Re: [Harp-L] George Carlin on white blues man...

[Bob Cohen <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Oct 4, 2007, at 11:34 AM, Buck Wolf wrote:

> Really, what Carlin was talking about was white movie stars who  
> think their stardom automatically make them musical artists.

I know. But he touched on an issue that comes up around here and in  
the blues world.  People struggle for authenticity and confuse an art  
form's roots with what happens to it when it becomes part of the  
culture.  Similar arguments about authenticity were made in ballet as  
recently as the early 60s (and is perhaps are still advanced by some)  
namely that black women couldn't dance ballet because they had the  
wrong body shapes.  And what about classical music?  Isn't it  
patently absurd to say that a black musician can't play Mozart  
because he's not white?  The list goes on and on.  Sadly so many  
forget that we're all human beings and have many more similarities  
the differences.  Are you old enough to remember the STAR TREK in  
which there were people from a planet that were half black and half  
white?  Some were black on the left side, some on the right.  And  
that was cause for fighing. It's just silly.

> Wasn't this just a not so subtle jab at Bruce Willis and Dan Aykroyd?

A not so subtle jab, I'd say. :-)

> And say what you want about Aykroyd's harmonica playing. Still,  
> many blues players say that Aykroyd's done a lot of good for blues  
> players.

Well I'm not embarrassed to admit that the BLUES BROTHERS skits, the  
movie, and the soundtrack were my on-ramp to Blues Highway.  I always  
liked the bluesier rock and roll but didn't really know that its  
roots went deep into American culture.  I thought that sound came  
from England.

Bob