February 26, 2019. Madison, Mississippi. Masters on TV.

This past week I have watched two shows that I loved. PBS showed them both. The first one a week ago was a two hour show on the life of Sammy Davis Jr. I have known him all my life but knew nothing much about him. I always enjoy reading biographies. I like to see how people get from one thing to the next. I already know the end of the story but now I like to know how the person got their success. The TV show was even better than a book because they showed the dancing and the singing. Life was not so easy for him. He was at the front end of integration. When he played in LasVegas in his early years, he was not able to stay in the big hotels. Rather he had to stay in a rooming house in the black neighborhood. I had forgotten about his dancing. I love tap dancing and I saw a lot of it in the show. He started performing for money at age 3 and toured with his two uncles. He never attended school. He performed his whole life. Then this weekend I watched an hour of the life of Charlie Pride. Again, I have been listening his voice my whole life so I enjoyed listening to his songs and hearing about his life. When he first became popular, his voice and diction did not sound black. This was before no black person was singing country songs. So for the first few records, they put no picture of him on the album. Then the folks wanted him to play the Grand Old Opry. When he first walked out on the stage, everyone gasped but no one said a word. No clapping, no heckling. He said to the audience. "I am a Black Country singer and would like to entertain you tonight." there was a silence, so he started singing and sang all night. The short clip was shown during the program. When he was interviewed, he said that he never had a cat call or unpleasant comments during his whole career. And he was born and raised in Mississippi. I hear a lot of negative comments about TV but my experience is the opposite. If I watch carefully, I see many valuable shows in TV. This past week has been a perfect example.