William Attaway’s Followers (13)

William Attaway

Born

in Greenville, Mississippi, The United States

November 19, 1911

Died

June 17, 1986

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William Attaway (1911–1986) was born in Mississippi, the son of a physician who moved his family to Chicago to escape the segregated South.

Attaway was an indifferent student in high school, but after hearing a Langston Hughes poem read in class and discovering that Hughes was black, he was inspired with an urgent ambition to write.

Rebelling against his middle-class origins, Attaway dropped out of the University of Illinois and spent some time as a hobo before returning to complete his college degree in 1936. He then worked variously as a seaman, a salesman, a union organizer, and as part of the Federal Writers’ Project, where he made friends with Richard Wright. Attaway moved to New York, published his first novel, 'Let Me Breathe Thunder ...more

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William Attaway’s books

Average rating: 3.82 · 608 ratings · 70 reviews · 10 distinct works • Similar authors

	Blood on the Forge by William Attaway, Darryl Pinckney (Introduction) 3.81 avg rating — 596 ratings — published 1941 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Let Me Breathe Thunder 3.71 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1939 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blood on the Forge by Attaway, William [NYRB Classics,2005] 4.67 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Calypso Song Book: Authentic Folk Music Of The Caribbean by Lyle Kenyon Engel (Editor), William Attaway, William Charmatz (Illustrator) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2011 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tough Kid really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hear America singing by William Attaway, Carolyn Cather (Illustrator) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blood on the Forge (05) by Attaway, William [Paperback (2005)] 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Let me breathe thunder. 1939 [Leather Bound] 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Skag: "The working girl" 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Day-O (The Banana Boat Song): For a Minimum of Five Steel Drums, Plus Drumset, and Optional Bass Guitar, Conductor Score & Parts (Alfred's Pop Steel Drum Ensemble Series) by Irving Burgie (Composer), William Attaway (Lyrics) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by William Attaway (?)

“Melody had heard some of these people from the Ukraine singing. He hadn’t understood one word. Yet he didn’t have to know the words to understand what they were wailing about. Words didn’t count when the music had a tongue. The field hands of the sloping red-hill country in Kentucky sang that same tongue.”
― William Attaway, Blood on the Forge

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“He never had a craving in him that he couldn’t slick away on his guitar. You have to be native to the red-clay hills of Kentucky to understand that. There the guitar players don’t bother with any fingering; they do it by running a knife blade up and down the stops. Most of the good slickers down where he was born would say that a thin blade made the most music. But he liked the heft of a good, heavy hog sticker. It took a born player to handle one of those. And maybe that’s why his mother changed his name to Melody when he got old enough for a name to mean something beside “Come get tit.”
― William Attaway, Blood on the Forge

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William Attaway’s Followers (13)

William Attaway

Combine EditionsWilliam Attaway’s books

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
William Attaway’s books