Music, Music, Music

"Ramblin' Rose." "Nature Boy." Visions of Nat "King" Cole.  He could sure sing a song, and that was all it took for him to sell millions of records when a million was a lot.  That was Hollywood and Capitol Records back in the day.  It didn't much matter what color you were, if you could sing, they let you make money for them.  And, he wasn't the only black singer during the "Happy Days."  The first few that come to mind are Fats Domino, Johnny Mathis, Chuck Berry and Sam Cooke.

All of us were askin' why "Mabelline" couldn't be true, but we never asked Roy Acuff or Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, who could have told us.  They knew her as "Ida Red,"  and were happy when she settled in with Chuck.  Maybe if Chuck had been a crooner, like Sam Cooke, she'd have hung around a while longer.  Sam was a smoothie. 

"You-oo-oo-oo send me." Sam sure did.  He sent us all.  What with him and Fats singing from the dash board of our cars, most of us managed to find a thrill, either on "Blueberry Hill," or parked on the path beside the railroad tracks, hidden behind a wall of bamboo plants.   And Johnny Manthis?  Well, "Chances Are" he's still raising eyebrows in his home state of Texas after coming out of the closet.  His dad was a  "Handyman," which brings to mind another Black artist, Jimmy Jones.

Never heard of him, right?  Well, most folks my age know his music - his other hit was "Good Timin," but what he's really remembered for was his falsetto voice.  He popularized that style, and ALL of us know where that led in the sixties.  Frankie Vallie, with the Four Seasons had about ninety-eight thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven hits.  Lou Christie  had a couple and Barry Gibbs, of the Bee Gees, rode the style to another gazillion record sales.  All of them credit Jimmy J for the style, and influencing so many singers is not a bad thing to be remembered for.

There is a point to all this, and the point is Black musicians and their music have influenced American music, and therefore the way our youngsters look at the world,  for years.  They led the way in the twenties and thirties with the likes of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday.  In my day, Motown showed us how it was done.  Today, things are a little different with black music, and I hope it changes soon.  In my day, "Precious Love", "Ain't no Mountain High Enough" and Aretha's "Respect,"  were about hope, love and healing.  If what we're hearing from our Black musicians today is leading us into the future, I'm very frightened.

You see, I tuned in to a "with it" station for a while today.  For the first time in my life I took notes of song titles that are getting air time these days and looked up the lyrics.  May God help us.