Georgia Gibbs's the Wallflower

The Wallflower may not sound particularly explicit to R ears, but anything that even vaguely hinted at sexuality was completely out of the question for early 50s radio. This wasn't the only time Georgia Gibbs ripped off a black woman's record. Her cover version of Laverne Baker's Tweedle Day also outsold Baker's original and was similarly insipid compared to its inspiration. Those records aren't just white people cashing in on black musicians' talent, they're part of an ongoing conversation between different musicians. A conversation which, yes, has a racial power dynamic which should not be overlooked and needs to be addressed. But not an example of an individual white person deliberately using racism