As much as I enjoy the song (it’s not only a great song but it kinda washes memories out of the sidewalk too), I can’t fail to notice that Ben E. King is the black guy America loved to like/accept.
He has a fake softness/plasticity black singers in the 30’s used to have, a clownish melodramatic “sensitivity” that made them suitable for the bigger, white audiences. Richard Pryor took these stereotypes and threw them to the popular culture’s garbage can.
Thank you Richard, you weren’t great but you were ok.
No comments:
Post a Comment