Great Spirits: Portraits of Life-Changing World Music Artists - Hardcover

Grass, Randall

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1604732393 ISBN 13: 9781604732399

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2009

Synopsis

What do such artists as Bob Marley, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Nina Simone, and Sun Ra have in common? All created uniquely powerful musical art that had a profound effect on their audiences. Through their music and their lives they became forces for liberation, challenging the established order and inspiring people around the world to look at life in new ways. So great was their originality that to a large extent they created their own musical genres, and listeners claim the music leads them to a higher state of being.

Great Spirits: Portraits of Life-Changing World Music Artists presents personal encounters with some of the most interesting and important musical artists of the past fifty years--Bob Marley, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Nina Simone, Sun Ra, Augustus Pablo, the Neville Brothers, Yabby You, and Nadia Gamal. Based on the author's meetings and interviews with these giants, the pieces reveal the unique essence of each musician as a person, as an artist, and as a force for social change. Spanning the realms of jazz, blues, reggae, gospel, African, and Middle Eastern music, these artists epitomize musical creation at its highest level.

About this title

Book Description:

Personal encounters with musical geniuses determined to change the world; includes pieces on Bob Marley, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Nina Simone, Sun Ra, Augustus Pablo, the Neville Brothers, Yabby You, and Nadia Gamal

From the Author:

Music has always been a magical thing for me. Time after time a musical artist has transported me to a previously unexperienced realm of perceptions and feelings. It's fair to say that the greatest artists have changed my life, along with millions of others. And yet many of these artists remain under-appreciated and underexposed. Bob Marley never had a hit record in America, for example. One impetus for this book was a remark about Nina Simone, made by a highly aware colleague in the music business: "Nina Simone...she's a cult artist, isn't she?" he said. I was stunned. I had assumed that any reasonably sophisticated music lover would be aware of the power and unique artistry of Nina Simone, an artistry that cuts to the core of the human condition.

That incident moved me to share my personal experience of eight life-changing musical artists, some reasonably well-known and others more obscure. My main goal was to lead more people to experience their awesome music artistry. Along the way I wanted to get to the heart of what made their artistry so compelling. I knew them in different ways, seeking them out after being electrified by their musical expression.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1604732393
• ISBN 13: 9781604732399
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240