Black Music Month

Hey. How nice of Apple and iTunes to recognize June as Black Music Month. And here I was thinking music was such a white thing and the contributions of black artists never get due respect.

See, really I'm in that whole "is anyone else offended by this" camp. I'm all about promoting "black music" of course, but since ALL music is black music, this is just condescending bullshit that actually devalues the contributions of black artists. Jazz, Blues, Funk, Soul, Hip-Hop, Go-go, Afrobeat... these aren't artists I'm listing, it's entire genres of music, deeply entrenched in black history and culture. I might give you classical, rock, and country - but even then we'd get into how the Stones have openly talked about ripping off black music, Led Zeppelin's heavy reliance on blues and soul and Black Sabbath originally forming as a blues band grinding it out in the UK. Early Rock and Roll... Chuck Berry. Rhythm and Blues... come on. Elvis? Black as hell. I'm taking rock back actually, because it most definitely grew out of black music. You can have classical and country (no disrespect to either of those two fine genres, of course.)

So is this an Apple thing? Of course not. Lo and behold a quick google search turned up the 2007 and 2008 official proclamations straight from the White House, signed by the honorable George W. Bush. Ahhhhh. Now I get it. Isn't everything PR these days? (Answer: yes.)

Well, in honor of Black Music Month I'd like to offer the world my contribution. Including music written by legendary Black artists Duke Ellington, Cannonball Adderley, Bob Marley, The Meters, Herbie Hancock, D'angelo, Steve Winwood and more ---- I present to you the two latest Higher Hands at Armadillo's shows. Last Thursday's 5/29 and a special follow-up show on Saturday 5/31 are both up on archive.org. Black as hell.