[audiobook] How to Heal with Color by Ted Andrews at Arts-Photography

Description

From one of this countrys most important intellectuals comes a brilliant analysis of the blues tradition that examines the careers of three crucial black women blues singers through a feminist lens. Angela Davis provides the historical; social; and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of Gertrude "Ma" Rainey; Bessie Smith; and Billie Holiday as powerful articulations of an alternative consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American culture. The works of Rainey; Smith; and Holiday have been largely misunderstood by critics. Overlooked; Davis shows; has been the way their candor and bravado laid the groundwork for an aesthetic that allowed for the celebration of social; moral; and sexual values outside the constraints imposed by middle-class respectability. Through meticulous transcriptions of all the extant lyrics of Rainey and Smithminus;published here in their entirety for the first timeminus;Davis demonstrates how the roots of the blues extend beyond a musical tradition to serve as a conciousness-raising vehicle for American social memory. A stunning; indispensable contribution to American history; as boldly insightful as the women Davis praises; Blues Legacies and Black Feminism is a triumph.