Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968)
Thereâs edgy and then thereâs playing a song called Cocaine Blues to a room full of hootinâ and hollerinâ convicts. Some 13 years after he recorded Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash finally rocked up at the songâs California namesake, and to possibly the most appreciative crowd of his career.
Nina Simone
Nina at The Village Gate (1962)
Youâre in a Greenwich Village jazz bar, dressed like a Queenâs Gambit extra, sipping on a dirty martini and wondering how far the opening act, a young comic called Richard Pryor, might go. Then Nina Simoneâs vocals drift out over soul-smacking piano, mixing Nigerian song with US folk ballads and civil rights anthems. Itâs the sound of a star being anointed.
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MEDIA WATCH-Very little about America surprises Black people. We are only startled by things that happen, never by the potential for things to happen. When Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6, Black people collectively checked our watches, muttering, “Oh, is today when that’s going down? Guess we’re not going south of Massachusetts Ave. today.” Shocked, but not surprised.
(Photo above:
James Baldwin at home in Saint Paul de Vence, France in September 1985. Photo: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images.)
By contrast, White America’s reaction to the attack on Capitol Hill was marked with unadulterated surprise, as if it truly did not know itself, as if Sam Cooke did not mention it in the very first line of “Wonderful World” (which I know for a fact is a song White people like very much). Mainstream media seemed overcome with shock and revulsion. Politicians everywhere crossed their chests, shocked at what America had “become.” As if violent and entitled were n
Very little about America surprises Black people. We are only startled by things that happen, never by the potential for things to happen. When Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6…