{"title":"University of Texas Press","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"a-pure-solar-world-sun-ra-and-the-birth-of-afrofuturism-2","title":"A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism","description":"\u003cp\u003eSurveying the range of Sun Ra’s extraordinary creativity, this book explores how the father of Afrofuturism brought “space music” to a planet in need of transformation, supporting the aspirations of black people in an inhospitable white world.Sun Ra said he came from Saturn. Known on earth for his inventive music and extravagant stage shows, he pioneered free-form improvisation in an ensemble setting with the devoted band he called the “Arkestra.” Sun Ra took jazz from the inner city to outer space, infusing traditional swing with far-out harmonies, rhythms, and sounds. Described as the father of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra created “space music” as a means of building a better future for American blacks here on earth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism offers a spirited introduction to the life and work of this legendary but underappreciated musician, composer, and poet. Paul Youngquist explores and assesses Sun Ra’s wide-ranging creative output—music, public preaching, graphic design, film and stage performance, and poetry—and connects his diverse undertakings to the culture and politics of his times, including the space race, the rise of technocracy, the civil rights movement, and even space-age bachelor-pad music. By thoroughly examining the astro-black mythology that Sun Ra espoused, Youngquist masterfully demonstrates that he offered both a holistic response to a planet desperately in need of new visions and vibrations and a new kind of political activism that used popular culture to advance social change. In a nation obsessed with space and confused about race, Sun Ra aimed not just at assimilation for the socially disfranchised but even more at a wholesale transformation of American society and a more creative, egalitarian world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Texas Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50481645420875,"sku":"2029562","price":21.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/51A3Rg0bgwL._SY291_BO1204203200_QL40_ML2__c461e17a_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727542605"},{"product_id":"where-the-devil-don-t-stay","title":"Where The Devil Don't Stay","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1996, Patterson Hood recruited friends and fellow musicians in Athens, Georgia, to form his dream band: a group with no set lineup that specialized in rowdy rock and roll. The Drive\\-By Truckers, as they named themselves, grew into one of the best and most consequential rock bands of the twenty\\-first century, a great live act whose songs deliver the truth and nuance rarely bestowed on Southerners, so often reduced to stereotypes. Where the Devil Dont Stay tells the bands unlikely story not chronologically but geographically. Seeing the Truckers albums as roadmaps through a landscape that is half\/real, half\/magined, their fellow Southerner Stephen Deusner travels to the places the bands members have lived in and written about. Tracking the band from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, to the authors hometown in McNairy County, Tennessee, Deusner explores the Truckers complex relationship to the South and the issues of class, race, history, and religion that run through their music. Drawing on new interviews with past and present band members, including Jason Isbell, Where the Devil Dont Stay is more than the story of a great American band; its a reflection on the power of music and how it can frame and shape a larger culture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Texas Press","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":50486580511051,"sku":"1131309","price":20.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/9de147f3-8348-4ebc-a1e8-a32f1866e176_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727611766"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/university-of-texas-press.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}