I don't believe that at all.
Im curious to hear Stones fans' thoughts on this tired myth.
I recently watched Dreamgirls and Cadillac Records....and both movies, white-produced, perpetuate that myth and it always sounds racist to me when its perpetuated by a black artist, and just ignorant when its a white person.
Elvis gets most of the brunt of it. He has been characterized as the embodiment of the white man's bastardization of blues, soul, R&B... you name it.
The white guy who got rich singing the black man's music etc...
In the most simplistic terms, I guess you could say that, but musically, its an ignorant, blasphemous myth that many, most people still believe.
Its bullshit, always has been. And its just stupid when white people say it.
I always love reading about how Houndog composing team Lieber and Stoller, two white Jewish guys who used to slum in Harlem because they romanticized the African-American culture, dismissed Elvis because he sounded too white. They thought this hillbilly was trying to sound black and they laughed at him. Never took him seriously, and yet, Elvis' connection to "black music" was probably more authentic, organic than that of these uptown Brill Building hipsters.
WHat they, and alot of black and white Northerners, could not seem to quite grasp is that Elvis was a product of the poor, rural South, where, segregated or not, poor blacks and whites lived in the same places, ate the same kind of foods, and more importantly, shared musical commonalities, whether it was gospel or pentecostal music, country and blues music.....Like one white Stax musican once said, "There was black and there was white, but poor was poor..."
Unlike in New York, where, for the most part, black and white, rich and poor, did lived separately back then, Southern people lived in an integrated culture, whether they liked it or not. That is why ugly bigotry was able to thrive so long and so nakedly...because it was not below the surface...but as Jerry Wexler learned when he went down to Memphis and Muscle Shoals, the Southern black had more in common with the Southern white than he did with the Northern white or black.
Just as Elvis loved gospel, Ray Charles, Rufus Thomas, Otis Redding etc...grew up with the Grand Ole Opry....and you can hear their country influences.
No one stole anything...(and Pat Boone singing a LIttle Richard song does not count)
LIke Keith so perfectly described rock and roll in Exile, it was a combination of blues, country, black and white....
And Elvis was the most complete example of that.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-01 02:36 by stupidguy2.

Jimmie Rodgers borrowed from some of the blacks he heard as a
rail worker then his style influenced alotta white boys and many of the black blues artists..

Heck even Wolf built his blues howl around Rodgers country yodel ......



ROCKMAN

As far as actual STEALING of Black Music I have to give the honors to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.....

I always this anecdote about Charlie Parker. He was depressed, in a bar and at the jukebox, kept playing Hank Williams' "Im so Lonesome I Could Cry" over and over.. A friend asked why he was playing that "hillbilly" music, he said, 'That's some real lonesome blues...'
And Porter Wagnor listened to Otis Redding....


I think real musicians who connected to the music understood that it about emotion and sincerity.

Elvis Presley like The Rolling Stones started by playing the music they loved and felt confortable playing.It was not obvious at the beginning of their careers that "blues" music played by white dudes was going to lead to notoriety and success. They both helped popularized the blues and the originals musicians who created it more than anything else.In that regard they "helped themselves" but they also gave back quite a lot. No stealing for me.
Rock and Roll,
Mops

Johnny Shines roamed around with Robert Johnson and often claimed
that live Johnson would play the hits of the day inc Bing Crosby material



ROCKMAN

How would one draw the line between influence and stealing? Would giving credit be enough? Elvis had a blues streak but only after Philips advised him to sing a blues tunes after several country songS went flat during a recording session at Sun. I also don't think that in the beginning Elvis was aware enough that the music was all that different. It was just music to him. But I could be wrong. He did get away and do less and less blues as he got older.

Go Dawgs!

Sure, and Beethoven 'stole' from Mozart.

Stolen Kisses Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Faaaaaaaaaa....

2 1 2 0

...and Mozart from Haydn and Haydn from Persgolesi and Pergolesi from Bach and Bach from Buxtehude and Buxtehude from Palestrina and Palestrina from the Apaches....

2 1 2 0

In Zep's case? Its way past the line of influence....I sill dig it but the blues cats shouldnt have had to fight for their cut.

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rollmops
Elvis Presley like The Rolling Stones started by playing the music they loved and felt confortable playing.It was not obvious at the beginning of their careers that "blues" music played by white dudes was going to lead to notoriety and success. They both helped popularized the blues and the originals musicians who created it more than anything else.In that regard they "helped themselves" but they also gave back quite a lot. No stealing for me.
Rock and Roll,
Mops

This isn't any kind of criticism or anything to your post Mops, it just seemed like a good point of reference for mine.

Elvis was just as happy singing Old Shep and How Great Thou Art, as he was anything else. If Elvis, along with Scotty and Bill, hadn't started messing around with Arthur Crudup's That's All Right during a break at Sun, AND if it hadn't caught Sam Phillips ear like it did, Elvis likely would of stayed a truck driver for Crown Electric. They went through twenty other things that night that had nothing to do with the blues before they stumbled upon That's All Right.

It was a fluke. Elvis didn't "steal" shit.

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scottkeef
As far as actual STEALING of Black Music I have to give the honors to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.....

As Homer said in the Simpsons "there's Jimmy Page, one of the greatest thieves of American black music ever to walk the Earth,"

If Elvis stole black music then the Stones are the kingpens of the thievery of black music.

Elvis didn't steal anything.
Its all credited to the proper authors.

It could be argued that he completely reinvented 'That's Alright Mama', but ALL the credit goes to Crudup.

That is simply not stealing unless Otis Redding 'stole' Satisfaction, or The Jeff Beck Group 'stole' Jailhouse Rock or Townes Van Zandt 'stole' Dead Flowers!!!

Not stealing, influenced and made Rock and Roll popular around the globe

__________________________

Regarding the subject of "stealing black people music" I've always thrown it back:

You think Elvis stole black people's music? So, in other words, black people should sing "black people music" and white people should sing "white people music." So, who's the racist here?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-01 23:20 by Justin.

I think we all get it...
But when you watch these movies, documentaries.....its aggravating. In Cadillac Ranch, Chuck Berry spends the whole movies bitching about these white folks stealing my music etc....and its grating...because those who watch these movies believe it.

Even Chuck Berry is influenced

Big You Turner 1938





Big Joe Turner not written by Joe but first released





__________________________

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Justin
Regarding the subject of "stealing black people music" I've always thrown it back:

You think Elvis stole black people's music? So, in other words, black people should sing "black people music" and white people should sing "white people music." So, who's the racist here?

Explain to me how that's racist.

Well I'm calling out the folks who claim was Elvis a racist saying that he stole "black people music."

Following their ridiculous logic: are people saying that white people should only sing white people music and black people should only sing black people's music? The idea of segregating music like that is even more racist than what Elvis ever did--- which was actually share music. Music is for everyone---not limited to one race and Elvis recognized that.

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Justin
Regarding the subject of "stealing black people music" I've always thrown it back:

You think Elvis stole black people's music? So, in other words, black people should sing "black people music" and white people should sing "white people music." So, who's the racist here?

That's pretty far fetched imo.

What the in the world can the fun of music lead to rasism...............music doesn´t know rasism

__________________________

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rollmops
Elvis Presley like The Rolling Stones started by playing the music they loved and felt confortable playing.It was not obvious at the beginning of their careers that "blues" music played by white dudes was going to lead to notoriety and success. They both helped popularized the blues and the originals musicians who created it more than anything else.In that regard they "helped themselves" but they also gave back quite a lot. s

Mops, I quoted most of what you said here, am in much agreement with your wisely stated words.

I think the issue that might be hard for a lot of us to understand is the sadness and anger while watching how others profited from music originated by those
who were getting neither the credit nor the money.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-02 01:39 by angee.

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angee


Mops, I quoted most of what you said here, am in much agreement with your wisely stated words.

I think the issue that might be hard for a lot of us to understand is the sadness and anger while watching how others profited from music originated by those
who were getting neither the credit nor the money.

But that's another issue. That's greedy, ignorant, corporate record companies, managers and company promoters etc...
Elvis, the artists, didn't take money away from anyone.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-02 02:13 by stupidguy2.

Everything you say is 100% true in varying degrees. When I hear the question about Elvis and the Beatles stealing black music, I always think about an interview with Ben E. King, and he said when the Beatles hit, it was all over for black performers. He said, 'Wtf are we gonna do, grow bangs and all that?' It was sad the way he put it. Like the white audiences had been waiting for it all along. The ballads were over. No more crooning. He said they took it farther in a lot of respects. He just threw his hands up and the like.
If you think about it, from the time that Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry had gotten busted in '59, and Buddy Holly died that same year, and Motown starts up in '60 - until '64, the black artists simply dominated. I guess then after that, they end up co-existing and moving the whole thing forward. I feel sorry for the kids today because music is so segregated by race. When I was a teenager in the '70's, the top 40 included music from all different types if artists. There was a bonding there, I think, at least for me it was.

Charlie Gillett - The Sound of the City. An interesting book about all that among other things.

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Brue
I feel sorry for the kids today because music is so segregated by race. When I was a teenager in the '70's, the top 40 included music from all different types if artists. There was a bonding there, I think, at least for me it was.

I try to explain that to my nieces...they think they're so attuned to different kinds of music, but its true, its more segregated than ever. NOt just by race, but genre, clique. Remember when you could hear Ray Stevens and Sly and Family Stone? Music felt like a cultural thing, a shared experience. We all remember Malanie's "Brand New Key", and no one can tell me what kind of song that was....but everybody knew it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-03 02:33 by stupidguy2.

stupidguy2 this is a great post and a very good point you are making.

for years i believed the myth that rock and roll was taken exclusively from the blues and yes,that it had been pretty much stolen.the truth is that country music and jazz had just as much of an influence on the creation of rock and roll than the blues had.

some of the elements of rock such as the swing beat in some of it[charlie watts] come to mind as well as the huge country sound buried in some of the greatest songs.if you listen to real old country from the 30s and 40s the faster songs are basically rock and roll and alot of the musicians were rock stars before it was called that.theres nobody in the modern era that went through more booze, drugs and women than those guys.there was definitely a "rockabilly" before it was called that.just like rock roll itself, elvis is an amalgam of alot of different things.he didnt"steal "anything.

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lem motlow
stupidguy2 this is a great post and a very good point you are making.

for years i believed the myth that rock and roll was taken exclusively from the blues and yes,that it had been pretty much stolen.the truth is that country music and jazz had just as much of an influence on the creation of rock and roll than the blues had.

some of the elements of rock such as the swing beat in some of it[charlie watts] come to mind as well as the huge country sound buried in some of the greatest songs.if you listen to real old country from the 30s and 40s the faster songs are basically rock and roll and alot of the musicians were rock stars before it was called that.theres nobody in the modern era that went through more booze, drugs and women than those guys.there was definitely a "rockabilly" before it was called that.just like rock roll itself, elvis is an amalgam of alot of different things.he didnt"steal "anything.

Lem, did you read my post above, about how Elvis, Scotty, Bill, and Sam Phillips basically stumbled upon That's All Right during a break in recording? It was really Sam Phillips ear that kicked the whole thing with Elvis off. He didn't steal anything, it was an accident. And Arthur Crudup got credit for That's All Right Momma. If he didn't get paid right, that ain't Elvis's fault.

Country didn't just influence rock and roll, it influenced the blues too. Many artists who grew up in the south, like B.B King, have spoken about how they listened to the Grand Ole Opry, just like Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee did.