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A Century Of Soul (Part I)
February 7, 2006
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Nostalgic Pride Surfaces In The Achievements Of A Century
A Century of Soul is the first of our four part series for February - Black History Month. It is a century where history is constantly being made and written about. We just witnessed the passing of Coretta Scott King, the regal guardian of the legacy of America's foremost civil rights hero, who came from sturdy beginnings in West Alabama and whose citizens proudly claim her and mourn with all of us who share in the loss of this champion in the non-violent struggle for social justice.
Although Mrs. King was a complex woman, in many respects, she was very traditional. The enduring image of Mrs. King, however, will be as one of America's natural aristocrats. She has been compared, in that light, to figures such as the widow of John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Both were inspiring for their courage and grace.
Mrs. King also inspired people around the world through her commitment to principles of non-violent social change, and justice not only for blacks but for other disenfranchised groups as well.
She represented the character and aspirations of the civil rights movement and also the best of people from humble beginnings who dream of great things -- and achieve them. In creating that legacy for his widow, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also shaped the relatively brief historical moment in which it was possible to have a black leadership group that spoke with one voice. Unfortunately, Black America no longer has that oneness. For me and for others, it has been hard to let that golden moment slip away. But we must let it go otherwise we will be forced to cling to a comfortable illusion rather than face a much more complicated reality.
As we begin this series for Black History Month - a month in which we bear witness to the progress, richness and diversity of African-American achievement,
let's step back to August 1619, when a Dutch ship sailed into the harbor of Jamestown, Virginia, with a cargo of "black gold" - 20 Africans. The colonies had officially entered the slave trade. And from even these tragic beginnings black people had an immediate impact on the birth, growth and development of the colonies into the world power the United States has become.
One early achiever was Crispus Attucks, a black man who was the first to fall in young America's struggle for independence. There were others, like Benjamin Bannecker who aided in the designing of the nation's Capitol building and the city of Washington D.C. From these humble beginnings the contributions of African-Americans continued. They were many and varied. But one of the most meaningful contributions we made were in music.
Now we quickly flash forward. And though millions listened and were infected by the sounds, danced to the swirling, demanding rhythms pumping from the soul of Black America like blood from a severed artery, no one paid heed to the words, or heard the cries for justice, freedom, equality. They ignored the underlying threat that demanded immediate change.
For those of us who have been around long enough to remember the last four decades, each decade, each year was a journey we associate with some event, some song. This was true whether you were a small child or newly coupled in young adulthood or experiencing perhaps for the first time, the endearing rites of passage. For those of us who experienced love for the first time in one of these decades, the world had paired off and brazenly flaunted its couplehood. Life was a celebration of the least important aspect of love - the infatuation, the giddily addled effervescence of discovering that someone else on this planet listened to and liked the same artists, the same songs on the radio that you did. Real love, of course is much deeper, and needs no day of its own, no decade of its own - just perhaps a song of its own.
One of the decades that we will all remember was the one just past - the 90's. That was the decade in which many of those songs, along with black music and black artists, found new homes in the hearts of those who were in love and/or who needed something to reflect that love, that spirit. If rock reflected the energy of the 80's, rap and R&B penetrated the 90's with its energy and originality. This new wave of hip-hop and R&B had been building for years and this was the decade when it could no longer be denied. Blessed with a remarkable talent, collaborative spirit and a stack of infectious beats, the artists of the 90's became pivotal figures in the evolution of mainstream music in the studio, the amphitheaters and on the radio.
Hip-hip and R&B dominated the charts and radio airplay during the 90's. One of the reasons was the splintering of formats. Black radio split into mainstream, which played all the hits and appealed to teens and young adults, while their parents finally had their own station, usually called "magic-something." Although there were some songs and some artists that overlapped, the separation usually started with adult urban stations refusing to play any rap songs or artists. The 90's also saw the emergence of the so-called "smooth jazz" stations whose playlists contained up to 70% black artists. Some called these stations were called "Kenny G" jazz stations because he was often the artist most played and identified with that type of station. It was during the decade of the 90's the even white AC and Hot AC stations, joined with Top-40 in playing black artists that their audience research showed, grew up with and preferred this music.
Quite naturally, from a radio standpoint, in the competitive world of pop music, the 90's really was also the decade of research. Someone once asked in a primarily white focus group, "How do you explain your feeling for some of these R&B songs and artists that scored so high on your list of favorites?" The response, over and over, and in various forms was "These songs make me feel good. I feel part of a special time." And it didn't matter that Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Michael Jackson and "his royal purpleness" - Prince, were African-Americans."
Since because of his recent trial and continuing troubles Michael Jackson has been so overexposed, we thought this time we would take an in-depth look at Michael in the 80's, this time I thought we'd probe a little deeper into that mysterious little character from Minneapolis who for much of the decade of the 90's was "the artist formerly known as Prince."
Many said he was simply a "wild card," in every sense of the word. From his biggest selling album "Purple Rain," he engaged in a series of albums that were extremely and artistically adventurous, including "Parade," "Around The World In A Day" and "Sign O' The Times," which is generally recognized as his finest work next to "Purple Rain."
In 1992 Prince signed a big contract with Warner Brothers. This was shortly after the release of "Diamonds & Pearls," which was a huge hit in '91. That allowed him to have the political capital with Warners to ink a new contract that was very favorable. But bizarrely enough, immediately upon signing he started his efforts to extricate himself from the contract. There were several issues. Prince was concerned about the rate of pay for musicians. Record companies generally pay musicians 15 percent or less per album and he felt that was unconscionably low. He also felt that he wanted to own his masters. The problem was that he was so demanding unilaterally that they give him back the master tapes that he'd given them under previous contracts, that the talks broke down and stalled and the issues were never really resolved.
Issues were nothing new to Prince. Here was a guy who did not like rap music He thought it was sub-par musically without any musicianship value. Then, all of a sudden he turned around and adds it and it sounded extremely inorganic to his music.
In 1999 Prince worked with Clive Davis and Arista and put out a major label record called "Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic." What they were trying to accomplish with Prince was exactly what Clive accomplished with Santana on "Supernatural" because Clive got Carlos Santana together with Rob Thomas from Matchbox Twenty and others. With Prince's record he did the same thing, encouraged Prince to go out and getl with some young musicians. He did, to some extent. He met and worked with Eve, Annie DeFranco and Chuck D from Public Enemy. The problem was that it didn't really sound all that organic. When you compare Santana's song with Michelle Branch, she's really out front, as was Rob Thomas. Prince was reluctant to let other people share the spotlight.
It didn't work out particularly well. It didn't sell. It wasn't a great record artistically. Regardless, Prince was and is a guy who, as long as he's alive, his talent is going to be readily apparent to everyone. Besides making memorable music he exudes a generous spirit and toward the end of the decade, began to collaborate with other artists including Larry Graham and Gwen Stefani from No Doubt and Sheryl Crow.
The nineties was also a decade of collaborations. One in which artists took genuine pride in one another's work and often made appearances on one another's record, from a creative community, which was in some ways, reminiscent of the old Motown. This interchange was virtually unheard of in earlier decades because labels resisted having their artists going into the studio with those from other labels because they didn't want to split royalties or help boost other artists' careers.
These careers had been colliding and overlapping since the decade of the sixties when Bob Dylan sang about the times-a-changing in 1964. Beginning back then, rock and roll and rhythm and blues were still very much the rallying cry of the counterculture. Over the past four decades the times have gone right on changing. As for this generation and their children, second generation hip-hop and R&B fans - they rule the roost economically. And the rebellious attitude that once made this generation a threat to the status quo now belongs to the new Generation X, or Generation Y or Generation Jones.
Regardless of which generation you represent, we hope you will continue to enjoy our Black History Month series. And we leave you this week with this thought. It is a hope of those of us who want America to fulfill her true promise of equality, and who want all of America's children of all colors, to share in the promise of the American dream. We hope that the music that brings us all together will help to forge a future that looks so different, but one that is equally bright, equally promising and equally capable of reflecting the true American dream. A dream that is now part of A Century of Soul.
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