I found this response by Sanford Moore to the recent American Association of Advertising Agencies (aka 4A's) Leadership Conference in San Francisco. It seems he wasn't very happy with all the pontification without representation. He's been a courageous advocate for 40 years. There they discussed the so-called "hot button topic" of diversity. Diversity... hot-button topic? Its like Twenty - 10, can we get this right and move on? So, Mr. Moore decided to "Set it off" on the "Good Foot" like a the "No.1 Soul Brother" and tell'em what it's like to be Black in Advertising "Living in America" and show'em that "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag."
"More obfuscation and me(n)dacity in the form of hiring kids, mentoring and college programs rather than hiring professionals and promoting those within the ranks. At least Dan Wieden was honest that Mad Ave is filled with "middle-class, white kids making enormous sums of money to target inner-city consumers." This is not irony, it is racial arrogance of the highest form which makes it permissable to have creatives who only know about inner-city consumers vicariously. These same agencies use this talent to pilfer, to "carpetbag" urban/ethnic assignements to the exclusion of Black ad agencies and Black creative talent.
It is not irony, it is "Whiteploitation" of Black culture, lifestyle and creativity just like it was in the music industry when white artists like Elvis, Pat Boone, Tom Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, ad nauseum copied, stole, "covered" original Black recording artists who were banned from white radio stations. These and numerous other white artists made their careers on the backs of Black creative and performing genius. The same exclusion happened in pro-sports permitting generations of white players to become stars while Blacks of superior talent were banned from competing.
This is not irony, its called "Jim Crow" and is the foremost cultural exponent of America's artistic and creative footprint. Let's quit the crap and call it for what it is. The Mad Men on Mad Ave have excluded Black talent, appropriated Black culture and reaped the financial, career rewards of this exploitation for generations.
But nothing lasts forever...and that's why the Mad Men are going to face financial and reputational "clawback" for the blatant "picking of Black minds" while leaving Black talent to pick cotton. Indeed "Cotton" has come to Mad Ave and as the, late, great James Brown said, "It's the Big Payback." Steal that!"
Sanford Moore
See the actual article at Ad Age. https://sites.google.com/site/mayuradocs/PinIt.png
7 comments:
I love the covers...thanks for the informative info. I always thought that we weren't represented in the Ad Agencies.
This is revisionist nonsense! Elvis and Jerry Lee stole NOTHING. The sounds of the delta belonged as much to them as any other musician that came out of the 1950s, and Tom Jones has as much in common with Pat Boone as Count Basie has with Lawrence Welk!
Did Ray Charles "steal" the white people's music when he covered Country & Western?
James Brown specifically mentioned Tom Jones as someone who sang with soul, when he was interviewed by Johnny Carson. About Elvis he said: "I wasn’t just a fan, I was his brother."
Jackie Wilson went so far as to say: “People have accused Elvis of stealing the black man’s music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis."
How about a few words from Chuck Berry: “Describe Elvis Presley? He was the greatest who ever was, is, or will ever be."
In closing, let me quote the great Al Green, who said: “Elvis had an influence on everybody with his musical approach.”
We only hire surburban white kids, and pay them loads of money to market sneakers and hiphop culture to black kids, who white kids try to emulate.--dan wieden
Couldnt have said it any better.Thats so messed up on so many moral levels.
@ Fact Checker, Thanks for commenting but this post was not really about music and musicians. It was about the current state of the advertising industry and it's preferential hiring practices. What you are calling "revisionist" is simply events written from another point of view with in most cases with an equal validity as your sources. In other cases the same poor references as yours. Everything came from something else, and African American music was as influential then as it is right now. But if a variety of voices are not heard writing this new "history," we may well see passages forty years from now talk about how Eminem and the Beastie Boys put rap music on the map while ignoring the under lying culture of Hip Hop and it's true creators, the seminal origin of this music, all together. The music references were simply denoting the similarities in denial and misrepresentation in music of that day as in the advertising world today.
P.S. Country music has the same roots as all American Pop, rock, jazz, rap, folk, etc. Perhaps you should turn an unbiased eye to your fact checking of where American popular music really comes from. From Elvis to Led Zepplin to Jerry Lee Lewis to Eminen the fact remains they would have no career if it were not for the black musicians before them.
Thanks for a well articulated response; you are so eloquent that I don’t know whether to applaud or disagree with you! I may have come off a little too strong and slightly overshot with my initial comments. I am sorry if I came across as hailing Elvis & co at the expense of black performers and originators, which was not my intent.
I realize that the target of this post was a well argued jab at advertising, and I have no dog in that race.
I am just getting tired of Presley (and other white performers like him) not getting his/their due, and being derided by many of today’s critics and performers, even being (falsely) called racist.
That is why I felt it necessary to prove (with quotes) that this modern day animosity was never expressed from any of Elvis’ contemporaries while he was living.
My point is that Elvis and Jerry Lee cannot, and should not, be denied their rightful place alongside performers like say James Brown and Chuck Berry. Nor should they be exalted at the expense of their black contemporaries or the performers that came before them.
[I still take issue with anyone that says that Tom Jones is not capable of being as soulful as say Stevie Wonder or Aretha Franklin (both of whom he has collaborated with) just because he is a white European; such a statement is downright xenophobic.]
You are absolutely right that most of today’s music can directly trace it’s lineage to African American originators. But what has made American music so unique is the collaboration between the races; one would be hard pressed to find a better example of that than Stax Records, in my opinion the greatest soul/ R&B/ funk label that has ever existed, founded by white C&W fiddle player Jim Stewart. Stax’s house bands; Booker T & the MG’s and the Mar-Keys were fully integrated bands decades before such a thing became politically correct.
The very marriage of Jazz and Standards (Broadway tunes born in the European operetta tradition) is perhaps the greatest proof of how American music reflects the US itself, as the Great Melting Pot. [The Sinatra/Basie collaborations are recognized as highlights in both respective careers.]
I fully understand that people have an aversion to Elvis being described as “The King”; he disliked it intensely himself. When a reporter referred to him as “The King of Rock ’n’ Roll” at a 1969 press conference he not only rejected the title, he instead called attention to the presence in the room of his friend Fats Domino, describing him in so many words as the REAL King of Rock ’n’ Roll. He even went so far as to reprimand fans at a concert holding up an “Elvis is The King” banner, by reminding them that “there is only one King, and that is Jesus Christ”.
Racism has kept many black performers from getting their just due, which has understandably generated a justified amount of resentment. I just wish that that justified anger would not be taken out on artists who did get their due.
The postscript puzzles me; surely you don’t mean to imply that the only American music form universally acknowledged to be “white” – Country – also owes its roots to black musicians? I know I may have initially overshot a little bit, but c’mon…
Well, I'll just say every time I see Tom Jones trying to rap, I bust out laughing.
Exhibit A
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