The Whole Staircase: Films Celebrating 400 Years of African American History & Culture
America's Blues (2015)
Professor Chris Killmer selected America's Blues for inclusion in The Whole Staircase Film Series. When asked why he selected this film to screen, Professor Killmer explained, "I’ve been a musician for 25 years and, in my mind, the blues have been in many ways the ‘master key’ of most genres of American popular music (including jazz, country, R&B, rock & roll, and even hip-hop) for over a century. This documentary digs into the origins and history of the blues, as well as its influence on other musical genres and on culture in general. In telling this story, it also connects to many important aspects of African American history and shows how blues artists were able to take a lot of the pain and hardship they experienced and turn those experiences and emotions into a unique and powerful musical genre that’s had a huge impact on the whole world."
Chris Killmer received his Master's degree from the University of Tennessee and joined the SJR State faculty in 2007.
Screening Dates and Locations
Screening Presented by Professor Chris Killmer
Date: October 16, 2019 at 2:00 p.m.
Location: Palatka Campus, Building A, Valhalla Hall
Date: October 24, 2019 at 5:30 p.m.
Location: Palatka Campus Library
Members of the Race Issues Study Circle will be in attendance.
All are welcome to this free event!
Film Information: America's Blues
"America's Blues is a feature length documentary that explores the tremendous impact that Blues Music has had on our society, popular culture, and the entertainment industry. This film not only honors Blues Music and Musicians by showing how it has impacted every form of popular American Music, but also the influence it has had on art, literature, film, fashion, sexuality and more. Through interviews with musicians, historians, professionals and activists, a compelling story of the music's significant historical contribution unfolds. If music were a color, it would be Blue!" - vendor's summary
Run time: 86 minutes
This documentary is not rated.
Closed captioning and transcript available.
Licensed through Films on Demand (title 111622).
Resources for Further Exploration - America's Blues
Online Resources
'America's Blues' doc takes on the meanings of the music
Books and eBooks at the SJR State Library
Books may be checked out by community patrons as well as SJR State students faculty and staff. If a title is located at another campus, the book may be sent to another campus upon request.
Please note: eBooks are only available to current SJR State students, faculty, and staff with a MySJRstate login.
The Land Where the Blues Began by Call Number: St. Augustine Circulation -- ML3521 .L64 2002ISBN: 1565847393Publication Date: 2002-11-01
Blues People: Negro Music in White America by Call Number: Palatka Circulation -- ML3556 .B16 1963ISBN: 068818474XPublication Date: 1963"The path the slave took to 'citizenship' is what I want to look at. And I make my analogy through the slave citizen's music -- through the music that is most closely associated with him: blues and a later, but parallel development, jazz... [If] the Negro represents, or is symbolic of, something in and about the nature of American culture, this certainly should be revealed by his characteristic music."
So says Amiri Baraka in the Introduction to Blues People, his classic work on the place of jazz and blues in American social, musical, economic, and cultural history. From the music of African slaves in the United States through the music scene of the 1960's, Baraka traces the influence of what he calls "negro music" on white America -- not only in the context of music and pop culture but also in terms of the values and perspectives passed on through the music. In tracing the music, he brilliantly illuminates the influence of African Americans on American culture and history." - publisher's description
The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781136707414Publication Date: 2013-09-05"The Voice of the Blues brings together interviews with many pioneering blues men including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, and many others." - publisher
Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780807833254Publication Date: 2009-11-01"Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, folklorist William Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the authentic roots of the blues. Illustrated with Ferris's photographs of the musicians and their communities and including a dual CD/DVD that presents his original field recordings and films, this book features more than 20 interviews relating frank, dramatic, and engaging narratives about black life and blues music in the heart of the American South." - publisher
Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil & the Blues Tradition by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781469633671Publication Date: 2017-09-05
The Blues by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780199750795Publication Date: 2010"Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." Wald sees blues less as a style than as a broad musical tradition within a constantly evolving pop culture. He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was transformed by such professional performers as W. C. Handy, who first popularized the blues a century ago. He follows its evolution from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith through Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix; identifies the impact of rural field recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and others; explores the role of blues in the development of both country music and jazz; and looks at the popular rhythm and blues trends of the 1940s and 1950s, from the uptown West Coast style of T-Bone Walker to the "down home" Chicago sound of Muddy Waters. Wald brings the story up to the present, touching on the effects of blues on American poetry, and its connection to modern styles such as rap. As with all of Oxford's Very Short Introductions, The Blues tells you--with insight, clarity, and wit--everything you need to know to understand this quintessentially American musical genre." - publisher
Ramblin' on My Mind: New Perspectives on the Blues by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780252032035Publication Date: 2008-01-10"Distinguished scholars and well-established writers from such diverse backgrounds as musicology, anthropology, musicianship, and folklore join together to examine blues as literature, music, personal expression, and cultural product." - publisher
Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781604733280Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Jim Crow's Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners, 1890-1945 by Call Number: eBooksISBN: 9780807138106Publication Date: 2010-11-01" In the late nineteenth century, black musicians in the lower Mississippi Valley began to create a new musical form that lamented Jim Crow's social, legal and economic restrictions--the blues. In Jim Crow's Counterculture, R.A. Lawson offers a cultural history of blues musicians in the segregation era, explaining how by both accommodating and resisting Jim Crow life, blues musicians created a counterculture to incubate and nurture ideas of black individuality and citizenship. These individuals, Lawson shows, collectively demonstrate the African-American struggle during early twentieth century." - publisher
Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780226310985Publication Date: 2002-12-01"Winner of the 2004 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature. Seems Like Murder Here offers a revealing new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard times, the blues emerge in this provocative study as vital responses to spectacle lynchings and the violent realities of African American life in the Jim Crow South. With brilliant interpretations of both classic songs and literary works, from the autobiographies of W.C. Handy, David Honeyboy Edwards, and B.B. King to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the novels of Zora Neal." - publisher
Celebration • Education • Reflection
H.R.1242/Public Law 115-102, the 400 Years of African American History Commission Act, establishes 2019 as a year of "commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Africans in the English colonies, at Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619." The commemoration is intended “to recognize and highlight the resilience and contributions of African-Americans since 1619; to acknowledge the impact that slavery and laws that enforced racial discrimination had on the United States; and to educate the public about the arrival of Africans in the United States; and the contributions of African-Americans to the United States.” In recognition of this commemoration and with the Act serving as a guide, the SJR State Library has organized a year-long series of events that will provide educational experiences and resources to students and the community that celebrate the history and culture of African Americans.
Site created and maintained by Dr. Christina Will. Pages will be added and maintained throughout 2019.
Maintenance will cease at the end of 2019 but this site will remain accessible.