jjhunsecker said:

JJ, I can tell by your statements that you have a limited knowledge of music. Because if your knowledege of music of was extensive, you would that Country came from the Blues which was origianlly music from Black Americans who were ancestors of African Slaves.
As for Classic, you would be suprised to know that drived from a mixed heritage as well. Not all composer of Classical musical are white. So basically, you need to get your fucking story straight before your start talking shit and do some damn research.
[Edited 4/20/05 11:46am]

Hotlegs said:

Actually, I know a Hell of a lot about music. And you are making my point for me. The Roots of all these music styles are mixed and varied. (For example, one of the first stars of the Grand Old Opry was a Black man named deFord Bailey, and the "Father of Country Music" Jimmy Rogers recorded with Louis Armstrong).
My point, if you can understand it, is that there is NO pure musical style, especially in America, which if it's not a literal Melting pot, sure is a musical one . All sorts of artists have musical influences that cross cultural barriers. (For example, Bluesman Buddy Guy said one his earliest loves was Gene Autry) . If you didn;t get it : Of course Charley Pride can sing country if he wants, and Kathleen Battle can sing Opera if that's what she loves. My point is :why is that a musical onw-way street ? Why can't Elvis sing the Blues if that's WHAT HE FELT LIKE SINGING , and if he had an affinity for it ???? Or is that not allowed because he's a White man ?

jjhunsecker said:

I am pretty sure that it hurts you to know that origin of most music came from Africa. But, its a fact. So deal with it. By the statements your making it shows your narrow mindedness and insecurity with this thought. You really need to fucking deal with it and smell the damn coffee.

aight..lets stop threadjacking.....i do think that this is a fascinating subject though and would recommend someone (who wants to continue this discussion) create a thread about it in the p&r forum.


thanks!!

Hotlegs said:

BTW, Country Music originated when the Anglo-Scotch folk musics from England and Scotland were mixed with the "Blue notes" heard in the Field Hollers of Southern slaves. Again, a mixture of cultures produced this style. The same way Blues came from mixing those Field Hollers with the musical structures found in "White" pop music .
My point is that musical mixing has been happening since the day the first African set foot in America, and it goes both ways. Calling a particular Musical style "Black " or "White" is more a marketing strategy and a Social construct than any sort of Musical analysis

jjhunsecker said:

[did you not see my statement? if you want to continue this discussion create a thread on it in the p&r forum. stop threadjacking!!! im trying to be nice here and dont want to edit or lock this thread...please -sos]

Hotlegs said:

Why would it bother me ? I don't know if this is relevant here (except that I'm assuming that you have a certain belief of where I'm coming from and who I am and how I think), but I happen to be Black. Why the hostility ? Perhaps you need to do some research yourself , and then come back when you learned something . Here's a good book to start with " "A Change is Gonna Come" by Craig Werner (who's a Professor of African American studies). It deals with the intersection of music, race, commerce , and culture in the USA

sosgemini said:

No problem ! I apologize : I saw your message after I posted my responses

jjhunsecker said:

-----
No, Wynton and Kathleen are working in a genre of music and acknowledging the roots all the time. I am sorry but a lot of white people working in the Rnb genre don't acknowledge anybody black from the old school and they certainly get more praise without really having the talent.

jjhunsecker said:

Ray and Kathleen didn't take an entire genre, co-opt it as their own, and then sell it. Now this was not Elvis' fault. But his manager took what blacks made for a black audience, slapped a white face on it, and it sold like hotcakes. Meanwhile, many of the black pioneers were relegated to the never-was bin. This is because of racism, not because of Elvis himself. He was a classic product of his times. But to say that he didn't steal black music is ridiculous. Almost every white artist did back then. A black artist would have a regional hit and the next thing you know Pat Boone would be goin' Top 5 with a milky-white cover. Typical.

You need to wake up if you think a modern black woman doing opera or a black man doing a few country records (where he has roots, anyway) is really analogous to what happened in the 50's.
[Edited 4/20/05 13:29pm]

VoicesCarry said:

See, I actually agree with most of your points . Of course it helped Elvis because he was White. Most people in this country are White, and at that time especially, the majority of people found it easier to identify with someone who looked like them . Then , as now, a good portion of the record-buying public were young girls, and musical tastes were tied up with sexual and romantic fantasies. A young White girl would find it easier to swoon over Elvis than over Bo Diddley !!
I would say there was a big difference between Elvis, who grew up surrounded by Blues, Gospel, Country, and Pop Music, and had a real affinity and respect for it, and Pat Boone, who was a guy with NO knowledge of the roots of the music he was performing and had no real feel for it . My point is I feel that anybody should do any style that they like, and there should be no barriers

jjhunsecker said:

My point is not that there should be barriers, but that he did steal black music. Because he did. If he really did have respect for it, he wouldn't have done what he did, either way. You act as if he'd been in the studio jamming and collaborating with black artists since he was 5 - no, he (but moreso his manager, whose motives were always transparent) LIKED what he heard, so he TOOK it and SOLD it with his white face on it. And to top it all off, he wasn't the songwriter, he was merely the figurehead. Do you really think that people were buying the records merely because they "identified" with a white dude up on stage? NO, they were buying it because it had a sound they liked but one that they would NOT listen to if there was a black face attached to it. Systemic racism was responsible for terminating the careers of many musical greats in the 50's, whild white acts got all the press and accolades. Elvis was one of them. If there was no racism during that period, I guarantee you he'd have been a footnote in history.
[Edited 4/20/05 13:53pm]

VoicesCarry said:

See, again I don't disagree with most of this . Of course there was racism back then (and now as well) that tended to put the Black artists at a disadvantage. But I've read several books and articles about Elvis, and he had a genuine respect for that music, and listened to it his whole life. It WAS NOT a conscious creation of his manager, but him expressing himself in various styles
that he was familiar with . And while I agree that he had a style people wanted that they may have not accepted as readily from a Black artist, never underestimate the power that attractiveness and sexual appeal has in music (why else would Beyonce and J Lo be more popular than Joni Mitchell or Erykah Badu LOL !)

jjhunsecker said:

"May not have accepted readily"? In the 1950's, they wouldn't even have ACKNOWLEDGED it! Your sentiment that Elvis was so popular where a black man would not have been ONLY because he got all the little white chickies wet really makes no sense considering the history of black male sex symbols in music.

AND, his manager has stated many times it was a conscious decision. Look up the quotes. And as I said, he LIKED it, and then he STOLE it - because he LIKED it. Colonel Tom played Elvis for a fool because, well, he was a fool. Tommy boy made more money off Elvis than Elvis did, and essentially controlled everything Elvis did and said. If you'd read so much about Elvis, you'd know this.
[Edited 4/20/05 15:53pm]

VoicesCarry said:

Very Well Said VC.

oh forget it..this thread is officially .

jj, feel free to respond within this thread..

If they start saying Eminem is the best rapper then we should start worrying.

unlucky7 said:

uhhh...they already do...

VoicesCarry said:

As everything has been said already (and very well said by jjhunsecker who knows a zillion times more things about music then me) I will say this.

Why the fuck is the word stealing invloved? Music should be free. Music is Free. Stealing doesn't come into it.

TonyVanDam said:

thesexofit said:

I'm going to sum up here. Artists have all sorts of influences, and usually musicians have a more open mind about other styles han the general public. people keep talking about "stealing" music. The only way you can "steal" music is if you take a song somebody else wrote and put your name on it. Artists emulate other artists all the time , and show their influences. Stevie Wonder started out as a Ray Charles clone. Prince was initially sold as a mixture of Stevie,James Brown, and Jimi Hendrix. Aerosmith was the new Rolling Stones.
But are these influences supposed to stay only within the same race or culture?
Are black artists only supposed to play and be listned to by Black audiences?Should it be something kept secret, and sold only to those who know the secret handshake? LOL
It seems that's what some people want. But you ask any Black artist from Chuck Berry to Ray Charles to BB King to Prince, if they weren't pleased that their music "cross-overed" to a wider (read "White") audience. Now they got more exposure, more acclaim (and bigger paychecks). They weren't too happy about being confined to the musical "ghetto", and were glad they found mainstream success. Now that heir music is out there, then anyone can love it and try to do it .

It's very curious that Elvis remains such a lightening rod, and gets people riled up. Especially Black folks. If you know about music history, there's been a hell of a lot of White musicians who worked in predominately Black styles (such as Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, Eric Clapton, The Righteous Brothers, Peggy Lee, Dusty Springfield, The Rolling Stones, Hall and Oates,
Eminem, etc), yet it's mainly Elvis who gets attacked. I guess that's the "Politically Correct" thing to do (and I always wondered if it's because he was a Southerner that he get's such scorn, while the folks I mentioned above remain unscathed). Think about it ...

jjhunsecker said:

jjhunsecker said:

You are practising some a very perverted kind of bullshit revisionist history here. First, by choosing to ignore the aspects of this issue. Do you honestly think black folks were just happy to "have their music heard", even though it was watered-down, white, and they got no acclaim for it? Puh-leeze.

The reason Elvis is a lightning rod is because he is presented as the King of Rock N' Roll when in fact he was merely the white face of it. The other artists you cited were never presented in that manner (Frank Sinatra? ), although I think Benny Goodman would be the exception. And The Righteous Brothers, Hall & Oates, etc, ALL PAID TRIBUTE TO THEIR ROOTS AND IT WAS NO HUSH-HUSH SECRET WITH THEM. We're talking about the Motown 60's and the 80's here, not the 50's when black talent was suppressed.
[Edited 4/21/05 9:46am]

thesexofit said:

Don't be silly. If you knew your history, you'd know why it was a slap in the face of the black community for Elvis to get so much acclaim.

And "music should be free"? I guess you need some way to justify the fact that every song Hammer ever released was a sample, but try telling that to the copyright laws.
[Edited 4/21/05 9:47am]

VoicesCarry said:

I'm saying the stuff that the "politically correct" don't want to hear. While most Black artists of the 1950s were (rightfully) bitter that they didn't get the exposure (and the big bucks) that an Elvis did, many do acknowledge that if he didn't open the door to those styles of music, they would have NEVER been heard by mainstream America. I've read many interviews with people like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, fats Domino, etc, where they said this exact point. These artists were only heard by Blacks on the "chitlin circuit". Now, with the Rock n Roll explosion , the Black originators of this style now had a chace to be heard. Hey, somethings better than nothing ...

And what is it that people expected from Elvis ? He ALWAYS acknowledged his roots. In 1956 he gave an interview where he said : 'I don't know why people make a fuss about the way I sing and dance. The colored folks have been doing it for years like this down my way". The man was a singer for godssakes, not a Social activist !! He can't be held responsible for all the sins of the times in which he was born.

And do you think he shouldn't have performed at all ? Let's imagine Elvis saying to himself in 1953 "Should I sing this type of music, and maybe become rich and famous, or remain a truck driver for $30 a week ?" I'm sure YOU would have picked the latter choice . LOL !!!!

VoicesCarry said:

So what if u do sample? It's just music. U played the hammer card

I got confused when prince for years in the late 90's was on his tirade on "music should be free" yet was obsessed with getting his masters back and making people pay $700 for a sample (remember that?)

Yeah boo hoo it was bad for blacks. No doubt and Iam not being sarcy but hey shit happens. What should elvis of done then? Made country music? It's been Bad for latino's and every minority too. Hollywood was run by jews so again shit happened to minorities like latino's and blacks.

It is just greedy when people take others to court for copying parts of a song. Like the huey lewis and ray parker case.

Besides, Hammer gave the credit anyway.
[Edited 4/21/05 10:23am]

VoicesCarry said:

Very well said VC.

thesexofit said:

As I said several posts up (did you bother to read 'em, anyway?), Elvis doesn't deserve the blame since he was just a product of his times. And regarding the Huey Lewis thing, that was a direct rip of their song, why wouldn't they sue? Music may be free, but creative license is not.

Xavier23 said:

I still can't get over it how any real music fan can prefer a manufactured, non-talented pop-crap-singer over a serious rock artist like Axl Rose.

For your information, JLo is most definitely a studio generated hit "wonder" who relies on producers and not on real talent. She does nothing original, all she does is she wears rabbits and sings the same manufactured pop/r&b crap you hear on MTV 24/7.

"hell of a singer..." Lord, where has this world come to.