It was in the kindergarten in Budapest that I learned about Paul Robeson and now, an old old man, shall not change my opinion. He is a great human being. Hear Paul Robeson, the greatest bass
voice ever: "We are climbing Jacob's Ladder", a spiritual. Hear
"Joe Hill": "The Copper Bosses killed you Joe, they shot you Joe" says I. "Takes more than guns to kill a man" says Joe "I didn't die". Hear the
Swedish version too (Joe was a Swede).
6 comments:
I have not heard him sing, but he was a shill for communism. Now I understand that as a black man in the US in the 30s, he was easily taken by Soviet propaganda about the brotherhood of the oppressed. That is not what I am talking about. Rather its as a human being, who could have saved some foolish fellow Americans who were trapped in the Soviet Union from the Gulag when he was in Moscow. He did not raise his voice on their behalf, prefering to spout Soviet propaganda instead. He had a chance to be remembered as a humane and upright man. He blew it, so it doesn't matter how great his interpretation of the spirituals are; they come from a hollow core.
Ivan
I'm with Ivan. I understand how racism could make you bitter but it was pretty obvious (except to the willingly blind, of which Robeson was not the only one) that Communism was deeply evil, more evil that even Jim Crow racism. Stalin killed millions. You can sing a song about Joe Hill but if you sang for the rest of your life you could not sing a song for each man that Stalin killed.
I regularly pass Robeson's house in what is now the black ghetto of West Philadelphia. It is now some kind of museum. I've never been inside. It's just a modest row house, not worthy of a Hero of the Soviet People.
K
BTW, I agree with your assessment of his voice - it was wonderful. In today's age, with his talent he would have been a multimillionaire and would not have had to tour Soviet Russia.
K
I looked it up on google - Walnut St 4951 and it is there, near the Malcolm X Park. I formed my opinion on Paul Robeson at age 5 and it has little in common with the Paul Robeson you have in mind. Americans grow up obsessed with Blacks, I neve met one till I was an adult. I was shocked by their strong smell, no one ever told me that. Later in AFrica I got so used to it that stopped noticing it.
The strong smell is only as a result of not bathing. This morning I caught a whiff of my Jamaican carpenter and he smelled very pleasantly of soap and nothing else.
K
Africans a distinctive smell called "catinga" (in Portuguese). It is not a bad odor, and of course it goes off with washing and soap. Japanese say we White people have our smell too. I am sure we do. Old males surely do.
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