Sorry, I've only just seen the portion of this thread which dealt with my review of Dust to Digital's Goodbye, Babylon. The point I was trying to make was that there was nothing surprising about the Klan's managing of Jaybird Coleman (the singer I was struggling to remember).

To understand this it's neccesary to understand that, where racism in Britain often manifests as outright hatred and hostility, (EG., "Send back all these bloody wogs who are coming over here and stealing all our jobs and houses", and all that kind of drivel), racism in the Southern United States was somewhat tempered by the fact that Black people were a necessary fact of life. White Southerners still hated Black people (and so as I can see, many still do), and to some extent their hatred stemmed from the fact the South lost the civil war. Emancipation had, in their eyes made Black people both free and dangerous.

But both sides were locked into a kind of feudal relationship*, in that White employers needed labour and sharecroppers, and Black people depended on White employers to earn an income. It was an uneasy relationship, with frequent, violent outcomes for Black transgressers. Nevertheless, both sides felt reasonably secure so long as Black people stayed very firmly in their place.

Regarding the music angle, it's not the least surprising that the Klan, or indeed White Southerners generally, should take an interest in Black musicians. Black slave musicians had been a source of entertainment for White slave owners since the earliest days of slavery. Indeed, their role as providers of music, if anything underlined master/slave relationships.

I don't know of anything which has been written in recent years on the subject of Southern US race relations, but I can thoroughly recommend John Dollard's Class and Caste in a Southern Town. It's an old study, but a very enlightening one.

Also, interested parties might want to take a look at Sinful Tunes and Spirituals; Black Folk Music to the Civil War by Dena Epstein, which deals with this very subject.

* This relationship was exemplified in a verse from Blind Willie McTell's Southern Can Mama.

"You may go down have me arrested,
Get me put in Gaol.
Some hotshot got money.
Come and go my bail."