Topics Related to Black History
Rhiannon Giddens, the Macarthur Genius Award recipient and Grammy Award-winning co-founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, is the latest North Carolina musician to take part in Come Hear NC's live session series In The Water.
Nina Simone’s first musical love was Johann Sebastian Bach.In her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You she noted that Bach “is technically perfect… Each note you play is connected to the next note, and every note has to be executed perfectly or the whole effect is lost. Once I understood Bach’s music I never wanted to be anything other than a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music.”
John Coltrane, the master of the saxophone, was born September 23, 1926 to John R. and Alice Blair Coltrane, in Hamlet, North Carolina, in the rural, red clay farming region near the South Carolina state line. His grandfather was Reverend William Coltrane, a prominent African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) minister in Hamlet.
From negro spirituals to the blues, Black Southerners historically have relied on music to document the social ills of America and resist state-sanctioned violence against Black bodies.