In the reading of “Listening for Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton’s Voice: The Sound of Race and Gender Transgressions in Rock and Roll” from Women and Music by Maureen Mahon, we see how Big Mama revolutionized the world of music after recording "Hound Dog." There is a lot of unfairness that happened after her recording. First of all, Thorton says when talking about the money she received from Peacock for recording the song that "I got one check for $500 and I never seen another." This is very frustrating considering that the song when viral and they made a lot of money off of it. As if this was not already bad, she sees her song being taken away by Elvis Presley where it gained even more popularity while she does not get any. This depicts the racial and gender aspect of the world of music, and Thornton presents it well when she says "I've been singing way before Elvis Presley was born, and he jumps up and becomes a millionaire before me ... off of something that I made popular. They gave him the right ... [N]ow, why do they do that? He makes a million and all this jive because his face is different from mine." On the other hand, in the "Women Who Rock Oral History Project," Dr. Maylei Blackwell makes an argument for the silencing that the indigenous women have been facing because of their oral history and how oral historians wanted to "give voice to the people." She then finishes by saying that the people already have a voice, but the issue is "that our academic apparatus, our knowledge of apparatus, does not know how to listen". This should push us into rethinking the way we see knowledge and the way we value things. Just like "Hound Dog" was popularized by Presley while silencing Big Maman, Western Culture is getting popularized while silencing the Chicano and other minorities.
Muddy Waters - You Need Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=95&v=kPpwaVkVGF4&feature=emb_logoLed Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQmmM_qwG4k
After reading about Big Mama, I was intrigued by how many times have black people had their songs stolen by white people and then becoming popular. "You Need Love" is a great example of qhat Maureen Mahon talks about in her book. After seeing how Led Zeppelin stole the "greatest guitar riff of all times," I was first frustrated by how blatant this plagiarism was. It is very frustrating that instead of praising black people for their talents and the work that they do, they find themselves instead of losing their authorship to people with power. The most frustrating aspect of it for me is that after stealing songs from black people, they end up with higher popularity. This to me brings some awareness that the racisms and the oppression are not only coming from the artists but by the general public also. I was reading an article where they mention that “I think when Willie Dixon turned on the radio in Chicago twenty years after he wrote his blues, he thought, ‘That’s my song [Whole Lotta Love].’ … When we ripped it off, I said to Jimmy, ‘Hey, that’s not our song.’ And he said, ‘Shut up and keep walking.’” — Robert Plant, “Led Zeppelin IV”. This clearly demonstrated the appropriation that white people have made from some of the black culture.
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