Kay Norton – Författare

The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing embraces an open-ended interpretation of socio-musical practices that can be described with the term community singing. The volume exemplifies community singing as an interdisciplinary field of study that encompasses diverse methodologies and objects of inquiry, and in the process brings together recent research from the fields that have historically engaged with the practice of group singing, including group dynamics, ethnomusicology, music history, music education, music therapy, community music, church music, music performance, sociology, political science, Latin American and North American studies, media studies, embodied psychology, theology, and philosophy.Chapters are divided into eight interdisciplinary sections: "Media and the Imagination of Community", "Singing in Place-Based Communities", "The Practitioner's Perspective", "Identity: Values, Ethnicity, and Inherited Culture", "Identity: Politics, Patriotism, and Assimilation", "Transgressing Borders, Seeking Asylum", "Singing and Political Action", and "New Paradigms". Each is prefaced with an introduction that traces the common threads running through the methodologically and topically diverse chapters that examine culturally specific narrow instances of community singing, each confined to a given time and place, in significant detail.The chapters explore community singing as one of two phenomena: the practice of singing as community--the utilization of collective song by communities of place or preference, and the singing of community into existence--the creation or identification of a new community, through singing, that did not exist before. Both practices can profoundly affect participants. The Handbook considers why communities are motivated to sing, what their activities mean, and how practitioners can improve the experience of singing together.

Sallie Martin combined fame as a performer with a far-sighted business acumen that brought Black gospel music to a national audience and laid the foundation for the industry that followed. Kay Norton's biography follows Martin's parallel careers from her early plans to grow the genre through her celebrity in the 1960s–1970s and eventful retirement. "Same old Sallie Martin, same old Jesus," she once told audiences, a reflection of both her musical style and unapologetic approach to life. Cofounder of the National Conference of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, Martin also co-established the pioneering Black music publisher Martin and Morris Music Studio. Her group the Sallie Martin Singers took Chicago gospel to all points of the compass and Martin mentored and employed dozens of aspiring vocalists and instrumentalists. Norton looks at Martin's important relationships and the challenges she faced, while placing her accomplishments and legacy on the arc of gospel music history. In-depth and powerful, Sallie Martin, Mother of Gospel Music tells the story of one woman's role in shaping the music and business of Black gospel.

Sallie Martin combined fame as a performer with a far-sighted business acumen that brought Black gospel music to a national audience and laid the foundation for the industry that followed. Kay Norton's biography follows Martin's parallel careers from her early plans to grow the genre through her celebrity in the 1960s–1970s and eventful retirement. "Same old Sallie Martin, same old Jesus," she once told audiences, a reflection of both her musical style and unapologetic approach to life. Cofounder of the National Conference of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, Martin also co-established the pioneering Black music publisher Martin and Morris Music Studio. Her group the Sallie Martin Singers took Chicago gospel to all points of the compass and Martin mentored and employed dozens of aspiring vocalists and instrumentalists. Norton looks at Martin's important relationships and the challenges she faced, while placing her accomplishments and legacy on the arc of gospel music history. In-depth and powerful, Sallie Martin, Mother of Gospel Music tells the story of one woman's role in shaping the music and business of Black gospel.

Singing and Wellbeing provides evidence that the benefits of a melodious voice go far beyond pleasure, and confirms the importance of singing in optimum health. A largely untapped resource in the health care professions, the singing voice offers rewards that are closer than ever to being fully quantified by advances in neuroscience and psychology. For music, pre-med, bioethics, and medical humanities students, this book introduces the types of ongoing research that connect behaviour and brain function with the musical voice.