Black History Month Event: Sacred Steel

One of our Black History Month events, Sacred Steel, will include a LIVE steel guitar performance by two musicians. This looks to be an awesome event, and one I'm looking forward to go to myself. The program was initiated by one of our Tower Road branch librarians, who managed to get it funded and sponsored by the Florida Humanities Council. The event relates to a book by the same name, authored by Robert Stone who spent years covering the tradition of using steel guitar music as part of Pentecostal church services. 


For publicity, I took the front cover of the book (see image above; left side was the book cover) and cloned the background texture to extend it further out so I could superimpose additional text onto an 8.5x11 inch flyer. 50 copies were printed for distribution. 


After that, the same image was used to produce quarter page handbills. 25 pages of those were printed. A library homepage web ad was also created as well, using the photograph portion of the image, with the words "Sacred Steel" superimposed over it. Oh happy days! I'm feelin' the power already!


You can read a complete review about Robert Stone on the ACLD website here: http://www.aclib.us/about/blog/sacred-steel-inside-african-american-steel-guitar-tradition 
and here:
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/54kta8ay9780252035548.html


ADDENDUM: I went to the event on Saturday, and enjoyed watching / listening to a demonstration of the steel guitar, performed by father / son team of Elton and Tieone Nobel. Author Robert Stone provided some historical background about the use of the steel guitar in Penticostal churches and took questions from the audience. I enjoyed it so much that I bought one of the music CDs that were being sold and spent part of my Sunday listening to the tunes. Oh happy days!