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A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America
2006, Revised Edition Craig Werner
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". . . extraordinarily far-reaching. . . . highly accessible."
—Notes
"No one has written this way about music in a long, long time. Lucid, insightful, with real spiritual, political, intellectual, and emotional grasp of the whole picture. A book about why music matters, and how, and to whom."
—Dave Marsh, author of Louie, Louie and Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story
"This book is urgently needed: a comprehensive look at the various forms of black popular music, both as music and as seen in a larger social context. No one can do this better than Craig Werner."
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University
"[Werner has] mastered the extremely difficult art of writing about music as both an aesthetic and social force that conveys, implies, symbolizes, and represents ideas as well as emotion, but without reducing its complexities and ambiguities to merely didactic categories."
—African American Review
A Change Is Gonna Come is the story of more than four decades of enormously influential black music, from the hopeful, angry refrains of the Freedom movement, to the slick pop of Motown; from the disco inferno to the Million Man March; from Woodstock's "Summer of Love" to the war in Vietnam and the race riots that inspired Marvin Gaye to write "What's Going On."
Originally published in 1998, A Change Is Gonna Come drew the attention of scholars and general readers alike. This new edition, featuring four new and updated chapters, will reintroduce Werner's seminal study of black music to a new generation of readers.
Craig Werner is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, and author of many books, including Playing the Changes: From Afro-Modernism to the Jazz Impulse and Up Around the Bend: An Oral History of Creedence Clearwater Revival. His most recent book is Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul.
—Notes
"No one has written this way about music in a long, long time. Lucid, insightful, with real spiritual, political, intellectual, and emotional grasp of the whole picture. A book about why music matters, and how, and to whom."
—Dave Marsh, author of Louie, Louie and Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story
"This book is urgently needed: a comprehensive look at the various forms of black popular music, both as music and as seen in a larger social context. No one can do this better than Craig Werner."
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University
"[Werner has] mastered the extremely difficult art of writing about music as both an aesthetic and social force that conveys, implies, symbolizes, and represents ideas as well as emotion, but without reducing its complexities and ambiguities to merely didactic categories."
—African American Review
A Change Is Gonna Come is the story of more than four decades of enormously influential black music, from the hopeful, angry refrains of the Freedom movement, to the slick pop of Motown; from the disco inferno to the Million Man March; from Woodstock's "Summer of Love" to the war in Vietnam and the race riots that inspired Marvin Gaye to write "What's Going On."
Originally published in 1998, A Change Is Gonna Come drew the attention of scholars and general readers alike. This new edition, featuring four new and updated chapters, will reintroduce Werner's seminal study of black music to a new generation of readers.
Craig Werner is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, and author of many books, including Playing the Changes: From Afro-Modernism to the Jazz Impulse and Up Around the Bend: An Oral History of Creedence Clearwater Revival. His most recent book is Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul.
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Cover
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Half Title
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Title
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Copyright
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Dedication
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Contents
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Preface to the Revised Edition
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Introduction: “What’s Going On”
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Acknowledgments
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Section One: “A Change Is Gonna Come”: Mahalia Jackson, Motown, and the Movement
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1. The Dream
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2. Mahalia and the Movement
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3. “The Soul of the Movement”: Calls and Responses
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4. Motown: Money, Magic, and the Mask
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5. The Big Chill vs. Cooley High: Two out of Three Falls for the Soul of Motown
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The Gospel Impulse
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6. Sam Cooke and the Voice of Change
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7. Solid Gold Coffins: Phil Spector and the Girl Group Blues
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8. SAR and the Ambiguity of Integration
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9. “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ”: Port Huron and the Folk Revival
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10. Woody and Race
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11. “Blowin’ in the Wind”: Politics and Authenticity
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12. Music and the Truth: The Birth of Southern Soul
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13. Down at the Crossroads
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The Blues Impulse
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14. Soul Food: The Mid-South Mix
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15. Dylan, the Brits, and Blue-Eyed Soul
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16. The Minstrel Blues
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17. Otis, Jimi, and the Summer of Love: From Monterey to Woodstock
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18. Last Thoughts on the Dream: Dot and Diana
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Section Two: “Love or Confusion?”: Black Power, Vietnam, and the Death of the Dream
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19. Sly in the Smoke
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20. Death Warrants: LBJ, Martin, and the Liberal Collapse
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21. “All Along the Watchtower”: Jimi Hendrix and the Sound of Vietnam
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22. ’Retha, Rap, and Revolt
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23. “Spirit in the Dark”: Aretha’s Gospel Politics
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24. Jazz Warriors: Malcolm and Coltrane
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The Jazz Impulse
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25. “Black Is an’ Black Ain’t”: JB, Miles, and Jimi
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26. Curtis Mayfield’s Gospel Soul
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27. John Fogerty and the Mythic South
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28. “Trouble Comin’ Every Day”: Southern Strategies and the Revolution on TV
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29. Troubled Souls: Wattstax and Motown (West)
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30. “Where Is the Love?”: Donny Hathaway and the End of the Dream
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Section Three: “I Will Survive”: Disco, Irony, and the Sound of Resistance
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31. Reflections in a Mirror Ball
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32. Reverend Green and the Return of Jim Crow
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33. Demographics 101: Hard Times in Chocolate City
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34. Black Love in the Key of Life
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35. Jimmy Carter and the Great Quota Disaster of 1978
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36. Roots: The Messages in the Music
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37. God Love Sex: Disco and the Gospel Impulse
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38. Disco Sucks
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39. Punks and Pretenders
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40. Rebellion or Revolution: Bruce Springsteen and the Clash
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41. P-Funkentelechy
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42. Redemption Songs: Bob Marley in Babylon
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43. The Message: Hip-hop and the South Bronx
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Section Four: “And That’s the Way That It Is”: The Reagan Rules, Hip-hop, and the Megastars
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44. Welcome to the Terrordome
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45. Springsteen and the Reagan Rules
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46. The Problem of Healing in the Hall of Mirrors
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47. The View from Black America
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48. The Way It Was and the Way It Is
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49. Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby
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50. Run-D.M.C. Negotiates the Mainstream
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51. “A Hero to Most”: Elvis in the Eighties
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52. Megastardom and Its Discontents: Michael and Madonna
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53. Duke Ellington for Our Time: The Symbol Formerly Known as Prince
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54. West Africa Is in the House
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55. “Bring the Noise”: The New School Rap Game
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56. “Know the Ledge”: KRS-One, Rakim, and the Gangstas
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57. “Born in the U.S.A.”: Springsteen and Race
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Section Five: “Holler If Ya Hear Me”: In the Nineties Mix
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58. Wasteland of the Free
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59. American Dreaming
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60. C.R.E.A.M., or, Tupac on Death Row
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61. No More Drama: Mary J. Blige and the Hip Hop Generation
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62. The Gospel Impulse Gets Crunk: OutKast and the Dirty South
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63. Ozomatli and the Myth of Purity: Notes on the Browning of America
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64. The Gospel Impulse (Remixed): Bruce Springsteen, Kirk Franklin, and Lauryn Hill
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Notes
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Playlist
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Index
Citable Link
Published: 2006
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
- 978-0-472-12962-1 (ebook)
- 978-0-472-03147-4 (paper)