Not gone away...and how we're all meant to be racists
May 21, 2007
No, not even away fishing. I did worry that Salut! Live would get off to a slow start and so it has proved.
Apologies for that. The other two blogs, and the inconvenient need to earn a living, have got in the way a little.
I am compiling a follow up to the 1990s list, which will of course be called The Best of the Century, so far.....
To be consistent (pipe down anyone who muttered 'that'd be a first'), I will restrict myself to albums I have voted best of the year since 2000.
And in the meantime, if you want to see how an interesting article in the Guardian got my goat, and the excellent and thoughtful replies my riposte drew from readers of the paper's Comment is Free site, go to this link.
Two writers, Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor, argued in a deliberately provocative taster to their new book, Faking It: the Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music, that racism was at the root of what we call folk music today. I considered this to be nonsense, and said as much.
It's too late to add comments at Comment is Free but feel free to add any thoughts here. On the continuation page, I shall let you see what I wrote on the subject but leave it to you to explore the comments that my article attracted.
* Inspired by racists? No, I don't think so either.
The photograph of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, which is much clearer when clicked upon, is listed at Flickr as being in the public domain. Picture credit: US Information Agency. Press and Publications Service via Ping News.
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