Famous in the 1920s as a singer of Negro spirituals, Taylor Gordon was born into the only black family living in White Sulphur Springs, Montana. His rough-and-ready upbringing in that mining boom town is warmly remembered in "Born to Be," Gordon describes with panache his early years in the Old West, where he was not aware of racial prejudice. As a boy he carried messages from civic leaders to the town madam, served drinks to the " sports, " and scurried...