Articles

The Burden of Racial Innocence: British-Invasion Rock Memoirs and the U.S. South

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.11.38627

Keywords:

rock music, autobiography/memoir, race relations, U.S. South

Abstract

Mid-sixties British rock musicians have rationalized their firsthand experience and profitable interactions with American racial segregation by adopting a stance of racial innocence, or a belief that youth and virtue make one immune to charges of complicity with organized structures of racism. This almost childlike subject-positioning disingenuously separates musicians’ expertise on African American blues from a more mature acknowledgement of the oppressive racial conditions that shaped the music, implicitly excluding them from culpability in the continued imbalance of power between black and white musicians.

Author Biography

Matthew D. Sutton, Morehead State University

Matthew D. Sutton holds a PhD in American Studies from the College of William and Mary (USA). His book-in-progress Storyville analyzes autobiographies by musicians from the U.S. South who came of age during the period of legalized segregation. His work has appeared in American Literature, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, Comparative American Studies, and several edited collections.

Published

2022-04-21

Issue

Vol. 11 (2022): EJLW

Section

Articles

Copyright (c) 2022 Matthew D. Sutton

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