White Black Singers, Part II

Yesterday I discussed the way white male rockers have appropriated codes of black masculinity to define their identities. In the study I mentioned, Krin Gabbard’s Black Magic, Gabbard has relied in part on the work of Eric Lott, particularly an essay titled “Racial Cross-Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness,” that can be found in Simon During, Ed., The Cultural Studies Reader, Second Edition. Lott argues that whites perform “whiteness” in many ways, and that these performances are addressed, not necessarily explicitly, to blacks. As part of his analysis, Lott explores one form of white impersonation of blackness, what is known historically as “blackface,” which Lott interprets as perhaps more significant than whites merely “pretending” to be black, but in fact an illustration of a deep desire in white performers to be black. My point yesterday simply was to observe that the most obvious cultural activity in which whites have expressed their fascination with black culture (at least since the rise of Elvis Presley) is rock ‘n’ roll.

I assume it is widely known, though perhaps the point needs to be reiterated, that Elvis was so “controversial” at the time he burst on the scene in the 1950s was because his stage persona was so obviously modeled on black codes of masculinity: his greased and oiled hair, for instance, and his vocal style, borrowed from Otis Blackwell and other rhythm and blues singers of the 1940s and 50s. Consider this information, taken from Greil Marcus’s book Dead Elvis, quoting Robert Henry, a Beale Street promoter: “…he [Elvis] would watch the colored singers, understand me, and then he got to doing it the same way as them. He got that shaking, that wiggle, from Charlie Burse, Ukelele Ike we called him, right there at the Gray Mule on Beale. Elvis, he wasn’t doing nothing but what the colored people had been doing for the last hundred years. But people . . . people went wild over him” (p. 57). Marcus also quotes Nat D. Williams, “the unofficial mayor of Beale Street”: “We had a lot of fun with him [Elvis]. Elvis Presley on Beale Street when he first started out was a favorite man. When they saw him coming out, the audience always gave him as much recognition as they gave any musician—black. He had a way of singing the blues that was distinctive. He could sing ‘em not necessarily like a Negro, but he didn’t sing ‘em altogether like a typical white musician. He had something in between that made the blues sort of different . . . . Always he had that certain humanness about him that Negroes like to put in their songs. So when he had a show down there at the Palace, everybody got ready for something good. Yeah. They were crazy about Presley” (p. 57). I should add that Henry and Williams are talking about events before Elvis ever showed up at Sam Phillips’s Sun Records, when Elvis, then a teenager, was also spending time in Memphis’s black neighborhoods having sex with young black girls. (See McKee and Chisenhall’s Beale Black & Blue: Life and Music on Black America’s Main Street (1981).

What I failed to mention in yesterday’s post, however, is that white rock ‘n’ roll performers may reflect the “withering-away” of blackface. As John Szwed has observed, “The fact that, say, a Mick Jagger can today perform in the [blackface] tradition without blackface simply marks the detachment of culture from race and the almost full absorption of a black tradition into white culture” (qtd. in Lott, “Racial Cross-Dressing,” p. 243). Perhaps there is no better way to illustrate the sort of performance of “whiteness” that is derived from black masculine codes than to see it. I’ve provided a link here to a performance of “Spill the Wine” by Eric Burdon and War, an interracial group that made some fine music integrating Latin rhythms, rhythm and blues, rock, and funk into a highly distinctive mixture. Eric Burdon is to be included among those white rockers (many of them from a working class background, as he is) that I mentioned yesterday, who always expressed great love of the blues; he also happened to be a good friend of the late blues great John Lee Hooker. I see a bit of Mick Jagger in Burdon’s performance as captured in this video, but then, as I mentioned above, Jagger himself has so thoroughly internalized blackface style that he is no longer even aware of it. I should also add that when I die and am reincarnated, I want to come back able to sing like Eric Burdon.

White Black Singers

Although the subject of his book, Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture, is the racial appropriation of black culture in white American film, Krin Gabbard discusses the way white male performers of Rhythm & Blues (and the music derived from it, Rock ‘n’ Roll) have appropriated black masculinity to define their identities. Quoting John Gennari, Gabbard observes that white male appropriation of black masculinity

operates through gender displacement, i.e., sexual freedom and carefree abandon were expressed through feminized gestures (emotion, flamboyance, etc.) that, paradoxically, end up coded as masculine. I think here of Elvis’s hair styling, his obsession with pink, etc.; of Mick Jagger’s striptease; the spandex, long-hair, girlish torsos of the cock rockers. To try to get this point across to my students, I show footage of . . . Robert Plant and Jimmy Page talking about how everything they did came out of Willie Dixon and other macho black bluesmen. Then you see them aggressively pelvic thrusting through “Whole Lotta Love,” looking like Cher and Twiggy on speed. (Gabbard, p. 33)

Eric Lott has argued that Elvis imitators play out their fascination with black male sexuality (safely) by becoming a simulacrum of Elvis as he appeared in the 1950s, “as though such performance were a sort of second-order blackface, in which, blackface having for the most part disappeared, the figure of Elvis himself is now the apparently still necessary signifier of white ventures into black culture . . .” (p. 36). The appropriation of black masculinity by white performers, in which black masculinity is (paradoxically) displayed by androgynous display, in the form of sexual freedom and abandon, flamboyant dress (including the wearing of ornate jewelry), and also by feminine coding (long hair, make-up, etc.) can be seen in, for instance, Transformer-era Lou Reed; Alice Cooper; Tommy Bolin; the New York Dolls; Kiss; and figures such as the Cramps’ Lux Interior. Gennari’s insight, quoted above, also explains the seeming paradox of why so many cock rockers, all of whom had an expressed love of black blues records, have always had such girlish figures and feminized mannerisms: Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, T. Rex, Allen Collins (of Lynyrd Skynyrd), and those “second generation” rockers who consciously inherited these mannerisms, such as Mötley Crüe (former band member Tommy Lee is pictured), Ratt, and Poison.

In Vino Veritas

There is a long tradition in the Western world of likening the effects of alcohol to the ecstatic frenzy of divine possession. Socrates likened poets to bacchants, the followers of Bacchus or Dionysus, god of wine and inspired madness, that is, giddy intoxication and frenzied hysteria. Country music came to employ the pedal steel guitar as the musical equivalent of drunken self-pity and indulgence, and many a country song has been written on the self-pitying drunk’s best friend, Jack Daniels. By getting drunk, one seeks the pleasure principle. But when booze doesn’t work, as in Merle Haggard’s “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down,” it forces the singer to confront the harsh reality principle, allowing old memories (of love) to “come around.” Hence drunkenness in popular music is frequently sought as a way to achieve drug-induced amnesia, a way to escape the terrible realities of existence, most often heartbreak. As Samuel Johnson observed, “He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.” Hard whiskey, however, is a double-edged sword, because its effects are unpredictable: it may allow the drinker to escape acute self-consciousness, or do just the opposite, bring about a state of hyper self-awareness, and only exacerbate one’s crippling misery. Wine is often perceived to be a safer path to drunken self-indulgence than hard whiskey: wine is perceived to be a more benign, slower, and pleasurable--mellower--path to inebriation than the drastic measure of being knocked to your knees with just a few shots.

Here Are A Few Instances Of The Veritas In Vino:
Eric Clapton – Bottle of Red Wine
Cream – Sweet Wine
The Electric Flag – Wine
David Frizzell – I’m Going To Hire a Wino (To Decorate Our Home)
Larry Gatlin & The Gatlin Brothers Band – Midnight Choir (Mogen David)
George Jones – Wine Colored Roses
Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs – Bottle of Wine
Tommy James & the Shondells – Sweet Cherry Wine
Jerry Lee Lewis – Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee
Henry Mancini – Days of Wine and Roses
Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood – Summer Wine
Eric Burdon & War – Spill the Wine
J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers – Wine, Wine, Wine
Faron Young – Wine Me Up

Here are three versions of “Red Red Wine” I have. Take your pick, as all of them are good:
Neil Diamond – Red Red Wine
Tee-Set (“Ma Belle Amie” ) – Red Red Wine
UB40 – Red Red Wine

Originally written and recorded by Neil Diamond in 1968, “Red Red Wine” was soon covered by Tony Tribe, a Jamaican rocksteady singer, who recorded a reggae-influenced version. Tony Tribe’s version in turn influenced UB40’s later, 1983 cover of the song—I suspect UB40 band members may never even have heard Neil Diamond’s version when they recorded their hit version.

Return Of The Record

According to this article from today’s L. A. Times, there’s been a “mini-boom” of neighborhood record stores in the Los Angeles area. Sales figures indicate that sales of vinyl LPs were up 89% in 2008, signaling a renewed interest in the venerable musical storage medium. According to the article,

Between 2003 and last year, more than 3,000 record stores closed in the U.S., including such Los Angeles landmarks as Tower Records on the Sunset Strip. Independent shops such as Rhino Westwood and Aron’s Records in Hollywood accounted for nearly half the losses, according to the Almighty Institute of Music Retail, a database and marketing firm. Today, there are 185 record stores in the L.A. area, down from 259 at the beginning of 2007.

Several factors are cited for the resurgence of interest in the decades-old format, among them the assertion by audiophiles that a vinyl record sounds better than a compact disc. Even if that were indisputably true (and it may be), I would argue that a major factor accounting for interest in the format is the appeal of an album’s artwork over that of a CD—a CD booklet simply can’t compete with the visual and tactile appeal of a vinyl LP cover. Additionally, the vinyl LP has an aura of historicity about it that a CD doesn’t. The L. A. Times article cites Marc Weinstein, founder of Amoeba Music, the chain whose Hollywood venue is among the largest independent retail record stores in the country. He is quoted as saying, “I’ve always marveled at every new generation of 15-year-old boys who go to the Doors vinyl section and say, ‘Wow, an original Doors LP!’” I would argue that their fascination lies in the fact that the record was issued when the Doors were still actually recording and performing, a tangible connection to that era, unlike a later CD reissue.

Whether the vinyl LP “mini-boom” will continue in its present robust fashion is hard to say, although it’s worth pointing out that the introduction of television didn’t render the radio obsolete, no more than the Internet has displaced television. As Marshall McLuhan observed, the content of the new media is the old media: digital downloading of classic movies and television shows is an illustration of McLuhan’s point. Digital downloading of music is yet another illustration of his point. But since the record is the basic material artifact of rock culture, integral to its initial manner of distribution and consumption, it is no wonder that the vinyl record’s appeal has not entirely disappeared.

The Hunger Artists

Etymologically, the word hunger derives from the Old English hungor, akin to the Old High German hungar, and is related to the Lithuanian word kanka, “torture.” To be hungry means to have an urgent need for food or some other special form of nutrition, but by metaphorical elaboration, hunger has come to refer to any strong desire—“a hunger for success,” for instance, or, as is quite common, hunger for another, an expression of strong sexual desire. “For always roaming with a hungry heart/Much have I seen and known,” wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his poem about the mythic hero Ulysses, although in his poem about the heroic figure, Tennyson invented survivors in addition to Ulysses after the end of the Odyssey as recorded by Homer. Hence hunger refers not only to an urgent need for “food,” as in nourishment, but also to appetite, an appetite that can never be satisfied or satiated. What Tennyson’s Ulysses craves is experience itself, and since experience is boundless, what Ulysses wants is the impossible—that which can never be satisfied. His desire to know is apparently boundless, without limits.

In the same way, sexual desire can never be sated; it is a thirst that can never be quenched. Desire can be understood as a quest, a search or hunt that never ends: “Mouth is alive with juices like wine/And I’m hungry like the wolf,” sings Duran Duran in “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Since hunger is recurring, insistent, and never-ending, the singer speaks of a desire that is “hungry like the wolf”—always and forever seeking more and more, insatiable—no wonder that the word hunger is related to the word torture.

Various Hors d’oeuvres:
Eric Clapton – “Hungry,” No Reason to Cry
Deep Purple – “Hungry Daze,” Perfect Strangers
Duran Duran – “Hungry Like the Wolf,” Rio
Merle Haggard – “Hungry Eyes,” Untamed Hawk: The Early Recordings of Merle Haggard
INXS – “Hungry,” Switch
Van Morrison – “Hungry For Your Love,” An Officer and a Gentleman (OST)
Paul Revere & The Raiders – “Hungry,” Greatest Hits
Bruce Springsteen, “Hungry Heart,” The River
Twisted Sister, “Stay Hungry,” Stay Hungry
White Lion – “Hungry,” Pride

Pillow Talk

“Come on baby, I’m tired of talking,” Elvis sings in “A Little Less Conversation” (in Live A Little, Love A Little), telling his baby he wants “A little less conversation/A little more action please/A little more bite and a little less bark/A little less fight and a little more spark/Close your mouth and open up your heart/And baby satisfy me.” We all know what he means by “satisfy me,” in the same way we know what Mick Jagger means when he complains he “can’t get no satisfaction.” Since the articulation of sexual desire was proscribed by the apparatus of censorship when Elvis and Mick sang about wanting to have sex, it seems appropriate that what can be said, and what can’t, is what songs about conversations are all about. That is, conversation songs are not about having a conversation at all: they are about not having a conversation, being forced to converse about things one doesn’t want to converse about, talking “around” an issue. Elvis wants “a little less conversation,” meaning none, and “a little more spark,” meaning he wants her to use her mouth for something other than conversing. “I shot my mouth off and you showed me what that hole was for,” Chrissie Hynde sings in “Tattooed Love Boys,” and we all know what she means: she wasn’t having a conversation. There’s talk and there’s conversation—talk is reserved for the pillow, and conservation fills up the time before pillow talk. Hence talk is to fulfillment what conversation is to delay. “Let’s talk about love”—yes, but no one ever wants to have “a conversation” about love—as Elvis so astutely observed.

A Few Songs About (Not Having) A Conversation:
Alesana – This Conversation Is Over (On Frail Wings of Vanity and Wax)
Atlanta Rhythm Section – Conversation (Champagne Jam)
Colin Hay – Conversation (Peaks & Valleys)
Simon and Garfunkel – The Dangling Conversation (Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Elvis – A Little Less Conversation (Live A Little, Love A Little)
Lyle Lovett – Private Conversation (The Road to Ensenada)
Joni Mitchell – Conversation (Ladies of the Canyon)
Jason Mraz – Conversation With Myself (Live & Acoustic)
Gary Numan – Conversation (The Pleasure Principle)
Lou Reed – New York Telephone Conversation (Transformer)
Hank Williams, Jr. with Waylon Jennings – The Conversation (Whiskey Bent And Hell Bound)