From the acclaimed author of Last Train to Memphis, this is the definitive biography of Sam Cooke, one of most influential singers and songwriters of all time.

In Afro-Blue, Tony Bolden traces the ways innovations in black music and poetry have driven the evolution of a variety of other American vernacular artistic for

Traces the evolution of Afro-American poetry, highlighting individual poets up to the time of the Harlem Renaissance.

Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and a columnist. Hughes was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary

"Drawing on a deep understanding of the shades and structures of the blues, Steven C. Tracy elucidates the vital relationship between this musical form and the