We weren't allowed to listen to Buddy Holly on account of him being a negro.

Cafe Society
1

O.K. By the time I started listening to Buddy Holly it was already 30 years after his death. So I knew beforehand that he had been a white guy.

Already having an accurate image of Buddy Holly in my head before listening to his music, it has always baffled me to imagine that people thought he was black, and that kids in some families were even forbidden to listen to him (c’mon, even if he was black, there’s hardly anything objectionable about the material he performed!)

So, for those of you who were around in the 50’s:

Just how widespread was the notion that Buddy Holly was black?

What about kids being forbidden to listen to music by black artists?
(Yes, I’m sure someone will draw a parallel to white parents today who don’t want their kids listening to Hip Hop, but with Hip Hop there’s the question of content. Of course not all Hip Hop artists perform material that may be considered offensive but for square suburban parents who only know the image of Hip Hop there’s enough violence and misogyny in the high profile stuff that they may assume that that’s how all of it is. I can hardly think of anyone being offended by “every day is gettin closer, goin faster than a roller coaster”.)

2

I’ve never heard this before. Very weird.

3

being black, i totally understand how that can happen. my parents would listen to Elvis, Jim something, willie nelson, etc…i thought they were black for a long time. even if i had seen their album cover art, i just assumed that these guys were just pictures for it…not the artists. you know, like when you buy a picture frame, and there is a lovely young woman’s picture in it.
but i attribute all of that to my age. i was probably around 6 years old at the time.
but as i grew older, i began to notice that my parents were trying to steer me away from pop culture and its offensive material. i don’t blame them, or even care too much about it though. they were doing their best.

4

This stuff is before my time, but wasn’t all rock consider “nigger music” at first by racists? I don’t think the content had anything to do with it, it was just people not wanting their kids to listen those “jungle beats” and become corrupted somehow, just by the nature of the music. It’s all very silly now of course.

5

I think the idea that a lot of people assumed Buddy Holly was black is a bit of an urban legend promulgated by the movie The Buddy Holly Story.

After all, Holly first hit it big three years after Elvis started recording for Sun, two years after Bill Haley hit #1 with “Rock Around the Clock,” and year after Elvis went national with “Heartbreak Hotel.” So by 1957 the idea of a white guy doing R&B wasn’t that novel or strange.

It is true that Holly toured with black acts (as did many rockers in the 50s) and played the traditionally black Apollo Theater in Harlem (though he was not, contrary to myth, the first white guy to play there: white R&B’er Johnny Otis had played there before, and for that matter white acts had been participating in the Apollo’s famed amateur night since at least the 1930s.) It’s certainly possible that some people in the audience at the Apollo were surprised to see a white act on the bill.

And of course, in the pre-MTV era it was much harder for radio audiences to know what a particular artist looked like. Certainly other white artists have been mistaken for black, e.g. Roy Head who hit it big in 1965 with “Treat Her Right.” For that matter, I never knew till I looked him up on the All-Music Guide that Johnny Otis (“Wille and the Hand Jive”) was white. (Putting the shoe on the other foot, I’m sure the first time I heard Living Colour on the radio I just assumed they were white.)

As for R&B of the 50s not containing suggestive content … well, some of it most certainly did, especially by the standards of the day. Take one silly example, “Laundromat Blues” (a hit for the 5 Royales):

Don’t rush folks, just take your time
Give my baby 20 minutes and she’ll make you lose your mind
My baby’s got the best machine, the best washing machine in town
(Oooh! Uhhh! What a machine!)
My baby’s got the best machine, the best machine in town
(Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!)
…Just relax and take it easy while her machine goes round and round.

It reads pretty quaint today, but the “Oohs!” make it perfectly clear what’s going on. It was hot stuff back in 1953.

I should note that lots of black families at the time forbade their kids from listening to blues and R&B for the same reason.

6

On the flip side, many people were shocked to find out Charlie Pride is black. My mom has an old concert LP of his. During the banter with the audience, he relates a story from when he was first getting started. He says he walked out on stage at this little venue in Shreveport (I think it was) and starting singing. An old woman in the front stood up and yelled “It’s true! It’s true!”

Racism. My dad once made my mom stop buying Peter Pan Peanut Butter because someone told him it was owned by black folks. :rolleyes:

7

Ages ago there was an interview with Freddie Mercury. He said that when they first started really getting airplay with “Another One Bites the Dust” a lot of people thought they were a “black band”.

So even in a more heartily televised era, it still happens.

8

He’s from a time when black artists in the country genre were unheard-of. At first, the only way to hear his music was from the radio but by the time he started performing live he had established himself as a top-notch performer so it didn’t really matter what color he was. Not on stage, at least.

9

I reaaallly have a hard time believing the Queen story, as Queen had been all over the charts for years before “Another One Bites the Dust”–and in fact had hit #1 (pop) in the US just a few months before with a rockabilly number (“Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”) You’d have to have been living under a rock not to know that they were white British rockers.

It is true that “Another One Bites the Dust” hit #2 on the US R&B charts (#1 pop), though.

10

Oddly, I just watched this on HBO (I think) the other day. I’m not claim that it is completely accurate, but it shows Buddy as a young boy, and as an older youth, frequenting what appears to be early, backwoods (as in somewhat hidden) jazz clubs. Here he seems to simply absorb jazz and then works its rhythms into his own music.

And yes, parents didn’t want there children to listen to these “jungle beats” as it might incite loose morality! :slight_smile:

11

As a side note, you may recall that Chet Atkins at RCA released the first three Charlie Pride singles with no photos.

12

Thanks, I would have added that but I wasn’t sure. I was working from my memory of watching a 40 Greatest Men in Country Music special over the weekend.

13

My parents are big country fans and went to several Charlie Pride concerts in the 70’s.

At one such show, a couple of black guys bought tickets for the primary reason to harass Pride. During a Q & A session with the audience, the guys accused Pride of “selling out” to the white man. Pride explained that he was performing the music he grew up with and loved singing. The guys didn’t like that answer. Pride had security escort the men out AND had their money refunded. The audience (about 99% white) applauded and the show went on. At the end, the audience gave him a standing ovation.

14

Photographs of Buddy Holly appeared on the covers of all his albums. And the Crickets appeared twice on The Ed Sullivan Show, one of the most popular programs on television, and twice on American Bandstand, another national television series. You’d have to go out of your way to not know that he was white.

15

This sort of confusion goes on right up to this very day. Look how many people think that Michael Jackson is black!

16

Or that Hootie was white!

And I remember how confused people were about Ben Harper and Dave Mathews.

17

I’ve heard that there was a time in the 50’s when radio stations wouldn’t play any music by black singers. White singers would record the songs black singers originally recorded (i.e., Elvis and Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog”) and get the radio play and make the money. Black singers referred to this as “covering a black record with white.” That’s where the expression “covering a song” comes from.

I don’t know if that’s true or an urban legend. Snops didn’t have anything on it.

18

From what I understand there is no actual Hootie,

19

If there is, he is often confused with Rod Tidwell!

20

I find it hard to believe anyone thought Dave Matthews was anything but a whiny white guy, but I’ll admit that seeing Ben Harper’s photo surprised me. J Love too.