The Words and Songs of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone: Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and African Memory (Studies in African American History and Culture)

This book explores the relationship between three African American women's dance-art-music sensibilities within the context of a Pan African aesthetic. Its purpose is three-fold: to show commonalities between Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone's lives and original compositions; to codify, examine and evaluate their selected song performances in accordance with the Pan African aesthetic "Nzuri theory/model;" and to illuminate the vast sources of transformational values that aesthetic analysis of African American song performance can foster. Following concordant procedures and principles of Afrocentricity, the study focuses on Smith, Holiday and Simone's performances as part of a whole African artistic and cultural value system. The goal of the Afrocentric methodological structure is to locate relevant African dynamics in songs and to promote knowledge for cultural transformation and continuity. Its use in this study provides meta-criteria for analyzing African American music, which the author has used to uniquely argue connections between African cultural memory and African-derived cultural expression. Humanities Book Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Figures 8 Preface Personal Journey 10 Acknowledgments 18 Chapter One Introduction 20 Chapter Two Catching the Blues Spirit 32 Chapter Three Musing African Memory 44 Chapter Four Three Women 68 Chapter Five Sound Motion and Spirit 106 Chapter Six Summary and Conclusion 152 Appendix One Discography 160 Appendix Two Life Profile Matrix 164 Appendix Three Life Profile Matrix: Analytic Categories Quantified per Singer 174 Appendix Four Life Profile Matrix: Analytical Categories Thematically Qualified 178 Appendix Five Life Profile/Song Matrices 182 Appendix Six Discography of Selected Song Performances on CD 188 Appendix Seven Selected Songs/Prevalent Themes Matrices 190 Appendix Eight Explanation of Nzuri Model Contexts 202 Appendix Nine Application of Nzuri to Selected Song Performances 206 Permissions 224 Notes 228 Bibliography 242 Glossary 260 Suggested Readings 270 Index 274