Re: Jewish involvement in R&B/soul music

[cyril robinson <lunar...>]

Some time ago I did a study of the transition of blacks to the North after 
the first and second World wars. My historical base was Chicago. Basically, 
blacks followed the inner-city migratory patterns patterns of Jews, about 
two generations later. They cam to the poorest section of the city, near 
the river and industry, where there were then jobs. Jews were moving out 
but those own retail establishments and many landlords stayed. Some of the 
antipathy toward Jews arises from that relationship. I forget the name of 
the sociologist (at Washington U in St. Louis) who wrote an autobiography 
recounting this incident. as i recall, this is in the late 50s or 60s. When 
he came home from school, he was attacked by black kids after his lunch 
money. Meanwhile, his father, who had a hardware store, cheated some of his 
black customers who brought in light bulbs to see if they were good, always 
found them bad so he could sell them others. While almost all whites and 
white institutions fled the black ghetto, the only whites who stayed were 
Jews who were too old to leave or had businesses there. There are, of 
course, many Jewish business people who treated blacks very well  but the 
stories of Jews who cheated are probably the most current.Musicians like 
Benny Goodman who were the first to take took blacks into their bans is 
legendary. Typically, when Goodman was asked why he did it, he said they 
were good musicians.

At 07:57 AM 12/2/2003 -0500, you wrote:



>>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/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>---
>Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.545 / Virus Database: 339 - Release Date: 11/27/2003

Cyril D. Robinson
520 N. Michaels St.
Carbondale, IL 62901
Tel: 618-549-0028
FAX: 618-453-6733
Archivist: Jewish Music Archives
Radio host: Cyril's Cabaret WDBX 9l.l FM
http://www.chipublib.org/008subject/001artmusic/jewish/jewishmain.html


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.545 / Virus Database: 339 - Release Date: 11/27/2003