Bøger af Cecil Brown

Journey's End is a book written by Cecil Brown. The story follows the life of a young African American man named Johnny Porter as he navigates through the racial tensions and injustices of the mid-twentieth century United States. Johnny is a talented musician and hopes to make a career out of his passion, but he faces numerous obstacles along the way. He is subjected to discrimination and violence, and his dreams are often thwarted by the systemic racism of the era.Despite the challenges he faces, Johnny remains determined to succeed. He forms a close bond with his mentor, a jazz musician named King Bolden, who helps guide him through the complexities of the music industry. Along the way, Johnny falls in love with a white woman named Alice, further complicating his already difficult journey.Journey's End is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that explores themes of race, identity, and the pursuit of the American Dream. It offers a compelling portrait of a young man struggling to find his place in a society that is stacked against him, and the resilience and determination required to overcome adversity.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Pryor Lives! How Richard Pryor Became Richard Pryor By Cecil Brown How did a scraggly standup comic became one of America's most controversial social satirists? How did Richard Pryor take the traditional stand-up form and used it to become a cultural hero? Cecil Brown, who, after witnessing Mr. Pryor's performance at Mandrake's in 1969 in Berkeley, California, became his running buddy for the next 30 years. He traveled with Mr. Pryor, wrote screenplays for him, and collaborated with him on other projects. Using many years of intimate experiences behind the scenes, Mr. Brown traces the evolution of Mr. Pryor's "white bread" comedy," (in which he imitated Bill Cosby) to the hilariously raunchy material that catapulted him to international fame. Following Mr. Pryor's career from the small standup performances in Berkeley to his performances at the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, the author shows how Mr. Pryor used his stage performances to transform the harsh unforgiving realities of his life (tax evasion, domestic violence, freebase meltdown, heart attacks) into classic American comic art. Tracking Mr. Pryor's rise to star power, this book shows how Mr. Pryor made Stand-Up, into an instrument of spontaneity and a serious platform for public joking. If Pryor had stayed with this program, he would have been just another brilliant comedian. But, as Brown reveals, Mr. Pryor went further. His art depended on his locating, exposing, and tracking the demons that plagued his audience. His performance on stage resembled a shaman performing a ritual of exorcism. As a healer, he used comedy to nurse the damaged souls of the counter-culture, the black power community, the hippies, the new-age, the born-again Christians back to health. There is no better example of this phenomena than the Hollywood Bowl incident that took place in 1977 in Los Angeles, in which Mr. Pryor addressed a 17, 000 crowd that was celebrating support for Gay Pride. He chastised the white and largely gay audience for not giving attention to the suffering of inner city Blacks. The audience booed and hissed him. As one member of the audience later recalled, "Pryor presented his backside to us and informed us we could kiss his 'rich, black ass!'". The honesty that Mr. Pryor offered that evening still reverberates in our society today and has caused the gay community to become for aware of the misfortunate of others. Written in a humorous, scholarly, witty style, this biography earns the accolades that Pryor himself wrote about his friend. "I have never met a writer who loved his work as much as Cecil Brown," Pryor wrote in praise of Brown's novel, Days Without Weather (1983), "The humor, the warmth, and even the smell are beautiful. The gentleness with which he handles his memories of his character is great." "A great writer, and a great friend," he said, on the Bicentennial Nigger album. Book Reviews: Forget about those other books written ostensibly about Richard Pryor! Finally, there is a sensitive, revealing and truthful book concerning Richard Pryor and how he became the funniest man in America on stage and on film. Part memoir, and part eyewitness to Show Business history, Cecil Brown's book, PRYOR LIVES! is the most definitive book to date about the late comedian's rise to unparalleled stardom. From living and working in Berkeley, California - to being swallowed up by the infested shark-filled waters of Hollywood, the reader will see Richard Pryor with a new, eye-opening perspective - as Cecil Brown writes with empathy and passion about Pryor's comedy, his life-style, and the tragic events that encompassed his life. Read this book! It's ground breaking in its scope and style! And it is funny as hell! Robert N. Zagone Film Director

This is a new release of the original 1948 edition.

It's the birth year of Ragtime music, 1895, and Lee "Stagolee" Shelton, a St. Louis pimp, murders Billy Lyons, a political gang member. Afterwards, Stagolee makes a deal with Judge Murphy to bring order to the underworld. As a member of a group of pimps called the "Stags," Stagolee makes alliances with the Democratic Party and votes for a Democratic Mayor. Later, the Stag Party, along with the Democratic Party, elects St. Louis's first black policeman. It is this policeman who is sent to arrest Stagolee for the murder of Billy Lyons. Now, nearly 50 years after singer Lloyd Price introduced mainstream audiences to the "Stagger Lee" story, Cecil Brown portrays the events that gave rise to this mainstay of African-American popular culture. This follows the successful Stagolee Shot Billy, Brown's nonfiction account of the same story.

Brown tracks the legend of Stagolee through variants of the song "Stack Lee"-from early ragtime versions to contemporary hip-hop renderings. He describes the influence of a legend bigger than literature, one whose transformation reflects changing views of black musical forms, and African Americans' altered attitudes toward black male identity