Grading the Schools

You might not know who Booker T and the MG's are, but you've probably heard this song on the soundtrack of any movie that needs an aural shortcut to "cool."

That's Green Onions, their first big hit. Even if you don't know that song, you've probably heard them on others; they were essentially the Stax Records house players, a label responsible for Otis Redding, Mavis Staples, and Isaac Hayes. So even when you don't think you're hearing them, you just might be. The Onion AV Club has a really interesting interview with the front man, Booker T. Jones. He has a new album coming out with Neil Young and the Drive-By Truckers, and I think analogheads should read why Jones is embracing new tech so thoroughly. However, what I found most interesting- and upsetting- wasn't anything about the production of the album, but Jones on the sad state of music education in the States:

"Musically, the opportunities for new bands are shrinking somewhat because as far as kids growing up who want to learn music, the opportunities are less than they were for me. I’m gonna donate some of my old instruments to the Tipitina’s Instrument Program in New Orleans, ’cause the schools are not financed well enough nowadays to provide band instruments like they were when I was in school. States are not financing music education like they used to. Opportunities for new bands and new musicians are not as good now."

Jones isn't talking about rich private schools, or even the feeder schools that masquerade as public, because those kids will be kept in horns and bassoons until the end of time. It's just the poor kids who'll get screwed over, and the new music tech won't save them either. With the equally shitty state of school funding in low-income areas for computers, they're equally screwed. Arts funding, or the lack of it, might not seem like much with school violence and outdated textbooks on the grounds. But reading Jones shows how much we're going lose this way, if we lose out on people like him.