Blackbird

How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being—and Sang Back to Them Ever After

Katie Kapurch, Jon Marc Smith

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780271095615
• eBook ISBN: 9780271096292
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: 20th Century History

From the beginning, the Beatles acknowledged in interviews their debt to Black music, apparent in their covers of and written 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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword—Cyrus Cassells
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Change the History; The Blackbird in Song, Story, and Transatlantic Flight
• 1. Flee (Free) as a Bird: The Legacy of the Ring Shout, Flying Africans, and Gospel in Black Music and the Beatles
• 2. Sing a Song of Blackbird: Pre-Twentieth-Century Transatlantic Flights in Black Music, the Beatles, and Liverpool
• 3. I’m a Little Blackbird: Florence Mills, Blackbirds of the Harlem Renaissance, and the Beatles’ Jazz Age Predecessors
• 4. Flying Across the Ocean: Lead Belly, “Grey Goose,” and the Beatles’ Liverpool Skiffle Scene
• 5. You Can Fly Away: Lord Woodbine and Lord Kitchener, “Yellow Bird,” and Calypso in the Beatles’ Liverpool Club Scene
• 6. You Ain’t Ever Gonna Fly: Nina Simone’s “Blackbird” and Revolutionary Responses to the Beatles
• 7. A Blackbird on a White Album: Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Diana Ross, and Other Winged Inspirations in and around 1968
• 8. Like a Bird Up in the Sky: Billy Preston Flies to the Beatles in London and Circles Back to Los Angeles with “Blackbird”
• 9. Y’all Ready, Girls? “Blackbird” Soars in San Francisco with Sylvester, Two Tons O’ Fun, and the Band
• 10. I Was Just Seeing Myself Singing: Bettye LaVette on Interpreting the Beatles and Singing a Bridge of Blackbirds
• Conclusion: Twenty-First-Century “Blackbird” in Paul McCartney’s Legend, for #BlackLivesMatter, and into Transoceanic Flightpaths
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index