| Sam [Phillips] always said if he could find a white singer who sounded Black, he'd make a million dollars. In fact, I TOLD HIM THAT, though he always took credit for it. | |  |  | | Believe these blues: Christone "Kingfish" Ingram at New Orleans Jazz Fest, April 29, 2023. | | (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images) | | | | quote of the day | | "Sam [Phillips] always said if he could find a white singer who sounded Black, he'd make a million dollars. In fact, I TOLD HIM THAT, though he always took credit for it." | | - Billy "The Kid" Emerson, 1925 – 2023 | |
| | rantnrave:// | Critical Rock Theory
Long before ELVIS PRESLEY walked into his studio and changed his life—along with the rotation of the Earth and the direction of the universe—SAM PHILLIPS, the founder of SUN RECORDS, dreamed of finding a white singer who could mimic the sound of Black rhythm and blues. The story's been told a million times and sounds apocryphal, but it isn't. Phillips talked openly about it during Presley's rise to fame (as documented, for example, by Presley's definitive biographer, PETER GURALNICK).
Phillips' vision is the microcosm of all rock and roll microcosms. It's the perfect distillation of Western popular music's lengthy history of white artists enriching themselves, and helping to build entire industries, by appropriating the sounds of Black ones, as embodied over and over by artists from Elvis and the ROLLING STONES, to the BEASTIE BOYS and EMINEM, to ED SHEERAN, who's been playing his guitar for the past few days inside a New York courtroom where he stands accused of lifting a song by Black composers. I like Ed Sheeran and I'm not here to declare him actionably guilty. That particular case may or may not have legal merit. I'm here, rather, to declare him part of a very long tradition. And to tell you about BILLY "THE KID" EMERSON, a Black blues, rock and R&B pianist/singer/composer who was signed to Sun Records and who had Sam Phillips' vision before Sam Phillips did.
"Sam always said if he could find a white singer who sounded Black, he'd make a million dollars," Emerson told the Tampa Bay Times' JEFF KLINKENBERG in 2014. "In fact, I TOLD HIM THAT, though he always took credit for it."
The microcosm is its own microcosm. Time is a flat circle. You might not be sure whether you should believe Emerson, who was 88 when he told that story and 97 when he died last week in Tarpon Springs, Fla., the same city where he was born. But the history of popular music and Emerson's own wild ride through a century of innovations, covers, appropriations and slights should be all the evidence you need.
Here's a reading list about a man whose most famous song, "RED HOT," is far better known than he was, whose "WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS" was covered by Elvis, whose "IF LOVIN' IS BELIEVING" was repurposed by BOB DYLAN, who worked in A&R at CHESS RECORDS side by side with WILLIE DIXON, who played with IKE TURNER and SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON, but who, to quote Klinkenberg, "had forgotten to stand in line when the luck was handed out":
* Klinkenberg's wonderful Tampa Bay Times feature, "The Second Coming of Billy the Kid," which Emerson initially wanted no part of. He had long abandoned secular music for a life of gospel and the church and spent a year telling the reporter to leave him and his old rock and roll life alone before agreeing to be interviewed. It chronicles his life story; the many people who wronged him, including Sam Phillips and that dream of his; the many others who benefited from his songs; some what-ifs; his church, and his mixed feelings about the very existence of gospel music, which he, not surprisingly, grew up on.
* Dylan blogger FRED BALS' forensic essay about Dylan's history with Emerson's music and the parallels between his 2020 song "FALSE PROPHET" and Emerson's Sun Records B-side "IF LOVIN' IS BELIEVING."
* Roots guitarist/composer DEKE DICKERSON's brief account of his 2019 encounter with Emerson, who told him he "died, literally" in 1986 and, in Dickerson's words, "lay in the morgue for three days with the cadavers until he was discovered, barely breathing."
* TERENCE MCARDLE's sympathetic Washington Post obituary.
This man's story is red hot, and as wild as the contemporaneous rockabilly cover that simultaneously delivered his most well-known song to history and took it away from him. Every other story in today's newsletter is, comparatively speaking, doodly-squat.
RIP.
Nom Nom Nom
RAUW ALEJANDRO, FEID and BAD BUNNY are the top nominees for PREMIOS TU MÚSICA URBANO, to be awarded in San Juan on June 15... SARA BAREILLES and JOSH GROBAN, stars of two STEPHEN SONDHEIM revivals, are among the nominees for the TONY AWARDS, along with the composers of the country-leaning musical SHUCKED (SHANE MCANALLY and BRANDY CLARK) and the K-pop flop KPOP (HELEN PARK and MAX VERNON). The musical SOME LIKE IT HOT has the most nominations, 13.
Rest in Peace
Editor and columnist IRV LICHTMAN, who spent two decades each at Cashbox and Billboard magazines. An expert in music publishing, he also served on the board of the Songwriters Hall of Fame... JORDAN BLAKE, original singer of the California post-hardcore band A Skylit Drive.
| | - Matty Karas, curator | |
| |  | | Tampa Bay Times |
| | RETRO READ: The second coming of Billy the Kid | | By Jeff Klinkenberg | | Guy on the phone says to "Google 'Billy the Kid' Emerson. He's old now, but he was really famous once. He lives here." // So I Google. An African-American piano player born in Tarpon Springs, Emerson ended up at Sun Records in Memphis. Elvis recorded one of his songs. // Talk to Billy the Kid, implores the anonymous caller. What a story he must have to tell. // In the summer of 2012 I call him... | | | | | |  | | The Washington Post |
| | The Ed Sheeran lawsuit is a threat to Western civilization. Really. | | By Elizabeth Nelson | | Imagine a painter in their studio, sworking on a landscape. The sky is midnight blue. The valley is Kelly green. Mountains loom in the back, a spectacular hue reflecting off a brilliant sunset. The painter reaches for vermillion and then pauses. Wait a second, they think: Does someone own the copyright to this shade of red? | | |  | | Billboard |
| | Where Does Frank Ocean Go From Here? | | By Dave Brooks | | A prominent agent calls his Coachella set "one public blemish in an otherwise brilliant career," while a source says Ocean isn't interested in touring or playing another festival anytime soon. | | | | | | | | your gal ain't doodly-squat |
| |  | | *IN SYNC |
| | *IN SYNC: Wednesday / Goo Goo Muck | | By Rachel Brodsky and Aviv Rubinstien | | Inside Netflix's Wednesday lies a scene where the titular character unleashes her unique personality and style, to the tune of Goo Goo Muck by The Cramps. Rachel and Aviv explore the origins of the track, the origins of Wednesday and her family through pop culture, and how Jenna Ortega's dance swept social media. | | | | | |  | | Slate |
| | MTV Spawned a Second British Invasion | | By Chris Molanphy and Lori Majewski | | The MTV-spawned, 2nd British Invasion saved Gen-X from "listening to our parents' music," says DJ and author Lori Majewski. | | | |  | | Kreative Kontrol |
| | Kreative Kontrol: William Tyler | | By Vish Khanna and William Tyler | | William Tyler discusses his band, The Impossible Truth, and their new live double-album, 'Secret Stratosphere,' Tennessee politics and America in a socio-political stalemate, things that mass and social media have done and does to us, truth, communication, musicians and mental health, future plans, and much more. | | | | what we're into |  | | Music of the day | | "FaceTime" | | billy woods & Kenny Segal ft. Samuel T. Herring | | From "Maps," out Friday on Backwoodz Studioz/Fat Possum. | | |
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| | Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" |
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