Blues Music in the Sixties - Essay Example

B. B King felt a sense of loss and I suspect betrayal because of the major shift in the audience and appreciation of his music to an audience he had not anticipated. Even though his authenticity as an agent of black culture was unquestioned, being rejected by the people he represented, at a time when they were required to be struggling for each other, was a rejection while being in the minority (Adelt, 2010, 13). Remarkably, this is what brought his feelings of being black twice.

1. Explanation of the photos on pages 19 and 25.

The photograph on page 19 is one of B. B. King and fans at the Boston Arena, in 1970.

This photograph is one of a black man in a sea of white rock and roll fans. Although this combination of the audience was one B. B. King was not accustomed to and one that he was not comfortable with, the photograph shows him greeting the fans showing that he was appreciative of the opportunities that presented themselves.

The photograph on page 25 is B. B. King’s “Indianola Mississippi Seeds” album cover. The cover photograph was of a watermelon carved out in the shape of a guitar placed in form of an old amplifier. At a time where there were still purists in the music industry, the photograph expressed the need to remain true and the guitar gave a clear rock reference. This image is not fixed to any racial construct.

Chapter 2

2. What elements of the American Folk and Blues Festival complicated the dialogue of racism and antiracism in post-WWII Germany and its relationship with American blues artists?

Post-WW II Germans and Europe at large had respect for jazz and blues and American artist found a growing audience. This was revealed by the shift in the racial construct of blues and what they represented, restriction. The American Folk Blues Festival brought Memphis Slim and other African American blues performances to both Germany and other European countries (Adelt, 2010, 78). This was an attempt at modernizing Germans with African American blues. This was a noble cause however, they were not fully prepared to accept an art form that had primarily been performed black to a black audience and were not yet ready to accept a primitive form of art while wanting to be modern. This complicated dialogues of racism in that in rejecting the blues, which served as an anti-racist strategy they, in fact being ignorant and rejecting the artist that sang the music, which could be viewed as a form of prejudice or ignorance of the things that transpired among them.

3. Questions
4. Do you think the shift in audience Blues helped in the integration of whites and blacks in the 1960s and anti-racism campaigns?
5. Why do you think the whites in America accepted blues as easily as they did?