Sun Records: The Ooby Dooby
Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 30 October 1970
"'SINFUL MUSIC,' the townsfolk in Memphis said it was. Which never bothered me, I guess." Elvis Presley, interviewed in 1957. In the early 1950s, the major American record labels, and managers, were deep in the grip of the Protestant ethic. Self-confident sexuality was expressed, musically, only by black singers. Their 'race' market was regarded as specialist. It was regional, and accounted for not more than 6 per cent of the total popular music market. The body, by and large, was in the ghetto.
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