Essential The Official African American Thread#2

[Rhapture]

Thomas A. Dorsey (The Father of Gospel Music)

This Far by Faith . Thomas Dorsey | PBS

During the early 1930s, Thomas Dorsey created gospel music -- the African American religious music which married secular blues to a sacred text. Under the name “Georgia Tom” he performed with blues artist Ma Rainey and her Wild Cats Jazz Band. He wrote over 400 compositions, but it is for “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” that he is best known.

Dorsey was the son of a Baptist preacher; his mother was the church organist. Throughout his early years he felt torn between the sacred and the secular. At eleven, he left school to take a job at a local vaudeville theater. Six years later, Dorsey left Atlanta for Chicago. He was part of the Great Migration north. In Chicago, Dorsey found success almost immediately. He was known as the “whispering piano player,” called to perform at after-hours parties where the pianist had to play quietly enough to avoid drawing police attention.

At twenty-one, his hectic and unhealthy schedule led to a nervous breakdown. He convalesced back home in Atlanta. There, his mother admonished him to stop playing the blues and “ serve the Lord.” He ignored her and returned to Chicago, playing with Ma Rainey. He married his sweetheart, Nettie Harper. But in 1925, a second breakdown left Dorsey unable to play music.

After his recovery three years later, Dorsey committed himself to composing sacred music. However, mainstream churches rejected his songs. Then, in August 1932, Dorsey’s life was thrown into crisis when his wife and son died during childbirth. In his grief, he turned to the piano for comfort. The tune he wrote, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” came, he says, direct from God. Dorsey co-founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses in 1933. Six years later, he teamed with Mahalia Jackson, and the team ushered in what was known as the “Golden Age of Gospel Music.” Dorsey himself became known as the father of gospel music. He died in 1993.

KEY MOMENTS OF FAITH

UPROOTED
The Dorsey family relocated from rural Villa Rica, GA to Atlanta in 1908. There the family struggled economically. Dorsey's mother took work as a domestic servant; his father curtailed his pastoring and worked as a laborer.

Young Thomas Dorsey describes feeling alienated from school and church during his first years in Atlanta. He was demoted a grade and ostracized by the other children. With church no longer the focal point of his parents' lives, his connection to organized religion waned.

A REFUGE IN THEATER
Dorsey found refuge in downtown Atlanta's black community. He spent his afternoons and evenings watching vaudeville performances. There he first saw Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. He became enthralled with them, and set out to learn as much about music (primarily the blues) as he could. He began studying piano and organ. In 1916, he left Atlanta for good.

GEORGIA TOM
In Chicago, Dorsey adopted the name Georgia Tom and found work as a session musician. He landed his first big break in 1924, playing with Ma Gertrude Rainey and Her Wild Cats Jazz Band. In 1925, rural, or so-called "downhome," or "moanin'" blues was popular, and Ma Rainey, a master of the form, became an all-out success. Ma Rainey's listeners swayed, rocked, moaned and groaned with her. Women swooned who had lost their men. Men groaned who had given their week's pay to a woman who betrayed her promises. By the time Ma Rainey finished her song, she was "in her sins" - and Georgia Tom was right there with her, his rhythmic piano filling the grooves.

BREAKDOWN
One night, onstage, Dorsey noticed an "unsteadiness" in his playing. The unsteadiness grew worse, leaving him unable to practice, write or perform.

It persisted for two years.

Dorsey visited doctors, sought treatment, took time off. Nothing worked. He considered suicide. Then, he began to think more seriously about his faith. He visited a faith healer, Bishop H.H. Haley.

Dorsey described to his biographer, Michael Harris, how Haley pulled a "live serpent" out of his throat. "Brother Dorsey," Bishop Haley reportedly said, "there is no reason for you to be looking so poorly and feeling so badly. The Lord has too much work for you to let you die."

From then on, Dorsey vowed to do the Lord's work.

THE BIRTH OF GOSPEL
Dorsey began developing a sacred music based on the secular blues. It featured syncopated notes in an eight-bar blues structure; but instead of themes of defiance in the face of despair - the theme most common in the blues - this new music told stories of hope and affirmation. Dorsey described it as "good news on either side." His first gospel song, "If You See my Savior Tell Him That You Saw Me" was published in 1932.

Less than a year later, however, Dorsey was back in the secular blues business full-time. His "gospel music" met so much resistance from pastors who considered it "devil's music," that he found it easier to play the blues straight.

"PRECIOUS LORD"
Dorsey based the music of his most popular and widely performed gospel song on and old hymn called "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?" by George Allen. The lyrics, however, were written by Dorsey. Dorsey described it as serving as a channel through which God spoke.

Many well-known and accomplished musicians have spoke of writing experiences that were similar to Thomas Dorsey's. Lamont Dozier, along with partners Eddie and Brian Holland was a main architect of the Motown sound, creating a stunning body of work in the sixties most notably for the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and The Temptations. When asked about the inspiration for his ideas, Dozier replied:

"I can't take credit for this stuff…I'm only human and these things are the makings of God. I feel I've thoroughly blessed over the years with an abundance of songs and material…There is definitely God behind this thing that I do. Everything I do - that's good, at least - is a reflection of His hand."

Pop craftsman Paul Simon talks about writing the now gospel standard “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” “The whole phrase “like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down,” the words and the melody, all of that came [snaps fingers] like that.”

 

[IllmaticDelta]

The Afro-Dutch-American history that is hardly talked about




There are North Eastern Afram's who have no roots in the South and are descendants of Northern slaves. A little known or talked about segment of Afram history, Afro-Dutch Americans


Afro-Dutch Folklore and Folklife

Despite the fact that the Dutch played a central role in the seventeenth-century slave trade, little attention has been paid until recently to the Dutch slaves in New York and New Jersey. Most studies of slavery in the Americas have dealt with the Caribbean, South America, and the American South. Few scholars have tested whether conclusions developed from these other areas hold true for New York and New Jersey. Even fewer scholars have used folklore as a source of information about the culture of slaves. The problem with most interpretations of the Dutch slave system is that they deal only with the New Netherland period from 1624 to 1664. The Dutch and their slaves did not disappear from New York and New Jersey after the English conquest. In fact, the institution of slavery did not begin to flourish until the eighteenth century.

Although English law applied, it is a mistake to think of the Dutch and their slaves as part of the English slave system. There is evidence in their folklore and folklife that a distinct free black and slave culture developed in the Dutch culture area of New York and New Jersey. This regional culture consisted of a synthesis of African cultural survivals with Dutch culture traits. This creole culture and the people who participated in it I term Afro-Dutch, in much the same way that Afro-American refers both to the culture and the people. Afro-Dutch culture was a regional subculture of African-American culture. In many ways it was similar to the creole cultures of South America and the Caribbean.

Included in this essay are the following topics: the Jersey Dutch dialect, the Pinkster celebration, the "Guinea Dance," a fragment of a slave song, a "Negro Charm," the Paas celebration, and an African-American cigar-store Indian from Freehold, New Jersey.

Afro-Dutch Research Papers - Academia.edu

Afro-Dutch Folklore and Folklife

FYI @IllmaticDelta I've read the Legend of Sleepy Hollow(a story that takes place in the immediate post colonial era in the Tri-State) and it makes numerous references to "Negro Dutch" people. One of them worked as a messenger for a rich Dutch-American family.

Sojourner Truth was Afro-Dutch and spoke Dutch as her first language

ISABELLA was born in the village of Hurley, in Ulster County, New York, about seven miles west of the Hudson River. Hurley (its first Dutch name was Niew Dorp) lies about ninety miles north of New York City and sixty miles south of Albany. The county's original inhabitants were Waroneck (Mohawk) Indians, who called a creek that empties into the Hudson River "Esopus," meaning small river. After much struggle in the mid-1610s that came to be known as the Esopus Wars, Dutch settlers overwhelmed the Indians without entirely displacing them. For more than a hundred years afterward, large numbers of Indians remained in a region that, with the arrival of Africans, would become tri-racial.

A hilly region of frigid, fast-running streams and rivers, Isabella's birthplace belongs to the New England upland of forested mountains, and lies west and slightly to the north of Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. A cold, rocky place of long winters and short summers, Ulster County is covered with northern flora: spruce, balsam fir, hemlock, red cedar, yellow birch, as well as the oak, hickory, and pine that are found throughout the eastern United States. If she stood in a field with time to enjoy the scenery to the west, Isabella would have been able to see the Catskill Mountains, whose highest peak, Slide Mountain, rises to 4,180 feet.

Ulster County was one of New York's original counties, organized m 1683 and named after the Irish title of the Duke of York. At the turn of the nineteenth century it was overwhelmingly rural, producing wheat that was fair-to-middling in quality and lots of decent wool. When Isabella was born, before the advent of railroads and before New York City became a lucrative market, Ulster County was a backwater. Beautiful in a cold and craggy fashion akin to New England, it was not easy to traverse by road. Travelers used the river or bogged down trying to cross difficult terrain.

In rural counties like Ulster--in the Hudson Valley, on Long Island, and in New Jersey--the culture of local blacks was likely as not to be Afro-Dutch, although some blacks were Afro-Indian. They worked for Dutch farmers in areas where as many as 30 to 60 percent of white households owned slaves. At the turn of the nineteenth century Ulster County's total population was 29,554, of whom more than 10 percent, 3,220, were black people scattered widely across the countryside.

Most slaveholding New York State households owned only one or two slaves; a large slaveowner, like Isabella's first master, might have six or seven at a time, but New Yorkers who owned more than twenty slaves could be counted on the fingers of one hand. In the late eighteenth century, of course, no stigma attached to the trafficker in people, and masters did not hesitate to break up slave families through sale. But all was on a much smaller scale than the southern system of slavery.

Several factors, including the wide distribution of slaves among white families, combined to give rural black New Yorkers a singular culture. The contrast was especially sharp in comparison with southern blacks, often living in much larger homogeneous communities, who developed a vibrant Anglo-African culture revolving around plantation slave quarters. Half of all black southerners lived in communities of twenty or more African Americans, large concentrations that allowed them to learn their culture from other blacks and to create a distinctive way of life.

In New York State, by contrast, there were large numbers of blacks only in New York City. On the farms of rural New York, where slaves like Isabella lived and worked, one or two Africans commonly lived with a Dutch family and remained too isolated and scattered to forge any but the most tentative separate culture. Surrounded by Dutch speakers, rural black New Yorkers grew up speaking the language of their community. A good 16 or so percent, perhaps more, of eighteenth-century black New Yorkers, like Isabella and her family, spoke Dutch as their first language.

Such sound from black folk astonished those who were not from New York. A southern slave, accompanying his owner on a trip to New York, grew frustrated trying to extract directions from an Afro-Dutch woman. To his query about the way to New York, she answered: "Yaw, mynheer," pointing toward the town, "cat is Yarikee." Isabella as a young woman would have spoken in just this way. Over her lifetime she learned to speak English fluently, but she lost neither the accent nor the earthy imagery of the Dutch language that made her English so remarkable.

It is not possible to know exactly how Sojourner Truth spoke, for no one from her generation and cultural background was recorded. Isabella was the slave of the Dumont family from about twelve until about thirty, and many years later the daughter, Gertrude Dumont, protested that Truth's speech was nothing like the mock-southern dialect that careless reporters used. Rather, it was "very similar to that of the unlettered white people of [New York in] her time." As an older woman, Truth took pride in speaking correct English and objected to accounts of her speeches in heavy southern dialect. This seemed to her to take "unfair advantage" of her race.

Living so closely with tigers, Afro-Dutch New Yorkers imbibed other aspects of Dutch culture. If Afro-Dutch New Yorkers went to church--and in the countryside most, like their poor white neighbors, did not--they might join churches that were Dutch Reformed (as did Isabella's oldest daughter, Diana) or Methodist (as did Isabella). In Ulster County in the very early nineteenth century, young Isabella learned the Lord's Prayer in Dutch from her mother, and she may have attended Reformed churches as a child and young woman. This Afro-Dutch world was distinct, first culturally, then economically, from the slaveholding South.

WashingtonPost.com: Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol



another famous Afro-DutchAmerican

John Van Surly DeGrasse,
c. 1863

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_van_Salee_de_Grasse

Black ancestor to the Kennedy's

The Van Salee Family

America's Van Salees Anthony and Abraham van Salee were the ancestors of the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Humphrey Bogart.

They were among the earliest arrivals to 17th century New Amsterdam. In a number of documents dating back to this period, they are both described as "mulatto". From what scholars have been able to piece together about their background, they appear to have been the sons of a Dutch seafarer by the name of Jan Jansen who had "turned Turk" and become an admiral in the Moroccan navy. America's Van Salees With the Port of Salee as the base from which it harried European shipping, references to the fleet he commanded are salted away in the old English sea shanties that are still sung about the Salee Rovers. The mother of his two sons was probably a concubine he had while trading in this part of the world before his conversion to Islam.

As a result of the anti-social behaviour of his white wife, Anthony van Salee was induced to leave the city precincts of lower Manhattan and move across the river, thus becoming the first settler of Brooklyn. Since Coney Island abutted his property, it was, until sometime in the last century, also referred to as "Turk's Island"; the word, "Turk", being a designation of his which the records used interchangeably with, "mulatto". According to the documentation that people like Professor Leo Hershkowitz of Queens University have sifted through, it would seem that Anthony van Salee never converted to Christianity. His Koran, in fact, was in a descendant's possession until about fifty years ago when, ignorant of its relevance to his family's history, he offered it for sale at auction.

The Van Salee history also includes a more contemporary black collateral branch in the U.S. Anthony's brother Abraham fathered an illegitimate son with an unknown black woman. The son became the progenitor of this side of the family. Although having to face constraints that their "white" cousins could at best only imagine, two of these van Salees nevertheless left their mark in the annals of African American history.

America's Van Salees Dr. John van Salee De Grasse, born in 1825, was the first of his race to be formally educated as a doctor. A member of the Medical Society of Massachusetts, he also served as surgeon to the celebrated 54th Regiment during the Civil War. His sister, Serena, married George Downing who was not only an enormously successful black restauranteur both in New York City and in Newport, RI, but a man who used his wealth and connections with the East Coast's most powerful white families to effect social change for his people. Because of his organization and his own contribution to the purchase of Truro Park in Newport, one of the streets bordering it still bears his name. Interestingly enough, this genealogy was done as part of an ongoing study of the Ramopo in Tappan, NY, one of those red, white and black groups sociologists and ethnographers are now working on and which in academese are referred to as "tri racial isolates". It is because of what advantages their Indian heritage (no matter how discernably negroid they were) legally and officially provided them that the opportunity for "passing" in these groups was not only a more ambiguous political or moral decision but, comparatively, a more easily documentable one as well.

America's Van Salees Considering how important a role John Hammond of Columbia Records played in the establishment of the black music industry, it would certainly be worth exploring the possible influence his van Salee ancestry might have had on his career. Back then, there would have been no option possible for publicly declaring himself black according to the "one drop" racial code that was the law in most states until the Johnson administration. With a Vanderbilt for a mother, his iconographical value to the white majority was so important that had he dared to tamper with it, the KKK or some such group would most probably have made him pay the ultimate price for having desecrated his and the prestige of his relatives who had, after all, fairly well succeeded in making themselves the equivalent of this country's royal family. Hammond died a few years ago but since his son, following in his father's footsteps, has become a recognized exponent of R&B his could prove to be a very important interview for us.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis
Either Professor Hershkowitz, or Tim Beard, former head of the Genealogical Department of the New York Public Library related this incident regarding van Salee genealogy. At the time the Kennedy administration began implementing its civil rights agenda, the New York Genealogical and Historical Society approached Mrs. Kennedy hoping to discuss the opportunity her African ancestry, through the Van Salees, could have in possibly assisting her husband to realize his social goals regarding race relations. Mrs. Kennedy insisted on referring to the van Salees as 'Jewish,' and the New York Genealogical Society did not push the subject further.

Van Salees | FRONTLINE | PBS

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Deeper Than Rap: The Black Influence on All of American Music
JUNE 27, 2011 · 3 COMMENTS
CULTURE · TAGGED: BLUES, CHUCK BERRY, COUNTRY, JESSICA BENNETT, RAP, RAY CHARLES, ROCK N ROLL, SOUL
Considering the past 30 years, it is safe to say that hip-hop has taken over as the dominant musical genre of expressing African-American views. R&B and soul music also carry on the tradition, with a wide range of artists dedicated to keeping the old school feeling of rhythm & blues alive. That being said, it is easy to forget how much African Americans have influenced other genres, such as rock ‘n roll, country and others, since there are so few well known artists of color in those genres today. The Black influence on American music is greatly underappreciated, and for Black Music Month, it should be brought to light just how much African-Americans have contributed.

When we look at and listen to rock stars today, we tend to see slim, white guys with ripped jeans and long hair, wailing barely audible lyrics over a thrashing guitar riff. It may not be everyone’s taste, but it does have its place, and can be a very lively and fun experience. With artists varying from The Beatles to Bruce Springsteen, from Nirvana to Marilyn Mansion, we rarely see the link to Black folks within the context of modern rock. But as many know, the so called “King of Rock ‘N Roll” Elvis Presley owes a great deal to the life of several Black artists, namely Chuck Berry, who for many is the real King of Rock. Artists such as Berry, Ike Turner and Little Richard were producing the kind of music Elvis, The Rolling Stones and other rock heavyweights mimicked for years to come. It indeed grew and changed from its original incarnation as it spread throughout the country and around the world, but the southern black roots of rock ‘n roll cannot be denied.

Similarly, today’s country music today is associated with white southerners equipped with a cowboy hat and an acoustic guitar. Yes, there are many folk artists that were indeed white and helped in the development of what country has become, but it should also be made clear that country has strong roots in blues music, especially in the storytelling/lyrical aspect of things. As the legendary Etta James once said, “The blues and country are cousins,” and that is easy to believe when you listen to a masterful artist such as Ray Charles who navigated through several genres seamlessly, and whose music greatly influenced how country grew and developed throughout the years.

African-Americans have left their mark on every form of American music, so why is it so difficult for us to expand beyond hip-hop and R&B in today’s cultural landscape, when we had such a hand in other genres those many years ago? One answer could simply be the expectations and limitations we place on ourselves. At every major awards show focused on African-Americans, is there ever a best country category? Best Rock? Best Electronica? No, there isn’t. Why? It isn’t because there aren’t any Black people who fit the category, it’s because we tend to limit our thinking to what the majority deems successful, instead of acknowledging our full selves as artists. In today’s music industry, there could be a possible shift in this mentality. With the melding of multiple genres, it feels as if all races could get away with doing whatever kind of music they choose. A white, female rapper? Sure. A Black guy from the projects doing house music? Why not? We’ve come too far to limit ourselves, and it’s about time we embrace all of what the arts have to offer, especially when our people worked so hard to build it.

– Jessica Bennett

* * * *

Jessica Bennett is a freelance music journalist who also goes by “Compton” and “Soulfullyreal.” All three of them are Hip Hop Heads with a column entitled “Welcome to Compton”. For daily musings, check her out at @soulfullyreal.

Deeper Than Rap: The Black Influence on All of American Music - Soul Train

white american and british isles music w/o the afram influence =

@IllmaticDelta

Do you have any examples of American music before the black American influence(blue note,callresponse,negrosprirituals,blues etc) came in.

Matt Brown & Jessica Ziegler have a show entitled, "Over the Hills and Far Away: A Journey Through Irish and Old-Time Music." In it, they feature melodies that are shared between Irish and old-time music. Here is the same tune played first as an old-time reel and then as the antecedent Irish hornpipe

.
.
Black music in America was so influential because it provided something they (whites) weren't used to which was african syncopation.

 

[Rhapture]

white american and british isles music w/o the afram influence =












.
.
Black music in America was so influential because it provided something they (whites) weren't used to which was african syncopation.

Lol! They should be thanking us everyday for breathing life into the American culture. We had to add some seasoning to they bland rhythms.

 

[K.O.N.Y]

white american and british isles music w/o the afram influence =












.
.
Black music in America was so influential because it provided something they (whites) weren't used to which was african syncopation.

i could never get enough of this shyt

 

[IllmaticDelta]

i could never get enough of this shyt

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Thomas A. Dorsey (The Father of Gospel Music)

This Far by Faith . Thomas Dorsey | PBS

During the early 1930s, Thomas Dorsey created gospel music -- the African American religious music which married secular blues to a sacred text. Under the name “Georgia Tom” he performed with blues artist Ma Rainey and her Wild Cats Jazz Band. He wrote over 400 compositions, but it is for “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” that he is best known.

Dorsey was the son of a Baptist preacher; his mother was the church organist. Throughout his early years he felt torn between the sacred and the secular. At eleven, he left school to take a job at a local vaudeville theater. Six years later, Dorsey left Atlanta for Chicago. He was part of the Great Migration north. In Chicago, Dorsey found success almost immediately. He was known as the “whispering piano player,” called to perform at after-hours parties where the pianist had to play quietly enough to avoid drawing police attention.

At twenty-one, his hectic and unhealthy schedule led to a nervous breakdown. He convalesced back home in Atlanta. There, his mother admonished him to stop playing the blues and “ serve the Lord.” He ignored her and returned to Chicago, playing with Ma Rainey. He married his sweetheart, Nettie Harper. But in 1925, a second breakdown left Dorsey unable to play music.

After his recovery three years later, Dorsey committed himself to composing sacred music. However, mainstream churches rejected his songs. Then, in August 1932, Dorsey’s life was thrown into crisis when his wife and son died during childbirth. In his grief, he turned to the piano for comfort. The tune he wrote, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” came, he says, direct from God. Dorsey co-founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses in 1933. Six years later, he teamed with Mahalia Jackson, and the team ushered in what was known as the “Golden Age of Gospel Music.” Dorsey himself became known as the father of gospel music. He died in 1993.

KEY MOMENTS OF FAITH

UPROOTED
The Dorsey family relocated from rural Villa Rica, GA to Atlanta in 1908. There the family struggled economically. Dorsey's mother took work as a domestic servant; his father curtailed his pastoring and worked as a laborer.

Young Thomas Dorsey describes feeling alienated from school and church during his first years in Atlanta. He was demoted a grade and ostracized by the other children. With church no longer the focal point of his parents' lives, his connection to organized religion waned.

A REFUGE IN THEATER
Dorsey found refuge in downtown Atlanta's black community. He spent his afternoons and evenings watching vaudeville performances. There he first saw Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. He became enthralled with them, and set out to learn as much about music (primarily the blues) as he could. He began studying piano and organ. In 1916, he left Atlanta for good.

GEORGIA TOM
In Chicago, Dorsey adopted the name Georgia Tom and found work as a session musician. He landed his first big break in 1924, playing with Ma Gertrude Rainey and Her Wild Cats Jazz Band. In 1925, rural, or so-called "downhome," or "moanin'" blues was popular, and Ma Rainey, a master of the form, became an all-out success. Ma Rainey's listeners swayed, rocked, moaned and groaned with her. Women swooned who had lost their men. Men groaned who had given their week's pay to a woman who betrayed her promises. By the time Ma Rainey finished her song, she was "in her sins" - and Georgia Tom was right there with her, his rhythmic piano filling the grooves.

BREAKDOWN
One night, onstage, Dorsey noticed an "unsteadiness" in his playing. The unsteadiness grew worse, leaving him unable to practice, write or perform.

It persisted for two years.

Dorsey visited doctors, sought treatment, took time off. Nothing worked. He considered suicide. Then, he began to think more seriously about his faith. He visited a faith healer, Bishop H.H. Haley.

Dorsey described to his biographer, Michael Harris, how Haley pulled a "live serpent" out of his throat. "Brother Dorsey," Bishop Haley reportedly said, "there is no reason for you to be looking so poorly and feeling so badly. The Lord has too much work for you to let you die."

From then on, Dorsey vowed to do the Lord's work.

THE BIRTH OF GOSPEL
Dorsey began developing a sacred music based on the secular blues. It featured syncopated notes in an eight-bar blues structure; but instead of themes of defiance in the face of despair - the theme most common in the blues - this new music told stories of hope and affirmation. Dorsey described it as "good news on either side." His first gospel song, "If You See my Savior Tell Him That You Saw Me" was published in 1932.

Less than a year later, however, Dorsey was back in the secular blues business full-time. His "gospel music" met so much resistance from pastors who considered it "devil's music," that he found it easier to play the blues straight.

"PRECIOUS LORD"
Dorsey based the music of his most popular and widely performed gospel song on and old hymn called "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?" by George Allen. The lyrics, however, were written by Dorsey. Dorsey described it as serving as a channel through which God spoke.

Many well-known and accomplished musicians have spoke of writing experiences that were similar to Thomas Dorsey's. Lamont Dozier, along with partners Eddie and Brian Holland was a main architect of the Motown sound, creating a stunning body of work in the sixties most notably for the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and The Temptations. When asked about the inspiration for his ideas, Dozier replied:

"I can't take credit for this stuff…I'm only human and these things are the makings of God. I feel I've thoroughly blessed over the years with an abundance of songs and material…There is definitely God behind this thing that I do. Everything I do - that's good, at least - is a reflection of His hand."

Pop craftsman Paul Simon talks about writing the now gospel standard “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” “The whole phrase “like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down,” the words and the melody, all of that came [snaps fingers] like that.”

 

[Rhapture]

Aye breh, check and see if I've went overboard and repped you back to back recently. I've been trying to rep you and @Black Lightning for about three days now but they keep telling me to slow down.

 

[Rhapture]

Leontyne Price (b. 1927)
by Randye Jones
Early Years

Mary Violet Leontyne Price was born February 10, 1927, and raised in the colored section of Laurel, Mississippi. Her mother, Kate, was a midwife, and her father, James, worked in a sawmill. She was nurtured under the watchful eye of the community, which extended even to her aunt’s employers, The Chisholms, a family who lived in a white, affluent section of town. Her musical talents were encouraged, and her voice frequently was heard at area social events.

Price received a scholarship to attend Central State University, Wilberforce, Ohio. She began as a music education major, but she completed her studies there in voice. With the assistance of Paul Robeson and the school’s administration, in addition to the financial backing of the Chisholm family, Price next went to Juilliard.

Career

Source: Metropolitan Opera

While attending Juilliard, she appeared in revivals of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Four Saints in Three Acts, by Virgil Thomson. The Porgy and Bess cast toured the United States and Europe with baritone William Warfield and Price singing the title roles. The two singers married in 1952, but the pressures of their separate careers eventually forced them to part.

Price was engaged to sing the lead for the National Broadcasting Company’s production of Puccini’s Tosca in 1955. There were strenuous objections, and some cancellations, from local affiliates; nonetheless, her dramatic portrayal and vocal performance in this historic broadcast were a critical success.

Other televised operatic roles soon followed. Then, in 1957, Price sang Verdi’s Aida for the first time. She identified strongly with the character, and her success led her to Vienna to sing for conductor Herbert von Karajan and, in 1960, to the stage of La Scala.

In January, 1961, she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. Her performance was a success not only to the audience who witnessed it, but to the New York critics as well. She was signed for additional roles there and at other houses around the world. By the mid 1960’s, her reputation had grown to the extent that she was offered the lead in the Samuel Barber opera commissioned especially for the opening of the Met’s new facilities at Lincoln Center. The opening performance ofAntony and Cleopatra in 1966, though marred by the extremes taken in costuming and staging, solidified Price’s place as one of the world’s great divas.

In the years that followed, Price’s notoriety allowed her the freedom to select roles she wanted, often taking rests between runs. She increased the number of recitals in the 1970’s and made several operatic and concert recordings, earning 18 Grammy awards over the years. Price retired from the opera stage at the Met in 1985 with her signature role, Aida. This live telecast was viewed by millions, and her performance of the aria, “O Patria Mia,” was the top ranked “Great Moments at the Met: Viewer’s Choice” selection.



Leontyne Price received many honorary degrees as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1965), the Kennedy Center Honors (1980), and the National Medal of Arts (1985). Her many recordings earned nineteen Grammy Awards, and she received a special Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. For her performance on Live From Lincoln Center, Leontyne Price, Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, Price received the 1982 Emmy award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.


Price has been described as a “lirico-spinto” soprano with a 3-1/2 octave range. Her rock-solid vocal technique and purity and her dramatic flair have been combined to create a mix suitable both for the opera and concert stage.

Leontyne Price Biography


Side note: Not only was she one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the metropolitan opera but she is also a cousin to Dionne Warwick, Cissy and Whitney Houston. Talent runs deep in their family.

 

[Rhapture]

Double post

 

[Black Lightning]

Alain Leroy Locke, a leading black intellectual during the early twentieth century and an important supporter of the Harlem Renaissance, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 13, 1886 to Pliny Ishmael Locke and Mary Hawkins Locke. His parents were middle class educated professionals. A gifted and talented student, Locke attended Harvard University in 1904 where he studied under renowned scholars including Josiah Royce, George Santana, and William James.

Locke excelled at his studies and became the first African American to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. After earning his undergraduate degree in 1907, Locke attended Oxford University where he obtained another B.A degree in 1910. The following year he attended the University of Berlin in Germany.

In 1912 Locke returned to the United States where he became an assistant professor of philosophy at Howard University in Washington, D.C., beginning an academic career that would span four decades. He also joined the newly organized Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. In 1916 Locke interrupted his teaching career at Howard to return to Harvard University where he earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy. When Locke rejoined the faculty at Howard he quickly rose in rank and in 1921 became the chair of the Philosophy department. He remained in this position until his retirement in 1953.

Locke was known as an engaging, talented, accessible and admired professor by both his students and his colleagues. He was a pioneer in interdisciplinary scholarship as his work transcended standard academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Locke also embraced progressive, avant-garde, and, some would argue, unorthodox teaching methods while at Howard which were sometimes viewed with suspicion by more traditionally oriented colleagues and administrators at his institution.

Alain Locke has been widely regarded as the originator of the New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance. His main contribution to both movements was the promotion and emphasis on values, diversity, and race relations. He challenged African Americans to acknowledge and promote their cultural heritage while at the same time, making the effort to integrate into the larger society and appreciate the mores and customs of other ethnic groups. He also was a firm believer in W.E.B DuBois' Talented Tenth philosophy, yet, unlike DuBois, he remained socially attached to the general African American population and staunchly resisted any form of elitist behavior.

Locke was a resourceful, intelligent, altruistic, and generous man who managed to serve as a mentor and establish close relationships with Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Rudolph Fisher, and Zora Neale Hurston.

 

[Black Lightning]

Author Harriet E. Wilson is believed to be the first African American woman to publish a novel in the United States. Her fictional autobiography Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-story White House, North. Showing that Slavery’s Shadows Fall Even There was printed in 1859 by the Boston, Massachusetts publisher George C. Rand and Avery.

Much of what is known about the life of Harriet Wilson has been derived from the book, which up until the early 1980s was considered the work of a white author. In 1981, the scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was shown the original edition in a Manhattan, New York bookstore and republished it in 1983 with his discoveries that the author was African American and that the story was largely autobiographical. It turned the literary world on its end, as up to that point it had been widely accepted that the first African American published novelist had been Frances Ellen Watkins Harper with Iola Leroy, or, Shadows Uplifted (1892).

Harriet E. Wilson was born Harriet E. Adams around 1828, most likely in Milford, New Hampshire. By 1850, she was living as a 22-year-old woman in Milford with the Samuel Boyles family, perhaps as their indentured servant. A year later she moved to Massachusetts to make a living as a seamstress, but plagued by poor health she took work as a servant. In 1851 she married Thomas Wilson, now known to be somewhat of a con man who abandoned Harriet less than a year later before the birth of their son George Mason Wilson. At the time of the birth, Wilson was living in a poor house in Goffstown, New Hampshire. She was forced to abandon her son while she returned to Boston to earn a living and regain custody of George.

Records from her time in Boston indicate that she may have sold hair dyes, but she turned to writing as a way to earn money for herself and her son. In 1859 Our Nig was published. Six months later George died at the age of seven, still a resident of a Milford poor farm. The last public record of the author is a “Harriet E. Adams Wilson,” a listing in the 1863 Boston City Directory.

The remainder of Wilson’s life is the subject of scholarly speculation. Some have her back in a poor house in Milford. Others have her prospering as a businesswoman in Boston. Unfortunately, the book did not provide much financial success and was lost to obscurity until its resurrection by Gates over a century later. - See more at: Wilson, Harriet E. Adams (c. 1828-?) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed

 

[Black Lightning]

Although he has served as a public school teacher, attorney, and Michigan State Supreme Court Justice, Dennis Archer is best know as the Mayor of Detroit and the first African American to become president of the American Bar Association.

Born on January 1, 1942 in Detroit, Michigan, Dennis Archer graduated from Western Michigan University in 1965 with a B.A. He taught disabled children in the Detroit Public Schools for five years while attending the Detroit College of Law. Archer graduated with a J.D. degree in 1970 and began practicing law.

Dennis Archer was first appointed a Justice on the Michigan State Supreme Court in 1985. He then won election to the Supreme Court post later that year and served until 1990. In 1993 he ran for mayor of Detroit, succeeding Mayor Coleman Young, the first black mayor of the city. Archer was not popular with many Young loyalists and did not receive the majority of the African American vote. Archer, however, eventually won over many of his critics and was elected to a second term in 1997 by a wide margin.

As mayor Archer promoted economic growth in the most impoverished areas of the city by persuading the federal government to make Detroit one of the first cities to receive federal Empowerment Zone status. He also initiated Detroit’s downtown “renaissance,” a controversial plan to develop the downtown area to lure businesses and residents back into the city. He also promoted new downtown stadiums for the Detroit Lions football team and the Detroit Tigers baseball team.

Archer’s community development efforts brought him national attention and acclaim. He was appointed to a position on the Board of Trustees of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and served twice as President of the organization. In 2002, one year after leaving office as Mayor of Detroit, Archer was elected President of the American Bar Association. He became the first African American to head the nation’s oldest and largest professional legal association. - See more at: Archer, Dennis (1942- ) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed

 

[Black Lightning]

Barzillai Lew: Also, known as “Zeal,” was born in 1743 to free-black parents in Massachusetts. He served with distinction during the Revolutionary War as a soldier, fifer, and drummer. Prior to the Revolutionary War, he was a fifer in Captain Thomas Farrington’s Company with the English forces and was probably present at the capture of Montreal, Canada by the British. When the Revolutionary War began, he enlisted in Captain John Ford’s Company, 27th Regiment. He fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill – one of the most important battles in the Revolutionary War but lesser known about the Battle are the dozens of African-Americans, including Lew, that fought. And, in 1777, Lew joined Captain Joseph Bradley Varnum’s militia. After the war, Lew returned to his farm which he purchased with his earned wages and worked also as a cooper. He and his family (his wife and children) were well-known musicians. He died in 1822 and his wife, Dinah Lew, petitioned and did receive from Massachusetts a pension for Lew’s military service during the Revolutionary War.

 

[Black Lightning]

African-American cooks stationed aboard an American Navy ship at Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland during the First World War. c. 1917-1918.

Buffalo soldiers of Troop H, 9th Cavalry, Fort Wingate, New Mexico

Creator: Phelps
Date: 1899 - 1900?