Inter-racial. Inter-gender. Into drugs. What is it... this thing called Sly & The Family Stone? It's about time. It's about space. It's about the ups and downs of Funk, Psychedelic Soul and R&B. But more than anything else, it's about music and it's about people who are obsessed by music. In this first-ever full-length biography of Sylvester 'Sly Stone' Stewart, music-writer Andrew Darlington ('I Was Elvis Presley's Bastard Love-Child') exhaustively details the story, while adding intriguing new slants. Relating the hits-"Dance To The Music," "Stand," "Family Affair" and the seismic album There's A Riot Goin' On, to the Civil Rights protests, the Black Power radicals and the insurrectionary counter-culture politics of their turbulent time. This is the true story of a music legend and the events that shaped the music that defines the moment. Andrew Darlington is a renowned music journalist and critic whose work has been widely published in newspapers and magazines. He also writes fiction-particularly science fiction-and poetry. He lives in West Yorkshire, England. He is a dedicated blogger and maintains a blog at http: //andrewdarlington.blogspot.co.uk/ where he writes on books, music and anything else that appeals to him.

Protest songs are united by the fact they all have something to say, something to dispute, or something to rile against, whether it be political, social, or personal. Story Behind the Protest Song features 50 of the most influential musical protests and statements recorded to date, providing pop-culture viewpoints on some of the most tumultuous times in modern history. Among the featured: songs about the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the most recent upheaval over policy in the Middle East, as well as teenage rebellion, animal rights, criticisms of mass media, and even protest songs that lambaste other protest songs. This indispensable guide tackles it all: the behind-the-scenes stories of the most influential protest songs in American popular culture, examining the subjects they address, the legacy they left, and the fabric of the songs themselves. Chronically arranged entries cover nearly 70 years of music and offer an expansive range of genres, including rock, punk, pop, soul, hip-hop, country, folk, indie, heavy metal, and more. Each entry discusses the songwriter(s); the inspiration behind the song; and the social, cultural, and political context in which the song was released. Following a detailed musical and lyrical analysis, the entries explain the songs' impact and relevance today. Among the featured: • The Unknown Soldier (The Doors) • Masters of War (Bob Dylan) • Say It Loud-I'm Black and I'm Proud (James Brown) • Get Up, Stand Up (The Wailers) • Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell) • Their Law (Prodigy) • American Idiot (Green Day) • Sweet Home Alabama (Lynrd Skynrd) • Born in the USA (Bruce Springsteen) • Southern Man (Neil Young) Entries are accompanied by further readings and a select discographies as well as a comprehensive resource guide at the end of the book. A must-read for students of music, history, and politics, this volume offers a unique reflection on the most significant and moving protest songs in American history.

Black Power Music! Protest Songs, Message Music, and the Black Power Movement critically explores the soundtracks of the Black Power Movement as forms of "movement music." That is to say, much of classic Motown, soul, and funk music often mirrored and served as mouthpieces for the views and values, as well as the aspirations and frustrations, of the Black Power Movement. Black Power Music! is also about the intense interconnections between Black popular culture and Black political culture, both before and after the Black Power Movement, and the ways in which the Black Power Movement in many senses symbolizes the culmination of centuries of African American politics creatively combined with, and ingeniously conveyed through, African American music. Consequently, the term "Black Power music" can be seen as a code word for African American protest songs and message music between 1965 and 1975. "Black Power music" is a new concept that captures and conveys the fact that the majority of the messages in Black popular music between 1965 and 1975 seem to have been missed by most people who were not actively involved in, or in some significant way associated with, the Black Power Movement.

Rabaka explores funk as a distinct multiform of music, aesthetics, politics, social vision, and cultural rebellion that has been remixed and continues to influence contemporary Black popular music and Black popular culture, especially rap music and the Hip Hop Movement. The Funk Movement was a sub-movement within the larger Black Power Movement and its artistic arm, the Black Arts Movement. Moreover, the Funk Movement was also a sub-movement within the Black Women’s Liberation Movement between the late 1960s and late 1970s, where women’s funk, especially Chaka Khan and Betty Davis’s funk, was understood to be a form of “Black musical feminism” that was as integral to the movement as the Black political feminism of Angela Davis or the Combahee River Collective and the Black literary feminism of Toni Morrison or Alice Walker. This book also demonstrates that more than any other post-war Black popular music genre, the funk music of the 1960s and 1970s laid the foundation for the mercurial rise of rap music and the Hip Hop Movement in the 1980s and 1990s. This book is primarily aimed at scholars and students working in popular music studies, popular culture studies, American studies, African American studies, cultural studies, ethnic studies, critical race studies, women’s studies, gender studies, and sexuality studies.

Bite into a piece of lemon meringue pie and what do you taste? Is it tart or is it sweet? Lemon Meringue Façade, a comedy by Ted Lange, takes you through this tongue tingling taste test. Do blondes really have more fun? No longer will only their hairdressers know for sure - as these blondes from the nineties bake up a delightful pie full of laughs for you to digest. Squeeze the juice out of four lemons - Susan, the writer, Annie, the athlete, Phyllis, the actress, and Linda, the mom-to-be-at-any second, and you have the main ingredients of a riotous filling. Add Laura, an upper crust Pasadena housewife, and a dash of Robert, the loving father-to-be, and you start to taste the tart and the sweet. The recipe just needs a pinch of Richard, the secret ingredient, and the façade is whipped to stiff peaks of humor and fun. Their candid and witty conversations give you a taste of the world of a blonde. They're not white bread, they're Lemon Meringue!

For the vast majority of human existence we did without the idea of race. Since its inception a mere few hundred years ago, and despite the voluminous documentation of the problems associated with living within the racial worldview, we have come to act as if race is something we cannot live without. The Arc of a Bad Idea: Understanding and Transcending Race presents a penetrating, provocative, and promising analysis of and alternative to the hegemonic racial worldview. How race came about, how it evolved into a natural-seeming aspect of human identity, and how racialization, as a habit of the mind, can be broken is presented through the unique and corrective framing of race as a time-bound (versus eternal) concept, the lifespan of which is traceable and the demise of which is predictable. The narratives of individuals who do not subscribe to racial identity despite be ascribed to the black/African American racial category are presented as clear and compelling illustrations of how a non-racial identity and worldview is possible and arguably preferable to the status quo. Our view of and approach to race (in theory, pedagogy, and policy) is so firmly ensconced in a sense of it as inescapable and indispensible that we are in effect shackled to the lethal absurdity we seek to escape. Theorist, teachers, policy-makers and anyone who seeks a transformative perspective on race and racial identity will be challenged, enriched, and empowered by this refreshing treatment of one of our most confounding and consequential dilemmas.

The urge to connect with that which transcends our experience, be it a higher power, another person or some artistic ideal or aspect of nature, is one of the things that makes us human. People view the object of this quest, as well as what it means to achieve it, differently. Yet regardless of how it is understood, the urge to participate in or belong to something greater and more lasting than ourselves—a feeling born of an awareness of our mortality—is what defines us as spiritual beings. Though often dismissed as ephemeral or, worse, demonic, popular music has given voice to this quest for transcendence since its beginnings. Pop singers are rarely as outwardly spiritual as, say, their gospel counterparts; they're forever pointing beyond themselves, though, be it to some better future, some higher ideal, or to some vision of deliverance. Fontella Bass's "Rescue Me," the Four Tops's "Reach Out (I'll Be There)," Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross," Afrika Bambaataa's "Looking for the Perfect Beat," and U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" are but a handful of popular recordings from the past few decades that express a longing for something more. What, other than transcendence, is Jimi Hendrix talking about in "Purple Haze" when he shouts, "'scuse me, while I kiss the sky"? Or Van Morrison, in "Caravan," when he implores us to crank our radios and sail away with him into the mystic? Heard in the right light, secular and even carnal records have the power to speak to transcendental concerns, galvanizing their historical and cultural moments. Regardless of their spiritual leanings, all of the subjects discussed in this book (including Public Enemy, Madonna, Sleater-Kinney, Tricky, Johnny Cash, Nine Inch Nails, Moby, Marvin Gaye, Eminem, Polly Harvey, Bruce Springsteen and Sly & the Family Stone) make music that expresses a basic striving for transcendence. Artists' stories and personalities inform these discussions, but only in as much as they illuminate the struggles and concerns that run through their music. I'll Take You There is a beautifully written, wide-ranging and illuminating examination of some of the most potent popular music ever recorded.

Migration from Mexico to the United States has become an increasingly volatile topic. The news is filled with stories of deaths, protests, and amnesty debates. With the constant buzz about migration in the political, economic, and legal spheres, the migrants themselves easily become a de-humanized multitude. “I Know It’s Dangerous”: Why Mexicans Risk Their Lives to Cross the Border strives to put a human face on the issue of migration and effectively turns the statistics we hear so often into individuals with real lives, needs, and desires. As an Australian national, Lynnaire Sheridan brings a refreshingly neutral voice to this hot-button topic. With data gathered over two years of living in Baja California, Mexico, Sheridan draws out individual stories, motivations, and conceptions of risk that ultimately allow us a deeper understanding of migration. Sheridan enriches the migrants’ stories with examinations of popular songs, graffiti art on the border, analyses of newspaper articles, and in-depth interviews with migrants. Together these narratives show us that risk has become a strong motivating factor for migrants and that stricter border policies have not necessarily stemmed the rates of migration; they have merely changed how people migrate. Sheridan’s findings have broad implications for both those interested in migration from Mexico to the United States and international migration scholars. This book will appeal to a range of disciplines in the humanities, from anthropology and criminology to art and ethnic studies. It will also resonate among legal professionals, policy makers, and social workers. While numerous books have focused on the act of migration and its ripples across both the United States and Mexico, this book is unique in its attention to migrants in Mexico and its ability to draw out their individual stories.

The musical adventure of a lifetime. The most exciting book on music in years. A book of treasure, a book of discovery, a book to open your ears to new worlds of pleasure. Doing for music what Patricia Schultz—author of the phenomenal 1,000 Places to See Before You Die—does for travel, Tom Moon recommends 1,000 recordings guaranteed to give listeners the joy, the mystery, the revelation, the sheer fun of great music. This is a book both broad and deep, drawing from the diverse worlds of classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, world, opera, soundtracks, and more. It's arranged alphabetically by artist to create the kind of unexpected juxtapositions that break down genre bias and broaden listeners’ horizons— it makes every listener a seeker, actively pursuing new artists and new sounds, and reconfirming the greatness of the classics. Flanking J. S. Bach and his six entries, for example, are the little-known R&B singer Baby Huey and the '80s Rastafarian hard-core punk band Bad Brains. Farther down the list: The Band, Samuel Barber, Cecelia Bartoli, Count Basie, and Afropop star Waldemer Bastos. Each entry is passionately written, with expert listening notes, fascinating anecdotes, and the occasional perfect quote—"Your collection could be filled with nothing but music from Ray Charles," said Tom Waits, "and you'd have a completely balanced diet." Every entry identifies key tracks, additional works by the artist, and where to go next. And in the back, indexes and playlists for different moods and occasions.

VH1's 100 Greatest Albums television series sparked much debate about the accuracy of its list, but it was a great guide for any serious or casual music fan as to which albums should be staples in any record collection. As a book, the 100 Greatest Albums will be the perfect reference for building a substantive and thorough collection, as well as just being an entertaining read about some of the most important works ever created in music history. The book follows the order of the list, starting at 100 and working towards number one. Each album is discussed thoroughly across a two-page spread and each spread will include; an image of the album cover, the year of release, the record label, production and engineering credits, band members and instruments played, appropriate quote or quotes about the album from other artists, an essay that gives context to the album by examining its historical significance and detailing what makes the album unique by diving into the songs.