You mean they're not black?

Cafe Society
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No, you can’t fake the funk and there isn’t any faking going on here. These songs fooled me until I found out who actually made them.

I learned very young age that you can’t make assumptions. I just knew Sara Smile was done by new Chi-lites type singing group called Hall and Oates. The Dirty Lowdown had me fooled for a looong time. I mean Boz Skaggs? (I’m showing my age here, ain’t I?).

Madonna did it too. I hear she did it on purpose with her first two singles. When I heard Georgie Porgie was made by Toto I was shocked. The Tom Tom Club’s Genius of Love? I didn’t know they were mostly The Talking Heads until I saw Stop Making Sense. Even after I saw a picture of Taylor Dane, I thought she was a sister.
Nowadays people cross genres like I cross Jericho Turnpike-- as quickly as possile without hurting yourself-- so these things don’t come as a shock to me at all. But my son Zotarb was flabbergasted when he found out Another One Bites the Dust was Queen. “You mean it’s not Babyface or Timbalan?” I think he was suffering from generation shock more than genre shock.

Anybody else ever been genre/generation shocked?

2

Michael MacDonald has always zinged me that way.

And trust me, if you’ve never heard ex-San Diego Padre Outfielder (and soon-to-be Hall of Famer) Tony Gwynn speak you haven’t been shocked yet.

He black but his voice is this perfect SoCal surf-speak. He sounds whiter than GWB eaqting white bread with swiss cheese, turkey and mayo.

I’ve actually seen it stop people in mid-conversation.

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In a similar vein, I heard an anecdote that Otis Redding was surprised to find out the Young Rascals were white.

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Oh, come on. Give me more credit than that. I knew it was an old
song. It’s just that Queen doesn’t really do dance songs. I know no one else expected that when it first came out.

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It’s my understanding that Buddy Holly and The Crickets were booked to play The Apollo until the owner of the club found out they were white. Then he tried to withdraw his offer to let them play there.

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Let’s see…

I was surprised that Sophie B Hawkins and J. Love are white, and that Ben Harper isn’t.

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When I first heard Andy Gibb singing “I Just Want To Be Your Everything,” I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a black woman singing.

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I pictured Leo Sayer as a tall, skinny Black man when I first heard “You Make Me Feel Like Dancin’.”

And most people who heard the Country classic “Fairytale” from the mid 70s would never have guessed that it was being sung by–The Pointer Sisters!

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You’d think Van Morrison was an African American, but he’s a white Irishman. You’d think Thin Lizzy (“The Boys Are Back in Town”) was from the New Jersey shore, but he’s a Dubliner of mixed race.

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I often break into “Gwynn-speak” with my lady. It’s good for a laugh.
The first people to come to mind (but they have been said) were Michael McDonald and Taylor Dayne.

Some others:
Lisa Stansfield (sp?)

I imagine Pete Nice and Search from 3rd Bass had quite a lot of people fooled who had only heard them on the radio.

And remember the “Young Black Teenagers” ? (For those of you that don’t, they were white). Their 15 minutes of fame went by in about 38 seconds.

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Rick Astley. Sounds like a young black guy and, yet is a skinny red-headed white guy.

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First time I heard Anastacia’s “I’m outta love” I was convinced she was a 45 y.o. black woman

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Second Rick Astley. Also, the first time I heard George Michael’s “Father Figure” I thought it was a black R&B group.

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Lisa Stansfield would have fooled me if I hadn’t heard Been Around the World on MTV first. Rich Astley sounds big and burly-- Levi Stubbish. Yet he’s a tiny little guy.
Zoltarb, I’ll give you as much credit as you deserve-- the cheek! (He did say he thought it was Babyface or Keith Sweat-- Timbalan being too young and untalented-- that did Another One Bites the Dust)
Sorta on the same vein-- I thought You’re My Best Freind was by Emerson, Lake and Whoever or maybe the Partridge Family. Imagine my surprise when it turned up on my Queen Greatest Hits Box Set.

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Vanilla Ice.

Word.

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Toni Tenille. The first time I heard Love Will Keep Us Together I thought she was a black singer.

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For some reason, I had it in my head for years that Bjork was Japanese.

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I thought ICP was black when I first heard them. And I couldn’t possibly picture the guy from Hootie & The Blowfish being black until I saw him. Now I can’t picture ICP as black or Hootie as white.

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My daughter heard a Tracy Chapman song the other day and thought it was a boy singing. Of course she’s only 6 years old, but I think a lot of people were thrown off by Ms. Chapman on a few different levels.

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I was surprised when I first saw a picture of Jim Morrison. I thought he’d look like Neil Diamond or something, with that voice of his.

His voice just didn’t match with how he looked.