Are Blacks giving away the blues? White fans keep the music and its artists going strong

Ebony, Oct, 1990 by Charles Whitaker

"By playing the blues and helping get some blues artists on television, a lot of these White groups have opened people's eyes and ears to the blues," says reigning blues queen Koko Taylor, who has made several appearances on the Saturday Night Live television show. "That's opened a lot of doors for the blues. People who hadn't paid a lot of attention to, or who never respected, the blues before were listening to it and liking it."

John Lee Hooker, who has a following of ardent fans that includes White rockers such as Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend and Bonnie Raitt, says that were it not for White artists and fans he would be unable to sustain his career. "It's these White kids who've never been exposed to the blues at home who come up to me and tell me how much they like my music and want to keep it alive," he says.

But a corps of Black blues performers, like singer Valerie Wellington, are committed to keeping the blues tradition alive and well in the Black community. Wellington, a cofounder of The Chicago Blues Artists Coalition, says education is the key to bringing Blacks back to the blues. Her organization is doing its part by taking mini blues revues to public schools, introducing a wide range of Chicago children to the music and cultivating a generation of new fans.

"We have to start with the children, teaching them about our heritage," she says. "And the blues are very much a part of that heritage. I find once you expose children to it, they like it, and suddenly you have a new generation of blues fans."

And things are changing. Young Blacks are slowly trickling back to the blues, according to many artists.

Big-city clubs that once catered to a completely White clientele are beginning to attract a small but growing number of young Blacks. The infrequent appearances that artists such as B.B. King have made on immensely popular television programs such as The Cosby Show and The Arsenio Hall Show have helped generate new interest in the blues among younger Blacks. The evidence, some say, is in the increasing number of young Black musicians who are beginning to approach artists to ask about the music, its technique and origins. "Lately - I'd say in the last five years - I've gotten more and more young Black musicians coming up to me and talking about this music, wanting to know more about it and how to get into it," says Robert Cray. "That's a sign to me that there are probably a lot more out there who are interested in it."

But that sign is not bright enough for some blues artists who fear that in a generation or two the only musicians carrying on their tradition will be White. "It could happen," says Etta James, "and it would be a shame, because blues and jazz are the only forms of music originated in this country and they were both started by Blacks. Wouldn't it be something if we gave it away because we didn't recognize it as good music?"

PHOTO : Blues festivals, like Chicago's annual outdoor extravaganza (above), typically are flooded with a sea of White blues fans, but very few Blacks. Even blues legends such as B.B. King (right) say Whites now make up the bulk of their audiences. But up-and-coming blues artists like Valerie Wellington (opposite page) say that with more exposure the blues will catch on with younger Blacks.