About the Author
Aaron Cohen teaches humanities at City Colleges of Chicago. He has co-written the late pianist Ramsey Lewis’ memoir, Gentleman of Jazz: A Life In Music (Blackstone Publishing, 2023). His previous book, Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power (University of Chicago Press, 2019), looks at the social and musical changes that shaped R&B in Chicago during the 1960s and 1970s. Cohen has also written Amazing Grace (33 1/3; Bloomsbury, 2011), which analyzes Aretha Franklin’s popular 1972 soul-gospel album. His articles appear in the Chicago Reader, Chicago Tribune and DownBeat. Cohen has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar, DownBeat editor and is a two-time recipient of the Deems Taylor Award for outstanding music writing from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).