A landmark study, based on thousands of music-related references mined by the authors from a variety of contemporaneous sources, especially African American community newspapers, Out of Sight examines musical personalities, issues, and events in context. It confronts the inescapable marketplace concessions musicians made to the period’s prevailing racist sentiment. It describes the worldwide travels of jubilee singing companies, the plight of the great Black prima donnas, and the evolution of “authentic” African American minstrels. Generously reproducing newspapers and photographs, Out of Sight puts a face on musical activity in the tightly knit Black communities of the day.

Drawing on hard-to-access archival sources and song collections, the book is of crucial importance for understanding the roots of ragtime, blues, jazz, and gospel. Essential for comprehending the evolution and dissemination of African American popular music from 1900 to the present, Out of Sight paints a rich picture of musical variety, personalities, issues, and changes during the period that shaped American popular music and culture for the next hundred years.

About the Authors

Lynn Abbott is an independent scholar living in New Orleans. He is coauthor (with Doug Seroff) of Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889–1895; Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, “Coon Songs,” and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz; The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville; To Do This, You Must Know How: Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition; and Stand the Storm: Spiritual Quartet Singing in the Struggle for Black Education, all published by University Press of Mississippi. His work has also been published in American Music, 78 Quarterly, American Music Research Center Journal, and The Jazz Archivist.

Doug Seroff is an independent scholar living in Greenbrier, Tennessee. He is coauthor (with Lynn Abbott) of Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889–1895; Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, “Coon Songs,” and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz; The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville; To Do This, You Must Know How: Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition; and Stand the Storm: Spiritual Quartet Singing in the Struggle for Black Education, all published by University Press of Mississippi. His work has also appeared in American Music, Popular Music and Society, Blues Unlimited, and the Rag Time Ephemeralist, among others.

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