Music |Writing |Race
White Blues, Black Blues — Your Blues, My Blues
What Are the Blues, and Who Are They For?
Unless you’re a regular reader of the Altamont Enterprise in upstate New York, you’ve probably never heard of the poet and writer Dennis Sullivan.
Truth is, I wouldn’t know about him either if it weren’t for a friend, a former high school headmaster who was taught by Mr. Sullivan back in the day.
Every now and then, the headmaster sends me something literary he thinks I might enjoy. He’s known me long enough by now to be right most of the time.
This is especially true of Sullivan whose work I enjoy because it usually leads to an epiphany. It helps me understand something I did not understand before. Or at least shows me another way of looking at it.
Do White People Understand the Blues?
A few days ago, the headmaster sent me a Sullivan piece called, “White people don’t understand about the blues,” which begins by asking the reader which is greater — Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box or Pablo Picasso’s Guernica.
While I was still trying to justify my answer to that little teaser, Mr. Sullivan hit me with a similar riddle. Which song is better — Schubert’s “Ave Maria” or…
