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Pasting in the Facebook convo (through early in the day, May 13) that Chuck began in regard to my q about Richard Rodgers and Dave's about whether there's any statistical support for the common assertion that the majority audience for hip-hop is white. You'll see a link to a WSJ report of an actual study, which produces an actual number (audience 60% white), but methodology seems shaky and there's no further breakdown beyond either they own hip-hop or they don't (so no record of how much hip-hop someone got, or what sort of hip-hop).
But the thread does veer off into an interesting discussion of "When did you first hear hip-hop, and how did it strike you?"
There's no Richard Rodgers discussion, though thanks to Kevin John we verified that Dorothy Rodgers did indeed tell Billboard in '82 that husband Richard was a fan of the Marcels' version of "Blue Moon."
As for my attempt (so as not to have to visit a library or make phone calls or do actual research) to find out if Richard Rodgers did actually take out full-page newspaper ads urging people not to buy the Marcels' "Blue Moon," so far Twitter and Tumblr haven't helped me verify or refute the story or, if it's false — WHICH SEEMS LIKELY — determine where the story came from. Web, you fail. Story seems false not just because twenty years later Rodgers' wife said something opposite to it, but because none of the bios I sampled on Google books mentioned the story. If Rodgers had placed the ads, that's too effortful an event for a biographer to ignore. (Although Google Books doesn't post books in their entirety, so the story may be in the bios in unposted sections, that all such references to the story would fall through the cracks in Google Books seems unlikely. And whenever I made my way to an index, the Marcels were absent.)
Here we go:
( It's just like the military pulling a rank/We got a new dance and it's called the spank )
But the thread does veer off into an interesting discussion of "When did you first hear hip-hop, and how did it strike you?"
There's no Richard Rodgers discussion, though thanks to Kevin John we verified that Dorothy Rodgers did indeed tell Billboard in '82 that husband Richard was a fan of the Marcels' version of "Blue Moon."
As for my attempt (so as not to have to visit a library or make phone calls or do actual research) to find out if Richard Rodgers did actually take out full-page newspaper ads urging people not to buy the Marcels' "Blue Moon," so far Twitter and Tumblr haven't helped me verify or refute the story or, if it's false — WHICH SEEMS LIKELY — determine where the story came from. Web, you fail. Story seems false not just because twenty years later Rodgers' wife said something opposite to it, but because none of the bios I sampled on Google books mentioned the story. If Rodgers had placed the ads, that's too effortful an event for a biographer to ignore. (Although Google Books doesn't post books in their entirety, so the story may be in the bios in unposted sections, that all such references to the story would fall through the cracks in Google Books seems unlikely. And whenever I made my way to an index, the Marcels were absent.)
Here we go:
( It's just like the military pulling a rank/We got a new dance and it's called the spank )
