Noted music producer and scholar Pat Thomas spent
five years in Oakland, CA researching Listen, Whitey!
The Sounds of Black Power 1[zasłonięte]965-19. While befriending
members of the Black Panther Party, Thomas discovered
rare recordings of speeches, interviews, and music by
noted activists Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge
Cleaver, Elaine Brown, The Lumpen and many others that
form the framework of this definitive retrospective.
Listen, Whitey! also chronicles the forgotten history of
Motown Records. From 1970 to 1973, Motown s Black Power
subsidiary label, Black Forum, released politically
charged albums by Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka,
Langston Hughes, Bill Cosby & Ossie Davis, and many
others, all represented. Also explored are the musical
connections between Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Graham Nash,
the Partridge Family (!?!) and the Black Power movement.
Obscure recordings produced by SNCC, Ron Karenga s US,
the Tribe and other African-American sociopolitical
organizations of the late 1960s and early 70s are
examined along with the Isley Brothers, Nina Simone,
Archie Shepp, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Clifford
Thornton, Watts Prophets, Last Poets, Gene McDaniels,
Roland Kirk, Horace Silver, Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown,
Stanley Crouch, and others that spoke out against
oppression. Other sections focus on Black Consciousness
poetry (from the likes of Jayne Cortez, wife of Ornette
Coleman), inspired religious recordings that infused god
and Black Nationalism, obscure regional and privately
pressed Black Power 7-inch soul singles from across
America. 90,000 words of text are accompanied by over
250 large sized, full-color reproductions of album
covers and 45 rpm singles most of which readers will
have never seen before. |
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