Does Soul Have A Color?...(Colour ..in UK) ..Yeah...Black...but some of us dug its origins and somehow learned and felt it deep...and some exude it African-American music shaped my life...in the UK...really ! And we all originated from Africa,,,so maybe us whiteys are just remembering and yearning our genetic past
I have always thought that the soul experience had a color. It originated in the black church and rhythm and blues, and I considered the black church to be a uniquely different experience from any church or other religious establishment in which African- Americans are a minority. Even if one limits the discussion to music in the church, the call and response of gospel music has its origin in west Africa. On the other hand, soul music, like blues and jazz, can be sung and played by anybody. When listening to Eddie Hinton, I find it difficult to believe that he is not black.
In mulling over the question, I also have to consider the musicians of Muscle Shoals and songwriters like Dan Penn, Eddie Hinton, and Tony Joe White who were so adept at writing soul songs that were performed by African-American singers. I'll admit that when I was a callow, ignorant youth, I assumed that great authentic soul music could only be sung by African-Americans and disliked the term blue-eyed soul perhaps because I resented that blue eyed soul singers fared better in the music industry and in selling records. Just ask Big Mama Thornton or Arthur Crudup about Elvis. I felt the same way about blues and jazz, but realized in my late teens that I was wrong and close-minded.. But the concept of appropriating an art form from another culture that, in this example, originated in the black church and the refuge from oppression that it provided bothered me. However, there are African performers who sing and play great reggae and bands and singers throughout Europe and the United States that play great traditional Irish and Scottish music. I realized that with the passage of time the unique roots of a genre of music become historical fact that does not delegitimize the performances of those who love the music but don't share the historical memories.. I suppose the question could be asked whether country music and bluegrass have color, but African-Americans and other folks whose roots are neither not southern American of European origin have excelled. Europeans, Australians and folks from the northern U. S. and above the 49th parallel have made meaningless and irrelevant the notion that only southerners and the southern diaspora in Texas, Oklahoma, and Bakersfield can sing or play authentic country. In the end, I have come to the conclusion that one doesn't have to live or come from people who lived the unique experiences from which genres of music have originated to perform any of them. So in my uniformed opinion, the soul experience has a color or colour, if you will, but soul music does not. Still I strongly believe that if anyone outside of the culture of origin chooses to perform in the genre, they better know and respect the history of it and perform well enough to honor those who created it. Nonetheless, if one goes back far enough in the history of music in the United States, one will discover that genres are overly restrictive and irrelevant because the society may have been segregated but the music was not and there was a hell o0f a lot of cross-pollination. Songsters like Lipscomb and Hurt neither segregated nor limited their music to genres that originated in the segregated culture they had to endure. Simply put, raised in the United States, they sang American music that they heard and believed to be good.
Like, Gus, I have been greatly influenced by the music. If one removed soul or other genres of music that have black cultural roots from my music collection, it would be much smaller. And in the end, until a consensus of anthropologists prove today's scientists wrong, we all have out origin in Ethiopia or thereabouts. Ethiopian music has diverse origins and influences and borrows from the music of other countries. As an example, Bill Laswell is more often than not the producer for his wife Gigi's music. Just think, what a world we would enjoy if one didn't even have to think of or ask such questions and accepted that all music originates from the human experience.
3 comments:
Does Soul Have A Color?...(Colour ..in UK) ..Yeah...Black...but some of us dug its origins and somehow learned and felt it deep...and some exude it
African-American music shaped my life...in the UK...really ! And we all originated from Africa,,,so maybe us whiteys are just remembering and yearning our genetic past
I have always thought that the soul experience had a color. It originated in the black church and rhythm and blues, and I considered the black church to be a uniquely different experience from any church or other religious establishment in which African- Americans are a minority. Even if one limits the discussion to music in the church, the call and response of gospel music has its origin in west Africa. On the other hand, soul music, like blues and jazz, can be sung and played by anybody. When listening to Eddie Hinton, I find it difficult to believe that he is not black.
In mulling over the question, I also have to consider the musicians of Muscle Shoals and songwriters like Dan Penn, Eddie Hinton, and Tony Joe White who were so adept at writing soul songs that were performed by African-American singers. I'll admit that when I was a callow, ignorant youth, I assumed that great authentic soul music could only be sung by African-Americans and disliked the term blue-eyed soul perhaps because I resented that blue eyed soul singers fared better in the music industry and in selling records. Just ask Big Mama Thornton or Arthur Crudup about Elvis. I felt the same way about blues and jazz, but realized in my late teens that I was wrong and close-minded.. But the concept of appropriating an art form from another culture that, in this example, originated in the black church and the refuge from oppression that it provided bothered me. However, there are African performers who sing and play great reggae and bands and singers throughout Europe and the United States that play great traditional Irish and Scottish music. I realized that with the passage of time the unique roots of a genre of music become historical fact that does not delegitimize the performances of those who love the music but don't share the historical memories.. I suppose the question could be asked whether country music and bluegrass have color, but African-Americans and other folks whose roots are neither not southern American of European origin have excelled. Europeans, Australians and folks from the northern U. S. and above the 49th parallel have made meaningless and irrelevant the notion that only southerners and the southern diaspora in Texas, Oklahoma, and Bakersfield can sing or play authentic country. In the end, I have come to the conclusion that one doesn't have to live or come from people who lived the unique experiences from which genres of music have originated to perform any of them. So in my uniformed opinion, the soul experience has a color or colour, if you will, but soul music does not. Still I strongly believe that if anyone outside of the culture of origin chooses to perform in the genre, they better know and respect the history of it and perform well enough to honor those who created it. Nonetheless, if one goes back far enough in the history of music in the United States, one will discover that genres are overly restrictive and irrelevant because the society may have been segregated but the music was not and there was a hell o0f a lot of cross-pollination. Songsters like Lipscomb and Hurt neither segregated nor limited their music to genres that originated in the segregated culture they had to endure. Simply put, raised in the United States, they sang American music that they heard and believed to be good.
Like, Gus, I have been greatly influenced by the music. If one removed soul or other genres of music that have black cultural roots from my music collection, it would be much smaller. And in the end, until a consensus of anthropologists prove today's scientists wrong, we all have out origin in Ethiopia or thereabouts. Ethiopian music has diverse origins and influences and borrows from the music of other countries. As an example, Bill Laswell is more often than not the producer for his wife Gigi's music. Just think, what a world we would enjoy if one didn't even have to think of or ask such questions and accepted that all music originates from the human experience.
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