It’s been a soul kind of day. I’ve been cranking out a Commitments-worthy playlist, but I’ve been favoring Wilson Pickett pretty heavily. I think I must have played “Midnight Hour” about a thousand times today. Wilson Picket combined all that is great about American music; the blue note that evolved independently in Ireland and Africa, joined hands and exploded on our shores; the raw studly energy of electric instrumentation, and the blasphemy of taking quiet respectable horns and making them growl. Above all, He’s got the infectious call-and-response we inherited from Africa. If I were to shout out:

Na Na Na Na Na Na! Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na! Na Na Na Na Na Na Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

And then cry out “I need somebody to help me say it one time!” You know what you would do. You would answer:

Na Na Na Na Na Na! Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na! Na Na Na Na Na Na Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

We can thank Cab Calloway for making sure that popular music in his country remained participatory, as much the property of the audience as it was of the performer. There would be no quiet audiences being condescendingly preached to as they were in the opera-houses of Europe. Instead Picket tells us to dance, and we do. But to keep it going he needs our help.

The uniquely American attitude of never taking authority for granted is what allowed us to give birth to Rock and Roll. These performers don’t perform to us or for us; they perform with us. We are drawn to the people that speak our language and count on us to help out as they do their thing. That’s why Americans whoop and holler at a show instead of sitting there like a futon.

Old World music is beautiful. It’s inspiring and refined. Elegant, breathtaking, and cultured, if that’s not too much of an over used term. But it’s also cultured like bacteria in a petri dish. Fascinating to study but there’s a big difference between life in a laboratory and the wild woods outside. At the end of the day, what do you play in your car? Schumann’s Sonata No. 3 in F minor or “Do You Love Me?” by The Countours? It’s not that Old World is useless or done for. But all that elegance and refinement had to come over here and get back to its dirty, wild roots so it could go back home. There it could remind musicians that Beethoven was a punk in his day and the world received Pink Floyd, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones. As for Falco and Abba . . . I blame aliens.

Where was I? Oh yes. I don’t have to wait ’till the midnight hour, Wilson. Everybody needs somebody to love so let’s go. I’ll put on my head phones and let’s you and me rock that Mustang Sally