Black Women, Music, and Community

Danny Alexander is a white man who has written a book about a black female artist: Real Love, No Drama: The Music of Mary J. Blige. Mary J. Blige grew up in Yonkers, New York, and Danny Alexander grew up in small town Oklahoma. Their backgrounds and life experiences couldn't be more different, but Blige's music has a way of connecting people. As America continues to wrestle with racial difference, Danny Alexander's new book is a testament to the hope that deeply personal and politically conscious music—like that of Mary J. Blige and many others—can bring about a more "woke" world. We asked Danny to write about what brought him to this project.

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Real Love, No Drama

by Danny Alexander

Giveaway ends June 30, 2016.
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Why I Wrote a Book on The Queen of Hip Hop Soul
By Danny Alexander

My hometown library was built and long curated by a somewhat famous librarian named Ruth Brown, who just happens to share her name with the R&B artist who famously built Atlantic Records. In 1950, Bartlesville, Oklahoma’s Ruth Brown was fired for her civil rights activities, principally her work integrating the library around the children’s story hour. She was a member of the Congress for Racial Equality and was labeled a communist. Bette Davis played a fictionalized version of her in the 1956 movie Storm Center, yet she remains known mainly in civil rights circles (the Cold War environment I lived in as a child meant I didn’t even learn Brown’s story until years after I moved away). Since my own writing career has been focused on freedom of expression and a belief in trying to cross social boundaries that, in general, remain intact sixty-six years later, I was proud to have my first book signing across from her portrait in her former library. I was also happy to think she might have approved of the scene before her.

Announcing new memoir by former Go-Go Kathy Valentine

UT Press is excited to announce that musician, songwriter, and former Go-Go Kathy Valentine has signed an agreement to write her first book – a memoir.

Beauty and the Beat
(The Go-Go's)

Formed in 1978 in Los Angeles, the Go-Go's made music history as the first all-female group to perform, write and release a number one album in the U.S. Valentine joined the band in 1980, switching from her Texas guitar roots to play bass for the band. She was also one of the group's three primary composers, and co-wrote three of the band's hit singles from 1980-1985. Hugely influential and popular, the Go-Go's released four albums while together, and remained a popular touring entity for decades.

Valentine’s memoir will be a coming-of-age story about a girl finding her way in the world through music. Valentine did more than find her way, however, she became part of one of the most successful all-female bands in history and experienced all of the thrills and dangerous temptations of a rock star.

Kathy Valentine
Photo by Arnold Niemanis

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Kathy Valentine’s book will join recent UT Press music books written by or about female musicians including: Kristin Hersh’s Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt, her memoir about the late singer songwriter, named one of the best books of 2015 by NPR; Real Love, No Drama: The Music of Mary J. Blige, the first serious look at Blige’s entire musical career by Danny Alexander; and Madonnaland: And Other Detours into Fame and Fandom, a light-hearted exploration of celebrity and fandom, by Alina Simone.

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