Mary James was through with love, that is until Noah Rider came to town. All of a sudden those unwanted butterflies in her stomach begin to flutter and she can't concentrate on anything but him. But, past pains will not allow her to give into those feelings, no matter how hard her friends try to throw them together. When she has to deal with her past she is going to need him more than ever to get through it. She just hopes that she didn't have him wait too long.
Mystery writers Molly Cochran, May Allan Collins, Gregory Mcdonald, Richard Meyers, Warren Murphy, and Robert Randisi pool their talent in a tale of murder aboard a Caribbean cruise liner
An aspiring yet disenchanted Northern Irish journalist finds himself in New York where he discovers the interdependency of creation, craft and audience. Through a reflective narrative circling his daily life, a lost relationship with his beloved Mary, and an assignment of interviews with a rock'n'roll band, he learns that the key to understanding himself is realising where he really wants to be.
A Blues Bibliography, Second Edition is a revised and enlarged version of the definitive blues bibliography first published in 1999. Material previously omitted from the first edition has now been included, and the bibliography has been expanded to include works published since then. In addition to biographical references, this work includes entries on the history and background of the blues, instruments, record labels, reference sources, regional variations and lyric transcriptions and musical analysis. The Blues Bibliography is an invaluable guide to the enthusiastic market among libraries specializing in music and African-American culture and among individual blues scholars.
Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton-we are all familiar with the story of the Delta blues. Fierce, raw voices; tormented drifters; deals with the devil at the crossroads at midnight. In this extraordinary reconstruction of the origins of the Delta blues, historian Marybeth Hamilton demonstrates that the story as we know it is largely a myth. The idea of something called Delta blues only emerged in the mid-twentieth century, the culmination of a longstanding white fascination with the exotic mysteries of black music. Hamilton shows that the Delta blues was effectively invented by white pilgrims, seekers, and propagandists who headed deep into America's south in search of an authentic black voice of rage and redemption. In their quest, and in the immense popularity of the music they championed, we confront America's ongoing love affair with racial difference.
In 1936, life on the road means sleeping on the bus or in hotels for blacks only. After finishing her tour with Nobel Sissel’s orchestra, nineteen year-old Lena Horne is walking the last few blocks to her father’s hotel in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. She stops at a lemonade stand and meets a Lebanese American girl, Marie David. Marie loves movies and adores Lena, and their chance meeting sparks a relationship that will intertwine their lives forever. Lena also meets Josiah Conner, a charismatic teenager who helps out at her father Teddy’s hotel. Josiah often skips school, dreams of being a Hollywood director, and has a crush on Lena. Although the three are linked by a determination to be somebody, issues of race, class, family, and education threaten to disrupt their lives and the bonds between them. Lena’s father wants her to settle down and give up show business, but she’s entranced by the music and culture of the Hill. It’s a mecca for jazz singers and musicians, and nightspots like the Crawford Grill attract crowds of blacks and whites. Lena table-hops with local jazzmen as her father chaperones her through the clubs where she‘ll later perform. Singing makes her feel alive, and to her father’s dismay, reviewers can’t get enough of her. Duke Ellington adores her, Billy Strayhorn can’t wait to meet her, and she becomes “all the rage” in clubs and Hollywood for her beauty and almost-whiteness. Her signature version of “Stormy Weather” makes her a legend. But after sitting around for years at MGM as the studio heads try to figure out what to do with her, she isn’t quite sure what she’s worth. Marie and Josiah follow Lena’s career in Hollywood and New York through movie magazines and the Pittsburgh Courier. Years pass until their lives are brought together again when Josiah is arrested for the murder of a white man. Marie and Lena decide they must get Josiah out of prison—whatever the personal cost.
In Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, Deanna Witkowski brings a fresh perspective to the life and music of the legendary jazz pianist-composer Mary Lou Williams (1910-81). As a fellow jazz pianist-composer, adult convert to Catholicism, and liturgical composer, Witkowski offers unique insight gleaned from a twenty-year journey with Williams as her chosen musical and spiritual mentor. Viewing Williams’s musical and corporal acts of mercy as part of a singular effort to create community no matter the context, Witkowski examines how Williams created networks of support and friendship through her decades long letter correspondence with various women religious, her charitable work, and her tireless efforts to perform jazz in churches, community centers, concert halls, and schools. Throughout this fascinating story told with equal amounts of deep love and scholarly research, Witkowski illumines Williams’s passionate mantra that “jazz is healing to the soul.”
