Why does black people never want to rock?

You'd have to do a detailed check on this to be sure, but my guess is that, starting with the British Invasion bands, white covers of black hits are substantially better by the mid-'60s than in the '55-57 era. I like the original "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" (Exciters) and "Go Now" (Bessie Banks) and "I'm Into Somethin' Good" (Earl-Jean) even better than the more famous covers, but the covers are pretty great too (and probably most people would go with Manfred Mann). The Beatles and Rolling Stones were generally fantastic covering girl group and Motown and Chuck Berry. Compare that with the horrifying Pat Boone-type cover from the '50s. (Exception: the Diamonds' "Little Darlin'.")

That the first three covers I listed were still the bigger hits remained...troublesome? complicated? grossly unfair? Manfred Mann and the Moody Blues and Herman's Hermits all did an excellent job.

You'd have to do a detailed check on this to be sure, but my guess is that, starting with the British Invasion bands, white covers of black hits are substantially better by the mid-'60s than in the '55-57 era. I like the original "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" (Exciters) and "Go Now" (Bessie Banks) and "I'm Into Somethin' Good" (Earl-Jean) even better than the more famous covers, but the covers are pretty great too (and probably most people would go with Manfred Mann). The Beatles and Rolling Stones were generally fantastic covering girl group and Motown and Chuck Berry. Compare that with the horrifying Pat Boone-type cover from the '50s. (Exception: the Diamonds' "Little Darlin'.")

― clemenza

so white people got better at "cultural appropriation"? :)

I brought this point up in this in another thread, but it's probably more relevant to this discussion: It's interesting to look at the R&B chart of 1963 and consider the fact that there was so much overlap with the pop chart at that moment that Billboard stopped publishing an R&B chart for over a year, including all of 1964. In '63 people like Elvis, Roy Orbison, Bobby Darin, and the Beach Boys were placing records on the R&B chart. What was going on then? Were "black music" and "white music" converging? In early '65 the R&B chart comes back but it appears that white acts are seldom on it from that point forward - until the disco period when things get shaken up a little.

various guesses online--

http://www.discomusic.com/forums/showthread.php/42201-The-Missing-Billboard-Soul-Charts-1964-answer-and-Cash-Box-charts-here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_R%26B/Hip-Hop_Songs
From November 30, 1963, to January 23, 1965, there were no Billboard R&B singles charts. The chart was discontinued in late 1963 when Billboard determined it unnecessary due to so much crossover of titles between the R&B and pop charts in light of the rise of Motown.[5] The chart was reinstated with the issue dated January 30, 1965, as "Hot Rhythm and Blues Singles" when differences in musical tastes of the two audiences, caused in part by the British Invasion in 1964, were deemed sufficient to revive it.[citation needed]

^^^ I see one guy in the discomusic thread asking the question but no one takes him up on it (unless I'm missing something)

Down to it, it's a good naive question to ask. And the last points I've just skimmed over are very sensible.
Cultural / race divide is its own answer, as music is closely linked to education, heritage, identity. There hasn't been much white presence in some genres that retain a strong black majority even to this day. You just have to ask black artists what they were listening and admiring to as kids. There's already been much talk elsewhere about the woman side of the history of music (how many listeners even approach 'equality' there ?), which is a similar social question.

hell hath no whining like the whining of an entitled dude who believes in “real rock” pic.twitter.com/E583DZ692E

— maura 🎙 johnston (@maura) December 12, 2017