Black Music Sunday is a weekly sequence highlighting all issues Black music, with over 270 tales masking performers, genres, historical past, and extra, every that includes its personal vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll discover some acquainted tunes and maybe an introduction to one thing new.
Music lovers and appreciators have been talking out forcefully towards a invoice to rename the Kennedy Heart for the Performing Arts for the Orange Inhabitant, and one other to rename the Opera Home for Melania Trump, whereas a lot of the nation is revolted by the ludicrous and bogus “treason” assaults on former President Barack Obama, together with these on former Vice President Kamala Harris, Oprah Winfrey, Al Sharpton and Lawd have mercy on Beyoncé too. (The BeyHive will likely be on his butt.)
Provided that Obama’s birthday is on Monday (he was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii), and since official “Obama Day” celebrations will happen in Illinois, I assumed I’d take you on a visit down a musical reminiscence lane with a few of his favourite tunes and a few memorable musical moments he hosted (and carried out) all through his two phrases in workplace.
I don’t find out about you, however I appreciated having a POTUS who publishes his playlists, went to the Apollo Theater, had nice musical acts on the White Home, and supported musical artists so many people might relate to.
I’ve by no means forgotten the second on Jan. 19, 2012, when throughout Obama’s marketing campaign for reelection, he paid tribute to the Rev. Al Inexperienced by singing a line from “Let’s Keep Collectively”:
Simply in case there may be anybody studying who doesn’t know the track, right here’s a hyperlink.
Throughout his first marketing campaign for the presidency, candidate Obama impressed a really particular track.
Will.I.Am: A Music To Encourage A Nation
William James Adams, a.ok.a. will.i.am, has recorded his share of hits because the frontman for Black Eyed Peas. However he is arguably higher recognized for placing a marketing campaign speech to music final yr and creating a success.
The track, titled “Sure We Can,” was impressed by the phrases of Barack Obama throughout his presidential marketing campaign. The video, a YouTube sensation, options celeb appearances by will.i.am, Scarlett Johansson, Frequent, John Legend and Herbie Hancock, all singing Obama’s now-famous phrases. Curiously, Obama did not ship that individual speech in a second of victory, however after his loss to Hillary Clinton within the New Hampshire Democratic major.
In 2010, for Black Historical past Month, Obama celebrated music from the Civil Rights Motion.
A Freedom Singer Shares The Music Of The Motion
This week, the White Home programmed a sequence of evenings celebrating the music that tells the story of America. “In Efficiency on the White Home: A Celebration of Music From the Civil Rights Motion”, a live performance celebrating Black Historical past Month, captured the hardships and hopes of these combating for equal rights in America throughout the Nineteen Sixties.
The occasion introduced collectively quite a few visitor audio system to showcase readings and songs from the civil rights motion, together with legendary Motown singer Smokey Robinson, Bob Dylan and one of many authentic Freedom Singers, Bernice Johnson Reagon.
When Bernice Johnson Reagon joined the ancestors final yr, we paid tribute to her right here: “Black Music Sunday: Bernice Johnson Reagon used music to mobilize.”
We had beforehand featured the Pupil Nonviolent Coordinating Committee freedom singers, of which she was a founding member: “The SNCC Freedom Singers: Songs of energy and braveness that mobilized folks to vote.”
In her White Home efficiency, Reagon leads ”Ain’t Gonna Let No one Flip Me Spherical” after which stops and admonishes the viewers:
(singing stops) Oh, oh, oh, wait.
I do know it is a present, however, uh —
— you need to really sing this track.
One among my favourite units of performers on the White Home have been the soul sisters gathered there on March 6, 2014.
Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin shine in ‘Girls of Soul’
A few of music’s most profound voices got here collectively on the White Home Thursday night time, honoring legends akin to Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle and reworking the presidential property right into a melodious church brimming with soulful jubilation.
The twelfth program in President Obama and first woman Michelle Obama’s In Efficiency on the White Home sequence, Girls of Soul introduced collectively Franklin, LaBelle, Melissa Etheridge, Tessanne Chin, Jill Scott, Janelle Monáe and Ariana Grande, every dressed to the nines and delivering stirring performances.
The president kicked off the proceedings with a jovial introduction, telling the gang about Franklin’s go to to Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., in 1967 when, the legend goes, she actually shook the partitions together with her voice. “It was magic,” he mentioned. “My recommendation to everybody right here tonight is easy: Maintain on.”
When a horrific, racist tragedy struck the nation, Obama rose to the event by not solely delivering a robust eulogy but in addition singing “Superb Grace,” and the congregation sang together with him. On June 26, 2015, NPR reported:
Watch: President Obama Sings ‘Superb Grace’ In Eulogy
President Obama gave a rousing speech Friday on the funeral of state Sen. and Rev. Clementa Pinckney, considered one of 9 folks shot at Emanuel AME church in Charleston, S.C., earlier this month.
The president spoke for greater than 35 minutes in regards to the reverend’s legacy and teachings, and Obama mentioned that he had spent a lot of the week reflecting on grace.
[…]
Obama known as the Charleston capturing “an act that drew on an extended historical past of bombs, arson, photographs fired at church buildings. Not random, however as a way of management, a option to terrorize and oppress.”
He ended his eulogy with a track — he led the attendees in a part of “Superb Grace,” at first alone and a cappella, then joined by the gang
In October 2015, Obama honored two of our superb businesses, which the present occupant is doing his greatest to desecrate.
The Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded 63,000 grants over the past 50 years to protect and maintain America’s cultural capital. On October 14, the PBS Emmy-nominated “In Efficiency on the White Home” music sequence will have a good time the cultural resonance of artwork and literature in distinctive American musical varieties. President and Mrs. Obama will host the October 14 all-star music tribute within the East Room of the White Home.
“A Celebration of American Creativity: In Efficiency on the White Home,” will function readings and musical performances that commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s signing of the Nationwide Basis on the Arts and the Humanities Act. Signed into legislation on September 29, 1965, the act known as for the creation of the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as separate, unbiased businesses, the end result of a motion calling for the federal authorities to put money into tradition.
Queen Latifah, Usher, Smokey Robinson, Carol Burnett, James Taylor and others will carry out music and provides readings that spotlight the federally-supported contributions of artwork, literature, historical past and music to American tradition and creativity. NEH present highlights embody a studying of “Civil Battle Letters,” a poem featured in a landmark NEH-funded documentary movie The Civil Battle by Ken Burns, and the work of E.L. Doctorow, a recipient of the 1998 Nationwide Humanities Medal.
On Feb. 24, 2016, Obama hosted the final of the “In Efficiency on the White Home” sequence.
Right here’s the transcript of what he needed to say.
Remarks by the President at “In Efficiency on the White Home: A Tribute to Ray Charles”
THE PRESIDENT: Thanks, all people. (Applause.) Thanks a lot. Everyone, please have a seat. (Applause.) Properly, good night, all people, and welcome to the White Home.
Over the previous seven years, Michelle and I’ve put aside nights like this to honor the music that formed America -– classical and nation, blues and Broadway, gospel and Motown, the ladies of soul and the sounds of the Civil Rights Motion. This has develop into considered one of our most cherished traditions, and I need to thank PBS for serving to us to placed on these great occasions. (Applause.)
Tonight is slightly bittersweet as a result of this marks our ultimate “In Efficiency on the White Home.” I cannot be singing. (Laughter.) However for our final one, it’s becoming that we pay tribute to considered one of our favorites, and some of the sensible and influential musicians of our occasions: the late, nice genius himself, Mr. Ray Charles. (Applause.)
I need to thank the Smithsonian for his or her assist. And I need to thank the members of Ray Charles’s household who’re right here with us tonight. It’s a nice honor to have you ever right here.
Ray Charles Robinson’s childhood within the segregated South was marked by poverty and tragedy. Early in his life, he watched his youthful brother drown, misplaced his eyesight, and misplaced his father. However Ray had two issues going for him. One was a robust mom, Aretha, who insisted that her son not wallow in self-pity, however grasp self-sufficiency. And two, he had music.
As Ray as soon as put it, “I used to be born with music inside me.” An area café proprietor launched him to the piano, and on the St. Augustine Faculty of the Blind and Deaf, he studied the saxophone, the clarinet, and trumpet as effectively. He realized how one can learn, write, and organize music in Braille. And he was uncovered to a variety of kinds, all of which he beloved -– from gospel to the blues, from Chopin to Artwork Tatum. At night time, like so many others, he would flip his radio dial to the Grand Ole Opry.
When his mom handed, Ray left faculty. He took no matter gigs got here alongside. However when he met one other younger man named Quincy Jones, the whole lot modified. “Ray got here to city, lit it up like a rocket,” Quincy mentioned. “He had it. No matter it’s, Ray had it.” And everybody knew it.
All through the ‘50s, Ray fused jazz, gospel and blues into a brand new soul sound. As he put it, “Gospel and the blues are nearly the identical factor. It’s only a query of whether or not you’re talkin’ a few lady or God.” (Laughter and applause.) And together with his touring band, together with his iconic backup singers, the Raelettes, he recorded a number of the greatest hits ever, together with “What’d I Say” and “Hit the Highway Jack.”
Now, in these days, black musicians have been anticipated to play within the Jim Crow South. However in 1961 — the yr I used to be born — Ray refused to play for a segregated viewers in Augusta, Georgia. He was sued for breach of contract, however he continued boycotting segregated venues and have become an energetic supporter of the Civil Rights Motion.
On stage and within the studio, Ray did all of it — jazz, R&B, rock and roll, pop. He even helped deliver the nation music he beloved to a broader viewers. However no matter style of music he was taking part in, there was no mistaking his singular sound—that virtuoso piano taking part in that matched that one-of-a-kind voice. Whilst a younger man, he had the wealthy, uncooked honey tone of an previous soul. Irrespective of the sensation—whether or not it was love, longing, or loss—Ray Charles had the uncommon potential to break down our weightiest feelings right into a single word. And from the tiny golf equipment wherein he began out to the arenas that he finally crammed, Ray was an electrifying performer. He couldn’t see us, however we couldn’t take our eyes off of him.
Chart-topping hits. Seventeen Grammy Awards. A spot within the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame. Beating Willie Nelson at chess. (Laughter.) His accolades are too many to call. However maybe his biggest achievement was in displaying all of us that it’s our unbelievable variety of music, a refrain of cultures and of kinds, that really makes “America the Lovely.”
Listed here are two of the performances on the tribute, the primary from Usher, adopted by Andra Day.
On June 9, 2016, Obama “Gradual Jammed the Information” on “The Tonight Present,” hosted by Jimmy Fallon, reported right here by Jennifer Konerman at The Hollywood Reporter.
President Obama Gradual Jams the Information, Talks Trump on ‘The Tonight Present’
President Barack Obama joined Jimmy Fallon on late-night Thursday to speak about his soon-to-be-over time period as commander-in-chief. However earlier than they sat down for his or her interview, Fallon enlisted The Roots’ Tariq to “sluggish jam the information” with Obama on The Tonight Present, masking his achievements as president.
“It’s been an honor and a privilege to function your president over the previous eight years,” Obama started, explaining his accomplishments within the financial sector.
[…]
“He’s created plenty of jobs for you and me, and he’s received another left for Hillary,” Tariq sang. The episode aired after he formally endorsed Hillary Clinton on Thursday, saying in a video that “I don’t assume there’s ever been somebody so certified to carry this workplace.”
Obama then summed up progressive steps he’s taken over his time period within the sluggish jam: “Briefly: Local weather change is actual, well being care is reasonably priced and love is love,” he mentioned.
“Commander in Preach!” mentioned Fallon. “You’ve received to hearken to my man Bareezus, he’s achieved quite a bit in eight years. Even when Congress tried to dam him, he discovered a means by way of the again door,” to which each Fallon and Obama couldn’t assist however chortle.
What I hadn’t realized was that Obama’s final White Home particular was broadcast on Black Leisure Tv, or BET, and never by way of PBS.
Love & Happiness: An Obama Celebration’: Watch Highlights From BET’s Musical Tribute
Final month the White Home hosted the musical tribute “BET Presents Love & Happiness: An Obama Celebration.” The occasion was televised on Tuesday, November 15 on BET and served as a love letter to President Barack Obama and First Woman Michelle Obama.
The celebration, which Dave Chappelle referenced in his “SNL” monologue and joked about Bradley Cooper being the one “white man,” included performances from Jill Scott, Janelle Monaé, Frequent, Usher, Bell Biv DeVoe, The Roots, De La Soul, Yolanda Adams, Michelle Williams, Kierra Sheard, and “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom, Jr.
At present’s story is fairly video-heavy, and I’ve already lower out fairly a couple of, which I’ll publish within the feedback part under. I hope this may remind readers and listeners of a time and place we’ve to battle to recapture.
Comfortable birthday tomorrow, President Obama. Thanks for being who you’re and for being somebody we might be happy with having graced the Oval Workplace for eight years.
