How about Lotte Lenya singing Mackie Messer/Mack the Knife. (She was cool enough to do it later as a duet with Louis Armstrong. )
Johnny Cash.
Dick Dale is a maybe.
He’s the answer to many questions, but the author of “Folsom Prison Blues” is not the answer to “what 20th-21st century music lacks tinges of jazz or blues.”
Carpenters is cool with me, but I draw the line at some of the later singles.
Joni Mitchell: She didn’t have any black influences until the third or 4th LP and it was only indirect until the fifth. That means Chelsea Morning, I had a king, Tin Angel, song about the midway, (“Like a diamond in a black man’s ear…”) BOTH SIDES NOW, Night in the city … the great moments are uncountable, unexcelled and very caucasian. And she just got cooler from there of course.
I remind people that black influences can exist in european sources. The operative word is Jazz.
Varttina’s Finnish punk-folk is exceedingly white but so weird it verges into cool.
Warren Zevon. Frank Zappa. About a dozen great bluegrass players. John Prine. Beck. The Band. CCR. Leonard Cohen. Merle Travis. Roy Clark. Neil Young. Chet Atkins. All very cool, and very white.
Afrika Bambaataa loved him some Kraftwerk, so they’re out.
Radiohead
“Come on Eileen”
“Safety Dance”
“Video Killed The Radio Star”
The bagpipes, laddie! Still pretty popular today.
And I’d also go with chanson for a lighter touch.
The William Tell Overture?
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony?
NOTHING PRE 20TH CENTURY.
I love “Come on Eileen” and “Video Killed the Radio Star,” and even “Blinded Me With Science,” but I assumed it was because I am a nerd. Do cool people like these songs?
I think virtually every one of these would respond violently to that statement. You might have Leonard.
True, but part of the broader agenda of Krautrock was to explore forms of music that were not based on ripping off other people’s’ music, which was how they critiqued mainstream rock as essentially white theft of Black music.
It’s not so much Afrika liking them (the OP isn’t about what is “white” in the sense of whitebread, or only white people like it or anything, but rather songs that lack non-white influence), but after thinking about it, a lot of Kraftwerk tracks do have a roboticized version of pop R&B types of rhythm tracks, so there’s definitely some non-white influence in there, and the type of syncopation you get in jazz/blues/ragtime. I mean, it depends on how deeply you want to drill down to find non-Western influence. Like I said before, pretty much anything with a backbeat can be said to have some foundation in non-white influenced music.
ABBA.
All White Music is cool.
Well, if you’ve got a tank to drive…
Perry Como Christmas Album