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

[chuck 249]

Knock knock.
    Who's there?
Joe.
     Joe who?
Kansas Joe McCoy. Minnie's husband.
     Can I help you?
Sure can. Minnie gets all the credit, but since this thread also
mentions gender, I should mention that I had a hand in the creation
and performance of When The Levee Breaks!

chuck, in dallas

On May 23, 2012, at 13:49, Harri Haka <harri.haka@gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree that all of these are fine examples of white musicians singing blues and as Chuck said, there are hundreds more. Many of these are covers performed with good taste. I am not going to send samples and do not want to make this a black vs white vocalist debate but if we compare the covers to the originals and look  at black singers in general, I still feel that for example Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Etta James, Koko Taylor, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, B.B. King, Buddy Guy are way above any of said examples. Saddest thing is that there are and were thousands of black vocalists who never got recognition but who's songs sold millions when covered by white singers. If you ask even knowledgable music lovers the question: who recorded the original "When The Levee Breaks" my guess is that Led Zeppelin would overwhelm Memphis Minnie.
>
> Harri
>
>
> 23.5.2012 4:56, chuck 249
>> In no particular order, and keeping in mind that I could find hundreds
>> of other good examples, here are a couple of handfuls of white singers
>> that (imo) pulled off the blues vocal thing, convincingly.  If there
>> is one common denominator, at least in the ones where there is video
>> footage, it is that they all seem to be giving the vocals their best
>> effort--which also works to separate the really good musicians from
>> the average, irregardless of color.
>>
>

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