Somewhat random thoughts:

This is what happens when you're getting over the flu and have slept most of the day-it's 1:41 AM eastern standard time as I start this post, and I can't convince my brain that it should be dreaming.

There are other things that I would prefer to be doing right now. But, alas! and alack! I have to settle for second or third best...which means I'm talking to myself, as well as to you guys and gals via the Internet.   

First of all, let me say muchas gracias, asante sana and thank you very much in all the other languages in the world for all the compliments that you have sent my way. And thank you very much for the interesting comments that have been posted on this thread.

{I thought I saw two posts from gargoyle. I'm sorry they were deleted. He's such a character}

I'd like to address a point that Richard Bridge wrote about in his 26 Feb 08 - 07:21 AM post:

Richard, you wrote that you would expect "Both the shanties and the forebitters ...to be relevant to African-Americans, as relating to a history in which they participated"

Unfortunately, based on my direct and indirect experiences, I think that not very many Black Americans know what "shanties" and "forebitters" are. It's only because I read about the song form "shanties" in several Mudcat threads on that topic that I {kinda} know what they are. But I'm sorry to say I don't know what a "forebitter" is {or was}. I'm assuming by the way you used the word "forebitters" that it's a type of song sung or chanted by sailors. Is this guess even in the right ball park?


Here's two of my theories as to why many [most?] African Americans don't know {or do not know that we know} shanties, and other old timey songs and music genres such as 19th century Black secular dances songs {such as "Juba". Jim Along Josie", and "Hambone"}, and blues, and [even] jazz [Note that I've not included "spirituals" in this list; although my sense is that more African Americans nowadays know some spirituals, particular those Black people who go to some [Black] Baptist and some [Black] Methodist churches; but even those Black people only know a few specific spirituals. And, I would dare say that a large percentage of African American children, youth, and adults don't know any spirituals}. Needless to say, I think that's a low down {dirty} cryin shame.

Briefly, and without supplemental comments that are too longwinded
with apologies to Gulliver :o}, I think that among the reasons why African Americans appear to have largely turned their backs on or forgotten all about these music forms that were created by our ancestors are:

1} we don't want to be reminded of the horrendous experiences of slavery. In part this is because those centuries were so horrible and in part this is because slavery caused us {Black people} to believe the myth that until and unless we were educated in White men's and women's ways, we were less than not only White people, but less than any other people in the world.

2} {perhaps for the reasons stated above and other reasons} African Americans are forward looking people who prefer to {or are much better at} creating rather than preserving cultural indices. If this is so, I think it is because of nurture rather than nature {meaning, we have been taught to value creating, and improvising, and thinking out of the already existing box rather than valuing creative forms that our ancestors made}

The proof is in the pudding {insert a better folk saying-perhaps an appropriate African proverb though I can't think of one right now, but absolutely not "It takes a village to raise a child"...but that doesn't fit what I was saying any way}

Moving right along...

Look how fast we {African Americans} create slang, and dances, and new clothing fashions, and new music forms. Colloquial words and expressions get old mighty quick among Black folks...{particularly when those Black created words and experessions are absorbed by mainstream-read White-society}. And African American social dances may change from month to month. New African American social music forms may stick around for a while {R&B, Hip-Hop}..But the specific recorded songs from those genres don't last too long. Most urban radio stations in the USA will occassionally play certain songs that were hits a couple of years ago, a couple of decades ago, or even longer {in the case of 70s, and 60s music. But rarely are any songs played from the 1950s or 1940s. Those songs are tooo old!

The more I think about it, it's possible that this rejection of old cultural forms may extend to people in the Caribbean and possibly other Black people in Latin and South America. I'm unsure of this but I think it would be an interesting area of study. Certainly {Black} West Indians are known for creating new forms of music such as calypso, mento, ska, roots reggae, dancehall reggae, soca, reggaeton, kompa, etc. I'm wondering if once a new form is created, is the old form still treasured and is it still played on a daily basis or even on special occassions?

In the first comment I posted on this discussion forum -in a thread about the African American spiritual "Kumbaya"- I wrote something like "Black people need to do better about protecting our heritage. In that comment I was referring to the theory that someone had posted that that song was of Afrikaans' origin. I still believe that we need to do better about protecting-claiming our past. We also need to do much better about learning about and honoring our culture-including those musical genres that Richard Bridge referred to in his post.

**

Of course, this doesn't mean that we don't incorporate the old in the new, and we don't keep any of our old traditions...Of course, we do. But still, I think I'm on to something with these theories. But they may just be the cold medicine talking. But maybe not.

Enough random thoughts...

It is now 3:27 AM. And I'm outta here.

Catch y'll later!