Bücher von Daniel de Vise

THE BLUES BROTHERS is a story of friendship and film, race and revival, rhythm and blues. The 1980 movie stands as a landmark of American cinema and popular culture: A glorious meeting of the nation's white and black musical traditions, a moment of rebirth for the legends of African-American music, and the crowning achievement of three iconic talents in television and cinema, comedic actors John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd and director John Landis. The Blues Brothers marked a paradigm shift in the comedy and musical genres of cinema, a passing of the torch to a young and restless generation of writers and performers raised on television, and the arrival of Chicago as a cinematic setting. Dismissed by critics and shunned by theater owners upon its release, The Blues Brothers matured into a cinema classic. One of cinema's great comedies, The Blues Brothers also offered a groundbreaking vision for a modern, urban musical. The Blues Brothers endures, too, as a symbol of Hollywood excess, the heady, coke-fuelled peak of a doomed artistic partnership. THE BLUES BROTHERS chronicles the making of an iconic American film, and how the movie uses comedy to convey an important message about music, race and the American experience. Among other things, the book will reveal the true purpose of the mission that fueled the Blues Brothers enterprise: to revive the careers of America's greatest icons of rhythm and blues. This transcendent quest sets The Blues Brothers apart from the other fine comedy films of its era, securing a place for Aykroyd, Belushi and Landis in the turbulent history of race in America-in this case, as white Americans who leveraged their fame to raise the currency of great Black American musicians.

Ein Botschafter des Blues und Ikone der schwarzen Kultur Musik war die einzige Fluchtmöglichkeit für Riley »B.B.« King (1925-2015), der in großer Armut im Staat Mississippi aufwuchs und schon mit zehn Jahren beide Eltern verloren hatte. Inspiriert durch die Bluesgrößen Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker und Bukka White lernte er das Gitarrespielen und schaffte es weg von den Baumwollfeldern nach Memphis. Durch sein melodiöses Solospiel und seine packende Gesangsdarbietung entwickelte er einen völlig neuen Vortragsstil, der für viele die Grundlage ihres eigenen Schaffens wurde - etwa Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton und Carlos Santana. Pulitzer-Preisträger Daniel de Visé interviewte für diesen Band die Mitglieder des engsten Kreises um B.B. King: Band- und Familienmitglieder, Freunde und Manager. So zeichnet er nicht nur dessen Erfolge nach, sondern zeigt auch die dunklen Seiten des Musikbusiness auf: rassistische Vorurteile, die krummen Touren von Plattenlabels wie Konzertveranstaltern und die Erfolge der weißen Ziehsöhne, die ihren Übervater schnell abhängten. So erzählt Daniel de Visé weit mehr als die Lebensgeschichte des größten Blues-Gitarristen aller Zeiten - sein Buch ist zugleich eine Geschichte der Bürgerrechtsbewegung, des Rassismus und der aufkeimenden Popkultur in den USA. »Er ist ohne jeden Zweifel der wichtigste Künstler, den der Blues je hervorgebracht hat.« Eric Clapton »Niemand arbeitete härter als B.B. King. Niemand inspirierte mehr aufstrebende junge Musiker. Niemand tat mehr dafür, das Evangelium des Blues zu verbreiten.« Barack Obama »Daniel de Visés Buch über B.B. King ist großartiger Lesestoff.« Joan Armatrading

The first full and authoritative biography of an American--indeed a world-wide--musical and cultural legend. "No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues."--President Barack Obama. "He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced."--Eric Clapton. Riley "Blues Boy" King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister's guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, encouraged by his cousin, the established blues man Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge. King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in 90 countries over nearly 60 years)--in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including his landmark gig at Chicago's Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color. Daniel de Viés has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King's inner circle--family, band members, retainers, managers, and more--and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby "Blue" Bland simply called "the man."