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Music, and folk music in particular, is often embraced as a form of political expression, a vehicle for bridging or reinforcing social boundaries, and a valuable tool for movements reconfiguring the social landscape. Reds, Whites, and Blues examines the political force of folk music, not through the meaning of its lyrics, but through the concrete social activities that make up movements. Drawing from rich archival material, William Roy shows that the People's Songs movement of the 1930s and 40s, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s implemented folk music's social relationships--specifically between those who sang and those who listened--in different ways, achieving different outcomes. Roy explores how the People's Songsters envisioned uniting people in song, but made little headway beyond leftist activists. In contrast, the Civil Rights Movement successfully integrated music into collective action, and used music on the picket lines, at sit-ins, on freedom rides, and in jails. Roy considers how the movement's Freedom Songs never gained commercial success, yet contributed to the wider achievements of the Civil Rights struggle. Roy also traces the history of folk music, revealing the complex debates surrounding who or what qualified as "folk" and how the music's status as racially inclusive was not always a given. Examining folk music's galvanizing and unifying power, Reds, Whites, and Blues casts new light on the relationship between cultural forms and social activity.

It started with a question about the blues: what makes the music of the downtrodden black man so alluring to white middle-class ears? And that’s where it gets interesting. Because blues is more than a musical genre: it’s a cultural phenomenon that spans several centuries on both sides of the Atlantic, from slavery to Black Lives Matter, from Jan van Riebeeck to Fees Must Fall, from Robert Johnson to Abdullah Ibrahim. In Blues for the White Man, Fred de Vries looks for answers in America’s Deep South, drawing historical parallels with South Africa’s experience of colonialism, slavery, racism, civil war, segrega¬tion and protest. Travelling to Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta, De Vries speaks to musicians, Black Lives Matter activists and Trump supporters. He continues the conversation in South Africa, interviewing student protesters, white farmers and political thought-leaders to develop an understanding of white supremacy and black anger, white fear and black pain. A fascinating, insightful journey through time and space, Blues for the White Man is a cele¬bration of multiculturalism and a plea for white people to do some ‘second line dancing’ for a change.

A PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post • San Francisco Chronicle • NPR • GQ • Time • The Economist • Slate • HuffPost • Book Riot Ghost story, murder mystery, love letter to American music--White Tears is all of this and more, a thrilling investigation of race and appropriation in society today. Seth is a shy, awkward twentysomething. Carter is more glamorous, the heir to a great American fortune. But they share an obsession with music--especially the blues. One day, Seth discovers that he's accidentally recorded an unknown blues singer in a park. Carter puts the file online, claiming it's a 1920s recording by a made-up musician named Charlie Shaw. But when a music collector tells them that their recording is genuine--that there really was a singer named Charlie Shaw--the two white boys, along with Carter's sister, find themselves in over their heads, delving deeper and deeper into America's dark, vengeful heart. White Tears is a literary thriller and a meditation on art--who owns it, who can consume it, and who profits from it.

White Boy Singin' the Blues is both a musical history of Memphis, the city which gave birth to rock'n'roll, and an examination of the ways in which white and black musics have interacted. In this work, Michael Bane examines the whole history of the music, from the black roots of spirituals and blues, through the beginnings of rock'n'roll, and its evolution through the Twist, the British Invasion, Motown, funk, Southern boogie, and disco. The result is an idiosyncratic history of rock, and a culturally penetrating account of this hybrid music.

Columbus is the third-largest city in Georgia, and Red Clay, White Water, and Blues is its first comprehensive history. Virginia E. Causey documents the city’s founding in 1828 and brings its story to the present, examining the economic, political, social, and cultural changes over the period. It is the first history of the city that analyzes the significant contributions of all its citizens, including African Americans, women, and the working class. Causey, who has lived and worked in Columbus for more than forty years, focuses on three defining characteristics of the city’s history: the role that geography has played in its evolution, specifically its location on the Chattahoochee River along the Fall Line, making it an ideal place to establish water-powered textile mills; the fact that the control of city’s affairs rested in the hands of a particular business elite; and the endemic presence of violence that left a “bloody trail” throughout local history. Causey traces the life of Columbus: its founding and early boom years; the Civil War and its aftermath; conflicts as a modern city emerged in the first half of the twentieth century; racial tension and economic decline in the mid-to-late 1900s; and rebirth and revival of the city in the twenty-first century. Peppered throughout are compelling anecdotes about the city’s most colorful characters, including Sol Smith and His Dramatic Company, music phenom Blind Tom Wiggins, suffragist Augusta Howard, industrialist and philanthropist G. Gunby Jordan, peanut purveyor Tom Huston, blueswoman Ma Rainey, novelist Carson McCullers, and insurance magnate John Amos.