..what's the appropriate response? I’m not big on the whole hollow internet outrage thing. To be honest, even when people are so obviously deserving of wake up call, come-to-jesus posts I can’t bring myself to do it. I dont think it helps. I don’t think it even changes their mind about things that are obviously deeply ingrained. And you thought I was talking about Trump! Ha, naw. I’m talking about the absolutely disgusting notion I’ve seen Since Sunday night on different friends posts about music. “JT appropriated black music” “Elvis didn’t start rock and roll black people did” and so forth down a rabbit hole so unbelievably dark I can’t even bring it up as an example because it doesn’t deserve repeating. Music doesn’t belong to anyone. What critical thought brought you to the internet to proclaim how someone owns sound? ****. Also, Elvis didn’t start rock and roll. I think most people point to Chuck Berry but alas...I’m here to let you all know that blues, country, rock and roll, bluegrass, r&b and literally every offshoot in every direction thereafter came from the same place. Blues and country are the same thing. Industry marketing is the difference. Blues denotes black skin performer. Country means white skin performer. That’s it. That’s the entire difference. Otherwise they are the same notes played in the same set up and the same everything. Some dude with a guitar plucking chords and singing about ****ing, fighting or working. From then until now. Literally all of it came from the same place. Literally all of it has more in common than difference. But you know what? You don’t have to believe someone who has been a musician for 26 of his 31 years alive. You don’t have to believe someone who is passionate enough to have learned about this before the topic came up. You can google **** like anyone else with an internet connection. Or whatever, flap gums about your identity politic bullshit like you aren’t feeding it over **** you know bags of buckets of dumpsters full of dick about. Appropriated music. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
..what's the appropriate response? I’m not big on the whole hollow internet outrage thing. To be honest, even when people are so obviously deserving of wake up call, come-to-jesus posts I can’t bring myself to do it. I dont think it helps. I don’t think it even changes their mind about things that are obviously deeply ingrained. And you thought I was talking about Trump! Ha, naw. I’m talking about the absolutely disgusting notion I’ve seen Since Sunday night on different friends posts about music. “JT appropriated black music” “Elvis didn’t start rock and roll black people did” and so forth down a rabbit hole so unbelievably dark I can’t even bring it up as an example because it doesn’t deserve repeating. That's as far as I got. Chuck D says: Elvis was a hero to most But he never meant **** to me you see Straight up racist that sucker was Simple and plain Mother **** him and John Wayne Cause I'm Black and I'm proud I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
If anyone says something like that to you the ONLY appropriate reactions are to either walk away laughing at them if you don't know them very well or to slap the **** out of them if you do know them well. Friends don't let friends be that damn stupid.
You know what, now that I've read all of it. You're not wrong. I disagree with Black=blues and white=country as just a marketing gizmo. And you do to, and I now love you for that. Who has ever told you otherwise? They never heard Gatemouth Brown or Hank Williams or Clifton Chernier or Townes or Professor Longhair or Waylon or Cannonball Adderley or the Allmans and a jillion other southern black/white singers/bands who mixed all the po'folk music: folk and soul and zydeco and country and jazz and blues and made the best music this country has ever seen. Americana.
Wow. Someone less than half my age knows more than most about the ethnic origins of the Blues and Rock and Roll. At least he's convinced that he does. That's OK. I don't agree with parts of his meme, but he's not entirely wrong. I'm just glad I got to experience a lot of blues, rock, jazz, folk, and progressive country in the 1960's and '70's. What I don't understand is why this thread is in D&D. Seems like Hangout would make more sense. I'll tell one story that illustrates how fluid things were back in the day. Musician/songwriters were figuring out what they wanted to do, and looking for venues where they could experiment and play their songs. An example is my little story I'll make everyone suffer through. Here it is. One thing that sticks in my mind, since Buck mentioned him, is that I was lucky enough to see Townes Van Zandt, and Jerry Jeff Walker, for the first time at the Sand Mountain Coffeehouse on Richmond in the mid-'60's. Both are supposed to have composed many of their best songs while living above the place. Sand Mountain was "alcohol free," which is amusing considering the drinking that obviously, and discretely, went on. This was back when carrying a flask was popular. There were several venues like that in Houston at the time. Many of the hippies were underage, but did all sorts of other things to get a buzz. I brought a date there (underage, but she liked coffee) the first time I saw Jerry Jeff. He was sitting on a stool wearing a beret, not the look he's typically associated with, and telling stories between songs, most of them funny. One I really liked was Mr. Bojangles, which is said to have been written upstairs. Townes? I remember him singing this song: So close and yet so far away And all the things I'd hoped to say Will have to go unsaid today Perhaps until tomorrow Your fear has built a wall between Our lives and all what lovin' means Will have to go unfelt it seems And that leaves only sorrow You built your tower strong and tall Can't you see it's got to fall some day You close your eyes and speak to me Of faith and love and destiny As distant as eternity, Truth and understanding The wind blows cold outside your door It whispers words I've tried before But you don't hear me anymore Your pride's just too demanding The end is coming soon, it's plain A warm bed just ain't worth the pain And I will go and you'll remain With the bitterness we tasted A mother's breast, a newborn child A poet's tear, and drunken smile Can't help thinkin' all the while Their meaning won't be wasted It wasn't wasted. That's Tower Song, by Townes Van Zandt.
It's like an invention loop. It's silly. Everyone that innovated or created something was inspired by something else. Whoever invented Rock needed a guitar to do so, whoever invented a guitar innovated an earlier plucked string instrument, whoever invented that....so on and so on... We should all be thankful for the first people who grunted out a few words, discovered that you can heat up food with fire, sharpened rocks to stab things, and draw on caves. These people are nameless in history yet they have made the biggest and most important leaps in all of history.
This always annoyed the crap out of me. Elvis was not a racist. Even Jet magazine said that Elvis never uttered the phrase about "shining my shoes" that is so often incorrectly attributed to him. He did more to bridge the gap between the white and black music listeners of the 50's than anyone else. When called the "king of rock and roll" his reply was that there were other people more deserving of that title than him (as he motioned over to BB King who was also in the room at the time). He often cited Sister Rosetta Tharpe as a huge influence in his life (without her, there would be no "Chuck Berry Sound"). I've met and talked to African Americans & even a Filipino who actually played & sang with Elvis - They all said that he was a man of great character who treated everyone like members of his own family. "Elvis was a racist" is revisionist history at it's best and is not supported by anyone who actually knew the guy.
No one person started rock 'n' roll. It was a black and white alloy of Fats Domino, Lloyd Price, Ike Turner, Hank Williams, Joe Turner, Louis Jordan, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly - and Elvis Presley. http://www.nysun.com/arts/who-really-invented-rock-n-roll/2037/
Of course he wasn't. I just like that song. And "cultural appropriation" is the preferred nomenclature, please.
It literally is just a marketing ploy. It’s music, Americana is a great term for it. Folk music is a great term as well. It was formed in the early 1900s by poor southerners. Styles develop, genres or whatever and you see them now in hindsight and the differences seem more distant than they really are or ever were...but where and how and why folk music developed isn’t up for question or debate. At their very most distant, the difference (performers aside) is instrumentation. “Country” involved more stringed instruments and shoots off into bluegrass. Blues involved more brass instruments and shoots off toward jazz. Even then, they both veer back towards each other to make rock and roll happen, southern rock, blues rock, prog rock it comes full circle. Generally speaking though, especially in the formation period, there’s precious Little difference. Americana folk derives from Celtic and west African roots. Instead of acknowledging a combination, like this should be a shocker, people with influence kept the masses separate on the most ignorant basis. Jay is right, something came before everything. Celtic, Gaelic, old world hymns begin what is a long journey in one direction and west African leads back towards middle eastern and Asian neighbors, I’m sure they crossed paths and influences before too. And because this is a conversation/history lesson involving race (how stupid it is), misuse of the word appropriation, culture, etc. it belongs somewhere a Little more serious. Does anyone want to talk about the startling lack of culture this country has right now?
