***CAF Note: This is an oldie but goodie from one of my favorite writers about the cultural roots of rock and roll***

By Michael Ventura

The Voodoo ceremonies of Haiti are danced around a centerpost, a kind of maypole through which the gods pass from where they dwell into the ceremony. This essay is the centerpost for this book. It is nothing less than a history of my country. Of
course, a country has an amazing number of interlocking histories. This is a history of its music, its dancing – and yet not even those, but the longing they expressed. As such, with this enormous subject, it is the longest chapter in the book. A scholarly work, putting together facts which, to my knowledge, have not yet been seen as a coherent whole; yet, while we must concentrate on facts and sources and such, this is as much a meditation as an essay on history. A meditation on the music and a meditation within the music.

Every true work of culture is a work of resurrection, a work of remembrance that creates the remembered moment anew and blends it with the present moment to create the possibilities of the future. How does American music do this? For only when we see clearly the meaning that this music incorporated can we understand both the history of this music and the history that this music made

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