He is better known for rallying global support for Ukraine, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday picked up another favorite tool of diplomacy — his guitar.
The lifelong music fan turned top US diplomat showed off his guitar chops, as he launched a new initiative of music diplomacy through which the US is to send top artists to countries including China and Saudi Arabia.
After performances in the US Department of State’s formal reception room by the likes of jazz icon Herbie Hancock, Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, and rising young pop singer Gayle, Blinken took the stage himself, joking that he was sure to “clear the floor.”
Photo: AFP
Playing rhythm guitar to a house band and turning his usually soft-spoken voice to a deep bellow, Blinken offered a rendition of Hoochie Coochie Man by blues legend Muddy Waters, with the — many of them his subordinates at the state department — not leaving, but cheering.
US pop culture for decades has dominated much of the globe, although it has mostly grown without government support.
During the Cold War, the US eagerly sent artists to woo audiences overseas, including many black artists who at the time were forced to play in segregated venues in parts of their own country.
As part of Blinken’s new initiative, Hancock is to travel to Jordan on the anniversary of a 1963 tour by jazz pianist Duke Ellington. He will also pay a first-of-its-kind trip to Saudi Arabia, a strict Islamic state that has only recently begun opening to public music performances.
The Philadelphia Orchestra is to head to China in November to mark 50 years since its first tour to the Asian country in 1973 — then largely closed to the world and winding down the Cultural Revolution.
The Global Music Diplomacy Initiative would bring a new generation of tours, with plans for travel to 30 countries over the coming year by a range of US acts.
The initiative would also see US rappers heading to Nigeria to discuss using music to address conflict.
“For generations, US diplomacy has worked to harness the power of music to actually build bridges, to foster collaboration between Americans and people around the world,” Blinken said in a speech before his performance.
“You don’t have to know any history to connect the feelings behind the music because music at its core is about a bond rooted in our shared humanity,” he said.
The evening brought a rare bipartisan note in Washington as US Representative Mike McCaul, the Republican head of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, praised Blinken’s “great work” and likened the evening to the legendary performances at the White House under former US president John F. Kennedy.
The performances took place in the state department’s newly renovated reception room named for Revolutionary War diplomat and polymath Benjamin Franklin, under gliterring chandeliers and a spruced-up ceiling seal of the US bearing an eagle.
“I am deeply honored, but also a bit freaked out to be here,” pop-rocker Aimee Mann said as she opened her set.
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