Souled American: How Black Music Transformed White Culture.(Book Review)

Souled American: How Black Music Transformed White Culture, by Kevin Phinney. Billboard Books/Watson-Guptill (770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003), 2005. 343 pp. $29.95.

The subject of black American influence on American culture, as a whole, has been a widely debated topic for many decades. One can agree that in the area of music, such contributions should be easily recognized, with blues, jazz and R&B as the most obvious examples. However, it is widely known that black Americans, have never been given adequate historical documentation for their contributions and the subsequent value of such to American popular culture. Kevin Phinney's book explores this issue in a well-researched, truthful and informative manner, and with a frankness about past and present race relations regarding music. For example, he has carefully sidestepped political correctness by identifying some revealing truths about notable 19th- and early-20th-century composers and performers (both white and black) whose greatest works, by today's standards, might be viewed as racist--in the case of whites--or less than conscious, in the case of blacks. By doing so, Phinney suggests that we study this "hidden history" in its appropriate context, no matter how harsh or offensive, instead of the "kinder, gentler approach" taken by so many authors and educators. In many instances, Phinney compares those past icons to ...