Called "The Mother Church of Country Music," the Ryman Auditorium saw a historic chapter come to a close in 1974 when it closed its doors on 5th Avenue to move into new quarters at Opryland USA.Nashville photographer Jim McGuire had full access to the Ryman and shares over 100 stunning black and white photographs with chapter introductions and captions from the last year of this landmark and the most famous show in country music. Most of the photographs have never been published so...

Heavily influenced by Bill Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass” in the 1940s and ’50s, gospel music in the South began to shift into bluegrass gospel, a style that combines both genres. In Bluegrass Gospel: The Music Ministry of Jerry and Tammy Sullivan, anthropologist and journalist Jack Edward Bernhardt explores the lives, music, and ministry of acclaimed father-daughter bluegrass gospel performers and recording artists Jerry (1933–2014) and Tammy Sullivan (1964–2017) of southwest ...

An hourly guide that follows twenty-four snakes as they find mates, hunt, and survive a changing world.Does a snake crossing your path trigger delight or dread? The answer is clear for celebrated biologist Marty Crump, who shows us that snakes deserve our respect, admiration, and protection. In her short book Snake Day, each chapter introduces a single snake during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four different species from around the globe.In t...

For years the legendary John Seigenthaler hosted A Word on Words on Nashville's public television station, WNPT. During the show’s four-decade run (1972 to 2013), he interviewed some of the most interesting and most important writers of our time. These in-depth exchanges revealed much about the writers who appeared on his show and gave a glimpse into their creative processes. Seigenthaler was a deeply engaged reader and a generous interviewer, a true craftsman. Frye Gaillard and P...

This is the first biography of Ralph Peer, the adventurous—even revolutionary—A&R man and music publisher who saw the universal power locked in regional roots music and tapped it, changing the breadth and flavor of popular music around the world. It is the story of the life and fifty-year career, from the age of cylinder recordings to the stereo era, of the man who pioneered the recording, marketing, and publishing of blues, jazz, country, gospel, and Latin music.The book tracks Pe...

The companion book to the PBS series—a timeline and chronicle of the fifty years of black history in the U.S. in more than 350 photos.Beginning with the assassination of Malcolm X in February 1965, And Still I Rise explores a half-century of the African American experience. More than fifty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the birth of Black Power, the United States has had a black president and black CEOs running Fortune 500 companies—as ...

NAACP Image Award Finalist: "Boyd's riveting new history…turns an oft-caricatured community into a world of actual, struggling human beings."—Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and MeA Michigan Notable Books HonoreeIn this book, the author of Baldwin's Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit—in "a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores...

The definitive biography of James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, with fascinating findings on his life as a Civil Rights activist, an entrepreneur, and the most innovative musician of our timePlaying 350 shows a year at his peak, with more than forty Billboard hits, James Brown was a dazzling showman who transformed American music. His life offstage was just as vibrant, and until now no biographer has delivered a complete profile. The One draws on interview...

**Winner of the 2020 Caldecott MedalA 2020 Newbery Honor BookWinner of the 2020 Coretta Scott King Illustrator AwardThe Newbery Award-winning author of THE CROSSOVER pens an ode to black American triumph and tribulation, with art from a two-time Caldecott Honoree.**Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights ...

A "humbling, inspiring . . . deeply emotional" biography of the boxing legend who held the heavyweight world championship for more than eleven years ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).Known as the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis defended his heavyweight title an astonishing twenty-five times. Through the 1930s, he got more column inches of newspaper coverage than President Roosevelt. At a time when the boxing ring was the only venue where black and white could meet...

Memphis gave birth to music that changed the world — Memphis Mayhem is a fascinating history of how music and culture collided to change the state of music forever“David Less has captured the essence of the Memphis music experience on these pages in no uncertain terms. There’s truly no place like Memphis and this is the story of why that is. HAVE MERCY!” — Billy F Gibbons, ZZ TopForeword by renowned music historian Peter Gu...

From the author Robert Lipsyte calls "the best young sportswriter in America," a rollicking, rebellious, myth-busting history of sports in America that puts politics in the ring with pop cultureIn this long-waited book from the rising superstar of sportswriting, whose blog Edge of Sports is read each week by thousands of people across the country, Dave Zirin offers a riotously entertaining chronicle of larger-than-life sporting characters and dramatic cont...