Well You Don’t Say: 10 White Singers We Once Thought Were Black

November 28th, 2011 - By MN Editor

"Michael McDonald"

Just a heads up, if you were thinking this was going to be one of those posts that idolizes “blue-eyed soul singers” or says folks are out here trying to “sound black” (as if there’s one way to sound black), you’re mistaken. This is a list about a few individuals with voices that we accidentally assumed at one point and time belonged to black people. It wasn’t until videos popped up for some of our favorite jams that we didn’t see a black man or woman, but a white man or woman–and it surprised the hell out of us. A lot of these singers are probably your personal favorites by now, some you may have never heard of, but don’t lie, you know you were telling your friends at one point or another, “Oh snap, I just assumed he/she was black…”

You’re not the only one.

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  • Ff88

    i used to think hootie was white

  • Tracy Emert

    I would like to add a little more to this conversation.  Most people don’t remember that when The Pointer Sisters released their 2nd album in 1973, they released as a single their song “Fairytales” which was a COUNTRY song and charted #13 and got them invited to perform on the Grand Ole Opery; the FIRST black performers to ever do so!  They even won a Grammy for the song the following year.  But, when COUNTRY music fans discovered they where “black” they were shunned by the “country fans”.  It would be years later when they would gain the success they deserved by crossing over several charting hit songs.  Possibly due to this controversy, a young Olivia Newtown John was being rumoured as being “black” too.  So country radio refused to play her records UNTIL John Farrar brought her to America and booked her on every tv show that would book her.  He done this to show the “country music folks” that she was indeed a “white” girl.  And only then, did country radio/fans embrace her as one of their own!  Talk about “music prejudice” just look at country music during those post-civil rights years.  It sounds unreal and insane today but was the “norm” back then.  Thank God, the times have changed! :)

  • Andhorne

    love Madame Noire…however, you over looked one singer that we thought was black….and maybe it is an age thang but….when Madonna, yes the material girl Madonna first came out with her first hit “Lucky Star” it was played on black radio and all of us thought she was black….then she blew up with “Like a Virgin” and she didn’t need us anymore….I know that some of ya’ll reading this will find this hard to believe but it is true…I was just talking about this subject just the other day with a bunch of baby boomers and we all concur…and yes NOW Madonna is the epitome of white woman…that is not how she started…duces

    • Strawberry Shortcake

      I never for a second supposed Madonna was black and I was a huge fan of her early stuff.  Interesting how people interpret the same sounds differently.

    • Tracy Emert

      I’m an old DJ.  Madonna’s very first record given to us to play in clubs/radio was a remix of “Burning UP’ and the album cover deliberately pictured a non-descriptive silohette (sic) of a woman who was “shaded” to look half oriental and half black.  This was done deliberately so urban radio/urban clubs would play the newcomer’s record.  This was a year and a half BEFORE her first full album was released and the cover I am talking about is not the cover from the “official” release of Burning Up a year later.  This one was just for Club/Urban radio DJS to play.  Because of it’s success, she was able to have more control over her debut album.  But, YES INDEED, We ALL (us DJs and very early fans) DID think she was black based on the sound of the record and the 12″ album cover.  Again, this is not the cover of Burning Up with all the different pics of Madonna; this one just had one animated pic of Madonna with hair done up Oriental style and shaded (black) face.  If they’d put her pic on that first club record; then it would’ve got tossed to the side at first glance and never given a chance.  By the time she made her first video and just before her debut album dropped, Sire Records showed us an actual photo of the “white girl” doing the dance stuff.  This is not uncommon.  Not at all!  All these people on here have mentioned the “very white” Rick Astley.  His first record, too was given to DJs with his picture “marked out” so he would get urban airplay/clubplay.  It worked!  Not only for these 2 artists but more than you might imagine.  It was the only way (back then) to get white djs to play black music and black djs to play white music.  I’m white, btw.  People don’t realize the importance of artists like Michael Jackson, Teena Marie, Prince, Tina Turner, etc… that were the first to get “white djs” to play their music and to get “black djs” to play Teena Marie or Madonna.  This has been a great debate on here and I hope I’ve shed a little light on the process we used to go through back then.  We’d get a “Demo” or “DJ Only” or “First Pressing” record many months, weeks before an official commercial release and we were the ones getting the records with faceless sleeves so we would play without prejudice; which is the way it should have always been but the times were different back then.  That’s why you would always here a song in the club months before it became a “hit song” on the radio.  :)  Peace DJ Trai Since 1978 :)  Tracy Emert.

  • sue Lewis

    Dayuuuuuum Bobby Caldwell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was looking at him and still didn’t believe it!!!!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JTG7YJ7UTGRXRBBD7H3L5TBJCE dhans

    First of all, Seriously?! I can’t believe this article was even written!   Second, WHERE THE HELL IS RICK ASTLEY???

  • Rolandkorg2

    Missing: 
    Alison Moyet, from YAZ and solo.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdV-5ivltkc

    And, lesser known, Billie Ray Martin, Electribe 101 and solo:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUoeCsLj4aw&feature=related

  • Rolandkorg2

    Missing: 
    Alison Moyet, from YAZ and solo.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdV-5ivltkc

    And, lesser known, Billie Ray Martin, Electribe 101 and solo:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUoeCsLj4aw&feature=related

    • Strawberry Shortcake

      I never thought Alison Moyet was black.  I thought she was a man!

  • http://www.facebook.com/yamahaboss Yamaha Boss

    Kudos for the Michael McDonald and Little Dragon shoutouts, but no Rick Astley? Seriously?

  • http://www.facebook.com/yamahaboss Yamaha Boss

    Awesome article.

  • Jeff

    YES Pink! I definitely thought she was black. The cover of her first album did nothing to diminish that idea.  Also a lot of people thought Madonna was black when she first came out too.

  • JD

    How about Kristine W? http://www.videodetective.com/music/one-more-try/193173

  • Christine C

    I would add Taylor Dane (“I’ll always love you, for the rest of my days…”) and Bonnie Tyler to the list.

    • Strawberry Shortcake

      I agree with Taylor Dayne, but not Bonnie Tyler.

  • Screenscreams

    Did anyone besides me think Tracy Chapman was a white man instead of a black woman the first time you heard her on the radio?

  • STABLU

    How Daryl Hall was left out is beyond me.  Hall and Oates were discovered because a black radio station (In Detroit if i recall) thougth the group that sang ‘Sara Smile’ was black and played it back in the 70′s.  The term “blue eyes soul” was invented to describe Daryl To this day, people still think he is a black singer when they hear some of his new (yes new–he is still cranking out the hits) and old songs.
    Nice list, but a huge gap by not including Darly Hall.

  • ripwhitney

    ya forgot the queen of the white chicks…AMY WINEHOUSE

  • Ivan Renko

    Yukimi Nagano reminds me of Erykah Badu! Same vibe, very-very similar voice and the same style.  The harmonic vocals.  I like that chick!

  • Chethammer

    Wow, Can’t believe this degenerated into the conversation that is taking place now. I just wanted to add that the white guy most mistaken for black would be Rick Astley!!

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/KJSAMQQA3APPQP4YVIG4RZOUA4 Bob

    Funny but outside of Tina Marie & Joe Cocker ( who didnt even make your list??)  I never thought any of these people were black?  Oh yeah how about the lead singer for the (Young) Rascals?? Thought he was black too when I first heard him?  Never thought that Pink was black either?  Of course with a nick name like PINK it would have made sense if I would have thought about it?

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