That didn’t stop Tavanti, a Washington, D.C. Just a few decades past, Virginia Beach, Virginia, was a mess of hatred percolating on the undying simmer of slavery and Jim Crow laws Case in point, Blacks weren’t allowed to walk on the beach there until the 1960s. She rolls into its last third, infused with the holiness of both giving back, and ready to merge with the talented artists that surround her.

In 2022, Knight was o celebrated for her illustrious career in the music industry by Kennedy Center Honors.Īs a performing artist, she is unmatched, yet her intensely casual and deeply influential brilliance is taken for granted think of, as just as one of countless examples, the video for 1985’s “That’s What Friends Are For,” the number one pop single that raised millions for AIDS research and became an anthem of the battle against HIV/AIDS. In 1996, Mariah Carey inducted Knight into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. As the leader of Gladys Knight & the Pips, she has been nominated for 22 Grammys and won 7. Tell us what do you think about Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop.Known as an emotional, professional leader, Knight was winning vocal contests at age 7 and helping to support her family with the prize money. Biography & Autobiography / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / African American & Black.More books like Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop may be found by selecting the categories below: Shine Bright is an overdue paean to musical masters whose true stories and genius have been hidden in plain sight-and the book Danyel Smith was born to write. Smith’s detailed narrative begins with Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved woman who sang her poems, and continues through the stories of Mahalia Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Mariah Carey, as well as the under-considered careers of Marilyn McCoo, Deniece Williams, and Jody Watley. But as a music fan, and then as an essayist, editor (Vibe, Billboard), and podcast host (Black Girl Songbook), she has been living this history since she was a latchkey kid listening to “Midnight Train to Georgia” on the family stereo. Smith has been writing this history for more than five years.

This is their surprising, heartbreaking, soaring story-written by one of the preeminent cultural critics of her generation.Ī weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop. Parent Company: Bertelsmann Read a Description of Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop Book Description:Īmerican pop music is arguably this country’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, and its singular voice and virtuosity were created by a shining thread of Black women geniuses stretching back to the country’s founding. List Price: $28.00 Format: Hardcover, 320 pages

Shine bright by danyel smith