Reviews

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis

Only show reviews with written explanations

m1thrandir's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

remigves's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

moseslh's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

A fascinating, if sometimes dense, exploration of three female Blues/Blues-influenced musicians and the social impact and relevance of their work. During the research process for this book, Dr. Davis discovered that the lyrics to most of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith's songs had never been transcribed. Davis transcribed the lyrics to all of their recorded works herself and includes the comprehensive collection of their lyrics in the back of the book for reference, so the book is really only half as long as it looks. I enjoyed learning about the significance of Rainey and Smith and their use of music to speak out about the realities of working class Black female lives and to empower Black women. Davis's final two chapters are on Billie Holiday, who does not fit neatly into a category with Rainey and Smith, as she was not (strictly speaking) a Blues artist. The first chapter on Holiday was the book's weakest. Because Holiday's repertoire consisted mostly of politically neutral Tin Pan Alley material, Davis relies on more subjective measures like how she sings her songs, and the resulting chapter is less convincing. The reader needs to either listen to each song mentioned in order to follow Davis's arguments or blindly trust Davis's inherently subjective basis of analysis; I think an audio book format with embedded recordings would have been a much better way for Davis to convey her message. The second chapter on Holiday, unlike the first, focuses on a specific song, namely "Strange Fruit," which does carry an overtly political message. This chapter was one of the finest in the book and more than makes up for its predecessor's weakness. The book was slow at times and felt decidedly less accessible than Davis's [b:Are Prisons Obsolete?|108428|Are Prisons Obsolete?|Angela Y. Davis|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320521835s/108428.jpg|104488], but was a worthwhile read nonetheless.

lindy_b's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

It's one of those books that gets cited everywhere and is considered foundational to scholarship around blues women (and I understand why) but was underwhelming to me once I actually read it. In particular, I'm not impressed by how Davis would often assert that she could tell, through careful study of inflection, that a singer meant something ironically (e.g.), but would not go on to describe that inflection. These days, it's easy to search for the song on your streaming service of choice and judge for yourself, but when the book was written, some of the music discussed was not yet available on compact disc. It's just not persuasive.

gannent's review

Go to review page

fast-paced

4.0

The first 3/4ths of the book was really great. The lyrics analysis is super interesting and I learned a lot. Those sections focus pretty much exclusively on Gertrude “Ma” Rainey and Bessie Smith. Only the last two chapters really discuss Billie Holiday, and those really felt like they should have been a separate article or book. They didn’t really seem to connect. Rainey and Smith were analyzed together and Holiday was analyzed separately, so that section didn’t feel as strong. But overall a really interesting book and I learned a lot.

glendajb4's review against another edition

Go to review page

I read the first few chapters and had to return it to the library. Wanted to absorb those few chapters more than I wanted to rush through the book. I want to buy this to read the next few chapters and to keep the lyrics for future reference.