Frankie Beverly - "Legacy of Healing" - Reagan Era and Beyond

"When Frankie Beverly, lead singer of Maze, passed away, I thought of...his recordings from one November night in 1980 at the Saenger Theater. His album "Live in New Orleans" captured more than a concert. It captured a turning point in history. President Carter had lost his reelection bid barely a week earlier. Nearly 60% of Orleans Parish, where Beverly was recording, voted for Carter. The GDP grew a stunning 4.6% during Carter's only term, but inflation was 13% as was the poverty rate. His opponent, Ronald Reagan, blamed social programs and welfare recipients for the economic woes. 

        When Reagan first workshopped that rhetoric, in his 1966 campaign for governor of California, the war on poverty" had just begun; the overall poverty rate was 17%, but for Black America in 1965 it was more than 40%. By 1980, Reagan and his party had a clear record of dislike for the war on poverty and those it intended to help. He cut more than $22 billion from social programs within his first two years. And when Reagan left the White House, the country's poverty rate was back up to its highest since -- wait for it -- 1965.

     In "New Orleans in 1980, Beverly singing 'we'll get through these changing times' was about all of this and the road ahead. His music was both the calm before the storm and the tool needed to find peace in the middle of it. That is why 'Joy and Pain' -- the fourth track on the live album -- sounds less like an R&B concert and more like a revival."

    "By the time "Live in New Orleans" was released in 1981, nearly 1 in 7 Americans had plunged into poverty, crack was appearing in major cities and the U.S. divorce rate was at its peak. Beverly's music kept the Black community's spirits lifted -- much in the way Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp became voices for the white working class during this same era." (My excerpt from article by LZ Granderson, Los Angeles Times - 9/13/24)

    (You can access the remainder of this excellent article at the Los Angeles Times. It's sooo worth reading in its entirety: another incredible tribute to an amazing singer, songwriter, performer.) 

            "There will be sorrow but you will endure.

             Where there's a flower there's the sun and the rain --

    Oh, but it's wonderful, they're both one and the same."