Debt and Redemption in the Blues
This volume explores concepts of freedom and bondage in the blues and argues that this genre of music explicitly calls for a reckoning while expressing faith in a secular justice to come. Placing blues music within its historical context of the post-Reconstruction South, Jim Crow America, and the ci...
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| Ձևաչափ: | Online |
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Penn State University Press
2025
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| Առցանց հասանելիություն: | ONIX_20250417_9780271096735_65 |
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Չկան պիտակներ, Եղեք առաջինը, ով նշում է այս գրառումը!
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| _version_ | 1869526110004314112 |
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| author | Simon, Julia |
| author_browse | Simon, Julia |
| author_facet | Simon, Julia |
| author_sort | Simon, Julia |
| collection | Directory of Open Access Books |
| description | This volume explores concepts of freedom and bondage in the blues and argues that this genre of music explicitly calls for a reckoning while expressing faith in a secular justice to come. Placing blues music within its historical context of the post-Reconstruction South, Jim Crow America, and the civil rights era, Julia Simon finds a deep symbolism in the lyrical representations of romantic and sexual betrayal. The blues calls out and indicts the tangled web of deceit and entrapment constraining the physical, socioeconomic, and political movement of African Americans. Surveying blues music from the 1920s to the early twenty-first century, Simon’s analyses focus on economic relations, such as sharecropping, house contract sales, debt peonage, criminal surety, and convict lease. She demonstrates how the music reflects this exploitative economic history and how it is shaped by commodification under racialized capitalism. As Simon assesses the lyrics, technique, and styles of a wide range of blues musicians, including Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Albert Collins, and Kirk Fletcher, she argues forcefully that the call for racial justice is at the heart of the blues. A highly sophisticated interpretation of the blues tradition steeped in musicology, social history, and critical-cultural hermeneutics, Debt and Redemption not only clarifies blues as an aesthetic tradition but, more importantly, proves that it advances a theory of social and economic development and change. |
| format | Online |
| id | doab-20.500.12854ir-158600 |
| institution | Directory of Open Access Books |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Penn State University Press |
| publisherStr | Penn State University Press |
| record_format | ojs |
| spelling | doab-20.500.12854ir-1586002025-04-18T04:16:32Z Debt and Redemption in the Blues Simon, Julia Popular music Theory of music and musicology Ethnic studies History of the Americas This volume explores concepts of freedom and bondage in the blues and argues that this genre of music explicitly calls for a reckoning while expressing faith in a secular justice to come. Placing blues music within its historical context of the post-Reconstruction South, Jim Crow America, and the civil rights era, Julia Simon finds a deep symbolism in the lyrical representations of romantic and sexual betrayal. The blues calls out and indicts the tangled web of deceit and entrapment constraining the physical, socioeconomic, and political movement of African Americans. Surveying blues music from the 1920s to the early twenty-first century, Simon’s analyses focus on economic relations, such as sharecropping, house contract sales, debt peonage, criminal surety, and convict lease. She demonstrates how the music reflects this exploitative economic history and how it is shaped by commodification under racialized capitalism. As Simon assesses the lyrics, technique, and styles of a wide range of blues musicians, including Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Albert Collins, and Kirk Fletcher, she argues forcefully that the call for racial justice is at the heart of the blues. A highly sophisticated interpretation of the blues tradition steeped in musicology, social history, and critical-cultural hermeneutics, Debt and Redemption not only clarifies blues as an aesthetic tradition but, more importantly, proves that it advances a theory of social and economic development and change. 2025-04-18T04:16:30Z 2025-04-18T04:16:30Z 2025-04-17T09:50:01Z 2023 book ONIX_20250417_9780271096735_65 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/100955 9780271096735 9780271094953 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/158600 eng American Music History open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/100955/1/9780271096735.pdf Penn State University Press Penn State University Press e4e05b94-0f85-49a1-ba66-543b1dd40087 Penn State University 25eaec65-b556-4602-ba6d-ed286e74dde5 9780271096735 9780271094953 Penn State University Press 254 University Park [...] open access |
| spellingShingle | Popular music Theory of music and musicology Ethnic studies History of the Americas Simon, Julia Debt and Redemption in the Blues |
| title | Debt and Redemption in the Blues |
| title_full | Debt and Redemption in the Blues |
| title_fullStr | Debt and Redemption in the Blues |
| title_full_unstemmed | Debt and Redemption in the Blues |
| title_short | Debt and Redemption in the Blues |
| title_sort | debt and redemption in the blues |
| topic | Popular music Theory of music and musicology Ethnic studies History of the Americas |
| topic_facet | Popular music Theory of music and musicology Ethnic studies History of the Americas |
| url | ONIX_20250417_9780271096735_65 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT simonjulia debtandredemptionintheblues |