{"id":8319,"date":"2011-07-22T16:09:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T20:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=8319"},"modified":"2011-07-24T14:31:54","modified_gmt":"2011-07-24T18:31:54","slug":"dusty-in-memphis-rock%e2%80%99s-equivalent-of-%e2%80%9cit-takes-a-white-man-to-rectify-a-black-man%e2%80%99s-problems%e2%80%9d-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/dusty-in-memphis-rock%e2%80%99s-equivalent-of-%e2%80%9cit-takes-a-white-man-to-rectify-a-black-man%e2%80%99s-problems%e2%80%9d-films\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em>: Rock\u2019s Equivalent of \u201cIt Takes a White Man to Rectify a Black Man\u2019s Problems\u201d Films?"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dp4339EbVn8?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Few movies have ever bugged me as much as <em>Dances With Wolves<\/em>. I actually took the plunge and spent\u00a0what felt like\u00a06 hours in a movie theater watching that thing when it came out. I was never a <strong>Kevin Costner<\/strong> &#8220;hater.&#8221; I was never his biggest fan either, but I gave the man his due for <em>No Way Out<\/em> and <em>Bull Durham<\/em>. Beside miserably squirming through most of <em>Field of Dreams<\/em>, I had no ax to grind with the guy at that time in his career. For whatever reservations (no pun intended) I might have had, the story seemed like it might appeal to the broad side of me that loves <em>Little Big Man<\/em>. My wife and I decided to give it a shot on the big screen.<\/p>\n<p>Man, did that movie blow! And its universal acclaim over the coming months with critics and Motion Picture Academy voters really drove us nuts. It was hard to ever like Costner again, and I disliked that movie so much that it helped me feel the pain &#8220;people of color&#8221; in America and probably worldwide have felt as Hollywood movie after Hollywood movie presents the plight of their people through the eyes of a <strong>Saintly, Heroic White Person<\/strong>. (And what was with <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/marymcdonnell.freeblog.hu\/files\/Film\/Stand_with_fist_ff.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Mary McDonnell<\/a><\/strong> doing in that movie with workout tape\u2013era <strong>Jane Fonda<\/strong>&#8216;s hairdo?)<\/p>\n<p>Most recently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.villagevoice.com\/2009-11-17\/film\/saintly-white-people-do-the-saving-in-the-blind-side\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Blind Side<\/em><\/a> was the Hollywood film to bolster this notion. Note, in the linked review, that despite the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.windsofchange.net\/archives\/race_in_the_21st_century_-_another_inconvenient_truth.html\">the story contained probably a good deal of truth<\/a> that most likely Costner&#8217;s crime again me and Native Americans has sensitized critics to new levels. You say you didn&#8217;t see <em>The Blind Side<\/em> or\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/skepticalbrotha.wordpress.com\/2007\/01\/29\/hollywood-says-only-white-people-can-save-us\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Dangerous Minds <\/em>or <em>Freedom Writers<\/em><\/a>? I didn&#8217;t either, but although I liked <em>Mississippi Burning<\/em>, I felt a little uncomfortable by the strong presence of Saintly, Heroic White People. There are a lot of other movies that play out this way, and despite the fact that I like my share of them, I am always a little embarrassed for what I imagine moviegoesrs of minority groups may be feeling. I console myself with the fact that I&#8217;m a big fan of <strong>Ice Cube<\/strong>&#8216;s <em>Barbershop<\/em> movies and that amazing, little indie movie made by and about a group of Native American friends in contemporary society, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Smoke_Signals_(film)\" target=\"_blank\">Smoke Signals<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the Hollywood movie industry, however, African Americans have played a strong leading role in music since nearly the beginning of the recording age.\u00a0Any\u00a0American\u00a0of any race born in the 19th century forward has little excuse not to know and love at least some music by African American artists. So why have I come across so many intelligent, educated, music-loving white people who rave about <strong>Dusty Springfield<\/strong>&#8216;s 1969 album, <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em>, as if it&#8217;s a watermark in soul music?<\/p>\n<p>Check out\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/observer.guardian.co.uk\/omm\/story\/0,,1240078,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">this typical rock press take<\/a> on the album. Despite the fact that the writer makes it clear that Dusty wasn&#8217;t all that happy with the record or being in Memphis, singing in the same vocal booth in which true Memphis greats sweat and slobbered and playing with arguably one of the music industry&#8217;s greatest backing bands, he and a legion of modern-day fans of the album clutch onto the myth.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Far from rescuing Springfield&#8217;s career, <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em> froze it in time, and she would not have another Top 40 hit for more than two decades. But for this album&#8217;s army of fans, who&#8217;ve picked it up in second-hand stores or in a variety of re-released formats, <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em> is not only a popcultural milestone but a timeless emotional reference point.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I have no desire to argue the merits of the album itself. I think it&#8217;s merely OK. If I&#8217;d bought it in a used bin for 50 cents when I was an idealistic kid I would have held onto it and gotten some mild enjoyment out of it, but beside &#8220;Son of a Preacher Man,&#8221; which for my money is on par with a similar, fun, semi-corny country-soul tale like <strong>Bobbi Gentry<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Ode to Billie Joe&#8221; or\u00a0<strong>R.B. Greaves<\/strong>&#8216; &#8220;Take a Letter Maria,&#8221;\u00a0I guess I lack the pop sensibility and emotional capacity to identify either the milestone or the reference point this writer notes.<\/p>\n<p>The album&#8217;s OK. Dusty\u00a0Springfield was OK. Her first hit, &#8220;I\u00a0Only Want to Be With You,&#8221; is\u00a0outstanding! Sadly,\u00a0as I learned as a completely misguided, horny teenage boy, the assumed &#8220;super-cute&#8221; musical equivalent of a <a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_3fmbmaLi718\/TN0UxEkTQ8I\/AAAAAAAADoQ\/wb9x_M-axoI\/s1600\/Julie+Christie+5.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">young Julie Christie<\/a> behind &#8220;I Only Want to Be With You,&#8221; as\u00a0I bet many American boys and young men wished all cute-<em>sounding<\/em> Daughters of the British Invasion would look at that time, was <a href=\"http:\/\/graphics.ink19.com\/issues\/february1998\/covers\/dusty_springfield.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\">nothing special<\/a>. She was not even as mildly cute\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/withfriendship.com\/images\/g\/32218\/Petula-Clark-picture.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Petula Clark<\/a><\/strong>, for instance. Nice bouffant, I guess, but that&#8217;s not what I was hoping to find. Bummer. Oh, if only the English had done like the French and matched their Swingin&#8217; Sixties cutiepies up in a recording studio with dirty, old pervs. I&#8217;d buy some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PcgVYa1zPe0\" target=\"_blank\">half-assed Julie Christie single<\/a>.\u00a0But that was and is neither here nor there. <!--more--><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YyWeWNAr-4Q?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Nor, really,\u00a0here nor there when we&#8217;re speaking of popcultural milestones and emotional reference points is the backstory of her personal struggles. I can see how that and her camp appeal fit into her legacy as an icon\u00a0across a few hip social groups. Considering it&#8217;s all a matter of personal taste, I&#8217;ll even applaud <strong>Elton John<\/strong> for declaring in his speech for her induction to the Rock &#8216;n Roll Hall of Fame, &#8220;I think she is the greatest white singer that there ever has been.&#8221; But if I want to hear soul music, I&#8217;ll start with <strong>Aretha Franklin<\/strong>. If I want to hear someone sing Bacharach\/David hits, I&#8217;ll start with <strong>Dionne Warwick<\/strong>. (I will, however, listen to Springfield&#8217;s version of &#8220;The Look of Love.&#8221;) I wish I&#8217;d bought that 50-cent used copy of <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em> before a bunch of hipsters who grew up with no actual Stax or Motown records in their collection, perhaps save a\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rare_Earth_(band)\" target=\"_blank\">Rare Earth<\/a><\/strong> album, drove the price of used copies beyond my ability to get over Costner&#8217;s Injustice. Even if I&#8217;d owned <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em> by now, there would be a lot of soul albums, even &#8220;blue-eyed soul&#8221; albums that I&#8217;d play before it.<\/p>\n<p>It pained me to realize that <strong>Cat Power<\/strong>, an artist I despised when I first heard her &#8220;version&#8221; of &#8220;&#8216;Satisfaction&#8217;,&#8221; if you want to call it that, and tales of her miserable track record of abuse and irresponsibility, wasn&#8217;t so bad after all once she went to Memphis. But I don&#8217;t feel that Memphis did anything special for Dusty. I play the one Cat Power album I own, <em>Jukebox<\/em>, more than I&#8217;d ever play <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em>. But again, this isn&#8217;t really directed at Dusty or her music. It&#8217;s directed at the <strong>Cool Patrol<\/strong>, the same assholes in record stores who used to sneer at me in record stores for buying Dionne Warwick and <strong>Smokey Robinson &amp; The Miracles<\/strong> albums who,\u00a08 years later at some hipster party would corner me and lecture me on the brilliance of <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em> and anything involving <strong>The Meters<\/strong>. I saw these types as the other side of the coin of the White Folks in backyards across suburban America who blast their repurchased CD copy of <strong>Bob Marley<\/strong>&#8216;s <em>Legend<\/em> that special summer night when they get together with old college friends, fire up the grill, crack open some cold ones, and make thinly veiled race-based criticisms of the shortcomings of their sports teams&#8217; African American stars.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Hey, <strong>Record Store Hipster<\/strong>, circa 1990: How many actual soul albums did you own prior to picking up Dusty in Memphis and something featuring\u00a0The Meters?<\/em> <strong>Jimi Hendrix<\/strong> and\u00a0your recently purchased used copy of\u00a0<strong>Robert Palmer<\/strong>&#8216;s <em>Sneakin&#8217; Sally Through the Alley<\/em> don&#8217;t count.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Since buying <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em>,&#8221; I would ask this same hipster, &#8220;how many albums have you bought by African American artists that were not done either for cartoonish shock value (eg, Screamin&#8217; Jay Hawkins, Funkadelic) or to show you know more than all the people who&#8217;d been buying soul records for years (eg, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andre_Williams\" target=\"_blank\">Andre Williams<\/a>)?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hey, I know what I&#8217;m saying here is horrible, and I wish I could blame it all on Costner, but I won&#8217;t. Part of the territory the comes with being a rock nerd is the drive to actually <em>be<\/em> cool in some way. I stay off the turf of those of you who took the brunt of earning your Cool Points for being ahead of the curve on Krautrock. I give full credit to all those cooler guys who turned me onto Art Rock. I&#8217;d appreciate it if you stay off my turf and the turf of others who&#8217;ve been happily digging soul music since childhood. I&#8217;ve got no beef with a credible soul music afficianado like <strong>BigSteve<\/strong> or <strong>al<\/strong> digging their copies of <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em> because they&#8217;ve got perspective. They certainly rocked in their childhood beds or parents&#8217; cars to\u00a0<strong>Everyday Soul Music<\/strong> the way so many of us did. It&#8217;s not like they woke up one day, threw on a newly acquired copy of <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em> from among a stack of\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saccharine_Trust\" target=\"_blank\">Saccharine Trust<\/a><\/strong> albums, and saw the light.<\/p>\n<p>To be fair, more power to even the most-unexpected Dusty converts! It&#8217;s beautiful if her music now lifts their souls. It will be a bonus if they get by the hectoring of some fucking fart like myself, who&#8217;s spent way more time than anyone should ever spend trying to carve out this piece of turf, and digging deeper into, honestly, more obvious soul greats. Consider my plight, if you will; consider the value of working so hard to &#8220;own&#8221; a plot of land at the corner of Stax and Motown in 2011. It&#8217;s like fighting over the right to buy <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/monopoly1.cdbpdx.com\/800-c1935_1509312a_Deed_OrStJames-FrBk.JPG\" target=\"_blank\">St. James Place<\/a><\/strong> in <em>Monopoly<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>What I&#8217;m really trying to get at, <em>Dusty in Memphis<\/em>\u2013Loving Hipster With Huge Holes in Your Soul Collection is this: Don&#8217;t be content to let that one album and your Meters collection do the work for you. Don&#8217;t feel self-satisfied and relieved of guilt, like all those people who voted for <em>Dances With Wolves<\/em>. Just as you would justifiably look down your nose at me if you learned I only own one actual hardcore record, <strong>Black Flag<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Six-Pack&#8221; EP and have the nerve to feel proud of myself for doing so (and that&#8217;s the case, so go ahead and look down your nose at me!), I look down my nose at you. Do we have a better understanding now? Can we move forward and grow from this? I hope so.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_cXOesI1Aw0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Few movies have ever bugged me as much as Dances With Wolves. I actually took the plunge and spent\u00a0what felt like\u00a06 hours in a movie theater watching that thing when it came out. I was never a Kevin Costner &#8220;hater.&#8221; I was never his biggest fan either, but I gave the man his due for <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/dusty-in-memphis-rock%e2%80%99s-equivalent-of-%e2%80%9cit-takes-a-white-man-to-rectify-a-black-man%e2%80%99s-problems%e2%80%9d-films\/' 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":[485,484,231,308,293],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319"}],"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=8319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}