- I've been listening to some of those videos you run into where someone films a first encounter with an old song. In the lower corner, you see a video of, say, the Righteous Brothers performing "Soul and Inspiration" on TV in the mid-1960s, and the rest of the screen shows the person watching and listening for the first time to the song. This person listens to new songs every day, maybe, and this is a personal project, this series of first encounters. If the person is an expert in music or singing, the comments can be pretty interesting, or even if the person is just thoughtful and observant. Sometimes the person says little more than "Gee!"#
- So here are the Righteous Brothers, in dark shadow, as the song begins. Bill Medley, the tall slender one with the deeper voice, launches soulfully into the lyric and rises out of the darkness into the spotlight. By now, because of the beauty of the song, the video may have paused--this happens whenever the vodcaster wants to make a point. Likes something, is surprised or impressed by something.#
- On one of these pauses, before Bill Medley rises into the light, the vodcaster pauses and says, "I didn't know these Brothers were brothers!" In other words, the soulful vocal sound spoke to him as part of Black musical tradition, and he assumed that the performers must be, like himself, African American. The Brothers must be brothers. He looks forward to hearing more, then, from a tradition that is close to him, you can tell. The singing resumes, and soulful Bill Medley rises into the light, and he surely is white. The vodcaster is caught off guard by this.#
- This moment of surprise happens in videos by several different vodcasters as Bill Medley rises up into the light. Sometimes they are almost shook by the experience. I've tried to think why.#
- It's a beautiful tradition, soul music. Expressive, healing, liberating, acknowledging of hard realities, longing, loving. So why the surprise? Here's my hunch.#
- In this song, maybe not so much in the arrangement of violins and choir, but in the vocal expression of Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley, the singers show their commitment to a style that our culture leads us to think is not their own. But they have great talent and have worked to master that style, and have made themselves very expressive in that style.#
- That is, they've listened very hard to a musical tradition belonging to Black Americans. My hunch is that the vodcasters who are surprised by Bill Medley rising up into the light are surprised because they are not accustomed to seeing White people pay more than passing attention to Black American expressive traditions. Rarely paying enough attention to perform powerfully in one of these styles or traditions.#
- In other words, the surprise is not just how beautifully the two of them carry off the song. Maybe the surprise is the substantial evidence the song provides of at least a few White Americans actually and respectfully and deeply listening. Because everybody knows that many of us know we usually have not needed to listen.#
- I've been listening to some of those videos you run into where someone films a first encounter with an old song. In the lower corner, you see a video of, say, the Righteous Brothers performing "Soul and Inspiration" on TV in the mid-1960s, and the rest of the screen shows the person watching and listening for the first time to the song. This person listens to new songs every day, maybe, and this is a personal project, this series of first encounters. If the person is an expert in music or singing, the comments can be pretty interesting, or even if the person is just thoughtful and observant. Sometimes the person says little more than "Gee!"#
- So here are the Righteous Brothers, in dark shadow, as the song begins. Bill Medley, the tall slender one with the deeper voice, launches soulfully into the lyric and rises out of the darkness into the spotlight. By now, because of the beauty of the song, the video may have paused--this happens whenever the vodcaster wants to make a point. Likes something, is surprised or impressed by something.#
- On one of these pauses, before Bill Medley rises into the light, the vodcaster pauses and says, "I didn't know these Brothers were brothers!" In other words, the soulful vocal sound spoke to him as part of Black musical tradition, and he assumed that the performers must be, like himself, African American. The Brothers must be brothers. He looks forward to hearing more, then, from a tradition that is close to him, you can tell. The singing resumes, and soulful Bill Medley rises into the light, and he surely is white. The vodcaster is caught off guard by this.#
- This moment of surprise happens in videos by several different vodcasters as Bill Medley rises up into the light. Sometimes they are almost shook by the experience. I've tried to think why.#
- It's a beautiful tradition, soul music. Expressive, healing, liberating, acknowledging of hard realities, longing, loving. So why the surprise? Here's my hunch.#
- In this song, maybe not so much in the arrangement of violins and choir, but in the vocal expression of Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley, the singers show their commitment to a style that our culture leads us to think is not their own. But they have great talent and have worked to master that style, and have made themselves very expressive in that style.#
- That is, they've listened very hard to a musical tradition belonging to Black Americans. My hunch is that the vodcasters who are surprised by Bill Medley rising up into the light are surprised because they are not accustomed to seeing White people pay more than passing attention to Black American expressive traditions. Rarely paying enough attention to perform powerfully in one of these styles or traditions.#
- In other words, the surprise is not just how beautifully the two of them carry off the song. Maybe the surprise is the substantial evidence the song provides of at least a few White Americans actually and respectfully and deeply listening. Because everybody knows that many of us know we usually have not needed to listen.#