Can’t Stand Still: Taylor Gordon and the Harlem Renaissance

Michael Johnson, author of the recently released book, Can’t Stand Still: Taylor Gordon and the Harlem Renaissance, shares this fascinating story.
Born in 1893 into the only African American family in White Sulphur Springs, Emmanuel Taylor Gordon (1893–-1971) became an internationally famous singer in the 1920s at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. With his musical partner, J. Rosamond Johnson, Gordon was a crucially important figure in popularizing African American spirituals as an art form, giving many listeners their first experience of black spirituals.
Despite his fame, Gordon has been all but forgotten, until now. Michael K. Johnson illuminates Gordon’s personal history and his cultural importance to the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, arguing that during the height of his celebrity, Gordon was one of the most significant African American male vocalists of his era.