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Article: A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song.(Review)
- Article from:
- American Jewish History
- Article date:
- June 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 American Jewish Historical Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song. By Jeffrey Melnick. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. ix + 277 pp.
Jeffrey Melnick's A Right to Sing the Blues is a relentlessly argued volume that seeks to expose the "myth" that Jews in the pre-1940s popular music business had a natural affinity for interpreting and producing Black music. Instead, Melnick sets forth the thesis that Jews like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin skillfully manipulated their own racial identity to maximize their marketability as purveyors of popular song, elbowing out "real" Black Americans in the process. The primary techniques that musical ...