the Kennedy years, with
annual record sales rising
from 600 million in 1960
to 757 million in 1964. 2
In the preceding
chapters we have stud-
ied eighty-nine complete
blues and gospel lyr-
ics that contain explicit
references to President
Kennedy or identifi
-
able aspects of his poli-
cies in the period from
November 1960, when
Kennedy successfully ran for president, to 1964, when many songs were
recorded about his assassination. Of the remaining forty-two recordings,
which are mentioned in the notes but have not been fully analyzed in this
book, some are unissued and unavailable (14 percent), some are alterna-
tive versions of the songs under discussion (62 percent), some are entirely
instrumental (7 percent), while the lyric content of others was either dupli-
cated elsewhere or did not seem relevant to the present study (17 percent).
Only 5 percent of all the songs mentioned in this book remained
unissued following the time of recording. This is a far lower number than
political blues and gospel songs in the period before 1960 (22 percent of
the songs in Roosevelt s Blues and 20 percent of the songs in The Truman
and Eisenhower Blues). It would appear that the sometimes controversial
nature of this type of lyrics presented less of a problem by the 1960s.
The recording locations of the political blues, gospel, and com-
edy lyrics about the Kennedy era referred to in this study are mostly
known. Thirty-eight recordings took place in Chicago, IL; fifteen in
Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Culver City, CA; eight in New York, NY;
eight in Philadelphia, PA; five in Scotlandville and Baton Rouge, LA;
three in Cincinnati, OH; three in Houston, TX; three in Copenhagen,
Denmark; two in Atlanta, GA; two in Boston, MA; two in Crowley,
LA; two in Detroit, MI; two in Memphis, TN; and one each in Albany, GA;
Brownsville, TN; Collierville, TN; Columbus, OH; Como, MS; Elba, AL;
[ 168 ] Concl usion