Living Colour Guitarist on ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ Hendrix and Racism

Like so many other people, letter writer Robert Streit (Dec. 10) seems to either be ignorant of or to conveniently overlook the fact that Elvis made a career out of performing (and whitewashing) the old original rock ‘n’ roll songs, nearly all of which had been composed by black musicians--who, incidentally, rarely if ever received royalties.

Black musicians stayed with blues and jazz because those categories happened to be the ones in which they could freely express themselves. The black rock ‘n’ roll stars were often forced to endure all manner of “sanitization” before the white consumers would accept them, and even then they were treated as second-class performers (this was the ‘50s and ‘60s, recall?).

Finally, Streit claims that the Black Rock Coalition has extended racial prejudice into music. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Black Rock Coalition, though admirable in its aims, has had (thus far) very little effect on the musical world, either positive or negative. The culpable parties as far as racial prejudice are blatant bigots such as Axl Rose and Professor Griff, who seem to think that their Nazi-like sentiments have validity in this day and age.

L.M. SAMUELS

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