Education
Born in rural Bolton, North Carolina, he attended North Carolina A and T College of Greensboro North Carolina where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in English in 1966. He later attended Colombia University and earned his Master of Arts
(It's the birth year of Ragtime music, 1895, and Lee "Stag...)
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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556435746/?tag=2022091-20
(“If you're black you don't need to get at anything. You'r...)
“If you're black you don't need to get at anything. You're already there. You can live right out of your insides.” So says the antihero of this legendary novel that reimagines the Bible’s prodigal son as a young black man in post-Civil Rights-era America. George Washington—one of his many aliases—is a classic trickster figure, a blend of con artist, deep thinker, and willing object of white women’s sexual fantasies. Fed up with life in racist America, he leaves his rural South for Denmark on a curious quest, determined to discover if there is “any mother fucker in this despiteful world who ever told himself the truth.” In Denmark he spends his days bantering with fellow black expatriates and his nights bedding a series of white women who project their desires on him. Inevitably, these worlds collide, with Washington, aka Anthony Miller, aka Paul Winthrop, aka Mr. Jiveass Nigger, increasingly alienated in a world of opportunists. A return to America after his self-imposed exile promises transformation, but is Washington too far gone? Cecil Brown brings blistering prose, unabashed eroticism, and biting satire to this controversial masterpiece that’s as timely today as when it was first published.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1583942106/?tag=2022091-20
( Although his story has been told countless times--by pe...)
Although his story has been told countless times--by performers from Ma Rainey, Cab Calloway, and the Isley Brothers to Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and Taj Mahal--no one seems to know who Stagolee really is. Stack Lee? Stagger Lee? He has gone by all these names in the ballad that has kept his exploits before us for over a century. Delving into a subculture of St. Louis known as "Deep Morgan," Cecil Brown emerges with the facts behind the legend to unfold the mystery of Stack Lee and the incident that led to murder in 1895. How the legend grew is a story in itself, and Brown tracks it through variants of the song "Stack Lee"--from early ragtime versions of the '20s, to Mississippi John Hurt's rendition in the '30s, to John Lomax's 1940s prison versions, to interpretations by Lloyd Price, James Brown, and Wilson Pickett, right up to the hip-hop renderings of the '90s. Drawing upon the works of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, Brown describes the powerful 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, gender, and police brutality. This book takes you to the heart of America, into the soul and circumstances of a legend that has conveyed a painful and elusive truth about our culture.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674016262/?tag=2022091-20
(An account of the author's childhood in a small North Car...)
An account of the author's childhood in a small North Carolina farming village evokes a lost world of rural community experiences while describing a coming-of-age awareness of racism that leads to a painful confrontation. Reprint. LJ. NYT.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0880014148/?tag=2022091-20
Born in rural Bolton, North Carolina, he attended North Carolina A and T College of Greensboro North Carolina where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in English in 1966. He later attended Colombia University and earned his Master of Arts
He is a published novelist, short story writer, script writer, and college educator. His noted works include Jiveass Nigger and work as a screenwriter on the Richard Pryor film Which Way Is Up? degree from the University of Chicago in 1967. Brown while residing in Berkeley, California (to which he returned in the late 80s and still lives and works) earned his Doctor of Philosophy in African American Studies, Folklore and Narrative in 1993.
He is a professor at University of California Berkeley.
(Pryor Lives! How Richard Pryor Became Richard Pryor By Ce...)
(An account of the author's childhood in a small North Car...)
( Although his story has been told countless times--by pe...)
(It's the birth year of Ragtime music, 1895, and Lee "Stag...)
(“If you're black you don't need to get at anything. You'r...)
(Light wear to boards. Content is clean and bright. Good D...)