Phrase of the week # 2 (Nile Rodgers)

[Marcio**]

"Very rarely do you meet a young black person who knows who Jimi Hendrix is, but all the white kids know who Hendrix is."

by Nile Rodgers





"Rodgers keeps Chic Alive, Weel"

:P

[judydoggie]

I plan to ask his office if he really said that. I can't wait until I see him later next year with my friend Kelly Mittleman and confront him with this statement.

Jimi Hendrix's music is known to all, particularly those in the music scene. I work with plenty of musicians of color, and they mention Jimi all the time, whether or not their instrument is the guitar. As far as non-musicians, rockers or not, Hendrix smashed the stereotype of black musicians being handcuffed to blues or R&B genres and worked in a traditionally "white" genre and that, I find, attracted a certain demographic to Hendrix who otherwise wouldn't have experimented with rock 'n roll.

Color me naive, but as color means less and less vis-a-vis musical tastes, I really find the statement attributed to Mr. Rogers very hard to stomach. I'm going to go to work on finding Quincy Jones' comments about Jimi Hendrix's perceived modern demographic and re-visit this thread, as well.

[QUINNY]

IT was only Hendrix's Band Of Gypsies that had any sizeable black following BITD and 35 years ago Hendrix was rather looked down upon by many of his bro's in the U.S. Personally, I had the impression that they didn't like him for 'selling out', as they saw it, to a white audience. So, I for one, can more or less see where Nile Rodgers was coming from with this remark, except Hendrix's fame is probably more evenly spread nowadays.

The really perverse thing is that if BITD they'd stopped, looked and listened to his playing, they'd have realised that he was probably THE most soulful musician to ever inhabit planet earth. No one before, or since, has played the electric guitar (or possibly any instrument) with such incredible feel or true emotion.

If anyone wants proof, look at the film Woodstock and catch his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. 100% pure Soul, 100% pure feel. Every note he plays, every facial contortion, every millisecond of controlled feedback has pain, elation, orgasm and goodness knows what else oozing from every muscle, every sinew of his body. A true masterpiece of the 20th century in my book.

[Paulo]

I am engaged to the music since early 70's mainly as a listener, but I am also an amateur musician. Hendrix played american acid-rock, a style generally played by white rockers (Greatful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Moby Grape, etc...).

I have many friends who are music fans (not musicians), and from all I've seen since the 70's to the early 90's, all my white friends worshipped Jimi. I don't know any blacks who care for him or even know his music. To them, Jimi Hendrix is nothing but the name of very famous rock guitar player from the 60's.

[judydoggie]

1. Quinny, you're abso-friggin'-lutely right. That'd make a great little bagatelle to throw into a mix for Election Day night, wouldn't it now. But, decisions, decisions, which song would be the slow tune that'd be the basis for it (start of mix)?

2. At this very moment, my assistant, the lovely and delightful Cais is contacting Billboard's research department, as well as finding out if Hendrix's originals are ASCAP or BMI, and contact their research departments, to try to get demographic research, if there is any, about record purchases and whether or not purchasers identified themselves or record stores chose to identify themselves. This may prove my point. (Or, disprove it, at which point I'll eat a big, fresh, fat crow on a webcam for all to see!)

Its all good, guys!!! (Quinny, hang in there, bud! - I think you know what I mean - if not, look at MY "recent posts" and you'll figure it out!)

[NickNack]

Well, as a young black kid growing up in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, NY, Hendrix was an unknown to me. It was my white, high school classmates that raved about his music and wondered how I had never heard of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. When they played "Purple Haze" it was clear to me why I had never heard it. It was acid-rock. Far from soulful, far from danceable and easily dismissable by me and I guess a lot of other blacks at the time. Wasn't exactly the style of music being played on WWRL or WLIB. For me at that age, music was all about the dance, not about "feeding the head".

I say all this because I don't know whether the comment attributed to Nile Rodgers is about "black kids now" or "black kids then". But that was me back then, soul and R&B all the way. It wasn't about disliking him because he sold out or anything else. I didn't really know who he was and I didn't care because I didn't like or understand the style of music.

[Salsoul1975]

I was born five years after Hendrix's death, and although I don't care much for his music, I am not surprised by all the racial politics surrounding his career and whatnot.

Does anybody remember the rock group "Living Color" that cam out in the late 1980's? They were a black rock group that had a few songs that got radio airplay, such as "Cult Of Personality" and "Glamour Boys". Then they disappeared from the mainstream music scene. As far as I knew, only Whites raved about them. Same for Tracy Chapman. She was a singer-songwriter in the folk genre who had two well-known songs: "Fast Car" and "Give Me One Reason". Okay, so what is the point of all this? Consider this: when black artists step out of the established R&B/Hip-Hop barrier and record music of a different sort, they are going to be stigmatized, more or less, by blacks but praised by Whites, and therefore they will be labelled "sell-outs" and whatnot. It is from my knowledge that Hendrix joined Band Of Gypsies as a half-hearted nod to "black power" that was prevalent at the time; perhaps he had felt some degree of guilt playing and associating with non-black artists. This type of "guilt" plagued Whitney Houston. Up until her meeting with Bobby Brown, she was sort of a Dionne Warwick of the 1980's, a black singer who wasn't easy to pigeonhole. Her music was R&B enough to make the pop charts and pop enough to make the R&B charts, as well as the AC chart. Her music was sassy, emotive, and polished and helped represent Arista records in the mid-1980's. Eventually, she got hit with the criticisms of not being "black" enough or whatever, and then in an attempt to make good with her peeps, she meets Bobby Brown and then it is downhill from there. Not only does she lose credibility and gloss, she is just another pothead "diva".

If you read articles regarding Nile Rodgers and Chic, Rodgers once said he only formed Chic in order to get a record deal, because disco music was the only kind of music that could get black artists a recording contract. He had formed a punk group called Allah and the Knife-Wielding Punks prior to 1977, and it went nowhere. There is no doubt that Rodgers was yet another artist involved with disco who also suffers from the guilt syndrome so common with disco artists.

This is very off-topic, but I would be interested to hear from anyone who is an aficianado of doo-wop music. This genre which develped from mainly black vocal groups of the 1930's-1950's became very successful and provided some of the earliest R&B/pop crossover successes in popular music. Ironically, these days the overwhelming majority of doo-wop listeners and aficianados are White (predominately of Italian descent), as are the recently formed doo-wop groups.

[Nano]

On this train of thoughts, would it be right to say that the black audience didn't care for Chic records either? Being that they did "sell out" for disco music.
Living Colour was a great, great band. I had the privilege to see them playing live in 1993. One of the best live bands I ever saw, and believe me I saw many. They recently reformed and played in Brazil, but Vernon Reid said they're still seeing if it's worth it to do new records and tours.
Living Colour were "discovered" by Mick Jagger, who I think produced their first album (at least he sang on it). I read about reggae artists (even Bob Marley) being regarded as sellouts or "commercial" because they did tour the USA or, like Peter Tosh, signed a contract with Rolling Stones Records.

Another question: were Motown artists considered sellouts by blacks?

And about Hendrix: George Clinton for one seemed to dig Jimi from the beginning. I was surprised in discovering this a few years ago, hearing Funkadelic's "Maggot brain" LP from '71.

[originalbigm]

Originally Posted by Nano

On this train of thoughts, would it be right to say that the black audience didn't care for Chic records either? Being that they did "sell out" for disco music.

Wasn't reflected in the Billboard Charts

1978 C'est Chic Black Albums 1
1978 C'est Chic Pop Albums 4
1978 Chic Black Albums 12
1978 Chic Pop Albums 27
1979 Risque Black Albums 2
1979 Risque Pop Albums 5
1980 Real People Black Albums 8
1980 Real People Pop Albums 30

Compared to the Pop charts which would be predominately the "white" demographic.They seemed to have faired much better with the "black" demographic

[Nano]

So the only "sellouts" for blacks were the ones that took acid and didn't care for dance songs. :)

[DJ Jimmy M]

Iv'e actualy always looked at Chic as an r&b/funk and jazz group that did the few disco tracks here and there. Im a fan so I can say..if you have the actual full LPs..when you listen you hear pure r&b/funk and jazz aside from the few pop disco tracks here and there. A few pure jazz tracks are "Sao Paulo" (although there is a 12'' mix which makes it more on the disco side), "Savior Fare", "Falling In Love With You" (R&B/Jazz Balad), "Tavern On The Green" (a nice accustic guitar jazz instrumental)..could go on and on through the discography and pick various tracks of this nature. I really hate when people try to put Chic in the disco catogory cause..they really wernt all around aside from the singles.

[Nano]

You're probably right Jimmy... There always was a hidden jazz player in Nile Rodgers' playing. "Sao Paulo" reminds me a lot of George Benson's "Breezin'", and Benson is obviously one of his idols as a guitar player.
"Savoir faire" is one of the best Chic tracks ever, IMHO. It makes you desire he played more solos alongside those disco tracks.

[DJ Jimmy M]

Oh yes defenatly...actualy the tracks I mentioned are some of my fave Chic tracks.