Blackbird Singing: A Cultural History of African-American Musical Conversations with the Beatles

FAIN: HB-262224-19

Katie Kapurch
Texas State University - San Marcos (San Marcos, TX 78666-4684)

Research and writing leading to publication of a book about African American reception of the Beatles, from the late 1960s to the present.

Blackbird Singing: Black America Remixes the Beatles presents a cultural history of African-Americans’ musical conversations with the Beatles from the late 1960s to today. To date, no academic or trade book has offered a comprehensive view of this particular interracial dialogue, which informs the story of American popular music, especially mid-twentieth century rock ‘n’ roll, and, broadly, the study of American culture. My historically situated close readings show how black artists are simultaneously listeners and creators, because ignoring their roles as audiences in the global economy of the music marketplace marginalizes them in the cultural history of American popular song. Blackbird Singing is also unique in its transdisciplinary and multi-genre investigation of American music from the 1960s to today, which makes the monograph relevant to diverse and multigenerational readers in the reading public, as well as scholars and students of culture, music, and history.

Media Coverage

Study of literature and rhetoric leads professor on long and winding road to the Beatles (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Julie Cooper
Publication: Texas State University: Newsroom
Date: 8/14/2019
Abstract: Recently, Kapurch received an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to write a book, Blackbird Singing: Black America Remixes the Beatles, which is contracted with Penn State University Press’ American Music History series. “There's been research done about how the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and other British Invasion bands of the 1960s are indebted to African American music. But there hasn't been a study that unites black artists from different decades, looking at all of the different ways that African American musicians have covered, been influenced by, and otherwise responded to the Beatles from the 1960s to today. I even consider black artists who reject or satirize the Beatles.”
URL: http://https://news.txstate.edu/research-and-innovation/2019/-study-of-literature-and-rhetoric-leads-professor-on-long-and-winding-road-to-the-beatles.html

Faculty Research Spotlight Katie Kapurch, Department of English Blackbird Singing: Black America Remixes the Beatles (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Katie Kapurch
Publication: Office of Research and Sponsored Programs: Engaging Research
Date: 9/1/2020
Abstract: My book, Blackbird Singing: Black America Remixes the Beatles explores the ways African Americans, in turn, responded to the Beatles in the late 1960s and after that decade ended. The book is contracted with Penn State University Press for inclusion in its American Music History series. Blackbird Singing is supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and aims to serve the American public. The history uncovered by this project matters to all Americans because we live in a country where black artists have shaped the musical landscape and where cross-cultural dialogue is a defining feature of the arts.
URL: http://https://www.txstate.edu/research/resources/research-newsletter/newsletter-archives/research-newsletter-fall-2019/faculty-research-spotlight/faculty-research-spotlight-kapurch.html

Associated Products

Blackbird Fly: Paul McCartney's Legend, Billy Preston's Gospel, and Lead Belly's Blues (Article)
Title: Blackbird Fly: Paul McCartney's Legend, Billy Preston's Gospel, and Lead Belly's Blues
Author: Katie Kapurch
Author: Jon Marc Smith
Abstract: This article explores the historical context, inspirations, and legacy of Paul McCartney’s 1968 White Album song, “Blackbird.” We discover heretofore unexplored connections to the 1926 pop standard, “Bye Bye Blackbird,” as well as the potential for the Beatles’ song to house a civil rights message, the nest McCartney tries to build for “Blackbird” in this century. To appreciate the song’s availability for civil rights solidarity, we consider Billy Preston, whose cover aligns “Blackbird” with African American culture during the decades in which McCartney was not telling his “Blackbird” legend. Preston’s gospel-infused cover, along with his own bird imagery in “Will It Go Round in Circles,” point toward the theme of flight-as-liberation in African American arts. This bird-theme is also exemplified by the folk ballad “Grey Goose,” famously performed and recorded by Lead Belly, a formative influence on the so-called British Invasion rockers. These connections reveal a thematic and political depth to “Blackbird,” illustrating the song’s indebtedness to African American music and other arts.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.5325/intelitestud.22.1-2.0005
Primary URL Description: link to journal article
Secondary URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/intelitestud.22.1-2.0005?seq=1
Secondary URL Description: link to journal article on JSTOR database
Access Model: Subscription (to journal)
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Interdisciplinary Literary Studies (ILS)
Publisher: Penn State University Press

Arising to This Moment: Bettye LaVette’s “Blackbirds” (Blog Post)
Title: Arising to This Moment: Bettye LaVette’s “Blackbirds”
Author: Katie Kapurch
Abstract: When Bettye LaVette sings “to be free,” the recent Blues Hall of Fame inductee opens a door and steps into the light. LaVette’s new album Blackbirds is inspired by the African American women she sees as her musical forerunners. The concluding track, “Blackbird,” the Beatles song she has performed in concert for a decade, crowns the record. But don’t read the last chapter first. LaVette’s “Blackbird” is to Blackbirds what “A Day in the Life” is to Pepper. The eight tracks preceding “Blackbird” are interpretations of songs popularized by Black women, such as Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown, and Della Reese. Several came out prior to the album’s August 28 issue. LaVette’s stirring take on “Strange Fruit,” for example, was released in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protests this summer.
Date: 08/30/2020
Primary URL: https://www.culturesonar.com/arising-to-this-moment-bettye-lavettes-blackbirds/
Primary URL Description: Link to post on CultureSonar website
Website: CultureSonar

Martha Wash’s “Love and Conflict” – The Album for 2020 (Blog Post)
Title: Martha Wash’s “Love and Conflict” – The Album for 2020
Author: Katie Kapurch
Abstract: For those seeking uplift in this new pandemic world with the old-familiarity of the Stones or the Beatles, Wash’s Love and Conflict is for you—for more reasons than one. Wash is the iconic voice you’ve known for all these years though you might not even realize it. As one-half of the Weather Girls, Wash sang “It’s Raining Men,” a veritable 80s anthem, ubiquitous in aerobics studios and gay dance clubs. Before that, she and fellow Weather Girl, Izora Rhodes-Armstead, flanked Sylvester James as his backup singers, Two Tons O’ Fun.
Date: 05/16/2020
Primary URL: https://www.culturesonar.com/martha-washs-love-and-conflict-the-album-for-2020/
Primary URL Description: Link to CultureSonar website
Website: CultureSonar

Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being—and Sang Back to Them Ever After (Book)
Title: Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being—and Sang Back to Them Ever After
Author: Katie Kapurch
Author: Jon Marc Smith
Abstract: From the beginning, the Beatles announced their debt to Black music in interviews, recording covers and original songs inspired by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, the Shirelles, and other giants of R&B. Blackbird goes deeper, appreciating unacknowledged forerunners, as well as Black artists whose interpretations keep the Beatles in play. Drawing on interviews with Black musicians and using the song “Blackbird” as a touchstone, Katie Kapurch and Jon Marc Smith tell a new history. They present unheard stories and resituate old ones, offering the phrase “transatlantic flight” to characterize a back-and-forth dialogue shaped by Black musicians in the United States and elsewhere, including Liverpool. Kapurch and Smith find a lineage that reaches back to the very origins of American popular music, one that involves the original twentieth-century blackbird, Florence Mills, and the King of the Twelve String, Lead Belly. Continuing the circular flight path with Nina Simone, Billy Preston, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Sylvester, and others, the authors take readers into the twenty-first century, when Black artists like Bettye LaVette harness the Beatles for today. Detailed, thoughtful, and revelatory, Blackbird explores musical and storytelling legacies full of rich but contested symbolism. Appealing to those interested in developing a deep understanding of the evolution of popular music, this book promises that you'll never hear “Blackbird”—and the Beatles—the same way again.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: http://https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09561-5.html
Primary URL Description: Link to publisher's website
Secondary URL: http://https://www.amazon.com/Blackbird-Musicians-Beatles-Being_and-American/dp/0271095628/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Secondary URL Description: Link Amazon page
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Type: Multi-author monograph
ISBN: 978-0-271-0956
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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