James McBride (writer)
Encyclopedia
James McBride is an American
writer and musician
whose compositions have been recorded by a variety of other musicians.
. He was raised in Brooklyn
's Red Hook
housing projects, James was the last child Ruth had from her first marriage, and the eighth of 12 children and last child of Rev. Andrew McBride. "I'm proud of my Jewish history," he has said. "Technically I guess you could say I'm Jewish since my mother was Jewish...but she converted (to Christian
ity). So the question is for theologians to answer. ... I just get up in the morning happy to be living." His book The Color of Water
talks about his family history and his mother.
Two of his older brothers, Dennis and Billy, graduated with doctorate
s in medicine, but that didn't appeal to McBride. He got an undergraduate degree in music composition from Oberlin College
in 1979. He received a master's degree
in journalism
from Columbia University
.
McBride lives in New York. He is married, and has three children; Azure, Jordan and Nash.
, he was on the staffs of many well-known publications, including The Boston Globe
, The Washington Post
, the Wilmington (Delaware)
News Journal, and People
magazine. He has written pieces for Rolling Stone
magazine, Us magazine, the Chicago Tribune
, The Philadelphia Inquirer
, Essence, The New York Times
, and others. Mr. McBride is a charter member of the Clint Harding Network, a group of well-known journalists, writers and musicians who periodically have appeared live on a Missouri
radio program for the last two decades.
, the bestselling The Color of Water
, which describes his life growing up in a large, poor African American
family led by a white, religious, and strict Jewish mother, whose father was an Orthodox
rabbi
, but converted and became devoutly Christian
during her first marriage to Andrew McBride.
"I thought it would be received well in the black community but it's sold much better in the white Jewish community," he said. "Most of my readers are middle-age, white, Jewish women...."
The memoir spent over two years on The New York Times
bestseller list, and now appears on high school and university course lists across America.
In 2002, he published a novel
, Miracle at St. Anna, drawing on the history of the overwhelmingly African American 92nd Infantry Division in the Italian
campaign from mid-1944 to April 1945.
The book was adapted into the movie Miracle at St. Anna
, directed by Spike Lee, released on September 26, 2008.
In 2005, he published the first volume of The Process, a CD-based documentary
about life as lived by low-profile jazz
musicians.
In 2008, McBride uses the notorious criminal Patty Cannon
as a villain in his novel Song Yet Sung.
in the Rock Bottom Remainders
.
He has written songs for Anita Baker
, Grover Washington Jr., Pura Fé
, and Gary Burton
.
McBride was awarded the 1997 American Music Festival’s Stephen Sondheim
Award, the 1996 American Arts and Letters Richard Rodgers
Award, and the 1996 ASCAP Richard Rodgers Horizons Award.
McBride is the composer-performer of the Clint Harding Network's theme music.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer and musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
whose compositions have been recorded by a variety of other musicians.
Early life
McBride's father, the late Rev. Andrew D. McBride (August 8, 1911-April 5, 1957) who died of lung cancer at age 45, was African-American, and his mother (Ruchel Dwajra Zylska later changed to Rachel Deborah Shilsky later changed to Ruth McBride Jordan)(April 1, 1921-January 9,2010) was a Jewish immigrant from PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. He was raised in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
's Red Hook
Red Hook, Brooklyn
Red Hook is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 6. It is also the location where the transatlantic liner, the , docks in New York City.- History :...
housing projects, James was the last child Ruth had from her first marriage, and the eighth of 12 children and last child of Rev. Andrew McBride. "I'm proud of my Jewish history," he has said. "Technically I guess you could say I'm Jewish since my mother was Jewish...but she converted (to Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
ity). So the question is for theologians to answer. ... I just get up in the morning happy to be living." His book The Color of Water
The Color of Water
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother is the autobiography of James McBride; it is also a tribute to his mother. The chapters alternate between James McBride's descriptions of his early life and first-person accounts of his mother Ruth's life, mostly taking place before her...
talks about his family history and his mother.
Two of his older brothers, Dennis and Billy, graduated with doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
s in medicine, but that didn't appeal to McBride. He got an undergraduate degree in music composition from Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
in 1979. He received a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
McBride lives in New York. He is married, and has three children; Azure, Jordan and Nash.
Journalism career
As a journalistJournalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, he was on the staffs of many well-known publications, including The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, the Wilmington (Delaware)
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
News Journal, and People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
magazine. He has written pieces for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine, Us magazine, the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
, Essence, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, and others. Mr. McBride is a charter member of the Clint Harding Network, a group of well-known journalists, writers and musicians who periodically have appeared live on a Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
radio program for the last two decades.
Books
McBride is best-known for his 1996 memoirMemoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
, the bestselling The Color of Water
The Color of Water
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother is the autobiography of James McBride; it is also a tribute to his mother. The chapters alternate between James McBride's descriptions of his early life and first-person accounts of his mother Ruth's life, mostly taking place before her...
, which describes his life growing up in a large, poor African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
family led by a white, religious, and strict Jewish mother, whose father was an Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
, but converted and became devoutly Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
during her first marriage to Andrew McBride.
"I thought it would be received well in the black community but it's sold much better in the white Jewish community," he said. "Most of my readers are middle-age, white, Jewish women...."
The memoir spent over two years on The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
bestseller list, and now appears on high school and university course lists across America.
In 2002, he published a novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
, Miracle at St. Anna, drawing on the history of the overwhelmingly African American 92nd Infantry Division in the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
campaign from mid-1944 to April 1945.
The book was adapted into the movie Miracle at St. Anna
Miracle at St. Anna
Miracle at St. Anna is a 2008 war film, directed by Spike Lee and written by James McBride, based on McBride's novel of the same name. The film was released on September 26, 2008, and is set during World War II, in fall of 1944 in Tuscany and in the winter of 1983 in New York City and Rome...
, directed by Spike Lee, released on September 26, 2008.
In 2005, he published the first volume of The Process, a CD-based documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about life as lived by low-profile jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musicians.
In 2008, McBride uses the notorious criminal Patty Cannon
Patty Cannon
Martha "Patty" Cannon was the leader of a gang in the early 19th century that kidnapped slaves and free blacks from the Delmarva Peninsula and transported and sold them to plantation owners located further south. Later accounts of her life refer to her as Lucretia P...
as a villain in his novel Song Yet Sung.
Saxophonist & composer
He is the tenor saxophonistSaxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
in the Rock Bottom Remainders
Rock Bottom Remainders
The Rock Bottom Remainders is a rock and roll band consisting of published writers, most of them both amateur musicians and popular English-language book, magazine, and newspaper authors. The band took its self-mocking name from the publishing term remaindered book, a work of which the unsold...
.
He has written songs for Anita Baker
Anita Baker
Anita Baker is an American R&B/soul jazz singer-songwriter. To date, Baker has won eight Grammy Awards, and has four platinum albums and two gold albums to her credit....
, Grover Washington Jr., Pura Fé
Pura Fé
Pura Fé is a singer-songwriter, poet, musician, artist and social activist. She founded the first native women's a cappella trio, Ulali, and created a style and genre that blends traditional Native American music with contemporary musical styles...
, and Gary Burton
Gary Burton
Gary Burton is an American jazz vibraphonist.A true original on the vibraphone, Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the usual two-mallets. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator and his sound and technique are widely imitated...
.
McBride was awarded the 1997 American Music Festival’s Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
Award, the 1996 American Arts and Letters Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
Award, and the 1996 ASCAP Richard Rodgers Horizons Award.
McBride is the composer-performer of the Clint Harding Network's theme music.