But that lack of support was rooted in how Billboard classified music, what music radio stations would play based on their “audience” and the segregated music venues of the time. The structure was to keep black audiences and white audiences separate. Sam Phillips detested that structure - he specifically opened Memphis Recording Studio (which became Sun Studios and briefly Sun Records) to record all kinds of artists, but especially black artists. Sam thought Howlin Wolf was the greatest artist he ever recorded. The lore is that Sam didn’t even like Elvis the first time he hear him.
I agree--in many cases. The really egregious stuff you see in old movies can spark outrage (Black actors never cast as anything but maids, valets, etc.) or laughs (Paul Muni and Luise Rainer as Chinese in "The Good Earth", Katharine Hepburn in "Dragon Seed", and so on). On the other hand, Gale Sondergaard did such an astonishing, terrifying job in "The Letter" that she's beyond criticism (to me, as least).
But that lack of support was rooted in how Billboard classified music, what music radio stations would play based on their “audience” and the segregated music venues of the time. The structure was to keep black audiences and white audiences separate. Sam Phillips detested that structure - he specifically opened Memphis Recording Studio (which became Sun Studios and briefly Sun Records) to record all kinds of artists, but especially black artists. Sam thought Howlin Wolf was the greatest artist he ever recorded. The lore is that Sam didn’t even like Elvis the first time he hear him.
I agree--in many cases. The really egregious stuff you see in old movies can spark outrage (Black actors never cast as anything but maids, valets, etc.) or laughs (Paul Muni and Luise Rainer as Chinese in "The Good Earth", Katharine Hepburn in "Dragon Seed", and so on). On the other hand, Gale Sondergaard did such an astonishing, terrifying job in "The Letter" that she's beyond criticism (to me, as least).