Music

Composers, musicians, and singers who have contributed to this Black genre.

Blind Willie Johnson, gospel singer with power.


Blind Willie
Johnson

On this in 1902, date we remember the birth of Blind Willie Johnson. He was an African-American gospel singer who performed on the streets of Southern cities.

Johnson grew up near Temple, TX. When he was seven years old, his stepmother, fighting with his father, threw lye in Johnson's face, permanently blinding him. From his youth, he sang gospel songs while accompanying himself on guitar, for donations on the streets of small towns and cities, mostly in Texas. Johnson recorded 30 songs in Dallas, and Atlanta. in 1927-30.

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An early jazz trumpet, Bunk Johnson


Bunk Johnson

*On this date we remember the birth of Bunk Johnson in 1879. He was an African-American musician and composer.

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Roy Eldridge played more than just Bebop


Roy Eldridge

*On this date Roy Eldridge was born in 1911. He was an African-American jazz musician.

A fiery trumpet player and a key figure in the instrument's lineage, Roy Eldridge was an outstanding improvisational stylist. Eldridge was born in Pittsburgh, and after paying his dues with regional bands in the Midwest, moved to New York in 1930. In 1935 he joined Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, then led his own group before joining Gene Krupa in 1941. Through extensive tours and recordings, the Krupa engagement brought him to prominence.

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Roosevelt Sykes could play those 88's


Roosevelt Sykes

*On this date in 1906, Roosevelt Sykes was born. He was an African-American blues singer.

From Elmar, Arkansas, Sykes began playing while growing up in Helena, Arkansas. At age 15, he hit the road, developing his rowdy barrelhouse style around the blues-fertile St. Louis area. Sykes began recording in 1929 for OKeh and the next year was signed to four different labels under four different names (among them-Dobby Bragg, Willie Kelly, and Easy Papa Johnson)!

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A realist of jazz, Eric Gravatt


Eric Gravatt

*Eric Gravatt was born on this date in 1947. He is an African-American musician, educator and world-renowned drummer and percussionist..

From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Eric Kamau Gravatt is the only child of Clifford and Margo Gravatt. He graduated from Germantown H.S. in 1965 and has attended Cheyney State College, Temple University, Howard University and the University of Minnesota.

Related videos: 
Admiration, My Father, Eric Gravatt
Jazz History, Black History, Eric Gravatt
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Young, Gifted and Black, Irvin Mayfield Jr.


Irvin Mayfield Jr.

*Irvin Mayfield, Jr. was born on this date in 1977. He is an African-American musician, bandleader and educator.

Mayfield is from New Orleans, Louisiana the youngest nine children of Joyce Alsanders and Irvin Mayfield, Sr. His mother was a schoolteacher in New Orleans’ Upper Ninth Ward. His father was a drill sergeant in the United States Army and a boxer who died in the flood after Hurricane Katrina.

Related videos: 
Jazz Career Influences, Irvin Mayfield
Jazz Heritage IS Black Heritage, Irvin Mayfield
The Legacy Of Louis Armstrong
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Tina Turner, an international record breaker


Tina Turner

Tina Turner was born on this date in 1939. She is an African-American singer, dancer, and entertainer.

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Odetta, the soul of American folk music!


Odetta

*The birth of Odetta is marked on this in 1930. She was an African-American singer, song writer and Civil Rights activist.

Odetta Holmes was born in Birmingham, Ala. Her father, Reuben Holmes, died when she was young, and in 1937 she and her mother, Flora Sanders, moved to Los Angeles. Three years later, Odetta discovered that she could sing. “A teacher told my mother that I had a voice, that maybe I should study,” she recalled.

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Nora Douglas Holt, a musical pioneer!


Nora Holt

*The birth of Nora Douglas Holt in 1885 is celebrated on this date. She was an African-American singer, composer and music critic.

Born Lena Douglas in Kansas City, Kansas; she was the daughter of Calvin Douglas, an African Methodist Episcopal Church minister and Gracie Brown Douglas. She graduated from Western University at Quindaro, Kansas and later earned a Bachelors degree in music in 1917. In 1918 she earned her Masters Degree in music at Chicago Musical College, becoming the first African American woman to complete a Masters program in United States.

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Clora Bryant, Gal With A Horn!

Clora Bryant, an African-American jazz trumpeter, was born on this date in 1927.

She was born in Denison, Texas, and started in music as a singer in her Baptist church, but at age 14, she took up the trumpet after her brother, Fred, left his behind when he went into the military in 1941. Bryant was a very good student academically who played in her high school band.

She studied improvisation intensely, using a wire recorder to record her own soloing along with jazz records, then studying the results.

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