The audience gasped. From one side of the Apollo Theater stage emerged Judy Clay in a long, cream dress. The spotlight shifts and illuminates Billy Vera in his olive-green suit. “That’s him? That skinny little white boy?” someone exclaimed. The pair started performing a duet which made US history as the first interracial love song.
Though it was a popular song in New York, very few knew that a white man and black woman sang “Storybook Children” together. Billy Vera and Judy Clay had released their album around 6 months before they started to perform it live.
When the duo performed it in May of 1968, America was in the middle of an important period in Black history. The US Supreme Court had recently legalized interracial marriage through Loving v. Virginia and protests for Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination continued a month after his death. The government had also just outlawed housing discrimination using the Fair Housing Act. The country was just waiting for the next major event. Then, the Apollo Theater in Harlem made history with the first live performance of an interracial love song.
The song sent a strong message about equality. Love songs are usually based on a deep connection between two individuals, so one by a black woman and a white man implied a historically unacceptable romance. It was different from an interracial band or regular love song because it represented a deeper relationship that broke social norms. As Vera put it, “there’s a difference between a big group integration and a couple singing a love song – there were all these taboos around interracial sex.”
Songwriter Chip Taylor wrote “Storybook Children” with Vera after witnessing a touching moment between two children. Taylor saw a white boy and a black girl, hand in hand, simply walking around an open field just outside New York City. “It was a time when that wasn’t so acceptable and it was such a nice feeling, like a storybook,” he tells BBC Culture.
After Taylor and Vera finished writing the song, they started looking for a woman to sing the female part. They listened to numerous singers, both black and white, but Judy Clay’s dynamic voice worked best with Vera’s smooth vocals.
“It was groundbreaking,” says Vera. “America was just on the verge of being ready for an interracial duo singing love songs – but they weren’t quite there yet.”
Present day America has plenty of music groups each with various ethnicities and races, but in the 1960’s, they were mostly separated. The first interracial duo in the US was black R&B artist Sister Rosetta Tharpe and white country singer Red Foley in 1952. They released “Have a Little Talk with Jesus” which shook listeners despite its little popularity. A more well-known pair was pop and jazz artist Frank Sinatra and female jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald in the late 1950’s. They mainly performed on Sinatra’s TV shows which further popularized mixed-race duos.
Interracial singers only grew more popular from there. According to an article by Diane Bernard in BBC news, “After Storybook Children in 1967, the music industry began seeing more and more interracial duo releases.” In 1976, Leon and Mary Russell sang their single on “national TV show Saturday Night Live, showing wider acceptance of integrated singers both in the music business and the culture at large.”
Now, countless artists and singers travel to the US from all around the world to pursue their musical careers. America has grown more diverse and accepting over the decades and will continue to grow in the years to come.
Though it was a popular song in New York, very few knew that a white man and black woman sang “Storybook Children” together. Billy Vera and Judy Clay had released their album around 6 months before they started to perform it live.
When the duo performed it in May of 1968, America was in the middle of an important period in Black history. The US Supreme Court had recently legalized interracial marriage through Loving v. Virginia and protests for Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination continued a month after his death. The government had also just outlawed housing discrimination using the Fair Housing Act. The country was just waiting for the next major event. Then, the Apollo Theater in Harlem made history with the first live performance of an interracial love song.
The song sent a strong message about equality. Love songs are usually based on a deep connection between two individuals, so one by a black woman and a white man implied a historically unacceptable romance. It was different from an interracial band or regular love song because it represented a deeper relationship that broke social norms. As Vera put it, “there’s a difference between a big group integration and a couple singing a love song – there were all these taboos around interracial sex.”
Songwriter Chip Taylor wrote “Storybook Children” with Vera after witnessing a touching moment between two children. Taylor saw a white boy and a black girl, hand in hand, simply walking around an open field just outside New York City. “It was a time when that wasn’t so acceptable and it was such a nice feeling, like a storybook,” he tells BBC Culture.
After Taylor and Vera finished writing the song, they started looking for a woman to sing the female part. They listened to numerous singers, both black and white, but Judy Clay’s dynamic voice worked best with Vera’s smooth vocals.
“It was groundbreaking,” says Vera. “America was just on the verge of being ready for an interracial duo singing love songs – but they weren’t quite there yet.”
Present day America has plenty of music groups each with various ethnicities and races, but in the 1960’s, they were mostly separated. The first interracial duo in the US was black R&B artist Sister Rosetta Tharpe and white country singer Red Foley in 1952. They released “Have a Little Talk with Jesus” which shook listeners despite its little popularity. A more well-known pair was pop and jazz artist Frank Sinatra and female jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald in the late 1950’s. They mainly performed on Sinatra’s TV shows which further popularized mixed-race duos.
Interracial singers only grew more popular from there. According to an article by Diane Bernard in BBC news, “After Storybook Children in 1967, the music industry began seeing more and more interracial duo releases.” In 1976, Leon and Mary Russell sang their single on “national TV show Saturday Night Live, showing wider acceptance of integrated singers both in the music business and the culture at large.”
Now, countless artists and singers travel to the US from all around the world to pursue their musical careers. America has grown more diverse and accepting over the decades and will continue to grow in the years to come.