White Guys Playing Black Music (Part 5 of 5)

The following is an excerpt of a 20 January 2015 email from Will to Art.


"Langston Hughes" by Original uploader was Alsop1 at fr.wikipedia - Transferred from fr.wikipedia. 
Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

I guess there's a fifth type, which would maybe be when there's a mostly black band with a white sideman or two, but Arthur White isn't a sideman, so I've left that option out.

I've also left out all commentary because I'm more interested in yours.

The racial politics vary in all of these groups, of course. I'm wondering where you see Arthur's bands fitting in these continuities. It would make sense that The Sweet World would be an integrated group if Will sought out the best players in Detroit--it was a thriving time for rock, soul, and jazz.

I tend to imagine it as an integrated group, but also imagine that Arthur barely knows anybody in the band besides Will. It could be a breeding ground for racial tensions. We could go with an exploitative Will deliberately choosing all black musicians. It also could make a ton of sense that Will is just doesn't spend much time with black people and has more of a rock background and only hires white people. My hunch is that an integrated but very tense band makes the most sense.

Brand New Life is probably all white if we keep it down to a four-piece, just because Joe Lazarus and Fr Bernard are white, so that's math. There are still racial issues to explore. Arthur may be oblivious to them all, but Will might see a black sound as a commodity. Who knows. It seems like there has always been in America a controversy over whether white people who play music in a black style are paying a loving tribute that binds the whole country closer together or exploiting and robbing black people.

It seems like a tension we have to explore as we look at Farthington as a non-white Kurtz and maybe Steffi Humboldt as a female Marlowe who outdoes Kurtz. I guess Arthur is one part boat pilot and one part Russian sailor. Will is the office manager. Most of the musicians are the natives.

We are appropriating a ton of texts here, but I think a good guidebook as we throw Heart of Darkness in a blender is Langston Hughes' The Ways of White Folks, which really takes an alternatingly comical and sardonic look at the white attraction to the misguided white perception of blackness.

White Guys Playing Black Music (Part 4 of 5)

The following is an excerpt of a 20 January 2015 email from Will to Art.

...I've been thinking about the reverse Heart of Darkness concept and the issue of white guys playing black music.  It seems like four tropes dominate the field...

The fourth is the white band leader with the all black band. Paul Simon's Graceland album just about fits here, except for Gadd and a few others. Justin Timberlake tends to go this route. Eric Burdon with War comes close. I guess Paul Simon chose to record in Muscle Shoals in the Kodachrome era because he wanted "that black rhythm section." Of course, at least half of those guys were white.

White Guys Playing Black Music (Part 3 of 5)

The following is an excerpt of a 20 January 2015 email from Will to Art.

...I've been thinking about the reverse Heart of Darkness concept and the issue of white guys playing black music.  It seems like four tropes dominate the field...

The third is the all white band with the black back-up singers and maybe a black percussionist. The Rolling Stones, Elvis's Vegas band, and countless others fit here.

White Guys Playing Black Music (Part 2 of 5)

The following is an excerpt of a 20 January 2015 email from Will to Art.

...I've been thinking about the reverse Heart of Darkness concept and the issue of white guys playing black music.  It seems like four tropes dominate the field...

The second type is the integrated band. Sly and the Family Stone is the archetype here. Love and Prince and the Revolution also come to mind.

White Guys Playing Black Music (Part 1 of 5)

The following is an excerpt of a 20 January 2015 email sent from Will to Art.

I've been listening to "Hey Rome" a ton and really enjoy it. You really fixed up my lyrics!

Also, I'm into the music. It's a smooth song, but the phrasing is really jagged: the phrases don't stay in predictable patterns of 8 or 12. It has a Sly and the Family Stone funk box-style drone. It's really well-suited to a hypnotic drum part--there isn't really room for many fills, and barely any unison parts to orchestrate other than dudda dun dunnnn, but it's more together than a lot of Sly's mental breakdown stuff was.

I can see Will liking how smooth and funky it is, but being horrified at the content of the lyrics and how long they go on. It's a very cryptic rant, yet very listenable. You have to be a boss to play the groove well, yet, there's never a spot where a boss can show off. I can also hear plenty of room for highly orchestrated "Young Americans"-style vocal interplay.

I've been thinking about the reverse Heart of Darkness concept and the issue of white guys playing black music.  It seems like four tropes dominate the field. The first is the all-white guy band, which I'd say is made famous by Ambrosia, early Average White Band, Wild Cherry, Hall and Oates, and Gino Vanelli.




(I included this clip for the glow-crotch intro--the next one is the one I really wanted to show you)

July 4, 2016

The following is an excerpt of a 23 January 2015 email exchange between Art and Will.

Moses viewing the Promised Land

Art:

On another subject, I think July 4, 2016 is the critical date. 

With the more ambitious lineup of high-end players, highly involved props, costumes, and sets, and long-distance practicing arrangements, it will probably take us that long. 

More importantly, that is 40 years after the critical day, the day of the Concert for Iceland, the 200th anniversary of our country's founding. And 40 years is a critical lapse of time due to its biblical associations. Up to this point, we have been wandering in the desert and only now are we going to be allowed to enter into the promised land: Iceland! 

July 4, 1976 was about passover, liberation, promise. July 4, 2016 will be about arrival, fulfillment, conquest. 

Not to say we won't make forays, foretastes, foreshadowings--blips on the radar. 

But, if we do nothing else, we must be ready for July 4, 2016! 

People get ready for July 4, 2016!

Will:

 Everything you've said about July 4th, 2016 makes sense.  Two thoughts: 

• It will be nearly impossible to get an audience. A solution here could be that we broadcast the performance then and release it for download. Another would be that we find a rich person who supports the arts and perform it at his or her barbecue.  

• I'm geeked about doing something this summer. That doesn't have to be Iceland, though.  I'm fine with doing something very stripped down, maybe as a 3-piece if Father is up for it.  If we can add a guitar player, that's cool, too. There are a ton of venues that would work out here, and unlike Lansing, Traverse City's population quadruples in the summer instead of shrinking.

A Few Scattered Thoughts

A few scattered thoughts:

• I love your ideas for the show.

• I get the low budget thing, and I'm seeing low budget as well. A slight clue that the show is happening in Arthur's present-day mind would be the low-budget presentation. A ballet, if it happens, could be done with video, but I'm fine with it not happening.

• I taught some kids whose mom owned a costume shop in Lansing. They might have something mascoty for us. Did you ever see the Viking mascot on Freaks and Geeks?  

• It occurs to me that Farthington, Steffi, and Rusty all ascend in this story as the Joe Lazarus figure descends. They are the strange fruits that have overtaken the garden in the absence of a gardener figure.

• I like The Benefactor figure.

• I read Kubla Khan as the greatest of all Romantic poems about the beauty that can result from the unattainability of the unattainable. That is one reason I like thinking of this performance in light of Coleridge. Really, we've got a metanarrative--glimpses of what we'd really like to share with the world. It's the story of our impossible attempt to give the world Arthur White as much as it is about Arthur White's struggles to save Iceland, whatever Iceland represents to him.

• My love of morality plays reemerges as well, although in a postmodern way. All of the formal features of the Iceland struggle have some sort of symbolic significance to Arthur that he attempts to solve by assembling versions of the concert in his mind, but we can't quite call any of the figures allegorical because who knows what they mean. In my mind, I feel an intuitive connection between 70's cults and contemporary digital culture and it informs my understanding if Farthington v. Humboldt, but I can't spell it out enough to cry allegory. Still, even just something that teases an audience toward allegorical thought carried in a frame of amateur public performance satisfies the part of me that wants to carry the torch of Catholic performance art by nodding toward morality plays.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #1

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

1. Winter in America Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson

A lot of the lyrics that I've donated to the cause are influenced by Gil Scott-Heron.  My confirmation name is John after John the Baptist, and as weak as my faith was back in 8th grade, I at least already had a great love for voices in the desert. I see Arthur White as being a voice in the desert in similar ways to Gil Scott-Heron. They've both got that prophetic insight and a relentless will to say things people don't want to hear. I'm not sure Arthur can see himself as a revolutionary, though...he just feels compelled to share his visions. I almost went with the album Bridges for "We Almost Lost Detroit." At any rate, Gil Scott-Heron is probably the most important influence to me on that series of songs Arthur wrote in the 70's that prophesy the 2010's.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #2

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

2.  Curtis or Sweet Exorcist by Curtis Mayfield

It's a toss up for me.  Curtis is one of the most beautiful albums ever made by one of the greatest guitar players, singers, and songwriters ever. It captures the joy I hear in Arthur as well the defiance. When I imagine the legend of Arthur levitating during a Sweet World set, it's to a song like "Move on up." The Sweet World at its height would sound like the Curtis Mayfield Experience. Sweet Exorcist, on the other hand, is an album with a lot of great songs, but very little quality control. The production of the album is terrible--the drums sound like cardboard and everything sounds muted, but it doesn't really matter--the genius speaks louder than the technical issues. I could see Arthur putting out an album like this at a time when all resources are depleted and Will is forcing him to record. Music I Wrote for the Movie Street Heat probably has the tone of Sweet Exorcist.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #3

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

3. Tilt by Scott Walker

In all the music we have so far, Arthur is still very soulful and so is his music, but I'd love to hear him do an album as inaccessible and strange as Tilt.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #4

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

4.  Delay by Can, Monkey Pockie Boo by Sonny Sharrock, and Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music by Eddie Gale

I've got a three-way tie here for what I'd like Arthur White's Apotheosis to sound like. Before I realized that there is a long tradition of cults making strange music, I thought that Arthur might make some music like this with Carlton Farthington's people.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #5

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

5.  Illuminations by Alice Coltrane and Carlos Santana

I could see either Joe Lazarus and Arthur White making an album this beautiful, but with words as well and of course more Catholic, or I could see Rysty Kryystyylz making a terrible bizarro world version of this album with Arthur, full of just awful Night Ranger-ish guitar solos and completely stupid, uninspired stuff that is credited to Arthur but that mostly isn't his.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #6

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

6.  Greatest Hits by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels

This band is the greatest influence on Will Witkowski, who basically models his band The Five Wits after Mitch Ryder's group, then gives them the look of The Music Machine or The Lollipop Shoppe, sort of with some medieval imagery. Will basically gauges himself as a drummer against Johnny Bee, who he claims at alternating points throughout his life as a friend, mentor, and rival. It's unclear whether Johnny Bee even knows Will, of course. A good song to post would be "Sock It to Me." Will brings Arthur into the band to play organ, then Arthur overshadows everyone else in the group, like a young Steve Winwood.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #7

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

7.  What's Going On by Marvin Gaye

Of course this one has to go on here. Marvin Gaye is by far the greatest influence on Arthur White--not just on the project, but on Arthur the musician. I could see Arthur's "ministry" begin the day he hears Marvin Gaye. I imagine a storyline revolving around Arthur going catatonic when Marvin Gaye dies.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #8

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

8.  Innervisions by Stevie Wonder

Arthur White's Brand New Life at its best would sound like Stevie's writing on this album.  Or Talking Book, maybe.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #9

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

9.   Inspiration Information by Shuggie Otis

A lot of my initial thoughts about the story of Arthur White were based on the story of Shuggie Otis, who made albums that signal a million ways that music could have gone in the early 70's that nobody ever heard because he couldn't work on the timelines of record companies. Shortly after I pulled from Shuggie Otis, the Rodriguez documentary came out, then there was a flood of them--the one on The Monks, the one on Roky Erickson, the one on Death, the one on Big Star, even the one on Father Yod and the Source Family. Now we're working within an actual genre of alternative history rock and roll!

Thank you, Netflix.

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #10

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten! Here's my start:

10.  War by War

I imagine the Sweet World being the Detroit version of War, which basically means more dysfunctional and less cooperative.  Arthur might be a little like Eric Burdon in that he would have had enough local stardom to front a band of real local pros, but he would probably be a bit more like Lonnie Jordan than Eric Burdon, since he would have been the main songwriter.

Honorable Mention goes to Forever Changes by Love.  The Sweet World of Arthur White's lost first album is probably Arthur's Forever Changes.

And another Honorable Mention goes to Live at the Sahara Tahoe by Isaac Hayes.  It would be awesome if Arthur at at least one point in his career could have pulled off a show like that.

This might be my favorite Burt Bacharach cover ever, and I love a million Bacharach covers.

How about some more Honorable Mentions?

Harvest for the World by The Isley Brothers

Pink Moon by Nick Drake

The Nick Drakishness in Arthur White is the paradox of the genius who writes songs everybody who hears them falls in love with, but who is terrified to play his songs in front of people.