Singing in a dialect and "Authentic pronunciation" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> To white-boy me it isn't the imitation that bugs, _it's the media gush_.

Precisely! You probably recall the late singer-songwriter, Laura Nyro.
In the other L.A. newspaper - not the LAT - I once read a review of
her work that stated, in no uncertain terms, that Nyro was a white
female singer superior in every way to every black female singer from
Bessie Smith to The Supremes. (At the time that the review appeared,
The Supremes were still simply "The Supremes.")

As we say in Texas - and in a lot of other states, too, no doubt -

"Come on, now!"

Can white people - or even *one* white person - truly believe that a
single, twenty-year-old (as Nyro was, at the time) white girl is, in
and of herself, capable of surpassing and improving upon, in her
ability to *imitate*, the *original* singing styles of the entire set
of black female singers of every kind and style since the Emancipation
Proclamation?!!!

And you know what else sucked? Laura Nyro was an *original*! IMO, her
song-stylings had nothing to do with black female singers. In fact,
more than one black female singer, e.g. the female lead of Saint
Louis's own The Versatiles, better-known as The 5th Dimension, copied
Nyro's style.

And the review was also sexist! Has anybody ever written that, e.g.
Frank Sinatra surpassed every black male singer from Blind Lemon
Jefferson to Tupac Shakur?

(As I'm writing this, a comedy duo from Saint Louis, The Sklar Twins,
are giving their imitation of a New "Yark" accent in their St. Louis
accent "far" the amusement of their audience.)
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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