Move On Up, Aaron Cohen
Move On Up, Aaron Cohen
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Move On Up
Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power

Author: Aaron Cohen

Narrator: JD Jackson

Unabridged: 9 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/17/2020


Synopsis

In Move On Up, Aaron Cohen tells the remarkable story of the explosion of soul music in Chicago. Together, soul music and black-owned businesses thrived. Record producers and song-writers broadcast optimism for black America's future through their sophisticated, jazz-inspired productions for the Dells and many others. Curtis Mayfield boldly sang of uplift with unmistakable grooves like "We're a Winner" and "I Plan to Stay a Believer." Musicians like Phil Cohran and the Pharaohs used their music to voice Afrocentric philosophies that challenged racism and segregation, while Maurice White of Earth, Wind, and Fire and Chaka Khan created music that inspired black consciousness. Soul music also accompanied the rise of African American advertisers and the campaign of Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983.

This empowerment was set in stark relief by the social unrest roiling in Chicago and across the nation: as Chicago's homegrown record labels produced rising stars singing songs of progress and freedom, Chicago's black middle class faced limited economic opportunities and deep-seated segregation, all against a backdrop of nationwide deindustrialization.


About Aaron Cohen

Aaron Cohen covers the arts for numerous publications and teaches English, journalism, and humanities at the City Colleges of Chicago. He is the author of Aretha Franklin's "Amazing Grace".


Reviews

Goodreads review by DJ on December 23, 2020

Good overview, with lots of historical and political context. I'm very likely to refer back to this now and again. It's fairly dense for a reasonably short book. I'm also grateful that reading it helped me discover artists like Terry Callier, Baby Huey and the Baby Sitters, The Pharaohs, and The Sou......more

Goodreads review by Alison on September 13, 2023

Extremely informative and well-written. I had Spotify at the ready to listen to the artists and songs as they were documented, and that was so satisfying to do while poring through the chapters.......more

Goodreads review by Bradley on August 24, 2020

Noticing that the story of Chicago soul music was largely untold, Cohen set to correct that with his masterfully rich and academic book about the history of the city’s soul movement as a marker and source of black empowerment. From the genre’s flourishment during the 1960s through the changing lands......more