Staging the Blues

From Tent Shows to Tourism

Paige A. McGinley (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

304 Seiten

2014
Duke University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8223-5745-2 (ISBN)

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Singing was just one element of blues performance in the early twentieth century. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and other classic blues singers also tapped, joked, and flaunted extravagant costumes on tent show and black vaudeville stages. The press even described these women as "actresses" long before they achieved worldwide fame for their musical recordings. In Staging the Blues, Paige A. McGinley shows that even though folklorists, record producers, and festival promoters set the theatricality of early blues aside in favor of notions of authenticity, it remained creatively vibrant throughout the twentieth century. Highlighting performances by Rainey, Smith, Lead Belly, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee in small Mississippi towns, Harlem theaters, and the industrial British North, this pioneering study foregrounds virtuoso blues artists who used the conventions of the theater, including dance, comedy, and costume, to stage black mobility, to challenge narratives of racial authenticity, and to fight for racial and economic justice.

Paige A. McGinley is Assistant Professor of Performing Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction. Beale on Broadway 1

1. Real Personality: The Blues Actress 31

2. Theater Folk: Huddie Ledbetter on the Stage 82

3. Southern Exposure: Transatlantic Blues 129

4. Highway 61 Revisited: Blues Tourism at Ground Zero 177

Notes 221

Bibliography 257

Index 271

Zusatzinfo	28 illustrations
Verlagsort	North Carolina
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	399 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik ► Jazz / Blues
	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-8223-5745-3 / 0822357453
ISBN-13	978-0-8223-5745-2 / 9780822357452
Zustand	Neuware