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Emily Lordi

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  • caption: Marlena Shaw's music combines the devotional passion, the harmonic inventiveness and the spirit-led improvisation that we hear in both the gospel and jazz idioms.
    Music

    The Overlooked Activist Power Of Marlena Shaw

    As part of NPR's "One-Hit Wonders/Second-Best Songs," Vanderbilt professor Emily Lordi recommends "Woman of the Ghetto" by Marlena Shaw. She's known mostly for her 1969 hit, "California Soul."