African Americans have for the most part been absent from Texas's photographic history. Scholarly texts on photography rarely mention black Texans, and few museums have catalogued or displayed their work. Portraits of Community redresses this situation by presenting more than two hundred powerful images of black Texans taken by a group of little-known black photographers and includes deatiled interviews with the men and women behind the cameras. Alan Govenar, a writer, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker in Dallas, has created a memorable book.

Portraits of Community: African American Photography in Texas

Arts & Photography

Govenar, Alan B.

Photography & Video

Texas State Historical Assn

Benny Joseph made his living as a professional photographer in Houston's black community during the crucial decades from the 1950s through the early 1980s, when the amplified pulse of rhythm and blues underscored the social changes sweeping the nation. Joseph photographed everything from parades and teen hops to impassioned speeches by civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall. Under contract to the pioneering black entrepreneur Don Robey, owner of the Duke and Peacock recording labels, Joseph photographed many of the popular recording artists of the day, including B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, Buddy Ace, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and Della Reese. With over 120 unique black and white photographs, this is a must have for all rhythm and blues enthusiasts, and a valuable historical resource for photography collectors. Writer, photographer, and filmmaker Alan Govenar met Joseph in 1984 when he was closing his studio in Houston's Third Ward and worked with him over the next five years, sifting through thousands of negatives to identify and contextualize his most compelling images of this remarkable era.

The Early Years of Rhythm and Blues: Focus on Houston

Joseph, Benny

Music

Rice Univ Pr

A Joyful Noise: A Celebration of New Orleans Music

Smith, Michael P.

Pelican Pub Co Inc

Local histories are of far more than regional significance, particularly when the data relate to larger scenes, as is true in this study of Dallas's early-20th-century Jewish and Black ghettos--Deep Ellum and Central Track. The two groups had migrated to Dallas, individually expecting the traditions of segregation, a situation that brought about some degree of alliance. Sociological concerns do play a part in Govenar's coverage (including politics, economics, and crime), but his real subject is blues--an idiom that began to come into focus late in the 19th century and blossomed with Texan Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893-1929) and those who came under his influence. Although Govenar provides a very respectable bibliography, the majority of the footnoted sources are interviews, suggesting much of the information has not previously appeared in print. Included in the four appendixes are discographies of Dallas-related jazz, blues, gospel, and country and of the Light Crust Doughboys, a popular music ensemble active in the late 1930s (in fact, these two appendixes occupy more than a third of the book). Numerous photographs are also included. This will be a welcome addition to collections supporting study of the blues and of the US Southwest. Choice Magazine, May 1999. Review by D. R. de Lerma, Lawrence University. 
"Through a mixture of contemporary interviews and historical research, Govenar and Brakefield provide us with a compelling portrait of Deep Ellum, a complex and often misunderstood section of Dallas. The nexus for many East Texas musicians during the 1920s and 1930s, Deep Ellum was a helter skelter mixture of clubs, pawnshops, and other small businesses that attracted the entire spectrum of vernacular musicians. This book is important not only for what it reveals about local blues, gospel, jazz, and western swing performers but for what it tells us about race relations and other poorly researched aspects of the city's social history." --Kip Lornell, George Washington University, &amp; the Smithsonian Institution 
"Like Beale Street in Memphis and Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Deep Ellum in Dallas, Texas, was famed in song and legend for its nightlife as well as its thriving daytime commerce. It was also a place in the segregated South where the races met in ways that they couldn't elsewhere. In the work of Govenar and Brakefield, Deep Ellum now takes its place in these other important southern urban districts of the early twentieth century."--David Evans, Professor of Music, The University of Memphis 
"Alan Govenar is a gifted and meticulous researcher whose works are notable for a passionate respect for his subject. In its thoroughness and insight, Deep Ellum deepens our understanding of African-American music by re-connecting the art to its material base. It's a reminder that Harlem is only one chapter in the renaissance of African-American culture."--Lorenzo Thomas, University of Houston-Downtown

Deep Ellum and Central Track: Where the Black and White Worlds of Dallas Converged

Brakefield, Jay F.

Univ of North Texas Pr

Texas Blues allows artists to speak in their own words, revealing the dynamics of blues, from its beginnings in cotton fields and shotgun shacks to its migration across boundaries of age and race to seize the musical imagination of the entire world. Fully illustrated with 495 dramatic, high-quality color and black-and-white photographs—many never before published—Texas Blues provides comprehensive and authoritative documentation of a musical tradition that has changed contemporary music. Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author Alan Govenar here builds on his previous groundbreaking work documenting these musicians and their style with the stories of 110 of the most influential artists and their times. From Blind Lemon Jefferson and Aaron “T-Bone” Walker of Dallas, to Delbert McClinton in Fort Worth, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins in East Texas, Baldemar (Freddie Fender) Huerta in South Texas, and Stevie Ray Vaughan in Austin, Texas Blues shows the who, what, where, and how of blues in the Lone Star State.

Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound (John and Robin Dickson Series in Texas Music, sponsored by the Center for Texas Music History, Texas State University)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Texas A&M University Press

Native American drumming and chant; Czech and German polka; country fiddling; African American spirituals, blues and jazz; cowboy songs; Mexican corridos; zydeco; and the sounds of a Cambodian New Year’s celebration — all are part of the amazing cultural patchwork of traditional music in Texas. In Everyday Music, author and researcher Alan Govenar brings readers face-to-face with the stories and memories of people who are as varied as the traditions they carry on.
From 1983 to 1988, Alan Govenar traveled more than 35,000 miles around Texas, interviewing, recording, and photographing the vast cultural landscape of the state. In Everyday Music, he compares his experiences then with his attempts to reconnect with the people and traditions that he had originally documented. Stopping at gas stations, restaurants, or street-corner groceries in small towns and inner-city neighborhoods, Govenar asked local residents about local music and musicians. What he found on his road trip around the state—and what he shares in the pages of this book — are the time-honored songs, tunes, and musical instruments that have been passed down from one generation to the next. Govenar invites you to accompany him on his journey — one that will forever change the way you look at the traditional music that is such an important part of our everyday lives.
Everyday Music is accompanied by a special online resource (www.everydaymusiconline.org) with video clips, recorded interviews, and performances. The site also features special resources for teachers who want to bring this rich cultural experience into their classrooms and for general readers who simply want to know more.
Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 Julius Vita: Czech Accordion, Seymour 9 John Burrus: Cowboy Songs and Country Hymns, Stephenville 18 Osceola Mays: Spirituals and Poems, Dallas 30 Howard Dee “Wes” Westmoreland III: Fiddling, Gustine 40 Miguel Pedraza: Tigua Drumming and Chanting, El Paso 51 Alexander H. Moore: Barrelhouse Blues, Dallas 62 W. W. Trammell: Guitar Maker and Musician, Lone Star 73 Lydia Mendoza: Boleros, Corridos, and Rancheras, Houston 83 Original Oompah Band: German Dance Music, Tivydale 96 John Henry “Bones” Nobles: Bones Percussion, Beaumont 107 Yani Rose Keo: Cambodian Music and Dance, Houston 117 Appendix: Traditional Music in Texas Radio Series 129 Acknowledgments 131 For Further Reading, Listening, and Viewing 133 Index 137

Everyday Music (Texas Music Series, Sponsored by the Center for Texas Music History, Texas State University)

Deep Ellum, on the eastern edge of downtown Dallas, retains its character as an alternative to the city’s staid image with loft apartments, art galleries, nightclubs, and tattoo shops. It first sprang up as a ramshackle business district with saloons and variety theatres and evolved, during the early decades of the twentieth century, into a place where the black and white worlds of Dallas converged. This book strips away layers of myth to illuminate the cultural milieu that spawned such seminal blues and jazz musicians as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Buster Smith, and T-Bone Walker and that was also an incubator for the growth of western swing. Expanding upon the original 1998 publication, this Texas A&amp;M University Press edition offers new research on Deep Ellum’s vital cross-fertilization of white and black musical styles, many additional rare historical photographs, and an updated account of the area in the early years of the twenty-first century.

Deep Ellum (John and Robin Dickson Texas Music, Sponsored by the Center for Texas Music History, Texas)

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