a come-hither look turned a woman into
an alluring creature ofmystery. Anobject
of desire. Something exotic and
glamorous.
How dramatically all this has changed.
We’re living in thepresent and it’s hardnot
to know that most of those glamorous,
upscale people are no longer smoking. In
the hands of government statisticians, the
question“Who smokesmore thanaverage?”
produces some rather unsettling answers.
Homeless people do. People in prison
smoke at nearly four times the rate of the
population in general. Drug addicts do.
People with less education and less earning
potential do. Like it or not, cigarette
smoking in America has become a class-
related habit. And that is a world far from
the one that produced the music on this
collection. Sure, there are exceptions, and
perhaps they includeyour friendsand family.
But by and large we can make some well-
grounded general predictions. Putting it
about as bluntly as we can, showus a drug-
addicted street hooker, and we’ll show you
a cigarette smoker. Show us a guy in prison
doing10 to20 for armed robbery, andwe’ll
showyouacigarette smoker.That’sAmerica
today.
And that’s also enoughabout thepresent.
Let’s turn back the clock to the 1940s and
’50s when most of the music on this CD
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