Re: Jewish involvement in R&B/soul music

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

>
>There seems to be a sense of affinity between African-Americans and Jews 
>which facilitated this type of co-operation across racial lines, even at 
>times when segregation was strict elsewhere in society. I'm neither 
>American nor Jewish, so it would be hard for me to assess...However, many 
>of the bios of these people reveal that they grew up in mixed 
>neighbourhoods (at a time when blue collar neighbourhoods might have been 
>more integrated than they are now?) and that they became fascinated by 
>jazz and R&B at an early age....so writing songs for/working with black 
>artists was just an extension of this interest.


An interesting place to start thinking about Jews and Arican-Americans in 
US popular music is a documentary produced by Michael Goldfarb for WBUR 
radio a couple of years ago: "Jews and Blues," 
http://www.wbur.org/special/jewsandblues/index2.asp

ari


Ari Davidow
ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
list owner, jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
the klezmer shack: http://www.klezmershack.com/

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