Now here's something to tread warily around;
minstrel shows (in the form of white people applying blackface makeup to play
black people) have been 'entertaining' the public since the early nineteenth
century. That's the basic fact. This isn't really the place to go into that in
any detail, and I'm not going to mount any particular defence or damnation of it
either*, but what I will say is that the
modern incarnation of the phenomena is probably best typified (for me anyway) by
the BBC's 'The Black And White Minstrel Show' which, under the guide of Scottish
musician George Mitchell, had a baffling popularity in the UK during the sixties
and seventies. It's something that's now frequently held up as a good example of
the kind of bad casual racism that pervaded the seventies, but though I remember
the show being on television when I was growing up, any racist overtones or
undertones passed straight over my head - my 'problem' was that I simply could
not see the point of it all.
Which I suppose brings me neatly to this record, a 1969 release that's obviously designed to cash in on the popularity of that show. The people behind this though are not the George Mitchell minstrels; this is the 'Music For Pleasure Minstrel Show' as backed by Alyn Ainsworth's orchestra and singers who, over two sides of vinyl offer up eight medleys of songs loosely connected with either the Minstrel tradition, the American south or with British music hall/vaudeville. It's a heady mix, not helped by the fact that each song within the medley is presented as little more than a taster of the whole. A full verse is about the most you ever get before it's on to the next one, and with such a variety of genres and backgrounds on display it's difficult to keep up with the rush.
And maybe that's deliberate - the big drawback with all this is that, in the absence of the visuals (i.e. white men in blackface mugging around), the whole focal point of the enterprise disappears into the ether; a minstrel show on record is like ventriloquism on the radio - there's a vital dimension to the proposition that's missing. In other words - and despite the title - there's no 'show'. I don't know if the players here blacked up before they started recording (and I'm guessing they did not), but it doesn't really matter either way - if I'd been handed this record on a white label in a plain cover then I would have struggled to make any connection at all with minstrels. In fact, this could have been packaged in a suitable olde tyme cover as a British music hall revivalist album and no one (i.e. me) would have been much the wiser or in any way offended.
As it is, the lead male vocalists do lapse into a kind of patois on occasion that kind of sounds like a loose - albeit stereotypical - approximation of how a stereotypical black man might sing, but mostly they don't. When this is combined with the massed female backing vocals of Ainsowrth's very English troupe then it all couldn't sound more white if it were bled dry then bleached. And yes, I know this makes it sound like I'm disappointed it's not full of lip flapping 'where am dat watty mellin' mannerisms, but I'm not. Most definitely not.
Because if it was then I'd be having a go at it for different reasons, but the fact remains that its shortcomings create the dichotomy of my finding it very hard to be offended by it when modern mores suggest that I should be (though if I were George Mitchell or the BBC then I'd probably have been very offended by this brazen attempt to muscle in on my action), and then finding that it singularly fails to set out what it's meant to do. For which it can only garner criticism.
If we're meant to close our eyes and imagine a stage full of mugging performers in blackface, then I'd personally find that more offensive than actually seeing them do it, but I don't think that's the case. Because in truth all Music For Pleasure were doing was exploiting the popularity of an existing medium; they didn't popularise the underlying exploitation. For that we have to 'blame' the great British public who provided the cultural climate that allowed them to do it.
All of which is taking me down the road of defence and/or damnation that I said upfront I wasn't going to travel down. So let me conclude by saying the record on it's own is a rather bland and insipid 'singalong' affair that in no way makes me want to 'singalong' and would require any listener who would to to have an impressive recall of the lyrics of some forty two songs. As a complete package, it's a rather bland and insipid 'singalong' affair with dated racist overtones.
* Though the back cover note does it best to do the former but ends up doing the latter in a rather giving with one hand and taking with the other manner:
"There are some who regard minstrel shows as an unfortunate parody of the Negro and there is little doubt that the early minstrel shows did help impart the mistaken idea that coloured people were merely rather simple, happy-go-lucky folk. But, surely, the Negro has now proved beyond doubt that he is capable and willing to play an important role in modern society? The minstrel show of today is no more a parody of the Negro than a clown is a parody of the European. No, the blacking up of faces and the "coon" costume has no racialist undertones and those who read offence into it are perhaps a little guilty of intolerance themselves"
Well, that's sorted that out. Good luck in court.
Which I suppose brings me neatly to this record, a 1969 release that's obviously designed to cash in on the popularity of that show. The people behind this though are not the George Mitchell minstrels; this is the 'Music For Pleasure Minstrel Show' as backed by Alyn Ainsworth's orchestra and singers who, over two sides of vinyl offer up eight medleys of songs loosely connected with either the Minstrel tradition, the American south or with British music hall/vaudeville. It's a heady mix, not helped by the fact that each song within the medley is presented as little more than a taster of the whole. A full verse is about the most you ever get before it's on to the next one, and with such a variety of genres and backgrounds on display it's difficult to keep up with the rush.
And maybe that's deliberate - the big drawback with all this is that, in the absence of the visuals (i.e. white men in blackface mugging around), the whole focal point of the enterprise disappears into the ether; a minstrel show on record is like ventriloquism on the radio - there's a vital dimension to the proposition that's missing. In other words - and despite the title - there's no 'show'. I don't know if the players here blacked up before they started recording (and I'm guessing they did not), but it doesn't really matter either way - if I'd been handed this record on a white label in a plain cover then I would have struggled to make any connection at all with minstrels. In fact, this could have been packaged in a suitable olde tyme cover as a British music hall revivalist album and no one (i.e. me) would have been much the wiser or in any way offended.
As it is, the lead male vocalists do lapse into a kind of patois on occasion that kind of sounds like a loose - albeit stereotypical - approximation of how a stereotypical black man might sing, but mostly they don't. When this is combined with the massed female backing vocals of Ainsowrth's very English troupe then it all couldn't sound more white if it were bled dry then bleached. And yes, I know this makes it sound like I'm disappointed it's not full of lip flapping 'where am dat watty mellin' mannerisms, but I'm not. Most definitely not.
Because if it was then I'd be having a go at it for different reasons, but the fact remains that its shortcomings create the dichotomy of my finding it very hard to be offended by it when modern mores suggest that I should be (though if I were George Mitchell or the BBC then I'd probably have been very offended by this brazen attempt to muscle in on my action), and then finding that it singularly fails to set out what it's meant to do. For which it can only garner criticism.
If we're meant to close our eyes and imagine a stage full of mugging performers in blackface, then I'd personally find that more offensive than actually seeing them do it, but I don't think that's the case. Because in truth all Music For Pleasure were doing was exploiting the popularity of an existing medium; they didn't popularise the underlying exploitation. For that we have to 'blame' the great British public who provided the cultural climate that allowed them to do it.
All of which is taking me down the road of defence and/or damnation that I said upfront I wasn't going to travel down. So let me conclude by saying the record on it's own is a rather bland and insipid 'singalong' affair that in no way makes me want to 'singalong' and would require any listener who would to to have an impressive recall of the lyrics of some forty two songs. As a complete package, it's a rather bland and insipid 'singalong' affair with dated racist overtones.
* Though the back cover note does it best to do the former but ends up doing the latter in a rather giving with one hand and taking with the other manner:
"There are some who regard minstrel shows as an unfortunate parody of the Negro and there is little doubt that the early minstrel shows did help impart the mistaken idea that coloured people were merely rather simple, happy-go-lucky folk. But, surely, the Negro has now proved beyond doubt that he is capable and willing to play an important role in modern society? The minstrel show of today is no more a parody of the Negro than a clown is a parody of the European. No, the blacking up of faces and the "coon" costume has no racialist undertones and those who read offence into it are perhaps a little guilty of intolerance themselves"
Well, that's sorted that out. Good luck in court.
No comments:
Post a Comment