While looking for pictures for a lecture I'm giving tomorrow on Pentecostalism, I came across this gem of a story about James Watt banning the Beach Boys from the National Mall. It's a great story about the contradictions of American culture (1/x). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/secretary-interior-once-banned-rock-bands-national-mall-180962735/

Watt was Reagan's controversial Secretary of the Interior and a member of the Pentecostal Assembly of God denomination. He didn't want rock music at the National Mall July 4 concert in 1983 because it would attract "the wrong element". He wanted something "wholesome". (2/x)

Of course, the Beach Boys were about as wholesome as it gets, some would say nauseatingly so. But Watt didn't know much about music. “If it wasn’t ‘Amazing Grace’ or ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ I didn’t recognize the song,” he said. (3/x)

The weird irony is that Pentecostalism isn't exactly remote from American pop music. It is at the center of it. Rock and roll was essentially secularized Pentecostal worship. (4/x)

Carl Perkins? Pentecostal. Sister Rosetta Tharpe? Pentecostal. Jerry Lee Lewis? Pentecostal. ELVIS PRESLEY? Pentecostal (same denomination as Watt, in fact). Marvin Gaye? Pentecostal. The list goes on, extending as far as Katy Perry today. (5/x)

Even John Ashcroft, another member of Assemblies of God, was into music. He was one of the Singing Senators barbershop quartet and was notorious for this song. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Eagle_Soar

Now that I've reminded you of John Ashcroft's music career I think I've done enough damage for today. And I didn't think about how to end this thread. But anyway, the relationship between American religion, politics and music is a rich and strange thing. (7/x end)