Ebony & Ivory (new geo Blog for the week of Feb19/18)

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I’ve always felt that the most popular music on earth was created when the perfect blend of black and white music was put together by the music industry. This magical sound known around the world as pop music is created when a white person attempts to sound black or a black person tries to sing like a white person. In fact, Aretha Franklin used a bunch of white hillbillies on her biggest hits and Ray Charles used nothing but white singers and musicians on his biggest-selling album, Ray Charles sings Country and Western. However, in the movie about Ray’s life they portrayed them as being black so as not to offend but they offended his genius. Hell, even in the early days of the Beatles, they tried to sound like four black girls from Detroit and that attempt resulted in their changing music forever.
For the longest time, I was under the illusion that the musician folks have always been further ahead of the general population when it came to race relations, but that all changed for me the day George Martin died. On that particular day, I happened to be at Duffy’s and was sitting next to a black guy whom I’ve talked about music with before. At some point during our conversation, I said to him, “Hey, Sad news about George Martin Huh?” He surprisingly turned to me and said, “Who’s that?” Hey, even I know who Quincy Jones is, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
That experience with him at Duffy’s suddenly woke me up, and I finally realized that the conversations we had about music were only about black artists. Hell, even the aforementioned Quincy Jones recently confessed that he thought that the Beatles weren’t that good. Hey Q that’s going to be a tough sell Buddy and your attempt to elevate yourself above them by saying it, is a little lame.

As I look around me now with new eyes, I’m beginning to see the things that have always gone on, but I was too stupid to notice. Like how few if any white musicians are in black bands whereas most white bands have black players in them or how whenever interviewed, black artists only talk about other black performers. I mistakingly thought that musicians and singers were a way ahead of the rest of society because they have been color blind for a long time. However, now I’m sadly beginning to realize that even though the creation of Rock&Roll (rhythm and blues fused together with country music) finally welcomed the black artists to the previously exclusive white world of entertainment, we are still not welcome in theirs.

BUT WAIT THERE’S EVEN MORE

How sad, 17 school kids killed by a young psycho here in South Florida. Trump’s handling of the situation by not mentioning the “gun” word though is about as productive as anyone hiding from the fact that most terrorists are Muslims. The thing of it though is that some of his fellow students had predicted that he would do it because they all know who the bad students are. The cops also all know who the bad cops are, Hispanics know who the gang members are, Muslims know who the Muslim terrorists are, and Blacks know who the ghetto boys are. Unfortunately, they all live in a code of silence, and as long as they wait for the government to fix things, we’re all in danger.

The FBI sure looks a little lame on this one huh?

Is anyone on earth more disrespected than a politician?

The Muses don’t fly coach! I know that because I’ve never come up with a single decent idea whenever I had to sit back there.

With the winter Olympics all over TV, I’m reminded of the day when some of the female figure skaters attempting to get an edge, decided to wear regular panties under their skating skirts. “Wonderful.” This move, unfortunately, was quickly banned by the Olympic judges and I’ve never watched figure skating again.

Speaking of the Olympics, Shaun White killed it. Go America!

You know when someone is hurting you but they may not.
 

Even the biggest stars owe somebody who helped them somewhere along the road. Nobody discovers themselves.

Seeing as Valentine’s day is a couples celebration, has anybody heard what kind of gifts the men got this year?
 
Why has every president since Jimmy Carter bought into the oil shortage scam wants to drill in places we don’t want them to? We’ve already got more oil in North America than we can ever use.
 
I wonder how many of the “kneelers” will end up in the hall of fame?
 
I’ve never believed the often said, “What’s good for big business is good for America.” Hell, the only thing that’s good for big business is war.
 
If you don’t feel like you’re worth anything, just think about the people around you who think you’re worth even less.
 
I wish all the guys in Hollywood would stop being gentlemen and start naming all the starlets who offered up their bodies for career advancement.
 
Great moments produce even better memories.
 
There comes a time when it’s best to stop the sellin’ and get on with the helpin’.
 
I wonder why Democrats think that mainstream media is not left-leaning news service. From where I sit here in the middle, they’re as far left of me as Fox is to the right.
 
I seem to attract broken women unless I can count the Russian, Filipinos, and Africans who try to friend me on Facebook. But then again, they’re broke.
 
I think Mr. Trump might be playing us. All the things that he’s doing that have some folks all riled up, may, in fact, be covering up what he’s really doing.
 
It’s impossible to change the beginning of your life but relatively easy to change the ending.
 
Even though the dark side is ten times more powerful than the bright side, I would think that “Oh Wow” easily trumps Oh No!
 
Have you ever wondered why your rearview mirror is so small compared to your windshield? It’s because where you’ve been is not a big deal.
 
What with vacation days, holidays, maternity leave, paternity leave, sick days, personal days, etc. Who the hell is supposed to do all the work?
 
No matter how bad the thing is you find out about the Republicans, there is an equally bad thing out there about the Democrats.
 
If there is no Mexican music blasting out of a radio in the kitchen of a restaurant, it’s not real Mexican food.
 
Bigger ain’t necessarily better, ask the dinosaurs.
 
Being the best does not come from living a balanced life, it comes from living an obsessed one.
 
I have no idea how this works, but when Obama was in office, he claimed the economy was booming, and now Trump claims the same. All I know is that I’ve got the same amount of money in my jeans that I’ve always had.
 
Much more @ GeorgeJohns.com. On Twitter@GeoOfTheRadio. Sharing and commenting appreciated.
 
 

6 thoughts on “Ebony & Ivory (new geo Blog for the week of Feb19/18)

  1. Actually, the often misquoted “cliché” about what’s good for business is good for the county, is was really an answer given by General Motor’s president, Charles Erwin “Engine Charlie” Wilson in early 1953 to a question from a U.S. Senator of the Senate Armed Forces Committee during Wilson’s confirmation hearing as Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense. The question concerned if Wilson, if confirmed, could make a decision that was adverse to the interests of General Motors but was in the best interests of the country. (After all, G.M. had large defense contracts for aircraft, tanks, vehicles, weapons, and so forth.) Wilson’s response was affirmative, according to author Ed Cray in his history of G.M., “Chrome Colossus”, adding that Wilson said that he could not conceive of that situation “…because for years I have always thought that what was good for the country was good for General Motors…and vice versa.” Wilson did grudgingly sell his extensive G.M. stock holdings valued in 1953-dollars at $ 2.5-million, as the price to serve his country. After the Korean Conflict was de-escalated from it’s “police action” status, Wilson eventually cut the Defense Department budget as he and Eisenhower reorganized the military. The misquotes and out-of-context references are legendary, especially by journalists whom never did the research. Wilson publicly gave up trying to set the record straight in 1957 after years of trying to correct the misquote. No wonder that it has become a cliché. And while it is true that the automobile industry benefited from defense contracts, their profits were limited by those contracts, and during 1940-1946 and again during the Korean conflict, there were raw materials shortages that stifled automobile production and drove down profits during those years. G.M., Ford and Chrysler’s profits zoomed after 1955 as war-materiel production dropped back to “peace” time levels and the main business returned to making cars and trucks. – Jed Duvall (P.S.: My late father who was a program administrator at G.M.-Allison Division was sent to Cleveland in 1968 and 1969 to shut down the G.M. tank plant that still manufactured the by-then obsolete late W.W. II-vintage Sherman tank with either 1940s-era Cadillac flathead V-8s or Detroit Diesel engines and Hydra-Matic transmissions. The W.W. II-era Defense (War) Department contract to build the tank was finally fulfilled and production ended. He was also able to witness first-hand the flames of the fire on the Cuyahoga River !)

  2. As most bands playing in Toronto during the late 50’s & 60’s ours played mostly the R&B music of the day (nobody played what was on the radio) Stax/Volt, Chess Records and of course those on Fame, the label of Rick Hall who later formed a house band for Muscle Shoals Studio. We played music by Clarence Carter, Eddie Floyd, Percy Sledge, Little Milton and a lot of Wilson Pickett. We were just a bunch of white boys trying to sound like the black musicians who played on those records. Imagine my surprise watching the documentary “Muscle Shoals” to discover that the band “The Swampers” who played on all those records were WHITE !!! So we white boys who were trying to sound black were actually emulating a bunch of white guys.
    If anyone has not seen the documentary it was on Netflix and well worth the watch, some great music came out of the place.

    • Great documentary Doug, and not only were they white they were all hillbillies which prove my theory that the best music is made when you blend Black & Whites together. Take a listen to “I’ll Take You There” – Staple Singers, what’s funkier than that? Even Aretha’s big hits had these white guys playing on them. Ray Charles used white musicians and singers on his experimental album, Ray Charles Sings Country & Western because he didn’t want the sound to be too funky. It became his biggest-selling record but in the movie about his life, they showed everybody at the session being black.

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