In my SOS roots blog, I will be talking about the true essence of the black spirituals created by the slaves in America. The spirituals were born in the back fields, because that’s where the slaves worked. I’m tired of the spirituals being devalued in there original form just because they were created by unknown slaves. What’s wrong with the spirituals in their original form? Are their humble beginnings their down fall? Since the slaves created this music without the standard musical scale why not honor such an amazing achievement? I say no more bulling of the spirituals, these are secret sacred songs of our ancestors who made a way out of no way to create a music so beautiful that many musical genre’s have been created out of the spirituals sound. An historical perspective and my opinion stands firm with Langston Hughes who says it best in his poem:
WORDS TO NOTES ON COMMERCIAL THEATRE
Langston Hughes
You’ve taken my blues and gone–
You sing ’em on Broadway
And you sing ’em in Hollywood Bowl,
And you mixed ’em up with symphonies
And you fixed ’em
So they don’t sound like me.
Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.
You also took my spirituals and gone.
You put me in MacBeth and Carmen Jones
And all kinds of Swing Mikados
And in everything but what’s about me–
But someday somebody’ll
Stand up and talk about me,
And write about me–
Black and beautiful–
And sing about me,
And put on plays about me!
I reckon it’ll be
Me myself!
Yes, it’ll be me.
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