The Quintessential American Album?

So, we're listening to music over dinner (nothing new)...and tonight, my lovely & lively wife has picked the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to The Blues Brothers. Now, we're great fans of the movie, but this album is also fantastic!

Check out the tracks:

1. She Caught The Katy - Jake
2. Peter Gunn Theme - Jake
3. Gimme Some Lovin' - Jake
4. Shake A Tail Feather - Ray Charles/Jake & Elwood
5. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love - Jake & Elwood/Patty Austin/Vivian Cherry/Ullanda McCullough
6. The Old Landmark - James Brown/Rev. James Cleveland Choir
7. Think - Aretha Franklin/Brenda Corbet/Margaret Branch/Caroline Franklin
8. Theme From Rawhide - Elwood & Jake
9. Minnie The Moocher - Cab Calloway
10. Sweet Home Chicago - Elwood & Jake
11. Jailhouse Rock - Jake

Now, granted, many are remakes by Elwood & Jake...but look at the artists involved!

So, I'm gonna go out on a limb, and suggest that this album be considered for the title of the Quintessential American Album. My arguments:
1. Genres - largely blues and blues-based rock of course--born in America; but also Gospel ("The Old Landmark") and Country/Western (sort-of) ("Theme from Rawhide")...also American concepts.
2. Artists - Ray Charles??!?! James Brown?!??! Aretha Franklin??!?! Cab Calloway?!?!??! Forget the banner, this album is star-spangeled!
3. Familiarity - I would argue that this album would have at least one recognizable track to a vast majority of living Americans, especially both Caucasians and African Americans.
4. Appeal - I just can't listen to this album without moving! It stirs the soul!
5. Musicality - the performances are top-notch, and well beyond the simple I-IV-V-relative minor chord progression!
6. Film/Classic TV Association - I hesitate to mention this one...don't want to mix media...but there is something significant about the inclusion of two Classic TV themes ("Peter Gunn" and "Rawhide"). And the fact that the album contains the songs without which the movie would be extraordinarily lackluster means that the "soul" of the movie is the soundtrack!

Well, there's my 2 cents. Now, readers...over to you. What album would you suggest as the Quintessential American Album? Why? I'd love to hear from you! Please "Post a Comment" and let me know!

Questions and Answers: a Lenten Meditation for Reflectives

Being a "postmodern" has granted a helpful (in my view) perspective on Questions and Answers. I have come to really value Questions. They are the fuel for reflection, indeed. I am reaching a stage in life where one of my favorite pastimes is to turn a meaningful question over and over in my head, looking at it from many different perspectives. Equally, though, I have lost some respect for Answers. That is, I have lost respect for simplistic Answers. Growing in the practice of my reflective nature has uncovered for me the understanding of how few Questions there are which are not, in some way, linked to our own worldview and experience. But of course, this is a basic human truth, is it not?

What postmodernity has failed to do for me is map out an acceptable interaction between Questions and Answers. You see, I am not of the mindset that wisdom lies only in the Questions (although there is much more there than I might have earlier thought!). Just as Answers which exist without Questions are not Answers at all (but rather arguments, propositional statements, claims, etc.), I would postulate that Questions are not meant to survive completely independently. Put simply, Questions and Answers exist symbiotically.

This is where my faith steps in. (And I should note it would be unreasonable for me to attribute all of my growing reflective nature to postmodernity...faith has, I believe, played some role there, too!) My gut-level sense is that Questions tend to live in two broad (and interactive) categories: pragmatic (What time is it? What's your name? When is the bus to arrive?) and philosophical. As for the latter, such Questions can become quite intricate and profound, and there is a whiff of wisdom in believing that their intricateness and profundity suggests not only that a simplistic answer does them (or more accurately, the asker) violence, but that any answer does. But my worldview won't support that, as following that track eventually leads me to a hopeless state of existentialism or nihilism. No, Christianity, once again holding competing truths together in tension, seems to me to suggest that both Questions and Answers can be simultaneously simple and profound.

In addition, our Western, fix-it world seems to be obsessed with the natural flow being from Question to Answer. (Or worse yet, from Answer to Answer, but that's another matter.) To me, the symbiotic relationship must necessarily flow from Answer to Question, as well.

And when I follow all of this progression in any line of thinking, I again and again find my Questions and Answers both beginning and ending with Jesus, and more specifically, with his cross. Jesus teaches me to ask the right Questions, to uncover, in my soul, what is really there--even (especially?) when I don't really know, myself. Jesus invites me to explore the depths of who he is, and find satiation for some of my Questions...before introducing the next Questions to be asked. He is the Answer. Yet he is not only the Answer, he is the Question. He is the Truth...and the Truth, I am finding, is Questions and Answers.

In the surety of my relationship with him, I freely release my surety of other philosophies and wisdom. In the Answer of him, I am freed to ask Questions of him. In the conviction of his death on my behalf, I am released from the expectation of conviction. In this way, I am reborn. In this way, I am remade.