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Question.

Is there a such thing as White music?
If so, why so and what is it?
What qualities does it posses?

If not, then why is there not a such thing as White music?

Do you have to have a cultural context to apprecaite music?

If music is not limited by race, then whay are people that make it put into race based catogries?

Is race seperate from music?

Ask the record industry.

Some consider country music to be white music akin to the blues being black music. I agree with this and consider country to be exclusively white music. White acts have managed to successfully play the blues however i simply can't see any black act attempting to have a go at producing country music and do it successfully.

WildheartXXX said:

Too bad you weren't around in the mid-60's to tell that to Charley Pride as he started to make his move on the country music scene. He had over 29 #1 hit singles, and he was inducted into Country Music's Hall of Fame in 2000. So there was one. There's a 3cd box set "From Where I Stand - The Black Experience in Country Music" which goes beyond Pride. Now maybe due to lack of exposure, or interest, or not having a crossover to the masses a la Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain or back in the day like Kenny Rogers does not mean that one's contributions to a genre should be overlooked or ignored. Here's are a couple of articles about the 3-cd set.

`Three little discs' that shatter a myth
By Dan DeLuca - Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer

"They just had the country music awards in Nashville," comedian Chris Rock cracked in September, "and not one single black person was even nominated!

"Jesse Jackson was contacted for his reaction. He said, 'Who gives a ... about country music?' "

It's a joke that plays on the widely held impression that country is the whitest of all musical genres, music whose African American component can be summed up in two words: Charley Pride.

However, the new three-CD set From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music (Warner Bros) tells another story.

Beginning with original Grand Ole Opry member DeFord Bailey, Stand is a 50-artist set that argues that the common roots of Southern whites and blacks gave birth to shared musical traditions that grew apart more because of business decisions and racial bias than an actual divergence of tastes.

Its 60 songs prove -- as Cleve Francis, the African American cardiologist and country singer who signed with Capitol Nashville in 1991, says -- "that hillbilly-ism wasn't just a white thing."

The set contains top-notch cuts by Pride, a superstar who scored more No. 1 hits than George Jones and Johnny Cash combined. But first it digs into country's roots with freewheeling fiddling by '30s acts such as the Mississippi Mud Steppers.

On the second disc, "The Soul Country Years," Wynonie Harris, Ray Charles, Etta James, Arthur Alexander, Al Green and even the Supremes indulge their country jones.

And the final volume, "Forward With Pride," follows the 1970 CMA entertainer of the year and the African American artists signed in his wake. There are Big Al Downing, Linda Martell, La Melle Prince, and the great Stoney Edwards. And, from the '90s, there are Francis' "Love Light," Aaron Neville's cover of George Jones' "The Grand Tour," and Ted Hawkins doing a shiver-inducing "There Stands the Glass."

"It's ear-opening stuff," says Bill Ivey, director of the Country Music Foundation.

So it is. Stand reveals the cross-pollination at work since the '20s and '30s, when the white, blues-influenced Jimmie Rodgers was labeled a country singer and the African American, country-influenced Leadbelly was tagged a blues singer.

Hank Williams and Bill Monroe were tutored by black musicians. Ray Charles scored in the '60s with R&B country. And, says Ivey, Stand argues that Southern music has a "country and blues fluidity" influenced more by region than race.

So how did music from the same traditions become so segregated in the marketplace?

In the 1920s, says Ivey, it seemed logical to marketers that Southerners would prefer artists of their own race: "They assumed they'd sell blues to blacks and folk to whites."

The gap, he says, was underscored by scholars who, ignoring facts such as the banjo's African origin, "traced the blues to its African roots and country to the British Isles."

Stand's "String-Band Era" disc documents a time before the whites-play-country, blacks-play-blues rule was written in stone. By the '40s, says Francis, blacks could sing only R&B versions of country songs.

The final disc contains many treasures. But it's also disheartening. Between 1984, when RCA dropped Pride, and the year Francis joined Capitol, there were no black artists on major labels in Nashville.

Francis left his label in 1995, and there are now two African American acts with deals. Wheels, described as a country Boyz II Men, is signed to Asylum, and the Curb Records debut by Trini Triggs is due this year. Risk-averse country radio, however, makes a new wave of black artists unlikely.

"Tightly formatted stations make it hard for anything new and different to break in," says Ivey. In other words, if George Jones and Lyle Lovett can't get played, what's the chance of an African American unknown?

"If it was true that country fans were racist and bigoted, Charley Pride would never have happened," says Francis. "But callous marketing has systematically eliminated blacks from the format."

The Alexandria, Va., doctor, who grew up a Hank Williams and Sam Cooke fan in Louisiana, says he was treated fairly by country fans regardless of their race. But he confused the suits: "That I was a country singer made about as much sense to them as a singing seal."

Francis hopes Stand will begin to change that perception. "That's what's great about these three little discs," he says. "It's an education for black people and white people. It's a window to a discussion that's not just about music: It's about us."


February 13, 1998

Box set shows there's more to black country music than Charley Pride

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Name a black country singer other than Charley Pride. If you can't, don't feel too bad. There aren't many.

"If this generation passes, it's a possibility that there will be no African-Americans interested in country music at all, because there are no role models," laments Dr. Cleve Francis, a heart surgeon from Washington, D.C., who recorded for Liberty Records in the early 1990s.

That's partly because there is a false belief that only whites like country music and blacks have no history in it, he said. He's looking to change that.

Francis is one of the forces behind "From Where I Stand," a new three-CD package highlighting the contributions of blacks to country music. His single, "Love Light," appears on Disc 3.

As the album documents, blacks have played a part in country music since its inception. The set features black string bands from the 1920s, versions of country songs sung by Ray Charles, The Staple Singers, The Supremes and others, and singles from black country singers like Pride.

With 29 No. 1 hits from 1966-1989, Pride is, by far, the most successful black performer in country music history.

Still, even after 30 years, he hears the same question: Why would a black man choose a country music career? He and Francis have the same answer: They grew up in the South, heard the music and liked it.

"I don't know why more haven't come along. Perhaps they didn't want to put up with the laughing and so forth," said Pride, who early in his career put white audiences at ease when he joked about his "permanent tan."

Francis realized how wrongly blacks perceive country music when he performed for a black audience in San Antonio, Texas, about five years ago.

"Before I finished three numbers, out of like 500 there were 50 people left in the room," Francis said. "They walked out because they were insulted by the music. They associated country music with racism and all this kind of stuff."

After returning to medicine, Francis took his idea for "From Where I Stand" to the Country Music Foundation, the historical arm of the Country Music Association.

It turned out the idea for such a project had been on the back burner for a decade. At Francis' urging, the CMF and Warner Bros. records released "From Where I Stand" this month.

The album features 50 black artists who've left a mark on country music. It starts with DeFord Bailey, a Grand Ole Opry star who performed from 1926-41.

Highlights include an incendiary version of Webb Pierce's "There Stands the Glass" by Ted Hawkins, four RCA hits by Pride, and Leadbelly's "Midnight Special" and "Rock Island Line."

Bill Ivey, director of the CMF, said Leadbelly is a good example of a performer who was mislabeled because of his skin color. Known as a blues great, Leadbelly actually was closer to folk and country, he said.

"Even though commercial, social and even academic forces have long conspired to keep American roots music falsely segregated, our country's singers and musicians have always managed to borrow from each other across virtually all boundaries," Ivey said.

There are some new black country performers on the horizon. Pride recently recorded a duet with Trini Triggs, and the group Wheels is working on its debut album.

Francis wished them luck. He doesn't harbor any ill will toward Nashville, but still wonders if he would have been more successful if he were white.

"You can't say the only reason I didn't make it in country music was because I was black," he said. "Tons of people go to Nashville and there are reasons that they don't make it.

"I was older -- like 45 years old -- but I had a very good voice and I was on a major record label. But there was this undercurrent that was always there -- 'Why would a black person get into country music?'

"I was sort of looked at like the singing seal, you know, the odd man out."

MJ is white music

WildheartXXX said:

ever heard of Charly Pride?

While some of the more popular music of the last century could b considered 'black', shouldn't almost all classical music, composed in the last 1000 years, b considered white music?

SpcMs said:

well, it's a European created artform, that's for sure.