Re: [Harp-L] re: Review of Cadillac Records Movie

[Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

This is interesting Jim. I feel the same way. I was born a poor mine/ 
mill 'hunkey' in Pennsylvania. We were so poor that we couldn't  
afford dirt floors. Soot was the best we could do. BUT Over the years  
my father worked himself up to diplomat and we lived in Europe  
several times. My father was Sicillian, my mother was Polish and  
Calabrese. THEIR favorite musics were:

1....Fats Waller
2....Cab Calloway
3....Count Basie
Add Ethel Waters, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat Cole, Louis Prima, Guy  
Lombardo, Louis Armstrong, and what do you have? I don't know. But  
I'm sure we weren't alone.

As for the Czecz brothers, they left a country that was starting to  
turn anti Jew and arrived at a country that was anti Immigrant. They  
were HARDLY in any position to be discriminatory and I doubt they  
were. Sure there will be times when someone in authority imposes  
their will on another. Such as the Czecz brothers being the bosses  
and the performers being the 'hirelings', disagreements may arise.  
But this is true anywhere and it would be only too easy to write it  
off as racism when, in fact, that may not be true.

smo-joe

On Dec 20, 2008, at 11:05 AM, James D Hoskins wrote:

> In the 1950's/60's I grew up a germanic white farm boy in Iowa, in  
> our house I heard Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Wynonnie Harris,  
> BB King, a whole lot of Louis Jordan, and all the 40's/50's swing  
> and jump stuff, plus a great deal of jazz. (And of course, Lawrencw  
> Welk at Grandma's after sunday dinner!) This probably was a bit  
> unusual (not L.Welk), and maybe doesn't qualify as a "blues scene",  
> but I don't believe 'that music' ever went as unoticed and ignored  
> as so many seem to think. My take has always been that if my  
> parents, in Dallas county Iowa had 78's by these artists, there had  
> to be plenty of others. It wasn't unusual to pull in radio from  
> Chicago, Kansas City, St Louis, and even Texas, Ok, or Mexico at  
> night back then in the midwest. It was all AMERICAN MUSIC, and I  
> think many of us were listening, or it wouldn't be so ingrained in  
> us today. The Butterfield's and Bloomfield's certainly boosted the  
> attention, and popularized the music, much as Akroyd and Belushi,  
> or SRV, but as art, I've often had questions as to whether that was  
> a good thing or not. It was after seeing Butterfield in early 1967  
> that I bought my first marine band, but the seed had been planted  
> long before, you didn't have to be black, or even live in a city to  
> be exposed to the blues in the 50'/60's. That is just my take on  
> that 'blues revival' thing, JD
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