{"id":1545,"date":"2008-07-08T10:39:24","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T14:39:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-24T17:32:50","modified_gmt":"2008-12-24T17:32:50","slug":"the-correlate-of-lemgsoull-emg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-correlate-of-lemgsoull-emg\/","title":{"rendered":"The Correlate of <em>Soul<\/em>?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In a positive sense, what is the correlate of <em>soul<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s be frank, as we look into this question: the term <em>soul<\/em> is strongly associated with qualities found in African American music. It&#8217;s considered a positive quality and a quality that is bound to impress when attained by rock &#8216;n roll musicians. However, it&#8217;s not the be all and end all of rock &#8216;n roll. Rock &#8216;n roll can have soul, but we&#8217;ve seen it also succeeds through the expression of other qualities, some of which we characterize as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/11\/05\/thrifty_music_vol_9_extremely_white_musi\">&#8220;white&#8221; musical qualities<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gsle8Y-fc4M?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAs painful as it may be to process these ideas, you do understand what I&#8217;m saying, right? For instance, <strong>The Beach Boys<\/strong> are considered a very &#8220;white&#8221; group &#8211; and a great one at that. They took a vocal group tradition that was based partially on what would be considered some of the building blocks of what would lead to soul and made it their own. They came up with a great approach to music, but if it doesn&#8217;t have <em>soul<\/em>, in the sense that we commonly use that term, what does it have? What is the correlating, positive term that can be used to describe musical attributes we typically ascribe to white people?<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NwDLpFqyxz8?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAbove is another song I&#8217;m probably not alone in liking that, by ear alone, we might reasonably expect to come from the hands and mouths of white folks. No offense meant on either side of the equation, but do you ever hear a <strong>Belle and Sebastian<\/strong> song and think, <em>Yeah, soul, baby!<\/em> Same goes for The Beatles&#8217; <strong>&#8220;Eleanor Rigby&#8221;<\/strong>. There&#8217;s a great instrumental version by Booker T &amp; the MGs that&#8217;s very soulful but lacking in&#8230;whatever &#8220;white&#8221; quality it is that the original possesses in spades, if you will.<\/p>\n<p>If someone put a gun to our head and closed all doors and windows, so that no one could hear our thoughts on the matter, we&#8217;d admit that &#8220;Eleanor Rigby&#8221; is at heart a &#8220;white&#8221; song. What is it that makes it white? Is there a succinct, descriptive term that gives white people, for better and for worse, credit for some inherent characteristic or ability? (All tongue-partially-in-cheek thoughts aside, this term would also balance the playing field for all the black artists who, like black athletes, may have their talent taken for granted as being &#8220;natual&#8221; to them, unlike white artists who&#8217;ve &#8220;studied&#8221; their craft.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RCDPPgmcbF0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nWhen a &#8220;black&#8221; artist like <strong>Prince<\/strong> or <strong>Terrence Trent D&#8217;Arby<\/strong> or <strong>Stew<\/strong> from <strong>The Negro Problem<\/strong> produces a song in what we consider a &#8220;white&#8221; genre, what &#8220;unnatural&#8221; quality is that artist displaying? Another way to look at this question is, as follows: <em>If there&#8217;s such a thing as blue-eyed soul, is there a brown-eyed _________?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So what is this musical quality that seems to be inherent in white people? Does it touch on our <strong>Kentonite<\/strong> concepts and our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/02\/26\/working_definition_cont_proctomusicology\">working definition of <strong>Proctomusicology<\/strong><\/a>? Is the term right in front of my white face and so obvious that I&#8217;m not seeing it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a positive sense, what is the correlate of soul? Let&#8217;s be frank, as we look into this question: the term soul is strongly associated with qualities found in African American music. It&#8217;s considered a positive quality and a quality that is bound to impress when attained by rock &#8216;n roll musicians. However, it&#8217;s not <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-correlate-of-lemgsoull-emg\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[120],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}