I Am a Big Eric Clapton Fan. Cultural Appropriation is BS

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Here is my rant of the day:

 

I love the fact that a bunch of kids got together in England (ca. 1960) and started playing blues music.  Now many folks rightfully think that the only true blues music is the authentic American blues music from black artists starting way back in the 20th c. and developing until today.   

 

But I have to say that no one in Santa Maria California was going to play any blues music authentic or otherwise until the British Invasion got going.  Because of the Blues Breakers, the Stones and other UK groups a lot of us white boys became life long blues fans and developed a strong interests in the "real stuff" .   So cultural appropriation is a force for good IMO.

 

As far as E. Clapton goes, I just put him in the title to piss people off.

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I and I people cannot agree with @sphinxsix.   There are many styles of reggae.  Old school, main stream, dub, what have you.   Bob M. is just one more branch on the tree.  

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4 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

It's silly to argue that Bob Marley's music isn't reggae. It is largely thanks to Marley that reggae has evolved from a local phenomenon to a global one. As far as cultural borrowings are concerned, one can point out that Marley used the Western electric rock band format. Of course, purists would argue that authentic reggae can only be performed with drums and only during Nyabinghi ceremonies - something similar can be heard in the recordings of Wingless Angels, Keith Richards project in Jamaica. 

 

 

Yes.  This is the point.  UK Blues, Bob Marley style Reggae (and more examples than we can count) all of this great music migrates across the world and then comes back to influence new artists and expose/educate the music lovers to the original.   

 

 

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Beaucoup 50 year box sets on the market.  Stones, Beatles etc etc.

 

 

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"Oh Susanna.  Stephen Collins Foster was born in Lawrenceville, PA in July 1826.

At age 20 he became a bookkeeper but his song "Oh Susanna" was pirated by a minstrel singer, published without his knowledge and became the anthem of the California gold miners.

 

As a way to start his song-writing career Foster "gave" the song to the W.C. Perters Publishing Co.  Although it made him famous, he never received a penny for the song.

 

~ according to Jon Gendick (Harmonica Americana)

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2 hours ago, Iving said:

 

My first post did not refer to royalty theft.

 

By Appropriation I did not mean royalty theft.

 

I explained what I did mean -

mainly credit for Black compositions and musical originality cf. hits of Elvis, Haley "Shake Rattle & Roll" etc -

also economic power driving the music industry and distortions in the lore of pop music.

 

I don't revere the Beatles. I revere American Rock 'n' Roll. I made a case about it that seems in line with your view - not at odds with it.

 

Please can we be done for today at least.

 

Edit: I realise you did not quote me this time. Thank you.

 

BREXIT IS BS!  Hurts UK artists (Music) not to mention the entire Kingdom......(suggestion for new, fun thread)  

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Katy Perry was once accused of the dreaded Cultural Appropriation (CA) for releasing a video with a Japanese motif.

 

What crap.  Any reasonable observer saw no theft or appropriation, the Japanese costumes, the stage set etc served as background to the music video...what needs to be acknowledged?   If a band sets a video on the moon, must they offer a disclaimer regarding the downtrodden lunar citizens ?  

 

@Priaptor(supra) is 100% correct CA has been weaponized!  Give originators their due, and royalties, but this is not something that should be used to further divide us.

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I blame Facebook!

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48 minutes ago, garrardguy60 said:

I apologize if this is off topic, but I just want to say that in 56 years of participating in the world of electronics and audio (i.e., since I was a little kid with a transistor radio in the mid 1960s, through to being an EE and working in the field), I don't think I've ever seen societal contentiousness spill over into a hobbyists forum like this. (Well, ok, maybe when the Beatles publicly criticized the Vietnam war in a press conference, that was a similar Venn diagram overlap of music/politics.)

 

Anyway, my point is NOT to say that this shouldn't happen. It IS to point out that this is a very bad harbinger for where we are as a society. It means this s**t is in our faces in our daily lives 24/7 no matter who we are; where we go; what we read, view or listen to; or what we do. (And likely the last 18 months of covid and the things that have happened during this period have made things much worse.)

 

We are fracturing as a society and it seem there is no way to fix it. (Telling people to get back on point or threatening to nuke the thread may well keep this forum as an "audio-only" [safe?] space, but we can't unsee what we've just seen here. The genie is out of the bottle.) I fear that we are in a bad place, with, as Bob Dylan sang in "Like a Rolling Stone," no direction home.  . .

 

  

 

Do not worry.  Most of the members on this thread (aside from the odd ham radio enthusiast) are on the same track.  We want to acknowledge the past artists who gave us so much good music.  We are united in that all artists should receive a fair payment for their art.   We believe that music is a flowing river with many many tributaries.  This river should not be polluted with politics, political correctness or hate.

 

1.  The Rolling Stones have dropped "Brown Sugar" from their current tour.

2.  Adel was criticized for wearing a Jamaica flag top and a some Jamaican hair thingy  to a local celebration (in a neighborhood where she used to live).  Apparently, many locals adapt a Jamaican  costume during this festival .

3.  God forbid that the culture stasi get ahold of ZZ Top for celebrating human trafficking al la "La Grange" (they got some nice girls there!) or an ode to a Mexican cutie, called, may I grasp my pearls,... Puta.