Since discovering the brilliance of Skip James on YouTube I've been regularly making time for some of those long-ago merchants of the blues, who somehow contrive to sound so immediately in the moment. Today I treated myself to a taste of Blind Willie McTell, of whom it has been said, or rather sung, that No One Can Sing The Blues Like...
Isn't it strange that a nice white middle-class Jewish boy understood that great truth? And not only understood it, but made us all aware of it at the deepest level of feeling. And was able to do that more than once.
When folks mutter about cultural appropriation and insist on the politics of identity they should be made to listen to that which transcends all politics all race all identity and simply embodies human truths.
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