Black music gets whitewashed, as Georgia Gibbs hits the pop charts with The Wallflower (Dance With Me, Henry)
For its time the mid-1950s the lyrical phrase You got to roll with me Henry was considered risqu just as the very label rock and roll was understood to have a sexual connotation.The line comes from an Etta James record originally called Roll With Me Henry and later renamed The Wallflower.Already a smash hit on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart it went on to become a pop hit in the spring of 1955 but not for Etta James.
Re-recorded with toned-down lyrics by the white pop singer Georgia Gibbs Dance With Me Henry (Wallflower) entered the pop charts on March 26 1955 setting off a dubious trend known as whitewashing.In addition to replacing Roll with Dance the lyrics of the Georgia Gibbs version omitted lines like If you want romancinYou better learn some dancin but its most important change was more subtle.Even in an era when radio audiences rarely saw the faces of the singers they listened to the rhythmic and vocal style of the Georgia Gibbs record made it as obviously white as the Etta James record was black.And while many Americans might have preferred the Etta James version to the Georgia Gibbs cover had they heard the two in succession they would rarely have the opportunity to do so.
Pop radio was almost exclusively white radio in 1955 America and middle-of-the-road artists like Nat King Cole and the Ink Spots were rare exceptions to this rule.
