BLACK MUSIC MONTH READING LIST #3
Collections of my writing that cover the expanse of my career and highlights black music
My first professional writing gig was at the black owned Amsterdam News while I was attending college in New York in the late ‘70s. I did a lot of things at the Am News, including some crime and sports reporting, film reviews and a few music pieces. While interning at the Am News I also got lucky enough to start contributing free lance articles to Billboard magazine through my mentor Robert ‘Rocky’ Ford. I got my first full time gig as a journalist in January 1981 with my clips from the Am News and Billboard helping me land a job at Record World magazine. Within a free of landing that job I finally broke through and sold some short music reviews to the Village Voice and eventually would do enough work there that I was given a column called Native Son.
All that is the backstory to the two collections of my writing that I’ve published, BUPPIES, BBOYS, BAPS & BOHOS: NOTES ON POST-SOUL CULTURE and THE NELSON GEORGE MOXTAPE. Buppies, published in the early ‘90s, is primarily my work at the Village Voice with free-lance pieces from other pubs in the mix. It’s not just my music pieces but sports, crime and lifetstyle work. The Mixtape has more of my writings from the Am News, as well as Record World and Musician, magazines that are both defunct but played major roles in my career as music journalist. Included in the Mixtape are also some previously unpublished work about Bob Marley and Motown bass God James Jamerson.
Together, much like the combination of THE DEATH OF RHYTHM & BLUES and HIP HOP AMERIC, these collections give a nice sweeping view of black music culture from the ‘60s to the dawn of the 21st century. The Mixtape, which gave this Substack its name, is only available via www.pacificpacific.pub.
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