C.S. Fuqua's Blog, page 4
June 18, 2014
Muscle Shoals: The Hit Capital’s Heyday & Beyond
From Dexter Johnson’s garage studio to James Joiner’s “A Fallen Star,” Tune Records to FAME and Muscle Shoals Sound studios, Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and the Black Keys, from the beginning to present day—Muscle Shoals: The Hit Capital’s Heyday & Beyond is an updated, expanded version of Music Fell on Alabama, the original book-length history of the Muscle Shoals music industry, first published in 1991, chronicling the cooperation of black and white producers and artists during one of the most volatile times in U.S. race relations, cooperation that produced many of the most celebrated and enduring songs of all time.
Much has been written about the Muscle Shoals music industry and even a movie produced, most accounts crediting the area’s phenomenal success to some mystical power divined from the Tennessee River. Myth makes for good drama, but Muscle Shoals: The Hit Capital’s Heyday & Beyond details the true source of the industry’s success: the tenacious determination of talented individuals obsessed with the desire to make a difference in music.
And what a difference they made…
Purchase Muscle Shoals: The Hit Capital’s Heyday & Beyond online at Amazon.com, Kobobooks.com, B&N, and other retailers. Muscle Shoals can also be ordered through most local retail bookstores.
For more information and to purchase, please visit the following links:
https://www.createspace.com/4856323
Please consider “liking” and “sharing” the book’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HitCapitalHeyday.
October 30, 2013
White Trash & Southern explores joys, sorrows of living
Collecting 232 poems spanning more than three decades, White Trash& Southern explores the beauty, joys, challenges, and sadness thatencompass life. From the book’s cover:
“Poetry in this data-saturated age is not, for most, a viable way to make a living. So why expend the time and energy to create something that few people will read and even fewer will purchase? To which I must ask, why do people sing in the rain, paint pictures, dance? Because it provides pleasure and reward and perhaps even keeps them sane. As a writer of fiction and nonfiction, I am most concerned with story. When I write poetry, I view it not as some lofty literary tool to fool or condescend, but as an exercise in crafting story within the strictest confines. White Trash & Southern is a collection of such exercises, spanning nearly three decades. To create a complex story within a limited number of words—to communicate far more than appears on the page—is a challenge that can provide enormous reward and satisfaction. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. But at least I remain sane. Sort of.”
“With an eye for the particular and an ear for the music of everyday life, C. S. Fuqua shares with readers his brave and lyrical view of human experience. An unflinching examination of the sorrows and joys we experience while moving through the world, White Trash & Southern is a fine collection of poems.” ~Dr. Wendy Galgan, Editor, Assisi Literary Magazine
“White Trash & Southern is full of empathy and honor for the human condition that we ultimately all share. This is a wonderful book of poetry, and a fine achievement that will greatly enrich its readers.” ~Devin McGuire, Editor of the Unrorean literary magazine and author of After the Hunt (Encircle Publications 2013)
“White Trash & Southern [by] C.S. Fuqua [is] gritty, insightful, humorous, tragic, and celebratory … [B]egin anywhere, skip around, or read it from back to front … a well-written, coherent collection … however you read it.” ~Jonathan K. Rice, Editor/Publisher, Iodine Poetry Journal
A good friend asked whether the poems in White Trash & Southern are autobiographical.
Yes.
No.
All of the poems evolved out of experience, certainly, but that doesn’t mean the events explored transpired exactly as detailed. Some did. Some didn’t. Some sort of. Many of the ideas came from other people. Some poems are simple exercises of placing myself in other people’s situations. An idea has a way of becoming more on the page, transforming into something completely different from the original inspiration and intent.
Don’t believe anything you read.
Believe everything.
White Trash & Southern is available in paperback, Kindle, Nook, and audio formats.
