People who I thought were Black

I thought Bobby Caldwell was Black. It was not till he died the other day that I discovered he was White. But he is not the only one like that. Here, in chronological order:

Note that links in italics go to YouTube and are subject to link rot:

Robert Lamm as the lead singer on “Beginnings” (1971) by Chicago. The song, though, was inspired by Richie Havens, who is Black.

Elliot Lurie as the lead singer on “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” (1972) by Looking Glass. I thought Brandy was Black too.

Robert John in “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (1972). I thought he was a Black woman! To be fair, I thought Billy Joel was a White woman in the falsetto part of “Piano Man” (1973).

Kenny Nolan as a Sex-O-Lette on “Get Dancin'” (1975) by Disco-Tex. I thought he was a Black woman till 2021!

Kiki Dee on “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (1976), which she sang with Elton John. She was the first White woman from the UK to sign with Motown’s Tamla label. So I was not completely on drugs. But probably more than a little naive in thinking Elton John would do a duet with an actual Black woman – even though he did sing “Island Girl“  just the year before.

Bobby Caldwell in “What You Won’t Do For Love” (1978).

Alicia Bridges in “I Love the Nightlife” (1978). When I saw her on a talk show, I was shocked!

Dan Hartman in “I Can Dream About You” (1984). To be fair, the music video does show him as a Black man. Click on the link and see for yourself. An actual case of Blackwashing.

Simply Red on the song “Holding Back the Years” (1985). I thought he was a Black woman till I saw the video on MTV. Now I cannot even imagine how I thought that.

Jeanette Jurado in “Come Go With Me” (1987) by Exposé. She is Mexican American, born in East LA, not even a bit Afro-Latino. I am only now finding out that much of the dance music I liked back then was, like this song, Latin freestyle.

There are no doubt others that I do not even know about yet!

What most have in common is having a Top-40 song in the 1970s without being famous enough to be on television or have their picture in the newspaper. Some were so unfamous I did not even know their name until just now when I looked them up in the Wikipedia.

In the 1970s in the US there were few music videos, music on the radio was way less racially segregated – even the bands themselves were less segregated – and Whites freely copied Black styles of music (well, they still do). And, as noted elsewhere on this blog, it was when music became beige.

In the 1980s Japanese electronics gave us the Walkman and the boom box – stereo radio most people could afford. That led to the rise of FM radio, which was far more segregated. Whites favoured Black artists who were D.O.R.F – Dead, Old, Retro, or Foreign.

– Abagond, 2023. 

See also:

• People who I thought were White
• R&B: a brief history: 1975-1979 – when music became beige
• dorf
• singers and race:
  • The blackness of Mariah Carey
  • The blackness of Madonna
  • The blackness of Eric Clapton
  • Teena Marie
  • Why Jimi Hendrix fans are mostly White
• Hollywood whitewashing

546