Status: Single
Sign: Aries
State: OHIO
Country: US
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Saturday, March 17, 2007
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Blacks , Blues and Real Jazz!!
Current mood:  contemplative
Category: Music
One of the other things that burns my tush (amongst the so many things that do) is that if you go to a BB King or Keb Mo or any major Blues festival in this country of ours you will not see but a sprinkle of African Americans. That fact is amazingly alarming and disappointing. The Blues is one of America's oldest music genre's and the least respected among Black people. We do not buy Blues and we most certainly do not support it in a way that would make the next generation respect and admire the art form in the the way it deserves. Please tell me I am wrong that the audiences coming out to hear Blues Musicians is not almost always entirely comprised of White people.
Blues may be the oldest form of Black music, could be Gospel or some form of spiritual music associated with slavery. But Blues came out of the that horrific period in American history and for that one reason alone should be revered and shared with our children as a matter of principle. The hurt and pain, joy and happiness and every other human emotion is sung about in those songs that cover the full spectrum of Black life from slavery to today's political and economic circumstances, to loss of ones loves and cheating in the next room, to lusty encounters with members of the opposite sex and sometimes the same sex. Blues covers that and all life's stories in between. So why then don't more Black people give the Blues and Blues men and woman more respect and attention. Forget that established Organizations like the Grammys really do nothing to promote new Blues artist like Eddie Cotton and Grady Champion, Walter Waiters and veterans like Bobby Rush, the Neal Clan,
Chick Willis, Jerry McCain, Willie Pooch, and thousands of others. We just continue to see the same artist we have all seen even though they are not in the best of health. There are plenty of Blues artist in their 30 & 40's who have what it takes to capture a new audience. they have the looks and the sound to capture the youth of this country and also they have a willingness and courage to try to expand blues by crossing it with jazz and hip-hop or both.
Some artist, even older artist such as Boo Boo Davis are already doing this with great success, but is anyone listening? Jazz has been ever expanding for ever and continues to do so, but faces some of the same challenges that the Blues does. Also a American musical form with questionable orgins Jazz musicians of African descent also question why we do not show up at their shows to support the music. I cannot answer this question either. Could it be purely economic? Do jazz and Blues have a chance to survive into the next 100 years of course they do, but do they have a chance to survive and thrive with the culture that created them? That is a question that will only be answered by those of us that are willing to do what our parents did. We must buy the music, we must play the music in our homes when are children are home, we must take are children to blues and jazz concerts and shows. And we must be willing to sit down and answer their questions about the music. When I was young could not stand blues or jazz but that did not stop my father from playing Miles Davis, Eddie Harris and Les McCann, Dexter Gordon, Lonnie Liston Smith and other jazz greats, and when I went off on my own I found myself migrating toward that sound coming out of clubs in Tokyo and Oakland and San Francisco.
My love of the Blues came much later from movies like Crossroads and the Color Purple. The Blues just snuck up on me and it was there all the time like a guest at a party that you continue to run into at every party you go to, till you decide to walk over and get to know them. That is how the Blues became someone I knew. Then it became a part of my job as a DJ, that is when the Blues became a friend I trust. So just like everything else that becomes a part of your life or the next generations life, there must be continued exposure. So it is the little things that you do like jazz on when your having dinner with your family or blues Cd's playing when it's you and your kid in the car, do the little things and maybe it will have a big impact on whether Blues and Real Jazz survive. Because those of you that have lived awhile know we are more like our parents then we want to admit, you look up one day and your listening to Grady Champion , Eddie Cotton, Willie Pooch, Eddie Harris or Sonny Rollins, or a Ron Holloway with this big smile on your face cause you know like father like son like mother like daughter. Let's do a better job of supporting our musical heritage because it is ours! Don't mind sharing but don't give it away without a fight! It's your birthright!
Yeah I said it !
ABCDEnorman
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Currently
listening
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Gratitude
By
Earth Wind & Fire
Release date: 27 July, 1999
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3:41 PM
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Friday, March 16, 2007
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RANDOM THOUGHTS
Category: Blogging
Why don't they just call the Jerry Springer Show "ARE YOU CRAZY" and Maury Povich's " ARE YOU CRAZY 2".
OK now that I know the crazy astronaut chick was wearing the same kind of diaper they wear in space that makes what she did the act of a sane individual. NOT! She still drove a thousand miles with poop in her pants, even if the chemicals in the diaper dried the shit up!
Have you ever thought that you had to be smarter than President Bush? I know Crackheads smarter than President Bush when they are high.
I know Mary J can't sing but it is okay with me because she is one hell of a performer and we don't really have too many of those anymore. She leaves a little piece of herself on the stage each time she does her thing.
Tavis Smiley could teach Larry King a thing or two about interviewing folks.
As I get ready to turn 50 I know that 50 ain't the new 40 that is BULLSHIT! Tell my feet that shit! Give me some 40 year old feet, better yet some 20 year old feet.
Old people have pretty much earned the right to say what they want. You can listen to it or not. But to hurt one should earn you a life sentence not in prison but in a nursing home changing diapers and sheets and being forced to listen, you might learn something.
there is this new show on the travel channel where this guy travels the world eating stuff you would not look at normally let alone touch. One thing you will never see is a African American eating a rat or a bat meat sandwich.
Why did Bush do away with food programs? Hell I'm hungry. I could use a government cheese sandwich about now.
Are Sommore and Nia Long really sisters or is that a joke.
Someone has started a rumour that Sinbad died yesterday, but the rumour started last weekend. How does that work? and yeah there are already jokes about it was his career that died. That ain't funny. Well maybe a little.
6:07 AM
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Friday, February 16, 2007
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FATBACK IS BACK, AND ALL THE WAY LIVE!
Current mood: FUNKY
FATBACK BAND Live IN TOKYO
I LIVED IN JAPAN for 2 years back in the late 70's while stationed at a Navy Base in Yokosuka Japan. So I would like to think that I went to enough concerts to know how the Japanese respond to great American musical genius no matter what the genre. I have seen the Herbie Hancock VSOP tour there also the Emotions and quite a few other shows but I wish I had been there in 2006 when one of the enduring Funk Bands of all time the Fatback Band laid down it's own brand of Soul Cooking that rivals all the other legendary Funk Congregations.
On this just released disc that is sure to bring back memories of your first smoke, your wildest night, that special first girl or guy or the first time you got a whiff of that Fatback it will make you remember the Funk! Percussionist and leader Bill Curtis heads this always flamboyant in their sound defiantly brilliant assembly of musicians. Wiki Wacking their way through fatback funk classics in a way that is more party band then concert band you want to dance from the first cut Funk Backin to the last maybe the most famous of their tune "I Like the Girls" they show that from soul to funk to jazz they can turn a dance floor into something a kin to a soul food kitchen bringing that same ambiance with all the flavors of funk flowing in the air just like when you are getting ready to do a Black Family reunion..
If for some reason you have fooled yourself that the funk is not as important or as funky as it used to be you need to hear this like i did the first time loud and sober, because this music is just as funk sober as it was when you had to have a toke. Doesn't matter how you hear the next time it will already be one of the your favorite Cd's! It's not just funky it is fun, fun, fun! The CD includes mega hit " Money got to get my hands on some" "Spanish Hustle",
"Backstrokin" , "Bus Stop", "keep on steppin", "Yum Yum", and if you notice they leave off the g's on every word that should end in "ing" and that it self is funky to me! The sax work by Edward Jackson is Superb and so are the background vocals and Bill Curtis's back beats. On the CD it list Bob James as the keyboardist, don't know if it is Bob James of
"Heads and Touchdown" but it sounds like it might be. For all these reasons and more you need to get Fatback live in Tokyo cause as we say at the Friday night fish fry : Greasy is Good! And this CD is sho nuff Greasy
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Currently
listening
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Live in Tokyo
By
Fatback Band
Release date: 01 February, 2007
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6:29 AM
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Saturday, February 10, 2007
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WHY ARE THE STARS BLACK OVER HOLLYWOOD?
Current mood: ONE OF REFLECTION
Category: ONE OF REFLECTION Movies, TV, Celebrities
I Know that you like I have noticed a change in the night sky over the state of California,
most notably Hollywood these last few years. To be more to the point since Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won their Academy Awards a couple of years ago. Since then it has pretty much been a steady stream of US, African Americans making the rounds to all these displays of public appreciation and celebrity fawning. Have you asked why?
Let's us look at the males that hold some casting power amongst Hollywood's elite and let's start will these names Will Smith, Jaime Foxx, Denzel Washington, Terrence Howard,
Chris Rock and Chris Tucker, Anthony Anderson, Forrest Whitaker, Isaiah Washington, Morgan Freeman, , DJIMON HOUNSOU, EDDIE MURPHY, Derek Luke and the list really goes on and on. For the purpose of this column we will just talk about the Black Male actor in Hollywood who is still a Black Male in America. In America where local news still shows the picture of just about every Black man arrested for every crime from shoplifting to murder at what i am sure is a overwhelming ratio to White males for the same crimes. America where Black Male athletes are held to unreasonable standards and expectations and vilified when they do not meet them,
America where stereotypes and racial folklore continue to hamper Black people in general. Then why are stars shining so brightly now?
Has time changed so much in this so called greatest nation on earth that now the same gifts we have always had suddenly have surpassed those of other actors? Or is America's guilt with all the dirt we have done just over the last 40-50 yrs (my lifetime) now just so so overwhelming that now we are getting a lump sum payment. Look at Oprah that is all i am saying. We have been intelligent all this time, we have been superb athletes all this time, we have master chefs or cooks all this time, we have been teachers, parents, sons, daughters, doctors, lawyers and yes HUMAN all this time. So America I E. Norman Harris ask you why now?
Alot of things have been done over the years to try to break us, and we amongst ourselves kid that we are like roaches and no matter what the world brings we will be back. For most Black people myself included believe that God is the be all that ends all the Alpha and Omega. We also believe with all that has been done to us and for us we are the Chosen People. So still now I really want to know why are we now after all these years is Oscar choosing us? You can say talent if you want, then why did Denzel not win for Malcolm X something that still gets under my cap.
Why has Spike Lee not yet won a best director Oscar. There are too many snubs to mention. But as good as he was in Training Day Mr. Washington received his Oscar for the most despicable role he has ever had, when this man has been acting his ass off in roles that were far more redeeming characters that young Black Men and Women have found inspiring and life changing in a most positive way.
So really America what is that has you showing us all this love now! And really I am talking only about the big screen cause in Real Life "Its hard out here for a Pimp" by the way that song won a Oscar. Are you feeling me now? You reward us for our most negative roles and stereotypes in the new millennium like some kind of subliminal whip or invisible electric dog collar and expect to catch all of us sleeping. Believe me we also have scholars, and you will never catch us all sleeping, and some of us never sleep too busy keeping an eye on you America. When I started to write this I was thinking that the reason you chose these Brothers was not just their talent but that they all have great smiles, that's right great smiles and they all do. Smiles that disarm on a giant movie screen. Smiles so lovely that White America can deal with Black men for a couple of hours and really believe that all is well amongst us. Nice daydream! Oscars are nice, I guess if you are in Hollywood.
But we are not.
I love Forrest Whitaker but if and when he wins, he wins for portraying Idi Amin
a man who is reputed to have been a mass murderer and a cannibal. As I really do not want rally for anyone, did Will Smith not just play a Father going through a divorce who found his self homeless and without a job but continued to raise his son in a way that demonstrated dignity under fire. Shoot that is a easy choice for a mature Black America. Make no mistake America there is still a Black America, and no matter how many Oscars you give or don't give us, whether it's the nice smiles or something else. Whether your women stop locking their car doors when we approach or you cross the street when I come toward you, or all those things you do like pretend we are great friends till your daughter says she loves us. Know this America you will never catch us all sleeping, Right Rev Al, Dr. West, Spike, Bob Davis, Tavis, Sen Obamma................................. YEAH I SAID IT!
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Currently
listening
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Curtis/Live!
By
Curtis Mayfield
Release date: 15 August, 2000
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5:40 AM
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Friday, January 26, 2007
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YEAH I SAID IT!
Current mood:  crazy
Category: Music
Enuff of this s--t! Why the hell isn't James Brown the greatest performer in our lifetime not in his final resting place. Is some Negroe somewhere crazy? Hell yeah! Their is no valid reason for this disrespectful delay in providing the final earthly peace to the real King, The GodFather of Soul James Brown! Why is James Browns body resting in some refridgerator somewhere like a roast waiting for a holiday!
Now I promised myself for health reasons of my own that I would try to not let the new year
proceed with the anger and dissappointment of last year. But come on, we lost icons left and right in the music business in 06, alot of them in the last quarter of year. We are bound to lose more this year, cause that is the heavenly plan. Out with the old and into the cold. Gots to make room for new talent. Future Nobe Prize winners, world leaders, writers of novels, fishers of men (preachers), doctors, plumbers, quarterbacks, and even DJ's and such.
And the biggest icon of them all was James Brown who ate with Presidents and Kings and who was a champion of the common man though i suspect there was nothing common about this exceptionally talented man. To me, though they tried, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson both men of God did everything they could to give their friend and brother a dignified service the atmosphere was not one of a healthy homegoing but of a uneasy tension. I do not know the family and will not act like i do, But when two Revs have to admonish you for your behavior at memorial service for selfish acts of ego and bickering, and it is live on Cnn and it happens twice on national TV in both New York and Augusta then you have to ask has somebody lost their damn minds!
All I am saying is that as a real fan of SOul and Funk there was no figure that loomed larger than the GodFather of Soul, and HE should have our respect in life and in death for the legacy that he built, that he left, that he fathered (GodFathered! cause he gangstered the funk).
Yeah i said it!
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Currently
listening
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Make It Funky - The Big Payback: 1971-1975
By
James Brown
Release date: 23 July, 1996
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12:34 PM
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Sunday, November 12, 2006
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R U A WHORE?
Current mood:  annoyed
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
I hope not! Neither am I. I will not do anything for fame, national or local. I am freaked out by any potential that i could ever be famous. Some days I really like being me , and like so many others I wish I was somebody else maybe even you. But I will tell you I am not open to doing anything for myself or potential clients or friends or family.
Now I will do almost anything for these people and will also be willing to compromise on alot of things because sometimes we have to. If I cannot do a thing I will not tell you that I can. If you do not know how to do something why would you say that you can. You can learn that thing. You can promise to learn that thing. Do not have people putting faith in you if you do not have faith in yourself or you ability before you have learned that thing.
I operate on the faith that I will be good at what I say I am good at or that I am making steps to get good at what I need to get good at. I talk to people daily that have been taken in by smooth talkers with a reputation of screwing people over. I have tried to build a reputation as one who will fight for artist and their right to be heard. I also because of my aggressive style may easily be labeled a blowhard or controversial or full of myself. I have put myself well past caring what people who have their own self centered agenda think.
I will not sell out music people who I admire and respect and the same goes for friends, family and anybody else, it is not part of who I am. For a house, car, food oh and money. Will you do anything for Money? If so my friend you have a huge problem and are no better than the crackheads you look down on. Life can be wonderful or it can be a day to day struggle. After all if at anytime you were told life is a cakewalk somebody lied to your ass. It is hard to be a man or woman because with that comes great responsibility. I choose to be great over rich, over Denzel handsome over Luther Vandross's song styling talent, any superstar athlete's talent, over worldwide fame.
To sell your sole for something is to be a whore to that thing. Are you a whore to anything? Sure I would like to be a DJ on Sirius or XM radio or even syndicated but would I do anything for it? NO. The Only thing and let me correct what I said earlier I would die for my family and a few of my real friends because they have raised that kind of loyalty in me. So that anyone who says that is being a whore is a moron. And anyone that stupid is probably open to whorerism ( Not anything like tourism plus I made that up). So fame and fortune has you that twisted you need to take a deep breath and look for the reasons you feel like that. Then deal with it because people that think like that are in the shake your head club. What the shake your head club is, is when people get a whiff of the shit you talking and they shake their heads, all the time. Sometimes they shake their heads when they find out they will have to meet with you or talk to on the phone. Example: Hey Bill Joe is on the phone. Bill either cusses or shakes his head or both. The moral of this story is don't be the HO named Joe. Don't make everyone shake their heads because they know you a HO. But if they shake their heads because you are good at what you do, maybe better then them, then let them shake any body part they like.
YEAH I SAID IT!
A.B.C.D.ENORMAN
6:11 AM
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Thursday, November 09, 2006
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YEAH I SAID IT!
Current mood:  apathetic
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
It has been reported recently that several radio people have lost their jobs courtesy of Clear Channel. These cuts have been widespread from what I have been able to gather and reports or rumors of a reported sale are also floating around. Well let me first say that I think it is terrible that this would happen to anyone 30 days before the first end of the year holiday, makes it a little hard to give thanks on thanksgiving don't ya think.? I myself have recently went through the same thing in May of this year and I think it gives me the expertise to speak on this.
If your station is serving the Black community and I mean serving, as I gather Wdia serves Memphis then doesn't the local community and the Black Music Community owe it to these people to help. I believe that when we can help we should, and that is what I hope I am doing by penning this column. When after years of taking phone calls from artist and public relations people working on the behalf of these artist and being as cooperative and real as I could be while playing their music, I suddenly found myself not getting calls from those whose only motive (as I now know) was to fill their own pockets. They remind me of the greedy little boy who has way too much food on his plate but is steadily staring at yours with plans of adding that to his own. Cd's will stop coming to your door or you will have to go through some hoop dancing when you never made anybody dance through them.
Bills will pile up, your rent still got to be paid. Your lights and gas still have to be paid and maybe unemployment will help a little but when it runs out there are no longer any extensions on that because the Bush Administration says that unemployment has to be in double digits (you mean it ain't, glad you got your ass kicked this past Tues). I understand that even if you do remain in the music biz because you have the same passion and drive about the music and artist making it as the first day you started, that some folks do not give a damn because with them it is what have you done for me lately or you can't help me cause you don't have a mic or access anymore.
In my case I am trying to create avenues for myself to survive and stay in the music arena but it tain't easy. Like going back to writing this column which I used to write for Behind the scenes magazine (thanks Boogie) and trying to help artist who also have to deal with doors being slammed in their faces by continuing to tell anyone who will listen about their music. Look what ever you do, do not expect all the love you used to get when you did not ask for anything like help in the form of cash, for very few will answer that call my friends. When you are facing eviction like I am and some others are pray. Pray that the Lord will help you find the way. Because the fat boy with all the food won't, he would rather you starve while the food on his plate gets cold, old and moldy.
Some folks will give you the opportunity to help yourself which is all you can really ask for these days because most of us have money issues and no tissues. But you will run into liars and cheats and opportunist who will try to steal the clients you find the ideas you create, in other words these rats will take your cheese baby! Some folks will find your energy levels and your enthusiasm a threat will try to destroy your name all in the name of their own insecurity, shortcoming's, or just greed. I have never cheated anyone in this business, never took payola, never took Cd's and sold them or did any bootlegging. If you still love the music and the artist you never will either. But you like I may choose to stay in this arena so know like I know it may not be, no it won't be a bed of roses and you will lose fake friends and hangers on but if you have made some real friends in this they will keep you inspired and they at the least will not let you starve, or go out of your mind.
So wherever you read this column or hear my internet shows know that these people are my good guys. They put skin in the game. Also so that Southern soul and Blues artist are given a chance to meet their fans and expose their music worldwide on internet soul-patrol.com has created a Southern soul page that is also having monthly chats that will give artist a chance to talk to their fans all over the world starting Nov 19,2006 and will go on every month thereafter, so join us and tell your fellow artist and fans to be there. I will be your host and moderator. All artist on my monthly countdown are asked to try and be there.
So remember the world is full of fake friends. Do not be one. Yeah I Said it!
And I will say it again.
11:50 AM
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Wednesday, August 23, 2006
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YEAH I SAID IT!
Current mood: SERIOUSLY SAD
Category: SERIOUSLY SAD Writing and Poetry
SPIKE LEE IS ONE OF THE 5 GREATEST LIVING DIRECTORS. SPIKE LEE SHOULD ALREADY HAVE A OSCAR FOR MALCOLM X. Do you agree?
This edition of YEAH I SAID IT was to be about the good doctors in our genre of music, but that will have wait. Because of the painful images displayed in Spikes
WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS which I watched twice.
Why twice? Because in my lifetime nothing this bad has happened to that many people in America, White and Black people alike.But whether you saw it the first time or this time, it seems like it was mostly us by a landslide that were left to fend for
ourselves.
No I was not there, and to my knowledge none of my family was there, but the sense of lost for Black folks all over was as great as if it was an immediate member of ones family, because in a way it was. The people I saw looked like me, looked like you, looked like your mama, your daddy, Aunt Virginia, Uncle Benny, Cousin Ray, and Baby Girl. And many of those that looked like you and me were floating as stiff as freshly starched shirts getting ready for church. Some of those faces were, according to what I saw were described as looters, not survivors looking for food or clothing to feed their children or first aid materials to patch wounds or stop infections. The images of little brave black boys imploring the media to save the elderly members of their families first..I got to stop for a minute.
You know when you get a platform to say things that can change or bring attention to obvious race or class issues one should try to be responsible and true to ones self no matter what the area of discussion is. Whether it is music, politics, film, famine or flood. Feel me? And like Spike I don't want you to forget what happened in New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast when Katrina came as an expected yet unwanted guest wielding a machete intent on creating mind blowing havoc and destruction.
Spike came across footage of Black Folk in the Super dome calling upon the spiritual
legacy of our forefathers. As it was then so it is now, when times are bleakest we pray, we sing. At one point in his film Black folks in the dome form a makeshift choir and march around singing This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.and you wonder how, how can a light shine in all this chaos? Because first of all Black folks are different whether people want to believe this or not. We could start with the way we worship loud and joyfully. The way we dress bright and loud. The way we sing with passion and oh so much extra flair. The way we speak, we invent a new language every generation. The way we discipline our kids, you know you get hit with a shoe in the grocery if you act up, and yelled at the same time. We are different yet we are still the same. We bleed the same as White people, we starve the same, we cry the same, we drown just the same.
The images of New Orleans in crisis and the rest of the Gulf Coast are not Spikes or the Gulf Coast own, they are way to powerful to belong to such a small group. Those images are burned into the minds of everyone who saw people stranded on the overpasses, floating on anything that floated, BODIES, DEAD BODIES in wheelchairs outside the super dome in 90 degree heat, swollen bodies, People on rooftops with painted SOS waving homemade flags and signs desperately waiting for rescue. With all the boats in the Water and floating debris N.O looked like a nightmare version of Venice on Crack. Katrina did to New Orleans what crack does to human beings.
When it actually happened I cried till my head hurt, and like so many others my mind got sick. My faced stayed wet from tears for days. Last night I cried for my people again, this time the tears were on the inside for the most part, but some managed to escape toward the end of the 2 hour 15 min first installment.
I used to think everything in this country was about race now i know much more is about money these days. We have gotten aid to other countries much faster than we did to our people down south, within hours in many cases. But with all the Black and Poor faces filling television screens the BUSHMEN showed all of us what many did not really believe, not so much what Kanye said about him not liking Black People but I think it was more about not caring about the poor. But they did something that at first i thought was ironic and now i think was calculated, and that was when they sent Lt. General Russell Honore a Black Man to restore order and provide people with the immediate food and then transportation it took the Bushmen almost a full week to provide. You know i until then had never ever seen a Black version of John Wayne until that day. But we knew we have them. We always knew.
Look we all know what happened, but here is my observations about this subject that came to my mind. The pain and hurt for the people of that area will never truly go away. They are trying to change the economic profile of New Orleans, which means less Blacks and poor. I agree that someone blew the levy, it had been done before.
WE are still viewed as a unnecessary nuisance. America does care when forced to care. That the backstabbing and bullshit that we put on one another from day to day is a wasted exercise, and that energy needs to be put into coming together to focus our economic and political power to change things in every area that we are not looked upon as equal. And when a big storm of any kind is on the way, whether that is a social, economic, weather related or a storm in your own home we need to take appropriate action. I think I have said enough for now. My mind is tired. God bless the South, God bless the Gulf, God Bless New Orleans.
yeah i said it!
E
4:44 AM
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Wednesday, August 16, 2006
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Shit BOb thanks!
NightTrain
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6/24/2006 7:41 AM
This brotha deserves his props!!!
He's been a big inspiration to me
I have said it before....
.....and I'll say it again
He is absolutely the best commercial radio disk jockey...
- In any city
- In any format
- Currently alive
(nuff said) |
3:39 AM
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Friday, July 07, 2006
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YEAH I SAID IT!
ABOLISH SOUTHERN SOUL?
I recently found out that Billboard magazine does not recognize southern soul. I also heard that the major label executives think it is a musical trash receptacle, and laugh at the whole so called Southern Soul situation especially the music. Once again I come back to the quality of the music, and the insistence of the labels to record songs of humiliating substance with artist of questionable talent.
Not for one minute am I saying that all artist recording in this area of music should leave whatever singing they do in the shower. I am not one who ever liked the term
"SOUTHERN SOUL" because I believe soul music can come from every walk of life from Otis Redding to Joe Cocker from Aretha Franklin to Annie Lennox From Jill Scott
to Mary j Blige. There is a rich spectrum of Soul Artists in this world, and with the money that is still being made in the music world despite the illegal downloads on the Internet and Bootlegging which is outright theft, their is still money to be made .
One of the first things that needs to be done is going back to making hits. When was the last mega hit that has come out of the Southern Soul scene. I am talking about a million seller, I can't remember. Can you? Money must be spent to promote a artist project. You cannot expect lighting to strike and luck up on a hit. Spend money, labels must quit being cheap! Get up off those dollars or you will keep complaing about not having any money, which is a lie, why else would you stay in the music business if you weren't making any money. How stupid do you think all of us are.
And artists that come into this business on their own make sure you come in with enough money to tough this thing out. You cannot come into this world and not have just enough money to make a CD. You must have money for marketing and promotion, pressing, distribution, artwork and maybe some more stuff I may not know about myself. You will have to buy ads in papers, websites like the Boogie Report and Soul-patrol.com maybe TV and of course Radio. You want to be successful, it takes money from somewhere and believe me everyone in this business does not do it for the love. We need to be paid like you do, why should I do PR for you for free. So my point is money is what motivates most people in business no matter what the business is.
Cause the mailman can keep a tune does that mean you offer him a recording contract. No! Artists you must take back your music even if it means forming your own companies with other artist, writers, producers with like minded thinking so you guys can pool your resources and harness your power to compete.Maybe it is time to quit competing so hard against each other and send a message to the bigger labels that they no longer are gonna run this thing like a Plantation and you are tired of giving them any of your publishing at all. Don't they take at least want 50nd maybe a writers credit? That's Bullshit! Quit backbiting and backstabbing , didn't daddy ever tell ya their is strength in numbers?
I know many of you think as I do, and none of what I say is new, but it has to be said repeatedly until it sinks in. I do more than talk, I write, what do you do?Let's change the game and to that you need to take ownership of your part in this bullshit and change your behavior. And you need to quit complaining, everybody is broke but you need to put skin in the game that means money for those who don't know. Because people in this business work for a living and will only do so much for free including me. So if you are cheap don't call me asking me a bunch of questions (questions cost). I am giving you advise and some answers here, but your managers and pr people should be advising you about most of this stuff, but maybe they just don't understand that we have to Change The Game. And maybe Change the Name cause southern soul requires too much of explanation every time you have to tell someone who doesn't know what it is. It is either Soul or it is Blues, I think that we need to go back to the days of all the players back in the studio with the singers and put the guts back in the music. Real players and Soul singers, Real Soul singers Like Kenne Wayne Ernie Johnson, Franko, Sterling Williams, Trudy Lynn, Toni Green, Willie Clayton are there many more? Shirley Brown, Francine Reed, The Chairmen of the Board, William Bell?
Anymore? Bobby Womack,Marvin Sease, Carl Sims their are bound to be a few more, but a lot of fat needs to be trimmed and Dj's and PD's are the ones who need to do this, cause as long as you play crap 5,000 units will be the standard sold for southern sole artist. I just wrote the word soul with a e at the end because you will keep making enough money just enough to keep yourself and your kids in good shoes maybe.
Yeah I Said It !
if you want to continue to see my column anywhere you's gots to help a brother out.
WHO is gonna say it like I say it, where I say it , As loud as I say it.
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O.J. I'm Guilty
By
Frank O. Johnson
Release date: 07 February, 1996
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