"Sock It to Me"

Wilson Gray wilson.gray at RCN.COM
Mon Jun 13 16:17:51 UTC 2005


On Jun 6, 2005, at 7:49 PM, James A. Landau wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Sock It to Me"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> In a message dated Sun, 5 Jun 2005 01:03:56 -0400,  Wilson Gray
> _hwgray at GMAIL.COM_ (mailto:hwgray at GMAIL.COM)
> writes:
>
>> 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.
>
>
>
> Kermit Schafer, ed _Blooper Parade_ Greenwich CT: Fawcett Publications
>  Inc.,
> 1968, no ISBN.  The following appears on page 76 of the Fawcett Gold
> Medal
> paperback edition
>
> <quote>
> DISC JOCKEY:  ". . . .and here now is another million seller sung by
> popular
> Uretha Franklin...<i>Aretha</i>
> </quote>
>
> "Clearly" Kermit Schafer in 1968 expected his readers, the  majority
> of whom
> were your "average person on the white street", to  recognize the name
> "Aretha
> Franklin" instantly.  As for the TV show you  cite, well, Richard Head
> Esq.
> shows up disproportianately often on major TV  networks, both then and
> now.
>
> For what it is worth, I was invited to a "Motown Party" that was
> thrown in
> the mostly-white college dormitory I inhabited in 1966-67.
>
>
>> a black male singer was quoted as saying that, if
>> Tom  Jones could make a million dollars a year singing like a black
>> man, then  a black man ought to be able to make $50,000 a year singing
>> like himself.  Unfortunately, the man was living in a dream.
>
>
> I don't know the relative chronologies of Jones and Elvis Presley, but
> I
> recall reading that Presley was picked up by record promoters because
> he was "a
> white man who sang like a [black man]".

Elvis was before Tom Jones. I've heard and read that Elvis supposedly
sang like a black man, but I've never understood it. IMO, Elvis sang
uniquely like Elvis. Saying that he sang like a black man is like
saying that Chuck Berry sang like a white man, it seems to me. They
were both new departures from the usual. People like Carl Perkins, Roy
"The Houston Flash" Head, Tony Joe White, and even Bobby Darrin, to
pick some names at random, struck me more as white men who sang like a
black man than Elvis ever did.

FWIW, Ray Sharpe, OTOH, struck me as a black man who sang like a white
man.

-Wilson Gray

>
>> Don't you recall that, in the _'Sixties,_ the
>> lynching of  blacks and even of some Jews was still a commonplace
>> practice?
>
> I will challenge this statement.  While in high school (1959-65) I
> conscientiously followed news about race relations, Segregation, Civil
>  RIghts, etc, in
> the South.  During that period I recall reading of exactly  TWO
> lynchings,
> one in 1963 and the other one earlier, both of which were  followed by
> ferocious
> responses by the Federal government.  To the best of  my knowledge,
> these
> were the last lynchings to occur in the United States.   If I am
> wrong, please be
> specific.
>
> This is an important matter.  In the 1960's there was a widespread
> belief in
> foreign countries that lynching was commonplace in the  US.  This
> belief,
> true or not, had a significant impact on world-wide  reaction to the
> Vietnam War
> (I need only cite Bertrand Russell, who stated in  writing what he
> thought was
> occurring with respect to lynchings, as an  example.)
>
>     - James A. Landau
>



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