you have to understand

from danyel smith’s amazing “when whitney hit the high note”, about houston singing the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl:

You have to understand. Key to American blues is the notion that by performing them and by experiencing them being performed, one can escape them. “I will be free,” sang this black American woman to a mostly white, tucked-in-tuxes audience attending an event at which black achievement has been and remains segregated and minimized. This is our most familiar pop dance. This is white American affluence being comforted by the performance of black freedom — and so, feeling forgiven. The polished intonations. The buffed exertion. The testimony. This is the conflation of mass sport and mass music. This is bodies and souls at work. This — one of America’s most influential creations and biggest imports — is the uplift of big blues.