Department of English and the Student Centers
         Present
            A  Lecture & Multi-media Event
Rock Historian and Author

Ed Ward

Black Music/White Music: 
The Line That Isn't There

March 12th -- Friday -- 7:30 PM
Rodney Room
Perkins Student Center
 
People say Elvis Presley caused a revolution when he married country music and rhythm and blues and came up with rock and roll. But this process has been going on, back and forth, since the 19th century, and there are countless examples of the trade-off between that's considered "black" music and "white" music, many of them surprising. This lecture will show how a west African instrument, the banjo, wound up a symbol of country music, what Texas fiddlers were doing playing jazz, and why black country singers aren't really a novelty, as we explore some of the odd corners of American popular music  history.  Ed Ward
Ed Ward has been writing about popular music for nearly 35 years. He was an editor at Crawdaddy! Magazine in 1967, at Rolling Stone in 1970, and West Coast Editor of Creem Magazine from 1971-77. Moving to Austin, Texas in 1979, he became Rock critic at the local daily paper, while moonlighting for the alternative Austin Chronicle. After leaving the daily to write the first section of Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll, he also became involved in Austin's attempts to promote ts music industry, which led to the foundation of the South By Southwest Music and Mdia Conference in 1985. In that same year, he started as "rock historian" for National Public Radio's Fresh Air program, and continues in that capacity to this day. He moved to Berlin in 1993 and writes on a wide variety of topics for Mojo, The Wall Street Journal Europe, the New York Times, and many other publications.  In addition, he founded the Berlin Information Group, a multimedia firm which provides information about Berlin in English through a website, news summary, and a monthly magazine.
This lecture is free and open to the public.

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