Question for DUers

Was it Michael who broke the color barrier or Marley.

Discuss

It depends on your age and when you grew up.

MJ wasn't the first.

There's a great book by Mike Marqusee called Redemption Song and the cultural links of that period.

if I can remember - lol.

I haven't read that book. But I know that the Champ and Sam Cooke were good friends.

Oh, that was something else... never mind.

The color barrier was probably broken by Louis Armstrong.

No?

You're talking music solely, right.

I don't see how Michael broke that barrier since Marley was almost a decade earlier

probably because i grew up in the Midwest in the late 60's/early 70's but guys that played music had nothing to do with jocks. and the only thing jocks had to do with musicians was kicking their asses for stealing their girlfriends.

to this day i can think of nothing that would put sport and music in the same category. to me, the two have always been mutually exclusive. the processes are the antithesis of one another. the creative act is not goal oriented as is sports. music is primarily communication where sports is besting an opponent. this beings said-

if you don't count the Jackson 5 breaking in the 60's- Marley broke first. But the J5 would have been nothing without Michael. Meanwhile- The Wailers (Bunny Wailer Livingston, Peter Tosh and Marley) broke up in 1974 with each of the three main members going on to pursue solo careers. There was no "hit" for Marley until '75 with "No Woman..." from "Natty Dread". But Micheal was already an international star by then... so it's a close call.

... i STILL contend that Louis Armstrong broke the color barrier as international ambassador of music long before either of them.

great thread, malaise!

This whole Michael Jackson thing is the product of a culture with no memory and no depth.

but who broke the barrier - Jack Johnson?
My grand uncle went to his grave saying that Jack Johnson's victory over Jim Jeffries destroyed all racists myths followed by George Headley in cricket destroying the MCC team in 1930. Then there was Jackie. But dad believed Paul Robeson changed views across the world if not in America.

"...if they didn't call it rock 'n' roll, they would have called it Chuck Berry..."

n/t

Berry!

Every one of them chipped away at the barrier.

Sidney Poitier




Johnny Mathis




Chubby Checker



Aretha Franklin

but they didn't break through as Michael did.

That was awesome. The thing is by then we had great cricketers who had shattered all myths of Australian superiority.

They chipped away at it and opened a door. But Michael blew up the building.

What memories!

But, we're very parochial here. I didn't even get to hear Marley until one of my sons brought him home because I was dancing so fast in school and at work. (Thanks, Nicky!)

Your radio free hours are limited. :)

:D

They could have been gun nuts instead. lol

I honestly can't remember how I happened to get turned on to Bob Marley in the 70s, but I was totally into him.

I also can't really remember how it happened that his tours took him to Minneapolis, but he was here 4 times and I didn't miss a single time. Every concert, I talked more friends into coming along with me to see him -- and all of them were blown away and delighted that I had talked them into going.

The thing is, I grew up listening to Robert Johnson, Nat King Cole, Johhny Mathis, the Platters -- all kinds of black musicians and singers long before Motown, even before Little Richard and all the various black musicians of the early rock era.

Michael Jackson had absolutely no effect on my life. He belonged to the MTV generation, which had nothing to do with my own experience of music. I didn't even own a TV in those days.

sw

I listened to all of those but MJ was also a part of my music mostly because of the next generation.

I mean, give me credit for remembering the Platters, fer goshsakes -- did YOU listen to them growing up?

Now get off my damn lawn!

that pushed the boundries a little farther....

The color barrier was broken long before Michael or Marley

Michael and Marley took huge leaps....

But I do know there were a shitload of people just as influential as "King Mike". Music itself has pretty much always been considered the universal language.

I think some people don't get how profound that was.

had crushes on them both.

At what point in time?

We talk about historical events as though it's "one size fits all." What worked for one generation, sucked for another; or had to be repeated.

History is not static; nor linear; nor always exact.

It is a continuum. And circular.

ETA: circular comment.

but M$Greedia is pretending life began with MTV

Yeah, that was gross. But appropriate.

:hi:

change. I think there are fundamental moments that led to a change in attitudes in several generations.

Much like willful ignorance.

When "news" became about profits, "news" became about nothing resembling news.

history. I didn't hear Sam Cooke's name once these past nearly two weeks and he was very influential.

I once worked along side a "communications/journalist" professor.

The "new" standards in "journalism" have little to do with journalism and much to do with profit margins and job acquisition. "Cultural history," not so much.

I now understand my parents (and their parents and their parents before them) complaints about "this younger generation."

It makes me sad.

in the mid 50's)

And didn't Michael Jackson have several brothers in a group early in his career? Surely they count for something.

"Baker was the first African American female to star in a major motion picture, to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer." (Wikipedia)

Also Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Billie Holliday, Marian Anderson, and so many others who helped to break the "color barrier" in music and entertainment.

The Paris connection helped

By the time Clinton won, that no longer worked. A lot of things happened in the 80s involving race--Prince, Michael Jordan, Spike Lee, Doug Williams. But Michael Jackson was the first and biggest of those influences.

Michael Jackson was the first black man most white girls had a crush on, and openly admitted it. He was the first black man most white kids wanted to be like, and dress like, and dance like. He was the first one I saw break down the color barrier--and I don't mean the way Jackie Robinson did, by forcing whites to accept African Americans into their world, but I mean the first to make people--popular culture--no longer care about race.

Yeah, racism is still there, and still bad, and we all saw that during the elections, and we have a long way to go. But Michael Jackson changed my generation. My generation could vote for Barrack Obama because they had already learned to see beyond race--not perfectly, maybe, and not everyone--to the person inside the skin.

If you draw up Michael Jackson's resume, and left off the part about being a pop star, all these idiots who are screaming that he doesn't deserve all the attention would start screaming that the media was ignoring a great man, a great liberal. Jackson worked for Civil Rights. Jackson donated millions to fight hunger, he organized benefits and recorded songs that earned in the hundreds of millions. He worked for the Democrats as a fundraiser, and played at Clinton's inauguration. He worked for peace, he worked for the environment, and jokes aside, he worked for children's causes. He was as strong a force here as Bob Geldoff was in England.

He was someone anyone claiming to be a liberal should respect. The fact that many don't seem to know that is just another sign that our media is still working for the other side, and that a lot of liberals still haven't figured that out.

Thanks

And hell - he even wrote his own stuff and on some albums played all the instruments ... There is showmanship and then there is talent. I'm a fan of talent.

when her first grandson phoned her on her birthday and sang I Just Called to Say I love you.

From way back when he was a wonder kid...

Still do!

But Michael also wrote much of his stuff, arranged the music, and choreographed his own shows. Stevie is also a fan of Michael's talent.

I think there's room for appreciation of all kinds of talent.

:hi:

:-)

movies, too.

Bob probably had the higher hurdles in the US, at least. Who ever heard of reggae in this country before him?

WBLS with Frankie Crocker in New York played a lot of early rock steady and reggae was heard particularly on weekends.

urban neighborhood, but the Platters and the Paragons and the Jesters were the music he listened to as a small boy. His tastes may have gravitated later to Steppenwolf and the Doors, but the contributions of African-American artists were always a part of rock'n'roll as was experienced back in the day--or in Philadelphia, anyhow. The Italian-American artists who rose in the charts when radio tried to whiten up the music lived just blocks away from the writers who came into their own in the soul revolution of the late sixties and seventies. But if you really loved rock music, and soul music, you were always listening to Jackie Wilson, and Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and all of them. I don't know if Bob Marley was on *Dad's* record queue. But I know my mom saw Jimi Hendrix in concert.

And for me, my earliest musical memories are probably of Stevie Wonder. His Talking Bookcame out the year I was born, and Innervisions a year later--but that's what I remember coming up, along with the Jackson 5 cartoon. But throughout the 70's, Al Green was out there, Marvin Gaye was out there, we had the Commodores. Lionel Richie's solo stuff. I do not remember the color barrier as being something that needed broken. In my lifetime, it was already broken. My generational cohort grooved to Parliament Funk and the Time and Prince and MJJ, and Living Color. In the '80's, I wanted to be Tina Turner when I grew up. If there was a barrier, I guess it was porous.

Maybe Little Richard did do it, with the help of Levi Stubbs on one hand, and Buddy Holly on the other. Or maybe we can all blame Dick Clark, and all that dancing on Bandstand. Or maybe the music really is a natural connection between people regardless of our backgrounds, and always draws us together because it calls out what is most human and good within us.

I don't know. All I know is the first album I really had to get (beside a Kiss Greatest Hits--wow--that did not stand up) was Thriller. I sang to it and copied out dance moves just like I tried to do Olivia Newton John in Grease. But to me, Micheal was more like someone I knew. And I guess I always felt that way--my brother/friend Michael--whose music is always there. Until now. I honestly think I thought he would grow up first before he died, and not have seemed more a younger brother to me in my lifetime before he was made part of the ages. Seeing his baby girl speak at his funeral only made me cry the more for this brother I didn't know. I seriously wish his children well, because they will need good will to face the defamation of a man who died too soon and can't defend himself anymore.

I might have aped the Beatles or Dylan from the cradle, but the first joint I danced to by choice was probably the Jacksons.

"ABC-123 Baby you and me!"

So for me--it would have been Micheal.

opened your mind to Jackson - no?

Peanut Butter!

As much as I respect the Prophet Bob Marley, he came of age after the barriers were down. It wasn't any one person, it was the many people who produced and were influenced by the relatively unknown black musicians in the US in the late '50s and early '60s. The barrier was crushed when the most talented group, The Beatles, came to the US. I have a lot of old articles by the right-wing christian ministers of the time, warning about how The Beatles were a communist plot to introduce white teens to the terrible influence of black music. (They hated Ringo's drumming the most, until John's infamous quote about popularity hit the US press!)

but I think it was the civil rights and anti-war movement musicians who facilitated Marley's rise.

but many others came along too:)

But, was blacklisted for the latter because of Communist Party affiliations.

He didn't give a damn about Robeson's ideology - he just loved his music.
I think the fact that Robeson was involved in sport, music and academics had a profound influence on my father's generation across the globe.