They had a right to sing the blues: as blacks' social and economic circumstances have improved, their music has taken a nosedive. American culture at large has abetted the decline, and suffered from it

National Review, July 8, 1991 by Tom Bethell

They would look at you hard if your hair wasn't silky," he recalled.

Not that this should be construed as an argument for adversity. In return for an end to segregation, George Lewis and the others would have gladly surrendered any artistic residue; especially as they didn't recognize its existence.

The most erroneous idea about popular culture is that we can subtract the all-important functional setting (the dance, wedding, funeral) that gave purpose to the original creation, and still somehow preserve these distilled aesthetic drops in the cultural centers: art furnished for art's sake, with the help of educational programs, community input, outreach," national endowments, and dedicated funds. It won't work.

San Jacinto Hall, where the Bunk Johnson recordings were made, survived until 1967. Then it was torn down as part of an urban-renewal program. A cultural center was to replace it. "Louis Armstrong Park," it was called. When I was in New Orleans recently I thought I might go there; it is only a block from William Russell's apartment. But I was told that it is not safe, even in daytime. And when I left Russell's apartment late one night, after he had played me some of those beautiful old recordings, some of which will be coming out on later CDs (there may be as many as 12), he gave me a little palm-of-the-hand tear-gas container to carry-just to be on the safe side.