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Posts tagged as “GBN Daily Drop Podcast”

Black Firsts: Dr. Carla D. Hayden, U.S. Librarian of Congress (LISTEN)

Black Firsts: Dr. Carla D. Hayden, U.S. Librarian of Congress (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 21, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today, GBN celebrates Dr. Carla D. Hayden who in 2016 became the first woman and first African American person to serve the nation as Librarian of Congress.

To read about Dr. Hayden, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 21st, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

 It’s in the category of Black Firsts we call “It’s About Time.”

When President Barack Obama hired Dr. Carla D. Hayden in 2016, he was doing things by the book – literally! University of Chicago graduate Hayden became the first woman and first African American person to hold the position of Librarian of Congress.

Sworn in on September 14th of that year, Hayden also became the first professional librarian to hold the post in over 60 years.

Hayden was president of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. In 1995, she was the first African American person to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling.

Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.

And just last week, Columbia University announced that Dr. Hayden will receive its honorary doctorate of letters during commencement this May.To learn more about Dr. Hayden, follow her on Twitter @LibnofCongress, watch her testifying in a recent U.S. Senate hearing regarding the efforts to modernize the Library of Congress on C-SPAN, read The Black Librarian in America: Reflections, Resistance, and Reawakening by Shauntee Burns-Simpson, or read the children’s book Carla Hayden: Librarian of Congress by Kate Moening from the Women Leading the Way series.

Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

“Librarianship was really an adventure for me-to find out that there’s a profession that was dedicated to making books and reading and knowledge available to people. And that just seemed ideal. The confirmation process was really an eye-opener for me in so many ways because I got to meet legislators that were committed to not only the nation’s history, but making information available. And that made me very pleased that I was confirmed. My vision for this library is very simple: that people will realize that they have a national treasure and that it is  part of their heritage and everyone can find something in the Library of Congress, produced by the Library of Congress, that relates to their lives or where they want to go.”

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(amazon links are paid links)

Celebrating NBA Champion Kobe Bryant and His Wisdom on Work Ethics (LISTEN)

Celebrating NBA Champion Kobe Bryant and His Wisdom on Work Ethics (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 18, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today, GBN celebrates the accomplishments and legacy of NBA champion, Olympic Gold medalist, Academy Award winner and philanthropist Kobe Bryant. To read about Bryant, read on. To hear about him and some of his wise words, press PLAY:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, April 18th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Dear Basketball, thank you for five-time NBA champion, two-time Olympic Gold medalist, NBA MVP, Academy Award winner, career Los Angeles Laker, shooting guard, multilingual philanthropist, author, husband and father –the one and only “Black Mamba” — Kobe Bean Bryant.

He lives on through his countless fans, three daughters, and his wife Vanessa, whom he married on this day in 2001. Though it is still hard to believe that such a legend was taken from us so soon, his impact will never be forgotten.To learn more about Kobe Bryant, read 2018’s The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant, 2022’s The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality by Mike Sielski. Watch the 2015 documentary Kobe Bryant’s Muse, now streaming on Showtime, the 2019 All the Smoke video podcast episode featuring one of his final interviews, also currently on Showtime.

https://youtu.be/98wR6-r2bbI

Check out Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel‘s retrospective on Kobe Bryant from 2020, which you can watch on Facebook. And, of course watch the Oscar-winning short, Dear Basketball. You can also listen to Kobe Bryant’s family-oriented podcast The Punies about a group of friends who play sports, have adventures and learn valuable life lessons along the way.

There’s also a few podcasts dedicated to collecting and sharing Kobe Bryant’s various interviews, which you can find through listennotes.com. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

In fact, we’ll leave you with a clip from one of the Kobe Bryant Getting Interviewed podcasts where Bryant speaks about his life as a student of the sport he loved and his work ethic:

Kobe: Everything was done to try to learn how to become a better basketball player, everything, everything. And so when you have that point of view, then literally, the world becomes your library to help you to become better at your craft.

Interviewer: So, because you know what you want, the world’s giving you exactly the information?

Kobe: One hundred percent. Because you know what you’re looking for.

Interviewer: So many guys tell stories about your work ethic? What was really your work ethic like and for how long did you stay disciplined?

Kobe: Well, I mean, I mean, every day, I mean, since 20 years, it was an everyday process and trying to figure out strengths and weaknesses. For example, jumping ability, my vertical was a 40 wasn’t a 46 or a 45. My hands are big, but they’re not massive. So, you’ve got to figure out ways to strengthen them so your hands are strong enough to be able to palm a ball and do the things that you need to do. Quickness… I was quick, but not insanely quick. I was fast, but not ridiculously fast. Right? So, I had to rely on skill a lot more. I had to rely on angles a lot more. I had to study the game a lot more. But I enjoyed it though. So, like from the time I was… I can remember when I started watching the game. I studied the game and it just never changed.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(amazon links are paid links)

Easter Flowers for Composer and Musician Thomas A. Dorsey, the “Father of Gospel Music” (LISTEN)

Easter Flowers for Composer and Musician Thomas A. Dorsey, the “Father of Gospel Music” (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 17, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

On Easter Sunday, GBN celebrates Thomas A. Dorsey, who once worked as Ma Rainey‘s pianist and musical director, and wrote and sang blues songs as the “Georgia Tom” half of the Georgia Tom and Tampa Red duo before revolutionizing gospel music by integrating the feeling of the blues into sacred songs.

To read about Dorsey, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, April 17, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

[Cue “Roll Jordan Roll” by the Fisk Jubilee Quartet]

Gospel music existed before Georgia native Thomas Dorsey turned his ear and pen to it, but it was never the same after.

Working most famously as the piano player and musical director for blues legend Gertrude “Ma” Rainey in the 1920s under the moniker “Georgia Tom.” Despite this success, Dorsey fell into a prolonged period of depression for almost two years and barely performed.

In 1928, Dorsey attended a spirited church service where he claimed a minister pulled a live serpent from his throat. From that point on, Dorsey vowed to dedicate himself to composing gospel music. Dorsey wrote “If You See My Savior” in honor of a friend who passed, which combined a blues feeling into a more traditional hymnal structure:

[Excerpt of “If You See My Savior”]

Dorsey tried to sell his new sacred songs directly to publishers and churches but initially had no luck and returned to writing the blues. With duet partner Tampa Red, as “Georgia Tom” Dorsey had a big hit in 1928, selling over seven million copies of “It’s Tight Like That”:

[Excerpt of “It’s Tight Like That”]

This type of “dirty blues” or “Hokum” songs proved to be popular and the duo recorded and performed for years until Dorsey finally turned to gospel music for good.

He formed a gospel blues choir in Chicago, which helped the new style catch on, and soon became the musical director for Pilgrim Baptist Church and running his own music publishing company.

Dorsey worked with a young Mahalia Jackson in the late 1920s and originally composed for Jackson what became a beloved song not only in gospel blues circles, but country & western as well.

[Excerpt of “Peace in the Valley” by Red Foley & the Sunshine Boys]

“Peace in the Valley” has been recorded by over the decades by artists such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard, Red Foley & the Sunshine Boys, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton.

And while he was still in his gospel group in the 1960s, Sam Cooke and his Soul Stirrers took their turn in the valley as well:

[Excerpt of “Peace in the Valley” by Sam Cooke & the Soul Stirrers]

In Dorsey’s lifetime, which was long – he lived to 93 – Dorsey composed over 3,000 songs, including the one Martin Luther King, Jr. said was his favorite, the one Mahalia Jackson ended up singing at his funeral, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”:

[Excerpt of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”]

Dorsey’s songs changed the sound of sacred music and influenced generations to come, which is why he is often called “The Father of Gospel Music.”

Dorsey has been inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2002, the Library of Congress honored Dorsey by adding his album Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey, to the United States National Recording Registry.

To learn more about Thomas Dorsey, watch the 1982 musical documentary Say Amen, Somebody, currently available on YouTube and DVD, check out his collection of papers archived at Fisk University, read 1994’s The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church by Michael W. Harris, which you can borrow from the Internet Archive, and 2015’s Anointed to Sing the Gospel: The Levitical Legacy of Thomas A. Dorsey by Kathryn B. Kemp.

https://youtu.be/_9IJljbyVok

You can also watch 2005’s The Story of Gospel Music documentary, which is currently available on DVD.

And every year, Dorsey’s hometown of Villa Rica, Georgia holds an annual Thomas A. Dorsey Birthplace Heritage Festival of gospel music. This year’s will be held on June 25thand 26th.

Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

And before we go, let’s hear a clip of Thomas Dorsey himself speaking on the meaning of gospel:

“Down through the ages gospel – what? What did they say was? You mean to tell me you don’t know that good news? On down to the ages, gospel was good news. Now if you don’t know that I’ll rush you out of here myself.”

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

“Roll Jordan Roll” by the Fisk Jubilee Singers is in the Public Domain.

Excerpts of songs composed by Thomas A. Dorsey are included under Fair Use.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(amazon links are paid links)

Learn About Mack Robinson, Olympic Silver Medalist, Community Activist and Jackie’s Older Brother (LISTEN)

Learn About Mack Robinson, Olympic Silver Medalist, Community Activist and Jackie’s Older Brother (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 16, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

In yesterday’s daily drop we celebrated sports legend Jackie Robinson. But did you know his older brother Mack Robinson had his own claim to sports fame?

Matthew Mackenzie “Mack” Robinson was an outstanding track and field athlete who won the silver medal in the 200-meter event at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, finishing just four tenths of a second behind Jesse Owens.

To read about Robinson, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Pasadena Robinson Memorial

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, April 16th, 2022, based on the format of the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

In yesterday’s daily drop we celebrated some of Jackie Robinson’s greatest achievements in the realm of sports. But did you know his older brother Mack Robinson has his own sports claims to fame as well?

Born in 1914, Matthew Mackenzie “Mack” Robinson was an outstanding track and field athlete who went from competing at Pasadena City College in California to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin after local Pasadena business owners paid his way to the Olympic trials in New York.

With no coaching and worn-down shoes – the same ones he’d used all season to compete with at junior college, Robinson won a silver medal in the 200-meter event, finishing just four tenths of a second behind the gold medal winner from Ohio State University who became world-renowned for his track and field feats in those same Olympics — Jesse Owens.

Mack Robinson with his Silver Medal from the 1936 Olympics

And for Robinson, with all he was up against, was rightfully proud of his achievement, as he explained in a 1985 interview conducted for the educational series, Black Champions:

[Clip of Mack Robinson]

“You know, we had sixty-four individuals that was in the two hundred meters in the very beginning, and they had to be eliminated down to eight.

So when you look at, you’re inside of the eight out of sixty-four, that’s not bad; and you go on down, and you’re number two out of the eight and, which covers the whole world, to me, it’s great.

I have no qualms about finishing second. I’ve enjoyed placing second. My silver medal has a lot of meaning to me, and I believe it has as much meaning in it as the gold.”

After the Olympics, Robinson went on to attend the University of Oregon, where in 1938 he won the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Amateur Athletic Union titles in the 220-yard dash.

Robinson left college soon after to return to Pasadena to work and care of his family. Robinson worked menial jobs for the city, and it’s been reported that he lost his job as a street sweeper when Pasadena fired all of its Black municipal employees in retaliation for a court order demanding it desegregate its public pools.

Though Robinson later went on to work as a Park Director in East Hollywood, he stayed locally active in Pasadena at all times, determined to advocate for the betterment of his community. He regularly went down to City Hall and pushed for playgrounds, YMCAs, swimming pools — anything that would help keep the local youth active and out of trouble.

Robinson also lobbied for better books in the libraries, fought to keep the local parks clean, safe and free of drugs and alcohol, and he organized clothing drives to help the less fortunate in different parts of the country.

Robinson is even reported to have gone after a local liquor store where neighbors were being accosted. He took down a local den of gambling and prostitution, and he also crusaded to get streets, sidewalks and gutters fixed. Robinson was often seen at the Pasadena Board of City Directors meetings, and himself is quoted as saying, “I’m a thorn in their side. I’m a squeaky wheel that gets the grease, but what I’m trying to get is lubricant for a lifetime.”

Robinson eventually got a job working as a truant officer at John Muir High School, the same high school he attended in Pasadena, and also worked in that capacity to help keep youth out of trouble.

In 1981, Mack Robinson was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame and in 1995 he was inducted into the University of Oregon Hall of Fame.

In 1984 Robinson was part of a select group chosen to carry a large Olympic flag in the Opening Ceremonies of the Los Angeles Olympics.

And in 1997, Mack Robinson received one of the best recognitions of all the dedication he put in locally and civically. The memorial created in Pasadena, called the Pasadena Robinson Memorial, not only honored his famous younger brother Jackie for his nationally-renowned achievements, but also honored Mack for his lifetime of activism in the community.

While the 9-foot-tall bust of Jackie faces northeast towards Brooklyn, where he famously integrated Major League Baseball, Mack’s equally tall bust looks directly at Pasadena City Hall.

Mack Robinson passed in the year 2000, and in that same year Pasadena City College, which he attended and which he represented on the track and field, dedicated its stadium to him. And the United States Post Office named its new Pasadena branch the Matthew “Mack” Robinson Post Office Building.

To learn more about Mack Robinson, watch the 2021 CBS Los Angeles feature story about him on YouTube, the 2016 documentary Olympic Pride, American Prejudice which follows the 18 Black athletes who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and that’s currently streaming on Amazon Video.

You can also watch the 1985 Black Champions interview in its entirety in the Washington University at St. Louis archives site, or listen to the 2016 Hidden History of Los Angeles podcast episode on Robinson.

Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a bonus daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

Jackie Robinson Integrates Major League Baseball 75 Years Ago #OnThisDay

Jackie Robinson Integrates Major League Baseball 75 Years Ago #OnThisDay

By goodblacknews on April 15, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Seventy five years ago today, Jackie Robinson made sports and U.S. history when he took to the infield as a Brooklyn Dodger against the Boston Braves and integrated Major League Baseball.

To read about Robinson, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, April 15th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

#Onthisday seventy-five years ago, Jackie Robinson sprinted right over the Major League Baseball color line when he took to the infield to play first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Robinson earned the first ever MLB “Rookie of the Year” Award that same year, and in 1949 he became the first Black player to win the National League MVP Award.

In 1956, after six straight years as an All Star, Robinson led the Dodgers to a World Series Championship, proving all haters, detractors, and racists wrong with his undeniably stellar statistics and play. To quote Robinson:

“I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”

To learn more about Georgia native and U.S. Army veteran Robinson, check out the official website jackierobinson.com for information, stats, interviews, photos and more, read I Never Had it Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson, originally published in 1972.Read True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson by Kostya Kennedy, a new biography on Robinson just released this week, watch The Jackie Robinson Story, the 1950 biopic which Robinson starred in as himself — it’s currently streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.

Also check out the 2013 film 42, starring Chadwick Boseman that’s currently streaming on HBO Max, and the 2016 documentary Jackie Robinson by Ken Burns, which is on DVD or somewhere on PBS.

Additionally, consider donating to the Jackie Robinson Foundation at jackierobinson.org, which offers financial aid to Black college students under its JRF Scholars program, and also supports job placement and the development of leadership and life skills.

The site also provides updates on the upcoming opening this year of the Jackie Robinson Museum in New York.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(amazon links are paid links)

Five Years Ago #OnThisDay: Kendrick Lamar Releases Pulitzer Prize Winning Album DAMN. (LISTEN)

Five Years Ago #OnThisDay: Kendrick Lamar Releases Pulitzer Prize Winning Album DAMN. (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 14, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today we drop in on lauded rapper and artist Kendrick Lamar, who five years ago #onthisday dropped his last full studio album project on us — the highly-acclaimed, award-winning DAMN. 

To read about Lamar, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 14th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Five years ago, on April 14, 2017, hip hop artist and Compton, California native Kendrick Lamarreleased his fourth studio album DAMN. The following year, it became the first work outside of the jazz or classical genre to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. DAMN. also won the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2018 and was a nominee for Album of the Year.

The two albums Kendrick Lamar released before DAMN., 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city and 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly were already revered within and beyond hip hop circles as sonic and lyrical works of art. DAMN. was the culmination of a magnum opus in three parts, a tapestry of arresting themes explored in songs with one-word titles such as “DNA.”:

[Excerpt of “DNA.”]

“LOYALTY. FEAT. RIHANNA.”:

[Excerpt of “LOYALTY. FEAT. RIHANNA.”]

“LOVE. FEAT. ZACARI.”:

[Excerpt of “LOVE. FEAT. ZACARI.”]

And the song that has over a billion streams on Spotify, “HUMBLE.”:

[Excerpt of “HUMBLE.”]

Side projects and collaborations aside, like “Family Ties,” Lamar’s recent Grammy-winning collaboration with Baby Keem, we can’t wait to hear what Kendrick Lamar drops next. Until then, this June Kendrick Lamar will be headlining one evening of the Glastonbury Festival in the United Kingdom and is currently scheduled to do the same at Miami’s Rolling Loud Festival in July.To learn more about Kendrick Lamar, follow him @kendricklamar on Twitter, read 2020’s The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America by Marcus J. Moore, 2021’s Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar by Miles Marshall Lewis, and 2021’s Kendrick Lamar and the Making of Black Meaning edited by Lehigh University professors Christopher M. Driscoll, Monica R. Miller and Rice University professor Anthony B. Pinn.

You can also read Lamar’s in-depth Rolling Stone interview from 2017, watch his interview with Zane Lowe about DAMN. on AppleMusic’s YouTube channel, catch his videos and incredible live performances on Lamar’s YouTube channel, listen to the entire 5th season of the Dissect Podcast, which is a track-by-track analysis of DAMN., and, of course, buy or stream his entire catalog of music.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

All excerpts of Kendrick Lamar’s music are included under Fair Use.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(amazon links are paid)

Celebrating Legendary Jazz Vocalist Sarah Vaughan for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

Celebrating Legendary Jazz Vocalist Sarah Vaughan for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 13, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on virtuoso vocalist Sarah Vaughan, who hailed from Newark, New Jersey, and was dubbed “Sassy” for her salty conversation and “The Divine One” for the heavenly and serene singing feats she accomplished with her three octave range.

To read about Vaughan, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, April 13th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today, we offer a quote from one of the finest vocalists and musicians ever to do it, she’s known as “Sassy,” “The Divine One,” she’s Ms. Sarah Vaughan:

“When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don’t even notice.”

Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1924, Sarah Lois Vaughan’s musical talent first revealed itself in church when she would clamor to sit with the organist instead of her mother.

As a teenager Vaughan snuck into local nightclubs to play piano, sing and perform. In 1942, she entered the famed Apollo Theater Amateur Night contest in New York and captivated the audience with her stunning performance of “Body and Soul.”

Here’s a version Vaughan later recorded of the song that was her calling card to her career:=

[Excerpt of “Body and Soul”]

Vaughan’s Apollo contest win lead quickly to a stint singing with the Earl Hines Orchestra before she joined fellow singer Billy Eckstine’s orchestra when he quit Hines to form his own big band.

In Mr. B’s outfit, Vaughan played, sang and improvised with burgeoning bebop innovators Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker before eventually going solo herself.

Vaughan carried the bebop style into her vocals, as can be heard in her version of “Lover Man” with Gillespie’s Septet from 1946:

[Excerpt of “Lover Man” 1946]

From the 1940s through the 1960s, Vaughan recorded with various labels, big and small, including Columbia, Roulette, Mercury, and Mercury’s jazz subsidiary, EmArcy.

Whether singing sweet pop or hot jazz, Vaughan’s vocals remained innovative, impressive and unparalleled. In 1947 she was the first singer to record and release “Tenderly,” establishing the standard for the standard:

[Excerpt of “Tenderly”]

Vaughan literally could sing anything – and did. She scored her first gold record with pop and R&B hit “Broken Hearted Melody”:

[Excerpt of “Broken Hearted Melody”]

And kept her jazz chops tight with her renditions of songs like “Nice Work If You Can Get It”:

[Excerpt of “Nice Work If You Can Get It”]

“Black Coffee”:

[Excerpt of “Black Coffee”]

And turned tunes like Erroll Garner’s “Misty,” which she recorded for her 1959 Vaughan and Violins album orchestrated and arranged by Quincy Jones, into something altogether ethereal:

[Excerpt of “Misty”]

In the 1960s and 1970s however, Vaughan experienced differing troubles with different record labels that didn’t know how to present or frankly even respect Vaughan in the changing musical times.

Just take one look at the clown with an afro photo on the cover of her 1974 Send in The Clowns album on Mainstream Records and you’ll get it.

But if you can’t do that right now, take a listen to the ‘70s vanilla pop/light disco production of the title track to get the point:

[Excerpt of “Send in the Clowns” – 1974]

After Vaughan sued Mainstream over the album cover and other issues, she signed with Norman Granz’s Pablo label and released albums of jazz standards and bossa nova inflected music, two of which were nominated for Grammys.

She also re-arranged and re-recorded “Send in the Clowns,” which went from being lawsuit-worthy to another of her signature songs:

[Excerpt of “Send in the Clowns” 1981]

Vaughan continued to lean into bossa nova-style music in the 1980s, and recorded her last full album, 1987’s A Brazilian Romance, with Sergio Mendes producing. A personal favorite of mine from that LP is the languidly stunning “So Many Stars”:

[Excerpt of “So Many Stars”]

In her lifetime, Vaughan received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame and received the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Vaughan passed in 1990 and in 1998, her recording of “If You Could See Me Now,”composed specifically for her by Tad Dameron four decades earlier, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

[Excerpt of “If You Could See Me Now”]

In 2002, Sarah Vaughan’s “Whatever Lola Wants” was a standout on the Verve Remixed2 compilation, introducing her timeless voice to a whole new generation:

[Excerpt of “Whatever Lola Wants – Gotan Project Remix”]

In 2012, Vaughan was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, and for over a decade, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center has held an annual International Jazz Vocal Competition, nicknamed “The SASSY Awards” in honor of the one and only, the incomparable Sarah Vaughan.

To learn about Sarah Vaughan, read the 2017 biography Queen of BeBop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan by Elaine M. Hayes, 1992’s Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan by Leslie Gourse.

Stream or buy on DVD the music documentary of her performing live 1958 and 1964 called Sarah Vaughan: The Divine One in 1958, watch the 1991 biographical American Masters documentary Sarah Vaughan “The Divine One” currently available on YouTube, watch clips of her live performances on YouTube and of course, buy or stream as much Sarah Vaughan music as you can online.

Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

And let’s hear Sarah Vaughan’s voice one more time – her speaking voice – from her 1964 live performance in Sweden of “Misty”:

“Thank you very very much ladies and gentlemen. I’m very nervous up here I got a cold today. The day I got to do TV I got a cold. That’s fine. But anyway I do you want to enjoy our show and right now I like to do a little tune that I recorded while I was over here and not in Stockholm but while I was in Paris in ’58. A tune that was written by Erroll Garner. I do hope you enjoy “Misty.”

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

All excerpts of Sarah Vaughan’s music included are permitted under Fair Use.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

Celebrating Vocalist Nancy Wilson for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

Celebrating Vocalist Nancy Wilson for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 12, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on the underappreciated yet cherished and deeply talented song stylist Nancy Wilson, who was at one time in the 1960s the second most popular act on Capitol Records behind only the Beatles.

To read about Wilson, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 12, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Ohio native Nancy Wilson claimed her gift early, knowing by age four she was meant to be a singer. Encouraged by jazz saxophonist and bandleader Julius “Cannonball” Adderley, Wilson moved to New York in 1959 and landed a contract with Capitol Records.

The success of Nancy’s debut single “Guess Who I Saw Today,” led to a rush of album recordings, and to that tune becoming one of the signature songs of her career:

[Excerpt of “Guess Who I Saw Today”]

Wilson’s classic 1962 album recorded with Cannonball Adderley [Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley] contained her first Billboard R&B chart hit, the gorgeous ballad “Save Your Love for Me”:

[Excerpt of “Save Your Love for Me”]

From her 1964 album of the same title, Wilson scored her first pop hit, reaching number 11 on the Hot 100 chart with “How Glad I Am”:

[Excerpt of “How Glad I Am”]

Wilson won her first Grammy for that song and had four top 10 albums on the Billboard charts between 1964 and 1965, becoming during that period Capitol Records’ second-biggest selling act behind only the Beatles.

Wilson released more than 70 albums in her five-decade recording career, and won two more Grammys 40 years after her first win, both for Best Jazz Vocal Album, in 2005 for R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal) and 2007 for Turned to Blue.

[Excerpt of “That’s All” from R.S.V.P.]

In 2004, Nancy Wilson was honored as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, and for her work as an advocate of civil rights, which included participating in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama.

She received an award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1993 and also in 1998 she won an N.A.A.C.P. Hall of Fame Image Award.

Although Wilson was lauded as a jazz vocalist, she preferred to think of herself a song stylist, as she drew from a variety of influences, which she spoke about in detail during an interview on grammys.com:

“So, consequently, I was exposed to male influences. From early on, I heard Nat Cole I heard [?????] Jackson and Louis Jordan – loved Louis Jordan. I heard Billy Billy, Mr. B. I mean, he was just, I mean, my father thought Billy Eckstine was like, couldn’t – he walked on water. He loved B. And I heard Little Jimmy Scott with Lionel Hampton‘s big band. I would imagine that was when I was around 10. So basically, it was all male. And, and not gospel. I heard Jimmy Cleveland, James Cleveland, and C.L. Franklin, and his choir from my mom used to play that. So, I got to hear it all. And I enjoyed all of it. And then of course, I became a teenager. I mean, I was allowed to go out.

And there was a jukebox where I heard Little Esther, and I heard Little Miss Cornshucks. I heard LaVern Baker. I definitely heard Dinah and I heard Ruth Brown – I used to love Ruth Brown. That was where I got the exposure to R&B females. Was a quite a while – I think I was pretty much almost grown like 15 when I became exposed to – Sarah had some hit pop songs and I heard Sarah Vaughan and that I loved. “I Ran All the Way Home” was my big song. Also one of my big numbers was the Ravens tune called “You Saw Me Crying in the Chapel.”

So I sang these songs in variety shows and I’m like ninth grade, 10th grade, so, these were the things that really made things happen for me. The fact that I did not I had no idea that you were supposed to be afraid, or that you needed to be nervous. Because to me that had no part of what I did. I was not nervous about it at all. Loved to sing – loved the lyrics to songs always. Yeah.”

 

To learn more about Nancy Wilson, check out the Jazz Profiles series she hosted on National Public Radio, read her 2007 interview on the National Endowment for the Arts website, watch her 1994 interview on Detroit Black Journal on YouTube, her 1962 appearance on Jazz Scene USA currently on YouTube, an 80-song Nancy Wilson playlist curated by yours truly on Apple Music or Spotify, and of course, buy or stream as much Nancy Wilson music as you can online.

Links to these sources and more provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

All excerpts of Nancy Wilson’s music included are permitted under Fair Use.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

[Photo: David Redfern/Redferns]

Celebrating Jazz Piano Virtuoso Oscar Peterson for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

Celebrating Jazz Piano Virtuoso Oscar Peterson for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 11, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on virtuoso pianist Oscar Peterson, who hailed from Canada, composed the de facto Civil Rights Movement anthem “Hymn to Freedom,” and was dubbed the “Maharaja of the Keyboard” by none other than fellow piano master Duke Ellington.

To read about Peterson, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, April 11, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Being called the “Maharaja of the Keyboard” by Duke Ellington was a lot for Canadian-born jazz pianist Oscar Peterson to live up to – and he did.

In a career spanning over six decades, the classically trained Peterson showed off his virtuosity and dexterity in his compositions such as 1964’s Canadiana Suite and 1962’s “Hymn to Freedom,” which was embraced by people around the world as the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement:

[Excerpt from “Hymn to Freedom”]

Peterson also excelled as accompanist to greats like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, and as front man of his world-renowned Oscar Peterson Trio in the 1950s, who recorded such treasures such as “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”:

[Excerpt of “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”]

“Something’s Coming” from West Side Story:

[Excerpt of “Something’s Coming”]

and “C Jam Blues”:

[Excerpt of “C Jam Blues”]

Peterson won eight Grammy awards and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1978 and the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997.

Later this month over the April 22nd weekend, the  Oscar Peterson International Jazz Festival will be held in Toronto, Canada and feature contemporary jazz artists Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Brad Mehldau and Brian Blade, among others.

To learn more about Oscar Peterson, read his 2002 autobiography A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson: The Man and His Jazz by Jack Batten from 2012 and Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing by Gene Lees, and watch the 2021 documentary Oscar Peterson: Black + White, currently streaming on Hulu.

And, of course, buy or stream as much of Oscar Peterson’s music as you can, including the latest 2021 posthumous release, A Time For Love, a recording of Peterson’s quartet live concert in Helsinki in 1987, which you can get on 180 gram blue vinyl if you’re into that through oscarpeterson.com.

Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Intro and outro provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

All excerpts of Oscar Peterson’s music included are permitted under Fair Use.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(links to amazon books are paid links)

GBN’s Daily Drop (bonus): Celebrating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop (bonus): Celebrating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 9, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is a bonus episode about U.S Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose historic appointment this week can’t be celebrated enough.

To read about her, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, April 9th, 2022, based on the format of the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Just two short days ago, history that was a long time in coming was finally made when Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was officially confirmed by a Senate vote of 53 to 47 to become the 116th Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and first African American woman ever to serve on the highest judicial body of the nation.

In a bit of poetry, the vote was called for and presided over by Vice President Kamala Harris, who herself is quite familiar with making U.S. history as a Black woman.

Nominated by President Joe Biden in February, Justice Jackson faced over a month of scrutiny in the Senate confirmation hearings as well as in the media, but navigated it all with intelligence, grace and candor.