While in the last part of the 19th century so-called “high art,” opera, theater, classical music and the like were deemed “too good” for the average working audience, these forms of entertainment ended up elite controlled in the US. Controlled namely by those who wanted to solidify their own standing by attending such entertainment and […]
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Tag: Bessie Smith
Ragged But Right. Black Traveling Shows, “Coon Songs,” and … by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff (2012)
For several decades, a very distinctive form of African American minstrel show was the most popular form of entertainment for black audiences in the South, its fame covering almost the entire country by and by. The beginning of this art form (that was in parts of the country available until the late 1940s) and its […]