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New Elvis biopic and black appropriation in music

retseldrib

retseldrib

pfm Member
Apparently the new Elvis biopic makes a big deal of Elvis ‘taking black peoples music’ and becoming successful off the back of this because he was white.

It’s amazing how this urban myth has endured for so long. Most of Elvis’ actual chart hits in the 50s were written by white people; not least Lieber & Stoller who were white Jewish men.

While Elvis grew up a 7 minute walk from his bedroom window and frequented Beale Street as a young teenager he was also heavily influenced by country music, white gospel and black gospel, plus Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.

There also persists an urban myth or at best a misquote from Sam Phillips - founder of SUN studios (next to Beale St) that’s says ‘if i could find a white singer that sounded black I could make a million dollars’. The actual sound bite is “If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars!” Notwithstanding, Sam Phillips actually denies even saying this and actually saying it was an insult to black and white people alike https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/...-invented-rock-n-roll-by-peter-guralnick.html

It is true that Elvis did cover some music by black artists when he first started out at SUN but he also covered white country artists there too. However, Elvis’ output at SUN was successful locally in 1954 and 1955 and didn’t really feature in his nationwide, worldwide single hits.

For what its worth, Elvis wasn’t even of pure Caucasian descent and was part Cherokee Native American on his mothers side.

Ultimately Elvis became so successful because he sounded and looked so very different to anyone who had come before him.
 
The review I read said that the film is essentially a work of fiction; for example presenting Elvis as a campaigner for Civil Rights when he was in fact resolutely a-political.
 
Joe Hutch said:
The review I read said that the film is essentially a work of fiction; for example presenting Elvis as a campaigner for Civil Rights when he was in fact resolutely a-political.
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Until he volunteered to spy for Nixon...though that was as a secret agent!

Not forgetting his positive acknowledgement of black artists in his early days...
 
The true story behind this is that Elvis collected police badges and wanted an FBI one for his collection. He was told that he might be able to given an honourary badge and that to actually be in position of a real FBI badge was illegal. In typical Elvis fashion he asked there must be someway to get one of the badges legally. Jokingly the particular police chief (can't remember his name) said the only way to get a badge was for the President of the United States to make him an FBI Agent.

Elvis flew to Washington, went upto the White House gates and said that he would like to meet the President. A phone call was made and Elvis was asked to come back in an hour. He did, met with President Nixon and half hour later came out with an FBI badge having just been made an FBI Agent. The spying thing was a complete ruse.
 
He seemed to be more right wing than not. To be fair black approbation is not new, it’s been going on since the early 20th century. Trad Jazz was essentially this in the 50s, plenty of examples in the big band era.

It never quite works the other way though with people of colour being called sell out or even worse when the opposite happens.

A massive double standard.
 
retseldrib said:
It’s amazing how this urban myth has endured for so long. Most of Elvis’ actual chart hits in the 50s were written by white people; not least Lieber & Stoller who were white Jewish men.
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Cultural appropriation is far more than taking someone’s song, in fact it isn’t that at all. It is taking the style, a form, a genre etc even if it is given subtle new twist. FWIW I’d not personally single Elvis out above anyone else. Pretty much the whole of modern popular music is informed from African-American blues, jazz, soul, funk, gospel etc. Until a lot later too, e.g. Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin etc etc. Until now. Until forever. To find stuff that isn’t you have to go back to ancient European folk, madrigals, classical music etc. There are a few ‘modern’ forms that actively avoided blues structures, e.g. Krautrock, techno etc, but very knowingly, so one can still see the influence even if is an absence.

Everyone in art stands on the shoulders of others. It is absolutely acceptable to do so. It is how we all learn. The thing is to admit it and give credit.
 
And of course the Blues & Gospel had elements of "Western European" music. Just don't ask me what or how.
Appalachian stuff using Folk from Scotland and Ireland etc.
 
Tony L said:
Cultural appropriation is far more than taking someone’s song, in fact it isn’t that at all. It is taking the style, a form, a genre etc even if it is given subtle new twist. […]

Everyone in art stands on the shoulders of others. It is absolutely acceptable to do so. It is how we learn. The thing is to admit it and give credit.
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Indeed, During the June 8pm Show of Elvis’ 1968 NBC special (black leather unplugged show - before unplugged was coined) Elvis explicitly said that he was heavily influenced by Blues and Gospel music. What was so unique about Elvis at the time was that up until that point nobody had heard anything like the way he delivered a song. The first time he was heard the public had no idea if he was a ‘person of colour’ or a white person. It’s hard for us to appreciate what his first hearers experienced. Of course Elvis stood on the shoulders of those who came before him - he had a very unusual upbringing in that he lived in the poorest of poor neighbourhood where he was exposed to so many different sub-cultures in terms of music, dress codes and ways of behaving. Notwithstanding, whether he intended it or not he was a cultural pathfinder.
 
Weekender said:
He was also one of the finest looking men of the 20th C...which helped. ;)
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Easy on the eye.


See him in the 1968 comeback special TV show.
He is literally on fire.
A sparkle in his eye, and his pants.

Elvis-Presley-1968-Comeback-Special-700x550.jpg
 
It's really assimilation vs appropriation, I guess. There's a big thing in the American Right to defend and even to deny that appropriation exists. There's no doubt that R&R as a style was built on Black music and culture that the record industry would not record. Segregation was an all pervading reality and not only in the Southern states. The question should be whether black people back in the day and the decade or so that followed thought that Elvis, or really the industry more widely, were appropriating, or assimilating with some degree of respect.

Tommy Edwards had the first no 1 as an African-American artist in 1958, It's All in the Game and he wrote hits that were recorded by Elvis and many others. This was, I think, followed by Johnny Mathis with Heavenly. These are pop songs though and I think it's the style rather than Elvis per say that is the centre of the debate. Elvis has been quoted, lazily I think, as an example of appropriation for decades.

Elvis was a fat slob by the time that I was old enough to know who he was so what do I know.
 
Elvis was also a target of the religious right in his early career for being too sexy.

Cultural appropriation is a thorny issue. In respect of music my view is that everyone influences everyone else, and that it only becomes problematic when music is literally stolen, as when Led Zeppelin passed off a combination of a Robert Johnson song and a Howlin’ Wolf song as their own composition. Being too strict would mean black people only making music composed by other black people, and white people only making music composed by white people.
 
gavreid said:
It's really assimilation vs appropriation, I guess. There's a big thing in the American Right to defend and even to deny that appropriation exists. There's no doubt that R&R as a style was built on Black music and culture that the record industry would not record. Segregation was an all pervading reality and not only in the Southern states.
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Indeed. However, the novelty of Elvis was that, due to his early poverty, he was surrounded by Black people and naturally steeped in their music. And that's why he hit so hard - he was comfortable in Country, Gospel and RnB. Unlike Pat Boone.
 
Weekender said:
And of course the Blues & Gospel had elements of "Western European" music. Just don't ask me what or how.
Appalachian stuff using Folk from Scotland and Ireland etc.
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I do not think that the term cultural appropriation makes sense when we talk abbout American popular music of all kinds. For me it is an extremely fascinating phenomenon what emerged from the encounter of different cultural and musical traditions (African, European and more) in the US: Jazz, Blues, Appalachian folk, Country, R&B, Gospel, Soul, R&R, Funk, Rock. None of these Styles would have come into existence in Africa or Europe. It happened there because of the mutual exchange between these traditions. This is probably simplified, but African tradition was responsible fort he rhythmic, percussive elements, europe had more weight on melody and harmony.

And as far as Can are away from Blues and American roots music, I do not think that Jacki Liebezeit could have done what he did without Congo square.

Unfortunately my English is not good enough for a complex matter like this, sorry.
 
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