“It’s not as though white people can’t make good music!”

2/2, After midnight, back at the hotel.
“It’s not as though white people can’t make good music!”

I run into some white Baptists at the hotel and we talk about the week’s events. I ask about the white music and I suggest there is most excellent white music out there. Beethoven, Bach, Handel – heck, all those guys wrote astonishing sacred music. Lots more recently, even Elvis did a hack of a job with church music. They explain “praise and worship” is intended to be simple so people can understand it and sing along. (Michael had said he thought it came about when churches became capitalist and sought to sell their music to the masses of believers.) These Baptists seem to think that the classics are too difficult to comprehend and perform (every city’s mass do-it-yourself-Messiah apparently notwithstanding) and folks like Elvis are too . . . I don’t know what. And gospel? I didn’t bring it up.

Closing thought on diverse Baptists coming together and bringing together everyone in this country: It’s the music, stupid.