No American should need an introduction to singer, songwriter, producer and activist Harry Belafonte.
But a good one can be found in the documentary, “Sing Your Song.”
An even better one can be found in Belafonte’s autobiography (written with Michael Shnayerson), “My Song,” which is among the best books I know of for contextualizing 20th-century African American music and culture within social and political revolution, and which contains a riveting (and if Belafonte is to be believed, transformative) moment in which Robert F. Kennedy essentially gets told off (pages 267-68).
I bring up Belafonte because I just got an email informing me that he was recently presented with an honorary doctor of music degree at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. According to a press release, the degree was awarded “in recognition of Belafonte’s inspiring musical and humanitarian achievements, exposing America to world music and challenging and overturning racial barriers across the globe.”
Read the entire article at ARTINFO.
Larry Blumenfeld on jazz and other things