Contents: Introduction Twentieth-Century Gospel: As the People Moved They Sang a New Song The African American Congregational Song Tradition: Deacon William Reardon Sr., Master Songleader Spirituals: An African American Communal Voice Freedom Songs: My African American Singing and Fighting Mothers Notes; Bibliography; Acknowledgments
Examination of African American sacred music tradition in four essays
Bernice Johnson Reagon is the dynamic founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a Grammy Award-winning African American female a cappella ensemble. She is Distinguished Professor of History at American University and curator emeritus at the National Museum of American History, and she has worked at the Smithsonian Institution for many years. She is the editor of We'll Understand It Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers and other works.
"In the four historical essays that make up If You Don't Go, Don't
Hinder Me, Bernice Johnson Reagon ratchets up the hybrid essence of
the historical essay by adding . . . another genre: autobiography.
. . . And justifiably so, for African American spirituality, as
revealed through its many musics, defies the telling of its
evolution either through music criticism or historical narration.
In a phrase Reagon heard during childhood, this tradition is all
about 'making a way out of no way'. . . . Reagon's
life--particularly her accomplishments as a singer, historian, and
civil rights activist--imparts structure to her essays where the
music alone would resist it. As founder and lead singer of the
award-winning female ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, she has
lived and breathed all forms of African American religious music. .
. . As a cultural historian who now serves as a curator emeritus at
the Smithsonian Institution and as a distinguished professor of
history at American University, Reagon challenges conventional
historical methods as useful tools to seek out the deeper meanings
of black musical spirituality."--Washington Post
"In 1996, the University of Nebraska invited Reagon to present a
series of lectures on the sacred song tradition, and these talks
provide the essence of the four chapters in this excellent volume.
. . . The bibliography is significant and valuable."--Choice
"Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, an award-winning
African American female a cappella group, writes eloquently of
gospel music and the migration of black people in the U. S. that
helped nurture and spread the sacred music. . . . In this slim but
powerful book, Reagon uses song lyrics and the history of the music
and its composers including Charles Albert Tindley and Thomas
Andrew Dorsey, to put into context the spirit of African American
oral tradition and the evolution of gospel music."--Booklist
"Short but eloquent and pedagogically useful. . . . [a] combination
of crisp scholarly narrative with passionate opinion in treating
this fiercely complicated subject. . . . This short boook serves to
remind us that no deployment of postmodern theoretical apparatus
can measure up to honest and vigorous reflection coupled with
clarity concerning whose voice is being heard at a given
moment."--Chris Goertzen, Journal of American Folklore
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