The Arts
One of the most celebrated Blues figures in history is Robert Johnson. Born in 1911, he lived only 27 years old and produced a grand total of 29 tracks, but his legacy is one that is still felt in the blues today. Both scholars and critics agree that even with so little material to study, Johnson was a blues genius. According to the myth, Johnson sold his soul to the Devil to obtain his amazing guitar skills. Arguably, no one has been able to surpass his unconvential approach to the guitar since. Johnson’s only two recording sessions occured only a couple of years before his death. Not long after those sessions, he resumed his wandering and was poisoned with strychnine-laced whiskey after having an affair with the wife of a local bar-owner. He was inducted into the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
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(b. March 1, 1914, Oklahoma City, Okla., U.S.–d. April 16, 1994, New York, N.Y.), American teacher and writer who won eminence with his first and only novel, Invisible Man (1952).
Ellison left Tuskegee Institute (Alabama) in 1936 after three years’ study of music and joined the Federal Writers’ Project in New York City. In 1939 he began contributing short stories, reviews, and essays to various periodicals. Following service in World War II, he produced Invisible Man, which won the 1953 National Book Award for fiction. The story tells of a naive and idealistic Southern black youth who goes to Harlem, joins the fight against white oppression, and ends up ignored by his fellow blacks as well as by whites. After his novel appeared, Ellison published only two collections of essays, Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986).
He lectured widely on black culture, folklore, and creative writing and taught at various American colleges and universities. He left a second novel unfinished at his death. Flying Home and Other Stories was published posthumously in 1996.
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(b. c. 1753, Senegal, West Africa–d. Dec. 5, 1784, Boston, Mass., U.S.), the first black woman poet of note in the United States.
She was sold from a slave ship in Boston in 1761 to work for the family of John Wheatley, a merchant. The Wheatleys soon recognized her talents and gave her privileges unusual for a slave, allowing her to learn to read and write. At the age of 14 she began to write poetry, and her first published work, “An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of the Celebrated Divine . . . George Whitefield” (1770), attracted much attention. In 1773 her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in England under the sponsorship of the Countess of Huntingdon, and Wheatley’s reputation spread in Europe as well as in America. A poem published in 1776, dedicated to George Washington, brought her further acclaim.
The dissolution of the Wheatley family by death left Phillis Wheatley alone, and in April 1778 she married John Peters, a free black man who failed in business and apparently also failed to support Phillis and her children. At the end of her life she was working as a servant, and she died in poverty.
Wheatley’s poetry, largely concerned with morality and piety, was conventional for its time. Her significance stems from the attention that she drew to her successful education. Her poems were reissued in the 1830s by Abolitionists eager to prove the human potential of blacks.
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In the early 1900s, particularly in the 1920s, African-American literature, art, music, dance, and social commentary began to flourish in Harlem, a section of New York City. This African-American cultural movement became known as “The New Negro Movement” and later as the Harlem Renaissance. More than a literary movement, the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. African-Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage.
The main factors contributing to the development of the Harlem Renaissance were African-American urban migration, trends toward experimentation throughout the country, and the rise of radical African-American intellectuals.
The Harlem Renaissance transformed African-American identity and history, but it also transformed American culture in general. Never before had so many Americans read the thoughts of African-Americans and embraced the African-American community’s productions, expressions, and style.
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1909?1959. b. Woodville, Miss. He played the tenor saxophone with various bands (1929?40), including those of Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie, with whom he first recorded in 1936. Young and Coleman Hawkins are considered the major influences on tenor-saxophone playing, and Young’s style was important in the development of progressive, or cool, jazz, which arose in the late 1940s. He won several jazz polls and made a number of records, including a series with Billie Holiday, who gave him his nickname, ?President,? later shortened to ?Pres? or ?Prez.?
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1886-1939. b. Columbus, Georgia. Often called the ?Mother of the Blues,? Rainey is credited with the rise in popularity of blues music at the beginning of the 20th century. She was also known as the ?Gold Necklace Woman of the Blues? because she carried her wealth in gold dollars on a chain. The child of minstrel show performers, Gertrude Pridgett took to the stage at 14. In 1904, she married Will ?Pa? Rainey and together they performed as the Assassinators of the Blues. She sang for more than 20 years before her recording debut in 1923. Although her recording career lasted a mere six years, she recorded more than 100 songs, including ?Bo-Weavil Blues? and ?Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,? supported by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, and Louie Austin. In the 30s, when female blues singers became less popular with audiences, Rainey retired to her hometown. Her obituary described her as a housekeeper but her recording legacy continues to influence successive generations of musicians. Inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, she was honored on a U.S. postage stamp in 1994.
