Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- Part I History
- Part II Technology and Timbre
- Part III Musical Style and Technique
- Part IV The Electric Guitar in Society
- Personal Take IV: Pamela Cole
- 12 Trailblazers, Self-Creators, and Provers: Celebrating Women in Electric Guitar
- 13 Black Women: Race, Gender, Genre, and the Electric Guitar
- 14 Ecological Entanglements: Following the Electric Guitar from Factory to Forest
- 15 Electro-Collectives: Virtual Guitar Communities
- Part V The Global Instrument
- Index
- References
13 - Black Women: Race, Gender, Genre, and the Electric Guitar
from Part IV - The Electric Guitar in Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2024
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- Part I History
- Part II Technology and Timbre
- Part III Musical Style and Technique
- Part IV The Electric Guitar in Society
- Personal Take IV: Pamela Cole
- 12 Trailblazers, Self-Creators, and Provers: Celebrating Women in Electric Guitar
- 13 Black Women: Race, Gender, Genre, and the Electric Guitar
- 14 Ecological Entanglements: Following the Electric Guitar from Factory to Forest
- 15 Electro-Collectives: Virtual Guitar Communities
- Part V The Global Instrument
- Index
- References
Summary
The chapter traces the long, unheralded history of Black women electric guitarists in the United States from the 1940s to the present century. It identifies the unique challenges they face striving to work in an American music landscape that adores Black women as singers but largely overlooks them when they strap an electric guitar onto their bodies. It uses historical research and oral history interviews with intergenerational artists in blues, gospel, and rock to explore how race, gender, and genre conventions manifest and intersect to create barriers and opportunities.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar , pp. 229 - 244Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
References
Selected Bibliography
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Brooks, Daphne, Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound (Duke University Press, 2021).Google Scholar
Garon, Paul and Garon, Beth, Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie’s Blues (Da Capo Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Handy, D. Antoinette, Black Women in American Bands & Orchestras (Scarecrow Press, 1981).Google Scholar
Johnson, Maria V., “Black Women Electric Guitarists and Authenticity in the Blues,” in Black Women and Music: More Than The Blues, edited by Hayes, Eileen M. and Williams, Linda F. (University of Illinois Press, 2007), pp. 51–71.Google Scholar
Levine, Nancy, “Women in the Blues: ‘She Plays Blues Like A Man’: Gender Bending the Country Blueswomen,” Blues Revue Quarterly 7 (Winter 1993): 34–38.Google Scholar
Mahon, Maureen, Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll (Duke University Press, 2020).Google Scholar
Waksman, Steve, Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and The Shaping of Musical Experience (Harvard University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Wald, Gayle, Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Beacon Press, 2007).Google Scholar