Black Music Month

<bDUKES FANS “Hot fun in the summertime”…Sly and The Family Stone It is now past mid-June, and summertime is around the corner. As I age, summer is harder for me; heat and especially humidity can be rough for us oldsters. My wife and I came to dislike going through August in Philadelphia, so we started taking two-and three-week camping trips in August in the Northlands. We would head up to each of the Finger Lakes in New York state, occasionally to the Poconos, and once to the Adirondacks. And we almost always ended our Augusts camping outside of Kingston, Ontario and attending the Limestone City Blues Festival in that town. So this June, and the unusual heat wave we are in now got me thinking about that. But it is still June, and this month has one of my favorite celebrations. June was declared National African-American Music Month by President Carter in 1979, and I love the attention that our contributions to the rich stew that is American music gets during this month. There are a lot of great concerts and festivals, and there is also an array of streaming documentaries. Some of them I have mentioned in previous newsletters: Soulsville, USA. about Stax Records, and Standing in the Shadow of Motown, about Motown records. Over the past few months, I have also watched a couple of new to me documentaries about James Brown and Son House. It is always exciting for me to discover new films about people I love and who influenced me, so I recommend these films highly. If you are on this mailing list you obviously know that there are lots of way of celebrating Black music. And the power, joy, and soul stirring depth of the music never stops. It still moves and inspires me. Happy African-American Music Month to you all. James Brown : Bing Videos Son House : Why You Should Listen to Son House | His Life and Music | Delta Blues (youtube.com) Standing in The Shows of Motown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL9fF4Jtovc Stax: Soulsville USA | Official Website for the HBO Series | HBO.com