I don't know the answer, but I will hazard a guess. What little I know is applicable only to America. When collectors went into the southern prisons to collect work songs in the '30's, '40's, and '50's they had to rely on the older prisoners. Many of the younger prisoner's avoided those "slave songs" as they called them. They rejected them as demeaning. As the prisons integrated and the work became more mechanized, the tradition of singing while working died.

In the same period, the spirituals in the black church were beginning to die out as they were replaced by "written music."

One reason, then, may be that African-Americans do not wish to reminded of the "old times", not just slavery, but segregation.

Another reason may the that African-Americans have fallen under the spell of the majority culture and have thrown off the old for the new.

Another reason may be that African-Americans have moved on. As one style becomes co-opted by the majority, they develop new genre's including jazz, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop.

A final reasons may be that social conditions have changed. The essential "slavery" that spawned the work songs has mostly passed. The discrimination that set such limits on possibilities for African Americans has eased considerably. Both work songs and early blues seem to me to be about the spirit overcoming harsh conditions both physical and spiritual. They are triumphs of the human spirit.

As several people have noted, there are black musicians who are renewing the blues. I think Taj Mahal deserves some credit for that.

Music is, potentially, a common ground for people. However, it requires stepping outside the boundary of what one "grew up with." Vance Gilbert, an African-American has been working the American folk circuit with some success. He is a powerful, dynamic performer. He works in the tradition of the majority culture while still bringing in his own culture.

I was at a festival this month and was introduced to a fiddler by the name of Earl White. He certainly appears to be African-American, but he was presented as an "old-time" fiddle player. He is a fine fiddler in that Appalacian style. The music he plays has an indisputable European influence. However, in the hills of Appalacia there was a co-mingling of Euro-Americans and African-Americans. So Earl may just be honoring his culture's tradition, but a part of it that others have turned their back on or ignored.

Such are my ramblin' thoughts. White people's interest in African American culture? A white musician spoke that the European view of religion is that the soul of people is the connection to the Higher Power. The body is simply a vessel and often gets in the way. Therefore, the body is "denied" in many ways and physical suffering (destruction of the body) is seen as a way to attain perfect contact with the Higher Power. He says in the African view of religion, the body is the way the soul connects with the higher power. And so the body and all of it's earthly demands is honored and celebrated. Giving oneself over to the joy of the body is seen as a way to connect with the Higher Power. This is a new thought for me, but right now I am ready to buy it. Certainly it speaks to my own experience that the African-American music I enjoy has some feeling that Euro-American often doesn't have (or I don't sense it).

Ed, I think this question has intellectual merit and may help all of us see beyond our little personal walls, whatever they may be.

Roger in Baltimore