A heated discussion on 'Race, Gender & the Blues'

[Ricky Stevens]

Johnny Meister wrote:

 "Much of it has to do with who is the audience
and what the audience is looking for."

There you have it.   Who puts the butts in the seats?


Ricky Stevens 

Arkabutla, Mississippi

> Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 06:45:02 -0400
> From: bluesandbeyond@GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: A heated discussion on 'Race, Gender & the Blues'
> To: BLUES-L@LISTSERV.NETHELPS.COM
> 
> To say that it's about the money is to state the obvious but fail to
> go beyond that... WHY is the money going to whom it is going? Why
> does there seem to be a preference for white blues players?
> 
> The racial subject justifiably continues to rattle the blues world. I
> am surprised by how few blacks are on the bill at some pretty
> high-profile events. Much of it has to do with who is the audience
> and what the audience is looking for. Some of the most incisive
> analysis of this is in Adam Gussow's "Journeyman's Road" where he
> talks about "half-truths" about blues.
> 
> As the expression "half-truths" implies, there are no simple
> declarative answers to understanding blues history, though at some
> bottom line it is hard to deny that its roots are African-American
> and that whites have benefited more financially than blacks. His
> discussion of the "white autonomous" blues world, white players and
> fans who seem to have completely separated blues music from its
> African-American source is particularly eye-opening. It's more than a
> little depressing too, for I see blues as one of the main factors in
> the civil rights movement. The undeniable appeal of blues to whites
> forced at least some whites to question their racial attitudes in life.
> 
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