Akron Public Library

The brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time, in his own wordsfeaturing never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds,...

When Tony Lip, a bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley, a world-class Black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on The Green Book to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans. Confronted with racism, danger, as well as unexpected humanity and humor, they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the...

"John Nickel is a black ex-jazz musician who only wants to be a good father. But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft--Fay and Carl's dead father --and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take...

"The Notorious B.I.G. was one of the most charismatic and talented artists of the 1990s. Born Christopher Wallace and raised in Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie lived an almost archetypal rap life: young trouble, drug dealing, guns, prison, a giant hit record, the wealth and international superstardom that came with it, then an early violent death. Biggie released his first record, Ready to Die, in 1994, when he was only 22. Less than three...

Escaping slavery to become a street performer in mid-nineteenth-century Philadelphia, Henry Sims hides his identity to join a troupe of white minstrels, until a ruthless slave hunter threatens his life.

The author of nine novels, Clyde Edgerton has built a reputation as a sage commentator on the American experience. In The Night Train, Edgerton weaves the ultimately uplifting tale of friends Dwayne, a James Brown-inspired crooner, and Larry, apprentice to a jazz musician. One black, one white, Dwayne and Larry face daunting challenges to their friendship-and futures-in 1960s America.

Surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. From his rise to fame as a singer and his experiences touring a segregated country to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement.

For almost half a century, Amiri Baraka has ranked among the most important commentators on African American music and culture. In this brilliant assemblage of his writings on music, the first such collection in nearly twenty years, Baraka blends autobiography, history, musical analysis, and political commentary to recall the sounds, people, times, and places he's encountered. As in his earlier classics, Blues People and Black Music, Baraka offers...

"The . . . story of Blind Willie Johnson--the legendary Texas musician whose song "Dark Was the Night" was included on the Voyager I space probe's Golden Record"--

This is a biography of Ray Charles, who was born to a poor teenage single mother, blinded as a child, orphaned at fifteen, and went on to be one of the most popular soul singers of our time.