A prophet without honor

[Wilson Gray]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 1:13 AM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu> wrote:
> in the very early days of what became reggae, in early ska days, a Jamaican group or two would have covered "Work With    > Me, Annie"

That I don't doubt at all. My problem is with a white American writing
on the music of black Jamaicans who knows so little about the music of
black Americans that, without a second thought, he blithely gives
black foreigners credit that rightly belongs to his black
fellow-Americans. Defining a piece of the culture of the black people
of the United States as being a "typical" example of the culture of
the black people of a foreign country is an instance of something
pointed out by the white comedian, Dane Cook, when he noted that a
person has to be a black _American_ in order to be regarded as a
person of no account, as just a nigger.
,
The reporter had two decades to get a clue and didn't bother. But,
what could possibly have motivated him to do that? That's "Life in
these United States," as The Reasder's Digest used to - and may still
- say.

FWIW, Hank Ballard aso composed "The Twist" and made the original
recording thereof with his back-up group, The Midnighters, as well as
"Finger-Poppin' Time," blue-grassed in two different versions by The
Stanley Brothers. AFAIK, no one has called either version a "typical"
example of blue grass. So far.

Youneverknow.

--
-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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