Black History Month: Start Your Research Here

We haven't made much explicit reference to Black History Month month because the accomplishments of African-Americans are such an integral part of the library's collection, but it does give me an excuse to point our Africana Studies Research Guide.

First, a general explanation of the research guides. From the library's home page, you'll find Research Guides under E-Resources. The Research Guides are intended as a way to get you started on your research. Each guide is on a specific subject, such as Africana Studies, Film Scoring or Guitar. Within each guide are categories of resources specific to the subject. Each resource includes a description, a call number so you can straight to the library shelf, and links to the library catalog to check availability, in other words, whether it's in or checked out. The other advantage of the links to the catalog is that, if you like what you find, there are links to find more. For example, if you follow the link to Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis by Jack Chambers, you'll find links for more items by Jack Chambers, about Miles Davis or even more broadly biographies of jazz musicians from the United States.

The research guides are not intended to be exhaustive. It's not everything we have a subject, but it does contain some key items to get you going.

Now back to the specifics of the Africana Studies Research Guide. You'll find things like biographies of specific musicians and books on the history of both black music culture and the African Diaspora in general. There are lots of DVDs and videos, from documentaries to concert films to Berklee's own concerts and clinics.

And these aren't just for research. For my own entertainment, I'm most interested in Don Letts's autobiography (TR140.L48 C85 2008) because the DJ/video director/musician pops up in so many places and the George Clinton concert DVD Mothership Connection (DVD 45) because you can always count on the P-Funk All Stars to tear the roof off that sucker.

Gear Up for "Remembering the Legendary Miss Lena Horne"

Berklee is hosting the event Remembering the Legendary Miss Lena Horne on Tuesday, February 22. The library offers plenty of opportunities to hear, watch and learn about the singer, actress and civil rights advocate.

Recordings:
At Long Last Lena, CD 5799
An Evening with Lena Horne, CD 1871
Lena Goes Latin and Sings Your Requests, CD 9740
Lena Horne: 1936-1941, CD 7815
Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, CD 5290-5291
Stormy Weather: The Legendary Lena, 1941-1958, CD 5979
Watch What Happens! CD 6428
We'll Be Together Again, CD 1381
Music Online streaming audio

Videos:
An Evening with Lena Horne, DVD 2550
Stormy Weather, DVD 3194

Books:
The Hornes: An American Family by Gail Lumet Buckley, ML400.B84 H68 1986
Lena: A Personal and Professional Biography of Lena Horne by James Haskins, with Kathleen Benson, ML420.G676 H3 1984
Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne by James Gavin, ML420.H6765 G38 2009

Don't Get the Blues over Learning the Blues

Whether you made it to last night's blues event with Dan Bowden and Ralph Rosen and want to dive further in or you missed the program, Stan Getz Library has plenty of blues resources. Especially for visual learners, we have a whole collection of learning videos and DVDs. Unlike the materials in the Media Center that students can only view there, you can check out learning videos and DVDs, take them home and practice along with them. So whether you're looking to play bottleneck blues guitar, blues mandolin or the piano style of Dr. John, come explore and learn.

Blues Instructional videos and DVDs

The Learning Videos and DVDs (those in the Video Recordings collection but with call numbers starting with L) are upstairs at the main library desk, not downstairs in the Media Center.

Everyone Has 1991 On Their Minds

PopMatters has also joined the cavalcade of reminiscing about the great music that came out 20 years ago with 1991: A Landmark Year for Rock Albums. So bust out your Bono shades or don your plaid flannel shirt and baggy shorts and come to the Media Center for the ever-expanding 1991 playlist (not including what has been mentioned previously).

Metallica, Metallica, CD 373
U2, Achtung Baby, CD 301
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, CD 9646
R.E.M., Out of Time, CD 7911
Guns ‘N Roses, Use Your Illusion, II, CD 5398
Smashing Pumpkins, Gish, CD 6841
Teenage Fanclub, Bandwagonesque, CD 27957

More on 1991

Sound Opinions isn't the only media outlet with 1991 on their minds. The Weekly Dig revisited the documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke (TV 707), available in the Media Center.

For more on the grunge era, also see the documentary Hype (DVD 2983), which focuses more specifically on that genre.

Sound Opinions: 1991

Sound Opinions is weekly radio show hosted by two Chicago-based pop music critics, Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis. They bill it as "the world's only rock and roll talk show." Each week hey take on a different topic, and last week's show was devoted to 1991 as a watershed year for popular music. The key points were:

• Nirvana and the birth of Grunge
• My Bloody Valentine and the growth of Shoegaze
• Lollapalooza and the rise of the Alternative Nation
• N.W.A and the reign of Gangsta Rap
• Massive Attack and the “tripping” of hip-hop

They referenced lots of albums from the year, both the hugely popular and the crucially influential. Many are available in the Media Center:

• Garth Brooks, Ropin’ The Wind, Liberty, 1991, CD 396
• Spin Doctors, Pocket Full of Kryptonite, Epic, 1991, CD 4816
• Nirvana, Nevermind, DGC, 1991, CD 1333
• My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, Creation, 1991, CD 16089
• Guns N’ Roses, Use Your Illusion I, Geffen, 1991, CD 5401
• Pearl Jam, Ten, Epic, 1991, CD 4588
• N.W.A., Niggaz4Life, Ruthless, 1991, CD 15073
• De La Soul, De La Soul is Dead, Tommy Boy, 1991, CD 8260
• Massive Attack, Blue Lines, Virgin, 1991, CD 11771

The show doesn't air in Boston but is available as a podcast or via online streaming.

Free obscure DVDs

One of our vendors included free promotional DVDs with their shipment to us. The library has no use for them, so they are up for grabs:

• The Vicious Kind
• The Stick Up Kids
• The Echo
• Freeway Killers

They are available for taking at the reference desk. Don't fight over them.