Secession Averted
T was only a couple of days after commenting for these columns on the lot of the U.S. Negro that an illuminating example flowed in through my loudspeaker. As far as I know there are four Negroes taking a part in the regular sponsored programmes on American radio networks. They are Rochester, in Jack Benny’s show, and the King Cole Trio in an Edward Everett Horton show called Music Hall. (Mention of Amos ‘n Andy will only produce hollow laughter. They are white men). Last week the King Cole Trio gave Music Hall customers two numbers, one of which was "Sweet Lorraine." Nat (King) Cole sang the lyric, but when he came to the deathless couplet: a of eyes that are bluer than the summer sins he sang: a pair of ey ‘ that are than the summer skies I was singing along with him (there was no one else in the house at the time) and was a little disconcerted, but it wasn’t till we reached the last line: just can’t wait until that lucky day when I marry sweet Lorraine that light dawned on me. It wasn’t hard to imagine the sponsor saying "We can’t have this nigger singing a love song to a blue-eyed girl. We’d never sell our product in the South again. Change the lyric.’"’ So Sweet Lorraine acquired bright eyes, and if Nat Cole felt bad about the change, I suppose he was quite at liberty to take his Trio to some other | sponsor--if he could find one.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19470117.2.17.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 395, 17 January 1947, Page 8
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255Secession Averted New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 395, 17 January 1947, Page 8
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