The Cool Gent
The Cool Gent

Author: Herb Kent

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2009-02-01

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1569762546

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When Herb Kent was a straight-A college student in the 1940s, his white professor told him, “You have the best voice in class, but you'll never make it in radio because you're a Negro.” This did not deter the poor kid from the Chicago housing projects who had decided on a radio career at age five. It was just one more obstacle to face head on and overcome. Known as the Cool Gent, the King of the Dusties, and the Mayor of Bronzeville, Herb Kent is one of radio's most illustrious and legendary stars. This fascinating autobiography details both the high and low points of Herb's life while providing a vivid picture of black music, culture, and personalities from the 1950s to today. Herb had a typical rock-and-roll lifestyle—drugs, alcohol, all-night partying, and women—eventually hitting rock bottom, where he finally faced his personal demons. At least nine times Herb came close to death, but through it all, he maintained his debonair, classy persona and his uncanny knack for picking timeless tunes. And he didn't save only himself; along the way, he blazed new trails for all African Americans and remains a role model for today's top deejays.

Party Music
Party Music

Author: Rickey Vincent

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 1613744927

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Party Music explores the culture and politics of the Black Power era of the late 1960s, when the rise of a black militant movement also gave rise to a “Black Awakening” in the arts--and especially in music. Here Rickey Vincent, the award-winning author of Funk, explores the relationship of soul music to the Black Power movement from the vantage point of the musicians and black revolutionaries themselves. Party Music introduces readers to the Black Panther's own band, the Lumpen, a group comprised of rank-and-file members of the Oakland, California-based Party. During their year-long tenure, the Lumpen produced hard-driving rhythm-and-blues that asserted the revolutionary ideology of the Black Panthers. Through his rediscovery of the Lumpen, and based on new interviews with Party and band members, Vincent provides an insider's account of black power politics and soul music aesthetics in an original narrative that reveals more detail about the Black Revolution than ever before. Rickey Vincent is the author of Funk: The Music, The People, and the Rhythm of the One, and has written for the Washington Post, American Legacy, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.