...Willie James Jennings Jon Michael Spencer . Blues and Evil . Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press , 1993 . Pp. xxx , 177 . Copyright © 1994 by Duke University Press 1994 128 Black Sacred Music ate transliteration of his thinking or exposing the problematic nature...

... interiority and influence, it should not be surprising that the two myths on the origin and description of evil prevalent in the old South and its blues were biblical-the 1. Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 287. 2. Newman Ivey White, ed., The Frank C. Brown...

... disruptions are not perceived as being "evil11 until they adversely affect human interests, particularly the interests of the disinherited, who already face the preponderance of moral evil in the world. Hence, when black sharecroppers and migrant workers of the postbellum South witness the great damage spring...

... conviction that blues are no more evil than the biblical Psalms and Lamentations. But there are people who look to the blues to get in touch with the evil in themselves-evil in themselves that is denied by their Christian doctrine and consequently suppressed. These people project the suppressed evil...

... and the artistic achievements of his musical comrades Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. Suffice it to say that Jackson's religious sensibilities are expressed in his wrestling with religiously informed, morally shaped, and culturally conditioned themes. These include an examining of the nature of good and evil...

... Fat Mama Blues," II7 Bingham, Henry, 23 Bitches Brew, 289 "Black and Evil Blues," 126 Black Athena, 273 Black, Brown and Beige, 144, 148- 49, 157-58 "Black, Brown, and White," 56 "Black Cat Crossed Your Path," 131 Black Power, 93,208,215,216 Blackmur, R. P., 55 Blakey, Art, 28 3 Blind Percy, 121 Bloch...

..., good, evil, love, hate, and hope. Early blues, the true foundation of all secular black music in America, was created by impoverished ex-slaves in southern rural communities. In African-American musical history we actually come full circle in rap, which, though dating back only to the mid-seventies...

.... To illustrate the immediate relevance this has to music, clearly the "coon songs" of minstrelsy caused noncommunity, while the message of gospel music seeks community. In what he called his "search for common ground," Thurman discerned three kinds of evil and suffering that are barriers to the attainment...

... to provide critical commentary when he deems it fitting, it is disappointing to find that he neglects to challenge the most prevailing stereotype of the blues: the notion that the blues were actually evil. Lomax explains that many blues singers viewed secular amusements and music as the folly of Satan...

... dilemmas and evils of human society. As a consequence, Greeley calls for the development of a "spirituality of the secular" that will help society to recognize the sacred-which he defines as "God's self-communication in the wonders and the graces and the renewals of hope in secular life."3 Greeley...

... three kinds of evil and suffering that are barriers to the attainment of community: natural evil, or calamity resulting from environmental cataclysm; moral evil, suffering caused by human initiative gone awry; and punitive suffering, grievance resulting from the logic of legal punishment (48-49...

... would like to give some remarks concerning the theological discussion about heavy metal and the problem of evil. I have to confess that I am not a fan of this kind of music, but I can see no reason why I should be overly critical of heavy metal and its listeners. I do not agree with those critics who...

... than the terms of good and evil, godly will and perverse will, which defined the Judaeo-Christian heritage.9 The influence of philosophical thought on the academic theologians did not preclude theological normativity based on the tenets of canonical authority; it simply broadened the hermeneutical...

... of the Ethics and Politics, brought Christian theologians into contact with an extraordinarily stimulating thinker who perceived the usefulness and dangers of music in terms both more urbane and more sophisticated than the terms of good and evil, godly will and perverse will, which defined the Judaeo-Christian...

... always considered religious. On the subject of human sinfulness, Springsteen sounds like St. Paul, who lamented that "the good which I would do, I do not do; and the evil which I would not do, that I do." In "Two Faces" the singer complains that he is two men, one good, one evil; one sunny, one dark; one...

... music in its principal and primordial capacities of purveying good and evil: "Archetypal Music as a Demonic Force," which examines Leo Tolstoy's novel, The Kreutzer Sonata (1891), and "Archetypal Jazz," which examines JeanPaul Sartre's novel, Nausea (1938), wherein jazz plays a healing function...

... music in its principal and primordial capacities of purveying good and evil: "Archetypal Music as a Demonic Force," which examines Leo Tolstoy's novel, The Kreutzer Sonata (1891), and "Archetypal Jazz," which examines JeanPaul Sartre's novel, Nausea (1938), wherein jazz plays a healing function...

... and Evil. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993. Pp. xxx, 177. In his book Blues and Evil, Jon Michael Spencer presses a sometimes controversial, often ignored argument-that there is an essential religious character to the blues. James Cone, in his groundbreaking text, The Spirituals and the Blues...

.... Two of the chapters exemplify archetypal music in its principal and primordial capacities of purveying good and evil: "Archetypal Music as a Demonic Force," which examines Leo Tolstoy's novel, The Kreutzer Sonata (1891), and "Archetypal Jazz," which examines JeanPaul Sartre's novel, Nausea (1938...

.... 20. J2Gruver, No. 32, pp. 7-8. 8 The Journal of Black Sacred Music Calvinist conflict and racial degradation."J3 It was simply more than some men could tolerate when they "got from behind the mule " at Sundown Saturday. 4 J The third and foundational ··super-personal force of evil" which bluespeople...