, a carbine and a spyglass--served with him at Valley Forge and through the diificult years until final victory at Yorktown. He was responsible for Washington's public and private papers at congresses and conventions, but Billy was a slave, yearning to be free, and his slavery cost him the love of his life.

Stagolee Shot Billy

Stagolee Shot Billy PDF

Author: Cecil Brown

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780674028906

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Although his story has been told countless times--by performers from Ma Rainey, Cab Calloway, and the Isley Brothers to Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and Taj Mahal--no one seems to know who Stagolee really is. Stack Lee? Stagger Lee? He has gone by all these names in the ballad that has kept his exploits before us for over a century. Delving into a subculture of St. Louis known as "Deep Morgan," Cecil Brown emerges with the facts behind the legend to unfold the mystery of Stack Lee and the incident that led to murder in 1895. How the legend grew is a story in itself, and Brown tracks it through variants of the song "Stack Lee"--from early ragtime versions of the '20s, to Mississippi John Hurt's rendition in the '30s, to John Lomax's 1940s prison versions, to interpretations by Lloyd Price, James Brown, and Wilson Pickett, right up to the hip-hop renderings of the '90s. Drawing upon the works of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, Brown describes the powerful influence of a legend bigger than literature, one whose transformation reflects changing views of black musical forms, and African Americans' altered attitudes toward black male identity, gender, and police brutality. This book takes you to the heart of America, into the soul and circumstances of a legend that has conveyed a painful and elusive truth about our culture.

Unprepared To Die

Unprepared To Die PDF

Author: Paul Slade

Publisher: Soundcheck Books

Published: 2015-11-01

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 099294807X

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The Gory Stories Behind The Murder Ballads Cheerfully vulgar, revelling in gore, and always with an eye on the main chance, murder ballads are tabloid newspapers set to music, carrying word of the latest ‘orrible murders to an insatiable public. Victims are bludgeoned, stabbed or shot in every verse and killers often hanged, but the songs themselves never die. Instead, they mutate – morphing to suit local place names as they criss cross the Atlantic and continue to fascinate each generation’s biggest musical stars. Paul Slade traces this fascinating genre’s history through eight of its greatest songs. Stagger Lee’s “biographers” alone include Duke Ellington, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Dr John, The Clash and Nick Cave. No two tell his story in quite the same way. Covering eight classic murder ballads, including “Knoxville Girl”, “Tom Dooley” and “Frankie & Johnny”, Slade investigates the real-life murder which inspired each song and traces its musical development down the decades. Billy Bragg, The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey, Laura Cantrell, Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family and a host of other leading musicians add their own insights.

A House Divided

A House Divided PDF

Author: Ben McNitt

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-06-01

Total Pages: 503

ISBN-13: 0811769747

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Slavery is one of the central, most enduringly significant facts of U.S. history. It loomed like a dark cloud over the country’s birth at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and shaped the most important nodes of American history before the Civil War. Even today, the country continues to debate its past as it relates to slavery, and the political and geographic contours of human bondage endure into the twenty-first century. In a deeply researched, wide-ranging book, retired journalist Ben McNitt tells the story of how slavery shaped American politics—and indeed the American story—from the Founding until the Civil War. McNitt’s sharp narrative covers people and events that still resonate: Thomas Jefferson, John Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, the slave revolts of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, John Brown and Harpers Ferry, fire-eating secessionists, and the rise of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. No other single work covers this topic as comprehensively and accessibly.

Hammering for Freedom

Hammering for Freedom PDF

Author: Rita L. Hubbard

Publisher: Ammonite Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 9781600609695

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The inspirational story of William "Bill" Lewis, a hardworking blacksmith who slowly saved his money to free his family--Publisher-provided summary.

The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics

The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics PDF

Author:

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-12-16

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 1439103348

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Celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the most popular and enduring band ever: “Even the most hardcore Deadheads will be impressed by this obsessively complete look at the Grateful Dead’s lyrics” (Publishers Weekly). The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics is an authoritative text, providing standard versions of all the original songs you thought you knew forwards and backwards. These are some of the best-loved songs in the modern American songbook. They are hummed and spoken among thousands as counterculture code and recorded by musicians of all stripes for their inimitable singability and obscure accessibility. How do they do all this? To provide a context for this formidable body of work, of which his part is primary, Robert Hunter has written a foreword that goes to the heart of the matter. And the annotations on sources provide a gloss on the lyrics, which goes to the roots of Western culture as they are incorporated into them. An avid Grateful Dead concertgoer for more than two decades, David Dodd is a librarian who brings to the work a detective’s love of following a clue as far as it will take him. Including essays by Dead lyricists Robert Hunter and John Perry and Jim Carpenter’s original illustrations, whimsical elements in the lyrics are brought to light, showcasing the American legend that is present in so many songs. A gorgeous keepsake edition of the Dead’s official annotated lyrics, The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics is an absolute must-have for the fiftieth anniversary—you won’t think of this cultural icon the same way again. In fact, founding band member Bob Weir said: “This book is great. Now I’ll never have to explain myself.”

How We Choose to Be Happy

How We Choose to Be Happy PDF

Author: Rick Foster

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2004-06-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 039952990X

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Now featuring new research and the most current information on the science of happiness, this book presents an outline of the nine choices happy people consistently make. Also included are tools for self-assessment to allow readers to measure happiness-and to find out what might be holding them back from having more of it. Insightful, intimate, and inspiring, How We Choose to Be Happy lets readers learn by example, and take substantial steps toward joining the ranks of the extremely happy.

Before Elvis

Before Elvis PDF

Author: Larry Birnbaum

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 475

ISBN-13: 0810886383

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An essential work for rock fans and scholars, Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll surveys the origins of rock 'n' roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Unlike other histories of rock, Before Elvis offers a far broader and deeper analysis of the influences on rock music. Dispelling common misconceptions, it examines rock's origins in hokum songs and big-band boogies as well as Delta blues, detailing the embrace by white artists of African-American styles long before rock 'n' roll appeared. This unique study ranges far and wide, highlighting not only the contributions of obscure but key precursors like Hardrock Gunter and Sam Theard but also the influence of celebrity performers like Gene Autry and Ella Fitzgerald. Too often, rock historians treat the genesis of rock 'n' roll as a bolt from the blue, an overnight revolution provoked by the bland pop music that immediately preceded it and created through the white appropriation of music till then played only by and for black audiences. In Before Elvis, Birnbaum daringly argues a more complicated history of rock's evolution from a heady mix of ragtime, boogie-woogie, swing, country music, mainstream pop, and rhythm-and-blues--a melange that influenced one another along the way, from the absorption of blues and boogies into jazz and pop to the integration of country and Caribbean music into rhythm-and-blues. Written in an easy style, Before Elvis presents a bold argument about rock's origins and required reading for fans and scholars of rock 'n' roll history.