Night Train to Nashville: The Greatest Untold Story of Music City
Paula Blackman
HarperCollins
In another time and place, E. Gab Blackman and William Sousa "Sou" Bridgeforth might have been as close as brothers, but in 1950s Nashville they remained separated by the color of their skin.
Gab, a visionary yet opportunistic radio executive, saw something no one else did: a vast and untapped market with the R&B scene exploding in Black clubs across the city. Sou, the popular kingpin of Black Nashville and a grandson of slaves, led this movement into the second half of the twentieth century as his New Era Club on the Black side of town exploded in the aftermath of new radio airplay.
Night Train to Nashville explores how one city, divided into two completely different and unequal communities, demonstrated the power of music to change the world.