Yes, because black people are American, not African, if you want to put it that way (but then again, also note the point I made earlier about some of the theories regarding the sources of the blues). Which doesn't say much at all, as far as I can tell. It doesn't matter whether Jack Bruce or other non-LBO individuals are dead wrong or dead right. Black people do not have to seesaw exclusively between some essentialist Africanity and American culture/roots (where America == white). A few things have already been covered:
* The things thus far celebrated as Southern cultural contributions have turned out to be primarily the work of black artists.
* It is probably true that these artists used the language, technique, training, etc available in the environment that they lived in.
* It has been suggested that their music however is not an outgrowth, a natural progression, of the white culture from which it took language, technique, etc, but a response to it.
* If that suggestion be true, then, it is strange to appropriate their work as a part of Southern culture or output. The Indian National Congress was founded, among other things, on enlightenment'ish ideas, and founded by a British company man (so to say). One does not therefore claim that the successful Indian freedom struggle and the victory that it represented for humanity is a product, a feature, of British culture!
I apologise if I sound cross,
--ravi