The Blues Walked In

Download or read book The Blues Walked In written by Kathleen E. George and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-07-20 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Walking to the Bus-rider Blues written by Harriette Robinet and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve-year-old Alfa Merryfield, his older sister, and their grandmother struggle for rent money, food, and their dignity as they participate in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in the summer of 1956.

Download or read book Blues City written by Ishmael Reed and published by Crown. This book was released on 2003 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers can take a walk through the vibrant multicultural stew of Oakland, California, conducted by one of America's most distinguished intellectuals and satirists.

Download or read book Walking a Blues Road written by Samuel Charters and published by Marion Boyars Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A walk through the Blues from the 1950s to the 1970s

Download or read book Walking Your Blues Away written by Thom Hartmann and published by Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. This book was released on 2006 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reincarnation Blues written by Michael Poore and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wildly imaginative novel about a man who is reincarnated over ten thousand lifetimes to be with his one true love: Death herself. “Tales of gods and men akin to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman as penned by a kindred spirit of Douglas Adams.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) First we live. Then we die. And then . . . we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to “get it right.” Answer all the Big Questions. Achieve Wisdom. And Become One with Everything. Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn’t make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her. More than just Milo’s lover throughout his countless layovers in the Afterlife, Suzie is literally his reason for living—as he dives into one new existence after another, praying for the day he’ll never have to leave her side again. But Reincarnation Blues is more than a great love story: Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle—if only he can piece them together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity. As darkly enchanting as the works of Neil Gaiman and as wisely hilarious as Kurt Vonnegut’s, Michael Poore’s Reincarnation Blues is the story of everything that makes life profound, beautiful, absurd, and heartbreaking. Because it’s more than Milo and Suzie’s story. It’s your story, too. Praise for Reincarnation Blues “The most fun you’ll have reading about a man who has been killed by both catapult and car accident.”—NPR “This book made me laugh out loud. And then a page later, it made me sob. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, Poore finds humor in the dark absurdities of life.”—Chicago Review of Books “Charming . . . surprisingly light and uplifting . . . It reads like a writer having fun.”—New York Journal of Books

Download or read book Walking Blues written by Tim Parrish and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Shows how our American social, racial, and ethnic conflicts often mark the starting point for the various acts of creation through which we make and remake ourselves as Americans."--Cover.