Description: Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on Black women musicians from Bessie Smith to Beyoncé. Informed by the overlooked contributions of women who wrote about the blues, rock, and pop, Daphne A. Brooks argues that acclaimed entertainers have also been radical intellectuals, challenging the culture industry to catch up.
Brief description: Daphne A. Brooks is author of Jeff Buckley's Grace and Bodies in Dissent, winner of the Errol Hill Award for outstanding scholarship in African American performance studies. The William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Theater Studies, American Studies, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, Brooks has written liner notes to accompany the recordings of Aretha Franklin, Tammi Terrell, and Prince, as well as stories for the New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, and Pitchfork.
Review Quotes: Brooks takes on a wide-ranging study of Black female artists, from elders like Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters to Beyoncé and Janelle Monáe. But she reaches far beyond music, exploring writers like Zora Neale Hurston and Pauline Hopkins...Liner Notes is a secret history...connecting the sonic worlds of Black female mythmakers and truth-tellers.--Rob Sheffield "Rolling Stone" (12/29/2021 12:00:00 AM)