Their Eyes Were Watching God

For my English 4 honors class we recently began reading Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God". From the perspective of a writer this book is absolutely amazing. The approach she takes in her writing is so creative, admirable, and straight up gutsy. Ill explain.
The book is written about southern living through the eyes of a black woman, named Janie, in the mid 20th century. Now, I'm not too far into this book so some details I'm unaware of, but there is a lot to be said already. Hurston wrote this book to take the reader through the thoughts of Janie, and although there are snippets of a narrator speaking in "normal" English, it's written in Janie's language, which includes a lot of slang, and a thick southern accent. This writing shows a crucial acknowledgement of the culture of the people Hurston is trying to focus on, which is rich with way more than we today might realize.
While reading this story I was assigned to focus on a certain aspect, and I chose to focus on the culture behind the writing of this book. The dialogue is so rich with the culture of African Americans. This culture spreads from language to activities like playing the blues, and shooting the dozens. Playing the dozens I learned was/is a way to blow off steam nonviolently if they had a bone to pick with one another. Playing the blues was so important because it was frowned upon for a black person to openly express themselves during this time. They sort of had to conform to a certain standard to be safe. The blues was so important because it became their form of expression, and the name "The blues" was given because this expression was unfortunately so sad due to the circumstances of the time. The blues are important to us today because it started a wave of musical expression. The blues turned into jazz, which turned into soul, and hip hop, and R & B, and even rock and roll which became the most expressive forms of music we know today.

Standing In The Shadows of Motown- The Start

I have recently bought a new book that I was told is crucial for a bass player to have. It's called "Standing in The Shadows of Motown", a book about arguably the best electric bassist who ever lived, James Jamerson. This is the guy you hear on the majority of famous Motown tracks like Stevie Wonder's "Signed Sealed Delivered", or Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", both the song and the album. This guy was a genius, and as much as I'd like to go in depth about him and his playing, my real assignment is to talk about the writing.
The thing that interests me most about the writing of this book is that the author, Dr. Licks, isn't basing his information on internet research, or other books about Motown. He's basing his information and writing on the fact that he was there for a lot of the action. This man has met and talked with people like Jamerson's drummer, and the pianist who was a large part of the "Motown sound", Earl Vann Dyke. Dr. Licks interviews all of these world class musicians, as well as other family members and friends of Jamerson in order to piece together the story of his tragically ended life. Not only is this an amazing and interesting topic, but puzzling the pieces together to form a story of a musically famous, but personally forgotten person seems to be a fun process in itself.
If I were to ever write a book it's either be completely fiction, like a super imaginative weird scifi novel, or a biography about someone as inspiring and important as Mr. James Jamerson. This book stresses his importance in the musical world today. If every band needs a bass player, nine out of ten times that bass player has been hugely influenced by James Jamerson. If this isn't the case, then this strange bassist was influenced by a different bass player who was influenced by Jamerson. Jamerson is the epitome of modern bass playing, and hugely impacting on the world of music we live in today.