Souled American: How Black Music Transformed White Culture

After a passing acquaintance with the author Kevin Phinney, I picked up his book, "Souled American". I thought the subject of how black music transformed white culture was intriguing, and was curious to see how Phinney made his argument. While I began as a casual reader, I quickly became riveted by the scope and detail of the book. It's scholarly style, informative yet stimulating and accessible, managed to beckon the dormant music lover in me. To more fully understand the history of black music, I began to collecting songs from the many eras and genres Phinney chronicles, from gospel, ragtime, and jazz, to swing, blues, rock & roll, rap and hip-hop. I found that this combination made the book roar to life, and made the study of black music completely absorbing. Phinney, a professional music critic and journalist, reports the history of black music in a concise style and provides impressive detail, yet manages to entertain with pertinent stories and fascinating interviews. Names, dates, and places are plentiful, but so are aspirations, emotions, and hard truths. Black artists, at times withstanding tremendous hardships, at times achieving awesome heights, are afforded great respect by the author. He waxes neither over-sentimental when relating sad stories, nor sycophantic when describing victories. Phinney, deftly and bravely, dons many hats writing this book. In a country where relations between races is so often that dreaded third rail, he manages to ride that rail for the whole book. He includes distasteful, sometimes horrendous words and images when he must, never taking the easy way out. His reporting, truthful and sincere, tells of the theft of many black artists innovations and creations by a largely corporate, largely white, America. Phinney never dwells on disparities or justices, but illustrates these conditions with the book's most passionate, most fiery prose, and champions fair play. Phinney also appears to take on roles as historian, sociologist, musicologist, tour-guide, and educator in "Souled American". While presenting an impressive overview of African-American music, of artists and their works, he provides context, tells of an ever-changing America through more than three turbulent centuries. Phinney is a master at setting a scene, introducing the players, and then telling an amazing, moving true story. Sharing center stage with the people is their music. The crafting and evolution of song is paramount in this book. The songs are the heart of "Souled American", and the author introduces them by the hundreds. Crafted by experts with rare talent and passion, the profusion of black music in America is awe-inspiring, as is the breadth of Phinney's cross-sample. This is wherein the real magic of the book lies. Reading of the history of a musician, and the genesis of a particular song, makes listening to that song a powerful, extraordinary experience. I managed to collect several hundred songs wh

As with the majority of other reviewers of this book - the exception having apparently only a remote acquaintance with English, which would, indeed, make the book rough going - I found Mr. Phinney's work to be not just interesting, but delightful. It is a rare feat to be able to touch the scholarly and analytical bases, as well as to entertain. I cannot imagine a university course on the cultural influences of African-American music - or on American popular culture or music - which would be complete without reference to this book.

I read Souled American in a few sittings - it's that good. Here, for what I think must be the first time in a highly readable and very entertaining book, are the truths that some music historians have tried hard to keep in the dark. Writer Kevn Phinney has a pleasant writing style and this enhances the overriding theme of this fact-crammed journey through Black Blues and White Rock And Roll - that much of what we know or experience as the roots of "white rock" was really the result of the hard work and vast talent of earlier African-American musical artists and, in some cases, musical geniuses. The interviews with such greats as Ray Charles, David Byrne, Sly Stone, Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, and others are worth the price of the book alone. Mr. Phinney really knows how to ask questions and draw out information. The author's understanding of how musical worlds, tastes, styles, and talents blended or were at odds with each other enhances his thesis. He appreciates the historical roots of blues and rock. When did any writer of a book head for Kansas City to really dig into the subject of KC Blues and then make a sane link to specific styles of rock and roll. Sheer brilliance. And enthrallingly written. The author brings in refences to myriad bands, such as The Rolling Stones or Chaka Khan. The musical richness of this volume is superb. Mr. Phinney details politics, sociology, and culture as it influences music from the horrid days of Jim Crow to the White Rap escapades of Eminem. The author knows full well that white culture has been mightily transformed by black music. There is no escaping this fact. Souled American is a great book that has long been needed. Mr. Phinney makes stunning links between slave chants and specific musical riffs being heard today. This entire project seems a staggering undertaking. But the book is not daunting at all. It works on every level. It informs, enlightens, entertains, and succeeds on every level and I'm glad I read it. The author has a keen awareness of culture, counter-culture, and cultural shifts. Not only should the book be read by every musician, it should be read by anyone who loves the blues or rap or hip hop or good old rock and roll.

By far the best comprehensive read on music made in the United States that I've read. Phinney weaves a story line that takes us all the way back to the era of the African slave trade where an Englishman named Richard Jobson becomes the first European in recorded history to write about his observance of witnessing Africans involved in the making of music. He brings us through history right to today's doorstep where music makers as diverse as Eminem to Wynton Marsalis continue to tell the story not only of their music, but who we are as people living and contributing to an constantly evolving culture. The research is extensive and exhaustive. It reminds me of Ken Burn's Jazz series on steroids as it encompasses all genres of music through many centuries including slave work songs, minstrelsy, gospel, ragtime, blues, jazz, rock and roll, R & B, rock and todays hip-hop. There isn't enough attention made to the Latin tinge in American music but that ommission just as it was with the Burns series doesn't take away from all of the great research that defines this book. For music lovers and people who are interested in the underpinnings of American culture in general, it is a must read! It is a definitive statement of the addage that music is a mirror that reflects the people and times it was created in. Highly recommended!! Bobby Jackson Cleveland, OH

If you are a music fan, a history fan, a pop-culture fan, or just someone who loves intelligent storytelling then you will love this book. I really was not exposed to the Blues or early Jazz prior to reading Souled American and now I find myself listening to music with different ears.