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Ripping Off Black Music

Ripping Off Black Music

Margo Jefferson PERFORMING ARTS RIPPING OFF BLACK

From Thomas "Daddy" Rice to

Part the First: Being an Exposition Crow," buttressed with ragged clothes for a time as "The Two Real Coons" on the Development of the Myth of and blackface makeup, was acclaimed by managers anxious to distinguish as Viewed hy Antagonis. the comic performance of the Louis- them from numerous noncoon rivals. tic Participants, and Containing as ville season; within weeks Daddy was And James Weldon Johnson writes Much of the History of the Minstrel the toast of New York, and eight years about the famous New York producer Show as Is Necessary for the Read- er's Understanding. later the toast of . who gained a reputation for inven- Naturally, minstrel shows grew like tiveness by studying the Will Cook- LVIS PRESLEY was the greatest Topsy, playing to the highborn and Paul Lawrence Dunbar show, Clor- E minstrel America ever spawned, the lowly across the land. With indy-the Origin 0/ the Cakewalk, and he appeared in bold whiteface. their Irrepressible High Spirits they and learning from it that choruses He sang like a nigger, danced like a cheered the South through the Civil might be taught to sing and dance nigger, walked like a nigger, and War, and managed to create such simultaneously, and that a certain talked like a nigger. Chuck Berry, un- goodwill in their audiences that by syncopated beat was very catchy when fortunately, was a nigger. They are the late 1860s even Negro performers applied to orchestral music. As radio two of the more splendid beings in were in demand. Negro minstrels, took its place in the entertainment the Great Chain of Minstrelsy that though, were accorded no special pantheon, minstrels began to call stretches from the start of the nine- privileges, the assumption being that themselves Amos'n' Andy; and when teenth century to the present, encom- none had a patent on the "pathos and the first talkie musical film opened, passing circuses, medicine shows, humor," the "artless philosophy," or no one was surprised to see veteran Broadway, the Fillmore East, night- the "plaintive and hilarious melo- vaudeviller Al Jolson enter in black- clubs, concert halls, television, and dies" of Negro once it became face, prance down a runway, fall on Las Vegas. public entertainment. Like their white one knee and cry "Mammy!" while co-workers, black minstrels wore the orchestra played "Swanee" furi- burnt cork makeup and colorful rags ously in the background. (as country bumpkin Jim Crow) or The white minstrel has an endless white gloves and tails (as city dandy supply of incarnations: playing nig- Zip Coon). Once these Ethiopian gel' is first-rate theater. It has laughs, bards overcame some prejudice, par- tears, cheap thrills--a bargain cathar- ticularly among Southern audiences, sis. The performer's white skin, like they were said to be very funny in- an actor's curtain call, is an ingenious deed. safety device, signaling that the show Secession, abolition, the Civil War, is over and nothing has changed. and Reconstruction passed: the min- Aristotle neglected to mention that strel remained. When the form itself the aftermath of a catharsis is the faded toward the century's end (la- viewer's smug satisfaction with the mented by song publisher E.B. Marks capacity for feeling, a satisfaction as a sign that manners no longer that permits a swift and comfortable flourished in America), its clowning return to business as usual. You can't and soft-shoe routines trotted into lose playing the White Negro, because and its songs drifted into you are in the unique position of re- Tin Pan Alley and musical comedy. taining the material benefits of being The patriarch of the minstrel show Songs by black writers were placed white while sampling the mythologi- was Thomas "Daddy" Rice, a white in white shows, serving as vehicles cal ones of being black. gentleman who, with a keen eye for for white stars and as best sellers entertainment, based his 1829 debut for white publishers. White com- on the antics of a deformed and rheu- posers, updating Stephen Foster's UCH HAS BEEN MADE of the matic ex-slave. The ex-slave made a habit of borrowing melodies from M , when America's teen- few pennies a day performing a neces- black churchgoers and boatmen, agers thrilled to the sounds of rhythm sarily limited but appealing song and spent hours in black clubrooms writ- and . It began, so they say, with dance he called "Jump Jim Crow"; ing down the tunes they heard and a small group, first listening to the copyrighting them as their own. charmed with it, Daddy studied, re- Margo Jefferson, a free-lance writer living in hearsed, and in a short time made Song-and-dance comics George New York, graduated from Columbia Univer- 40 show-business history. His "Jump Jim Walker and Bert Williams were billed sity School of Journalism in 1971. PERFORMING ARTS fugitive sounds on black radio sta- because "I am the King, the King of tirely exempt from the vulgarities tions, then venturing into black clubs Rock and Rhythm. I am the only one which have hitherto characterized ne- and theaters. White disc jockeys took allowed to be pretty." gro extravaganzas." * When Chuck notice, white record producers and There was too, and Berry sings, "Roll Over Beethoven/ radio station owners took action, and Jackie Wilson and Chuck Willis: also Dig these rhythm 'n' blues!" it is an faster than you could say "Zip Coon" Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis,' and outlaw's challenge to white culture. the country's youth was dancing to Bobby Darin; there was LaVern When sing their version, the sounds of Elvis Presley and Chuck Baker, minstrelized by Theresa it has the sweet naughtiness of Peter Berry. Brewer, and , Jane Crowed Pan crowing "I Won't Grow Up." by Georgia Gibbs. There were many The Beatles, , the others too, like Big Maybelle, Ruth Animals, and others sparked a jubi- Brown, the Chantels, and the Jesters, lee. In news conferences they boldly who stayed in the announced that they listened to Chuck market, with their unpalatably ethnic Jackson, Smokey Robinson, and Sol- voices and rhythms, and were rarely omon Burke; white fans listened too, heard of by whites until the 1950s re- or at least memorized the names. The vival nearly twenty years later, when Stones pronounced Wilson Pickett's no one cared to spoil the nostalgia by "Midnight Hour" the best record of remembering whom they had or the year; "Midnight Hour" became hadn't grown up listening to. Peter the hit record of the year. ;u o Townsend of the Who has written Far from breaking ground, these » about those days: groups were the inheritors of a tradi- tion that began in England with the I'm a substitute [or another guy, 1 look pretty tall but my heels are eighteenth century, when "Negro high. songs" were first performed on the The simple things you see are all concert stage. In 1866 a black min- complicated, strel troupe visited London, and the 1 look pretty young but I'm just local streetsingers began to blacken backdated. their faces; English music-hall stars It's a substitute lies [or jact . . • were soon crossing the Atlantic to f:!v':s Presley 1 look all white but my dad was popularize black-inspired American black ..• In fact, one portion of America songs with white American audiences. chose Elvis, son of Daddy Rice, and Elvis and his contemporaries During the 1920s small groups of the other opted for Chuck, bastard of shocked and thrilled because they English people began to cultivate the Jim Crow. Elvis was a good boy. In were hybrids. What had taken place styles that black creators had addition to appearing on The Ed Sul- was a kind of Immaculate Miscegena- abandoned, collecting records, bring- livan Show, he made movies in Holly- tion, resulting in a creature who was ing performers to Europe, and form- wood with scrubbed starlets and at once a Prancing Nigger and a Blue- ing their own bands. stage-set teenagers who bopped like Eyed Boy. the Peter Gennaro Dancers. Chuck Berry remained in rock shows and black theaters, complaining about HE BEATLES emerged before courts and car salesmen, mocking T American audiences in 1963, with high school, and begging rock and a varied assortment of songs, some roll to deliver him from the days of clever updatings of the Everly Broth- old. Elvis lived quietly in Hollywood ers sort, some new versions of old with his mother while Chuck tried to black rock hits by the Isley Brothers, smuggle a child bride across the the Shirelles, , the Mir- Georgia state line, and when Elvis acles, and Chuck Berry. According to went into the Army, Chuck went to chroniclers, the Beatles jail. "revolutionized rock and roll by Then there was Bo Diddley, Chi- bringing it back to its original sources cago follower of Howlin' Wolf and and traditions" -in other words, , who declared that he they brought Us together. It would be had a tombstone hand and a grave- more accurate to say that the Beatles yard mind, a taste for diamond rings, seasoned, cooked, and served some of barbed wire, and cobra snakes; he Us up to others of Us with appropri- warned, prophetically, that you can't ate garnishing. They refined and ex- Houilin' Wolf Muddy Warers judge a book by looking at its cover. purgated the minstrel show performed Eventually a revival And there was Little Richard, who rather crudely by Elvis, preferring to developed, during which bluesmen piled his hair in lush waves, dressed sketch what he had filled in and to like , , in satin and brocade, taught the suggest what he had made literal. Brownie McGhee, and Leadbelly Beatles to cry "Woooo!" and forbade Their charm lay in the fact that they * An advertisement for the Virginia a young band member named Iimi were the visual antithesis of what they Minstrels, one of the most successful Hendrix to wear a fancy shirt onstage sang, "a minstrel entertainment en- white groups of 1843. 42 found themselves celebrated less as musicians than as walking marks of Remedios Guanzon. American oppression. Tours for "au- thentic" blues and gospel singers were arranged and the new urban blues Father dead. represented by Muddy Waters' elec- tric guitar frowned upon. By the early Sixties, though, rhythm and blues had Mother blind. taken hold, and young Britishers were listening eagerly to Sonny Boy Wil· REMEDIOS GUANZON liamson, Howlin' Wolf, Slim Harpo, AGE 5. Father dead. TB. Mother blind. and Bo Diddley, while practicing Earns a few pennies begging. Brother black voices in local clubs and base- ments. After a time they began to is a scavenger. Remedios guides take themselves very seriously: "We mother's hands to spots on clothes that sing more colored than the Africans," require particular scrubbing; Family boasted , and few Amer- lives in one small room. Must crawl icans were inclined to dispute him. through small opening to enter. Walls High-school and college students from material found at city dump. No stepped out in style. People began to [acilities, Help to Remedios means drive onto campus in their converti- help to entire family. bles with the local soul station blaring at maximum intensity. Boys began to landscape their sentences with "man," Thousands of children as needy as Remedios anxiously await "adoption" by you or your "together," and "can you dig it?" group. Choose a boy or girl from Viet Nam, Everybody had an amusing story the Philippines, Republic of Korea. Indonesia, about a trip to the Apollo or the Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, or Bolivia. Regal in the custody of a black friend. Black rock history became fashion- A monthly cash grant helps provide primary able as a kind of gutter .camp: one school education for your Foster Child and his spoke of how dynamic the Temps sisters and brothers. In addition, PLAN gives were live; one spent an afternoon in family counseling, medical care when called Roxbury tracking down a copy of for, supplementary new clothing and household "Function at the Junction." One mur- equipment. PLAN's emphasis on education mured the words of songs by Gary helps its children to become self-supporting "U.S." Bonds and the Coasters, and citizens. Since 1937, more than 147,000 chilo dren have "graduated" from PLAN's program. invited them to perform at one's You receive a case history and a photograph. school, wishing privately that they Each month you write and receive a letter would get rid of their iridescent suits (original and translation). These letters will tell you how your "adoption" benefits the and try to look as if they hadn't been entire family. Soon, through the regular letters and PLAN progress reports, you and drinking. If one was really into black your child develop a warm, loving relationship. . music, one spoke to a black friend about the tragedy of Billie Holidsy-s- CHECK YOUR CHARITY! We eagerly offer our financial statement upon request. did she know the song "Don't Ex- You will sec that your contribution truly benefits the child for whom it was intended. plain"?-and one was puzzled and a PLAN is a non-political, non-profit, non-sectarian, independent relief organization. bit hurt when the black friend an- swered sharply that she had known SIGN HERE NOW ••• PLEASE "Don't Explain" since she was eleven r------~------, years old. FOSTER PARENTS PLAN, INC. It is jarring and most distressing 352 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10010 to walk into a room one has consid- I want to be a Foster Parent for a yeor or more of a boy __ girl __ ered private and find it ringed with oge __ country . Where the need is greatest __ . I enclose my first payment of, $16.00 Monthly $48.00 Quarterly cameras, spotlights, and insistent __ $96.00 Semi-onnuolly __ $192 Annuolly __ . strangers claiming long acquaintance I can't become a Foster Parent right now but I enclose my contribution 01$, _ and making plans to move in and re- __ Please send me more informotion. decorate without being invited. Black Name _ music and with it the private black M,. and Mrs. Steve Allen Address Dote _ self were suddenly grossly public- Arthur Ashe. J,.. Cify Stale _ tossed onstage, dressed in clown Burt Bacha,.ach Zip Telephone No. _ white, and bandied about with a glee- ISenator Edmund S. Muslcie ful arrogance that just yesterday had I Senator John G. Tower :}~~'eo:e~~~e~~~i:~il~:i5~·a~~ot~~tC~~o;b~~'A~c~~~~~i5~:;~d~~~n~:~oU.~~PSuj~I/~ chosen to ignore and condescend. Duke University ~::d~duec~~bl~~vi~ory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid. Contributions ore Blacks, it seemed, had lost the i Cono,.1 Eloct,k In Canada, write 153 St. Clair Ave. We.t, Toronto 7, Ontario HM4D13J battle for mythological ownership of ------rock, as future events would prove. 35 YEARS OF HELPWITH A HUMAN TOUCH PERFORMING ARTS Part the Second: A Short Account guitar listening to Muddy Waters, don't treat beatniks too good in of the Monterey Pop Festival, With Elmore James, B.B. and Albert King. Texas"-and she discovered early Special Attention Paid to Jimi Hen- He played with Little Richard, the that identifying with archetypal mis- drix and Janis Joplin. Isley Brothers, Ike and , fits makes life a little easier. She was and , and he found suc- ]920s in style, with ostrich fea thers, ilE MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL. cess in England with music that was a silver bracelets, and a raunchiness she T Summer. 1967. California. Acid tense fusion of acid electronics, jazz, sometimes wore like a new and slight- rock was decreed the new force in and blues. He made himself a gro- ly light piece of clothing. Janis's life rock music, its best exponent being tesque and a god-America's hand- had echoes of Bessie Smith's, both the Jefferson Airplane. The East crafted Spade, obscene and absurd, being small-town Southern girls who was honored through , sensual and elegant. He came onstage took the cities with their singing, Africa acknowledged through Hugh at Monterey with pressed hair and a drinking, and swearing; both being Masakela, and hovering over it all was shirt of scarlet ruffles. He shuffled, dubbed Queen of the Blues, which Otis Redding, veteran of the rhythm jived, flashed his teeth, and an- means be on top when you sing and blues-gold lame suit circuit. Hav- nounced to the crowd, "I just want "Down-Hearted Blues" and be a ing been largely ignored by American to grab you and-you know-one of winner when you sing "Women Is whites until Monterey (and possibly them things man, one of them things. Losers," But Janis was a white woman until England voted him the number But I just can't do that. So I'm gonna using a black woman's blues to get one vocalist of the year), Otis was sacrifice something I really love. to her own. At her worst she parodied praised extravagantly and dubbed We're gonna do the English and and hid the other; at her best (harder the King of Soul promptly after he American combined anthem. Now to come by, not as pleasing to her died that winter. A tragedy that he don't get mad ... It's the only thing audience), the mimicry stopped and had been so taken for granted (blacks I can do." And he began to chant her own pain came out in her own were unaware that they had taken him "Wild Thing." Then, determined to way. She may have dismissed or for- so for granted), and there will never fulfill or to parody every living fan- gotten the distance between an ac- be another Otis (no, of course not, tasy of black macho-sexuality, he tress and her role: having purchased said blacks. but there will be Wilson raped his guitar, set it on fire, and a tombstone for Bessie Smith some and Bobby' and LeRoy and Sonny), danced as it burned. thirty years after the fact, she died and his recording of "Satisfaction" Two years later he came to Wood- a few weeks later, on the same day was not up to the Stones', still ... stock. "Wild Thing" had become an Bessie had. Monterey was the counterculture autopsy of the Star-Spangled Banner, melting pot, and the blend was, as his ingratiation a distant "You can usual, suspiciously lacking in variety. all leave if you want. We're just jam- Part the Third: Containing an Exam- "It's an American Dream," declared ming." He stood still and played, and ination of the Rock Star, in Both His . "Includes Indians too." while his music grew multiple and White and His Hlack Incarnations. There were none onstage at Monterey rich he seemed to splinter and frag- and few in the audience, but clearly ment. To blacks he was the pimp of LVIS, THE BEATLES, the Stones, people thought well of them: why else a cheap acid rock craze; to whites he E the Animals, Mountain, Cream, were they all wearing beaded head- was a sacred whore, dispensing grace , Julie Driscoll, the Grate- bands and fringed vests? and salvation by playing Black Stud ful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Leon Russell, Two cult figures performed at Mon- Madman over and over. And so he Rod Stewart, fans and record buyers tcrey: Iimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. began with his guitar and ended by -all took some part of the particular Jimi Hendrix learned to play the sacrificing himself to an audience that style of hedonism, toughness, sexual- fed off his complex pain as they would ity, and cynicism found in black have from a dazzling display of cos- music and committed the sins of legit- tumes at a Ziegfeld spectacular. When imization, definition, and miscompre- he screamed they cheered; when he hension against it. The crudity of the pounded his feet they clapped their Daddy Rice-Jim Crow transaction has hands; when he choked on his own been smoothed out over the years, but vomit they played "Purple Haze" and no black performer yet has been able told each other that he was kissing to get the praise and attention he or the sky. It was a common death, she deserves independent of white though, like the alcoholic Chicago tutelage and translation. Rock has winter death of Blind Lemon Jefler- adopted and refined Europe's neu- son, or the drug death of Charlie rotic patronage system, based on a Parker; a sinister death, like Sam birthright of race rather than family. Cooke's shooting and Otis Redding's Here the benevolent aristocrat, some- Wisconsin plane crash. times a critic, more often a performer, And then there was Janis, shifting dips into the vat of scrambling musi- from Bessie Smith to Mavis Staple to cians and extracts one or two who Big Mama Thornton, stopping at Otis appeal to him-whose impurities Redding, Tina Turner, and Big May- have been boiled away over the years. belle along the way. She was a mis- Sonny Boy Williamson, B. B. King, fit from Port Arthur, Texas-"I got Muddy Waters, Papa John Creach, treated very badly in Texas-they simmered and done to a turn. 44 Jim; Hendrix trol Madison Avenue and by the groes," and finally to, "Observe, par- smaller ones that wish they could. ticipate and enjoy, as I, a white, adopt Whites control the media that pro- certain characteristics of the blacks, mote a performer, the apparatus that bestowing upon them a style and a produces records and arranges the setting that they are missing in their right concert appearances, and as con- natural, rougher form." sumers, they outnumber blacks ten to Has a young admirer ever attached one. Under these circumstances it is himself to you? He dogged your difficult for black audiences to sup- footsteps, dressed as nearly like you port black performers financially as as possible, acquired your manner- they need and deserve to be sup- isms and expressions, and told every- The Rolling Stones ported, and it is not realistic to one how wonderful you were. At A Stones tour is rarely complete expect performers to shun an audi- first you may have been amused, even without a black performer, be it ence of several million when the flattered. But you became uneasy, or Ike and Tina Tur- returns are so great. And so whites then annoyed. You were being carica- ner; the black performer gets nation- take other whites' word on which tured, your individuality undermined wide fame and fortune; the Stones black performers to listen to, and and cheapened. You felt used, fed off get a crack at authenticity. Mick Jag- these black performers move from of, and your admirer took on the ger stood in the wings every night to the chitling to the chopped-steak-and- lewdness of the voyeur. You were be- watch Tina and the lkettes slide, turn, caviar circuit because certain whites ing appropriated for his needs, used and kick with impeccable abandon; were clever enough to detect how as raw material in his efforts to divert at the time he was content to move black, hence how successful with or remodel himself. Finally, you de; about the stage hitting a tambourine black audiences, they were. The spised him. until it broke and then hitting an- Ethiopian Business, as Stephen Imitation is a form of cannibalism. other. By the tour's end, much to Foster called it, is a strange business And the imitator is never content Tina's surprise, he had managed to indeed. merely to nibble; oh no, every so devise a unique if labored form of often, when life becomes dull or frus- rhythmic dancing, though it is said trating, he becomes greedy. Nothing he repaid their beneficence by having Part the Fourth: In Which Patterns will satisfy him but the whole, body the microphones turned off if they of Imitation and Sacrifice Are Exam. and blood. performed too well. B.B. King, !VIuddy ined and Found Wanting. Black musicians have made up an Waters, and most of the long-standing impressive display of sacrifices over bluespeople were brought to theaters, HE CURRENT FAMILIARITY, then,· the years. Their records are distrib- clubs, and large audiences by bands T breeds contempt, exploitation, uted with the reverence accorded the of their young, white, and much more and a great deal of bad music. Bor- wine and wafer, while magazine lit- successful imitators. Brenda Hollo- rowing itself is not the question, since anies lament the cruelty of the world way of "Every Little Bit Hurts" sings music lives by eclecticism. Still, if you and the tragedy of candles burned at trifling backups for Joe Cocker; borrow, you must return, and nobody both ends. Nevertheless, the sacrifice, was "discovered" wants an imitation back if they've it is finally agreed, was for the good backing the Stones; Billy Preston was lent out an original. Bonnie Raitt, of the community, since the appetite brought forth from the wilderness by , , Randy satisfied was the spiritual craving for . Newman, Joy of Cooking, Tracey fresh vision and emotional rebirth. What follows is inevitable. There is ~dson, Bob Dylan, and some others Or, as told the New York measured praise in the New York have characters or traditions of their Times, the death of Jimi Hendrix was Times, comparing the performer to own to which they have joined blues "almost a necessity." Sacrifices are al- other black "greats" and warning and jazz. Others are singing and ways "almost a necessity" when you against commercialism. There is a playing in styles that derive more are not the victim. hipper interview or review in Rolling from Country and Western, pop and The night Jimi died I dreamed this Stone, which also mentions commer- musical, or classical forms. But far was the latest step in a plot being de- cialism (tied, it seems, to the black's too many white performers thrive and signed to eliminate blacks from rock overeagerness to be successful) . survive on personas and performances music so that it may be recorded in There is a brief appearance on the that are studies in ventriloquism and history as a creation of whites. Future Johnny Carson or Dick Cavett show minstrelsy, careless footnotes to a generations, my dream ran, will be where the performer is hustled off badlv read blues text. "There are a lot taught that while rock may have had without being allowed to speak or of c~lored guys who can sing me off its beginnings among blacks, it had asked for a definition of soul. There the stage," says Rod Stewart. "But its true flowering among whites. The is a string of tours and an album, with half the battle is selling it, not singing best black artists will thus be studied notes written by a white disc jockey, it. It's the image, not what you sing." as remarkable primitives who uncon- producer, or performer, referring to And the minstrel image has grown sciously foreshadowed future de- the funkiness of the artist and the more complex over the years: start- velopments. down-home quality of the black musi- ing, as Imamu Baraka has said, with Two weeks later Janis Joplin was cal experience. a simple, "Watch these Niggers," it dead. What does that mean? I asked The economics of the patronage moved to, "Watch how well I imitate myself, momentarily confused. It system are obvious. Rock music is these Niggers," then to, "Let's all means she thought she was black and managed by the big powers that con- abandon ourselves and act like Ne- somebody took her at her word. 0 41

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