Top Mix (curated playlist) CW: Blackface

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otNICva63mQ&list=PLq13obcC8pBA8sXVD5vFoi03FlQQCTHvZ&index=1

A minstrel, often performing in blackface, Miller influenced the country swing that would help shape rock and roll.

Many country and rock stars have covered his music. Hank Williams 1922 Lovesick Blues, Merl Haggard, and Van Halen.

Emmet Miller is probably the most important American musician you never heard of. His blackface and deadication to racist genre of minstrel shows is quite problematic.

I chose to include Emmit Miller in blackface because the minstrel era provided so much of direction for jazz, blues, and later rock and roll. It also marks the first widespread commercial appropriation of African Diaspora Art. A Racist homage to styles tracing back to the Western African Griot.

Minstrel shows lampooned Black and Slave culture. Miller represented the last gasp of minstrel shows in the 1920s. In 1949 he did a show called the "Last Great Minstrel Show"...People recognized the horrible caricatures but the appropriated minstrel music changed America.

Emmit Miller also influences all the Texas Blues and the Country swing that would go on to create rock and roll.