San Antonio College Library

While most people are aware of the classic white songwriters of the '20s and '30s, few realize that many of the best-loved songs of this era were written by African Americans. Rarely given their due, and covered only briefly in standard pop song histories, these important writers are finally highlighted in this landmark work. Based on new research, original interviews, and decades of archival study, Spreadin' Rhythm Around is the story of these talented...

Biographical study of Daniel Decatur Emmett, a white American composer, entertainer, and founder of the first blackface minstrel troupe, the Virginia Minstrels.

"The extraordinary story of African American composer Edmond Dédé, raised in antebellum New Orleans, and his remarkable career in France. In 1855, Edmond Dédé, a free black composer from New Orleans, emigrated to Paris. There he trained with France's best classical musicians and went on to spend thirty-six years in Bordeaux leading the city's most popular orchestras. How did this African American, raised in the biggest slave market in the United...

Quincy Jones (b. 1933) is one of the most prolific composers, arrangers, bandleaders, producers, and humanitarians in American music history and the recording and film industries. Among pop music fans he is perhaps most famous for producing Michael Jackson's album, Thriller. Clarence Bernard Henry focuses on the life, music, career, and legacy of Jones within the social, cultural, historical, and artistic context of American, African American, popular,...