http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/15804.ctl

Radano, Ronald Lying up a Nation: Race and Black Music. 440 p., 2
halftones, 4 line drawings, 26 musical examples. 2003

Cloth $75.00tx 0-226-70197-2 Fall 2003
Paper $27.50tx 0-226-70198-0 Fall 2003

What is black music? For some it is a unique expression of the
African-American experience, its soulful vocals and stirring rhythms
forged in the fires of black resistance to centuries of oppression. But
as Ronald Radano argues in this bracing work, the whole idea of black
music has a much longer and more complicated history--one that speaks as
much of musical and racial integration as it does of separation.

Lying up a Nation traces the evolution of black music from the time of
slavery to the modern era, showing how its history has always been
dependent on the interplay of races. For Radano, the history of black
music is one of profound sharing and exchange. Because of the power of
racial belief, however, sharing inevitably gave way to expressions seen
as culturally or racially pure. For instance, ragtime was one of the
first modern genres said to embody a black rhythmic sensibility or
groove. And yet this same genre would figure prominently in the marches
of John Philip Sousa and provide the stylistic basis for jazz, a
quintessentially interracial form of music still seen as a key marker of
black culture.

In the end, Radano's careful analysis reveals that the idea of black
music has been used, by blacks and whites alike, to both advance and
subvert various visions of what blackness means. Black music has become
the conscience of the American experience, the sonic truth teller of
race in all its complexities.

Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Telling Stories, Telling Lies Revisionist Listening and the Writing
of Music History
2. Resonances of Racial Absence Black Sounding Practices Prior to "Negro
Music"
3. First Truth, Second Hearing Audible Encounters in Antebellum Black
and White
4. Magical Writing The Iconic Wonders of the Slave Spiritual
5. Of Bodies and Souls Feeling the Pulse of Modern Race Music
Epilogue- A Nation's Gift
Notes
Index