Fred Cassidy

[hpst@earthlink.net]

Wilson,

Thanks and good point in terms of South Africa where Gandhi got lessons in
discrimination as a young man who always dressed properly as an English
barrister should..

Now if you can tell me what the hell the hand jive is and how you could do
it with your feet I will be endlessly grateful to you or is this one of the
eternal mysteries of life.

My guess as a person who grew up with jazz musician as friends is that Otis
invented the term and people invented the movements.

"Hand jives are set sequences of hand and arm movements performed mostly
while sitting down in theatres that emerged in the 1950's. In particular it
was done to Johnny Otis's number, 'Willie and the Hand Jive'.
Alternatively, it could be "danced" by a bunch of teenagers grouped around
the jukebox in a crowded 1950's diner or café. In this setting dancing with
their hands only could also be a good idea because of the lack of room."

It probably is related to the phrase "give me some skin" which you and and
a few other of us old farts no doubt know how to do.

The beat  to Way Out Willie -- the chords are very simple unless you do
them right -- probably influenced such people as Bo Diddly, a brilliant one
chord guitarist if there ever was one who treats the guitar as if it was a
drum, and in turn, of course you are really dealing drum rhythms.

If you want to hear what can be done with the song in terms of guitar
technique go to my Canadian friend Amos Garrett's home page,
http/www.melmusic.com/amos_garrett/ and buy  the cd on which he recorded
it. Believe me when I tell you that if you do a few chord slides up and
down the neck you're really making music.

A comment in terms of one-drop.

Race is a sociocultural category and as any anthropologist like myself
could tell you we are all brothers and sisters under the skin.

Hey, brother Wilson, give me some skin, and to those who are to young too
know how to do it think of it as an obsolete handshake which is the
ancestor of high fiving the basic difference being that back in the bad old
days of real racism in the US you had to be involved in the jazz world
where nobody gave a damn if your skin color was black, white, pink, purple,
yellow or green as long as you had your chops down and could play.

It has taken me almost 50 years to get my chops down but believe me when I
tell you it is worth it because it is a lot more fun playing and
improvising than it is listening to others do it at least in my opinion.

Page Stephens

> [Original Message]
> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 11/3/2006 6:53:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Fred Cassidy
>
> Thank you for your long, thoughtful reply, Page.
>
> You know, I've never quite known what to make of the that one-drop
> rule, which appears to apply uniquely to us blacks and Jews. If, as
> was the case in South Africa, there was, in the  United States, an
> official category of "colored," so that there was a buffer "race"
> between the fully white and the totally black, what would that have
> meant for the civil-rights movement, considering that a very large
> percentage of the leaders of even the Black Panthers and the Black
> Muslims, including Huey Newton, the blue-eyed Eldridge Cleaver, Elijah
> Muhammad, and Malcolm X Shabazz would have been "colored" and not
> black, by South African standards? Would they have allied themselves
> with, e.g. the Vernon Jordan, Michael Jordan, and Jackie Robinson
> types? What about the Denzel Washington types, people like your humble
> correspondent, who are neither fair nor black? What about Barack
> Obama?
>
> Thanks to the one-drop rule, of course, *all* of us are black, without
> regard to skin tone, features, or hair type, so there was no problem.
> But there could very well have been. And, if the "bi-racial" movement
> should catch afire ("catch a fire", as in both the cd title and the
> movie title, are Northernspeak misinterpretations), there still may
> be.
>
> -Wilson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org