Blues People: The Negro Experience In White America And The Music That Developed From It by Leroi Jones book (used)

Afro-American music, published in 1963 by Amiri Baraka, who published it under the pen name LeRoi Jones.

In Blues People Baraka explores the history of Black Americans through the evolution of Black music and documents the effects of jazz and blues on American culture, at musical, economic, and social levels. Blues People argues that "negro music"—as Amiri Baraka calls it—appealed to and influenced new America. The book chronicles many genres of music dating from African music carried to America by Black people during the Atlantic slave trade, up to the 1960s. According to Baraka, music and melody is not the only way the gap between American culture and African-American culture was bridged. Music also helped spread values and customs through its media exposure. Blues People demonstrates the influence of African Americans and their culture on American culture and history. The book examines blues music as performance, as cultural expression, even in the face of its commodification. The book chronicles what brought him to believe that blues was a personal history of his people in the United States.