For the record, I liked Big Mama Thornton’s version of Hound Dog a lot more than Elvis’s. A lot of selling the music comes down to who looks or sounds better. I’m not a Pat Boone fan, but nobody had their arms twisted to buy his records. You might as well indict the whole record buying public for preferring bland fifties pap for earthier blues and r and b music. Whites as well as black musicians were cheated in a way by the preferences of millions of Americans who preferred very bland, innocuous music. That ‘s life.
I agree.
I used to hate those white covers when I was a kid, and it wasn’t political. I just thought they ruined the music. But from my current perspective, I don’t indict anyone for buying them. You can only absorb what you can absorb, coming from the culture you come from.
There’s an old saying in the garment industry that you can only introduce one new idea in a dress at a time.
Even on this thread, we see people coming from different parts of the US, listening to different music when they were growing up and having a different take on the subject.