"Sock It to Me"

[Sam Clements]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 10:31 PM
Subject: Re: "Sock It to Me"


> On Jun 5, 2005, at 3:03 AM, Sam Clements wrote:

>> Poster:       Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "Sock It to Me"
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 1:03 AM
>> Subject: Re: "Sock It to Me"
>>
>>
>>> Of course. It will be my honor.
>>>
>>> In 1968. there was a television show on one of the Big Three devoted
>>> to the careers of two uknown female song stylists, one white and one
>>> black. Unfortunately, the unknown white singer's career came from
>>> nowhere and went nowhere. I'd never heard of her at the time and have
>>> not heard of her since. Hence, her name escapes me.
>>
>> Her name was Gloria Loring.  The show, titled "The Singers," was aired
>> on
>> ABC on May 11, 1968.   But your characterization of the show as
>> "devoted to
>> the careers of two unknown female song stylists" is incorrect.
>
> It's not *my* characterization. it's the way that the show was
> advertised and presented. Maybe you had to have been there and seen the
> TV program and seen the TV ads preceding it. That program was memorable
> for only one thing: equating Aretha with a nobody, despite the fact
> that Aretha had long been somebody. What could have motivated that, do
> you think? The fact that ABC's boss was Aretha's number-one fan,
> perhaps? And why would Aretha have acceded to such an insulting
> juxtaposition? We could have been wrong, but, at the time, most black
> people figured it was that she needed the exposure to white America.
>
> -Wilson Gray

You're right--I don't remember watching the show, even though I was 24 at
the time.  I certainly knew who Aretha was,  but I guess it's always
possible that no one at ABC did.  They just picked her name out of a hat.
If you ask me to decide on how the show portrayed Ms. Franklin based on your
37-year-old memory and my reading of a few dozen newspaper reviews and
stories from the time, then I go with the print cites.

 >> Every major
>> newspaper I can read on Proquest make it clear that Aretha was big
>> time
>
> That is precisely my point. Oh, I'm sorry. You mean that old newspaper
> stories have persuaded you that she was considered big time by *white*
> people.

I don't get the point that you're making.  She was considered big time by
all of America.

>> ("Respect" had won her a Grammy
>
> And, of course, given that the Grammy-winners are selected by means of
> a vote by the general public, it naturally  follows, as the night the
> day, that Aretha was clearly the darling of the general white-American
> public.
>

All I meant was that she was well-known.  She wasn't some unknown.

>>  earlier that year) and Loring was a
>> newbie.
>
> The word that you're searching for is "nobody."
>
Actually, I wasn't searching.  I used the word I meant.  Aretha had arrived,
Loring was a newbie on the scene.  That juxtaposition was part of the show.
Oh!  I forgot--you saw the show and Aretha was presented as a nobody.  My
bad.



>>> Clearly, neither the white power structure nor the average person on
>>> the white street had any idea who Aretha Franklin was or even gave a
>>> Roosevelt damn. Aretha Franklin had not crossed over the color line by
>>> 1967. Q.E.D.
>>

Perhaps it was clear to you.  I think that the term you were searching for
was not Q.E.D. but rather IMO.

Sam Clements