Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889—1895 (American Made Music Series)

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.

Lynn Abbott is an independent scholar living in New Orleans. His work has 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, TN. His work has appeared in American Music, Black Music Research Newsletter, Blues Unlimited, and Record Exchanger, among others. A leading expert on black gospel quartet singing for twenty-five years, he has written chapters published in anthologies and many scholarly essays for a wide variety of journals.