Blind Tom was the stage name of Thomas Greene Wiggins, a blind black pianist born into slavery in 1849. In this focused, consequential study, Southall reformulates the debate surrounding Blind Tom and expands its dimensions significantly.

The true story of a black musical savant in the era of slavery, this rollicking and heartrending book offers a look into the culture of celebrity and racism at the turn of the 20th century. 50 b&w illustrations.

A celebration of a remarkable, overlooked musical great.

A contemporary American masterpiece about music, race, an unforgettable man, and an unreal America during the Civil War era At the heart of this remarkable novel is Thomas Greene Wiggins, a nineteenth-century slave and improbable musical genius who performed under the name Blind Tom. Song of the Shank opens in 1866 as Tom and his guardian, Eliza Bethune, struggle to adjust to their fashionable apartment in the city in the aftermath of riots that had driven them away a few years before. But soon a stranger arrives from the mysterious island of Edgemere—inhabited solely by African settlers and black refugees from the war and riots—who intends to reunite Tom with his now-liberated mother. As the novel ranges from Tom's boyhood to the heights of his performing career, the inscrutable savant is buffeted by opportunistic teachers and crooked managers, crackpot healers and militant prophets. In his symphonic novel, Jeffery Renard Allen blends history and fantastical invention to bring to life a radical cipher, a man who profoundly changes all who encounter him.

New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 1: Religion