Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Here is a discussion of the music, biography and inspirations of the one-and-only James Brown; the legendary African American soul and funk singer – who has been invariably called the ‘Godfather of Soul’, ‘Soul Brother Number One’, ‘Mr. Dynamite’, and the ‘Hardest Working Man in Show Business’.
In the mid-1970s the cultural shockwave known as hip hop emerged from the economic paralysis of New York City, especially the neglected neighborhoods in the Bronx. However, while hip hop music was born in New York, it speaks to a long line of black American and African diasporic cultural traditions.
by Brian Priestley It was a strange experience, watching a recent television documentary on Charlie Parker and the music I immersed myself in for nearly two years. Originally, I hoped my book would be finished in time for the 50th anniversary last year of its subject’s premature death. Instead, the U.S. release of my Chasin’ […]
Mencken: The American Iconoclast Reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle who called it “memorable and engaging”. Picked for the “Top Biographies” list compiled by The Denver Post. Also on that list, Cushing: A Life in Surgery Stephen Goddard at Historywire.com says that Mencken “may become the definitive work on the life of this luminous personality” […]
by Gary Giddins, author of Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century and the forthcoming Intelligent Design The waters that in the first days of September drowned New Orleans are the waters that established the incomparable city as a key port before the railroad replaced shipping as the primary vehicle of trade. […]