• Home
  • Blog
  • Contact
The Screaming Moderate

Atwater-initiated blues' concert on PBS

3/1/2014

2 Comments

 
PictureAir duet at the 1989 concert
PBS is premiering a show today  featuring a concert from George H.W. Bush's 1989 inaugural.

The late Lee Atwater, his campaign advisor, was a huge blues fan and Lee arranged a concert with the best in the business of that era -- Bo Diddly, BIlly Ray Vaughn, Sam Moore, Willy Dixon, Carla Thomas, Dr. John, and the list goes on. The program only shows Lee for a minute and doesn't show Bush at all (even though there is what I'll call an iconic photo of Lee and Bush playing air guitar at the event).

Many thought the tapes of the show were lost. This show has been pieced together from various sources. The man who produced the show in 1989, Howard Begle, also produced the PBS program, which is coming out on DVD soon. It focuses on the music, not the politics. Which was what Atwater wanted, too. He was a huge blues fan. Cut his own album, in fact, featuring many of the same acts, and B. B. King. The show focuses, the review says, on the music, not the politics of the event. And Lee wanted to showcase that music at the inaugural.

Atwater was pegged as the guy behind the Willie Horton issue used against Bush's opponent, Massachusetts Gov. Mike Dukakis. (Former Vice President Al Gore when challenging for the Democratic presidential nomination was the first to raise the Horton issue in the campaign.)

Horton was a convicted murderer, who escaped while on furlough. He also was African-American. The Bush campaign, and outside groups mostly in paid ads, beat up Dukakis as a liberal who let murderers out of jail for a break. (Aside: my wife, Chris Black, was the Boston Globe reporter who covered the Dukakis campaign and wrote books on it. Coincidentally, just the other day she came across the Horton trial transcripts she used as research in our garage.) The belief was the issue was used to scare white voters away from Dukakis and to Bush.

I worked for Atwater when he was Republican National Party chairman. In spite of what folks think of his politics (and some of you are right, and some are wrong), he was one charming guy who loved the blues. Lee had three goals in life: run a presidential campaign, chair the national GOP, and record a blues album. He achieved all three goals by the time he was 40, which also was the age at which he died from brain cancer.

The artists, most of them African-Americans, the story goes, questioned even themselves as to why they were participating in a concert initiated by people some thought were racists. Bottom line: they were being asked to play for a president of the United States, and didn't want to miss that opportunity.

For the record, Atwater was not a racist. He was a politician who would use most any issue to win an election. We can debate the ethics of that philosophy another time and Lee spent part of his final days apologizing for some of the things he did.  

For today: Lee loved the blues. Saw to it that an amazing concert was produced for the man he elected. And I look forward to getting lost in the music.

(Update: In the Washington, D.C., area, WETA says it will air the show March 15. It will be on New York PBS tonight.)






2 Comments
Cindy DeVore link
3/1/2014 11:23:11 am

I first met Lee in Beaufort, South Carolina, when we arranged a GOP fundraiser for which Lee and his band played with Percy Sledge in our little town. Percy was scheduled to fly from Atlanta to Savannah, and pick up a limo to Beaufort. There was a terrible thunderstorm in Atlanta that day, and all commercial flights were cancelled. My boss arranged for a private plane to fly Percy through the storm (telling him by phone that he "personally guaranteed his safe arrival"). It took some real convincing to get him on the plane, but he made it, and the show went on. It was definitely a night to remember, with two unique legends singing the blues like I'd never heard. Shortly thereafter, my husband was transferred to Headquarters Marine Corps in Arlington, and we moved from sleepy Beaufort to Washington, DC. Thanks for my first job in Washington, B. Jay. And thanks for bringing back some great memories with this photo. The RNC's Muzak system never grooved so splendidly!

Reply
B. Jay
3/2/2014 12:49:56 am

Cindy, you got that job, of course, because you deserved it and you did great work there, but mostly it was a great launching point for a most successful career in politics for you, and on into your current venture which I see is going great guns!!! Congrats on that!!!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

     
    Follow @bjaycooper

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

powered by bjaycooper.com