Saturday, 31 October 2009
Friday, 30 October 2009
Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography
By Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and Gordon Friesen
Edited by Ronald D. Cohen
Foreword by Pete Seeger
Perhaps best known for Broadside, the influential magazine they founded in 1962, Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and Gordon Friesen have long been renowned figures on the American left. In this book, these two dedicated social activists - Sis the folk musician and Gordon the radical journalist - offer a spirited account of their personal and political odyssey. The story is illustrated with numerous photographs and drawings.
Born into poverty in rural Oklahoma, further shaped by the hardships of the "dustbowl" Depression years, Sis and Gordon were already committed to radical causes when they met and married in 1941. A short time later they moved to New York City, where they befriended Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Sis joined the folk protest group the Almanac Singers, and Gordon continued his work as a journalist.
Although blacklisted for their political views during the McCarthy era, Sis and Gordon persevered and eventually launched Broadside, which they continued to produce for almost twenty years. The magazine was instrumental in promoting the careers of many singer-songwriters, publicing the first works of such artists as Bob Dylan, Janis Ian, Phil Ochs, Buffy Sinate-Marie, and Tom Paxton, as well as the works of more established figures, including Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger. Indeed, Broadside helped give birth to a musical revival that energized the country and forged a vital link between the folk music of the 1930s and 1940s and the urban folk revivalists of the 1960s and 1970s.
Excerpt
By the fall Phil Ochs became a contributor, and throughout most of 1963 we hardly put out an issue that didn't contain one or two Ochs songs.
[...]
Phil Ochs started coming within a few months and continued to come long after we discontinued the monthly meetings. He always visited us when in New York after his move to California; he still put his songs on tape for us, and Gordon and I taped long interviews with him, which we transcribed and printed in Broadside. We later recorded some of the conversations on L-P albums through Folkways Records. He spent a lot of time with us during the summer and into the winter of 1975, talking hour after hour about being under surveillance of the FBI. Phil was quite ill, so we taped none of this. But later we confirmed what he said by sending to the Freedom of Information Act for a report on him and receiving over four hundred pages.
Edited by Ronald D. Cohen
Foreword by Pete Seeger
Perhaps best known for Broadside, the influential magazine they founded in 1962, Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and Gordon Friesen have long been renowned figures on the American left. In this book, these two dedicated social activists - Sis the folk musician and Gordon the radical journalist - offer a spirited account of their personal and political odyssey. The story is illustrated with numerous photographs and drawings.
Born into poverty in rural Oklahoma, further shaped by the hardships of the "dustbowl" Depression years, Sis and Gordon were already committed to radical causes when they met and married in 1941. A short time later they moved to New York City, where they befriended Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Sis joined the folk protest group the Almanac Singers, and Gordon continued his work as a journalist.
Although blacklisted for their political views during the McCarthy era, Sis and Gordon persevered and eventually launched Broadside, which they continued to produce for almost twenty years. The magazine was instrumental in promoting the careers of many singer-songwriters, publicing the first works of such artists as Bob Dylan, Janis Ian, Phil Ochs, Buffy Sinate-Marie, and Tom Paxton, as well as the works of more established figures, including Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger. Indeed, Broadside helped give birth to a musical revival that energized the country and forged a vital link between the folk music of the 1930s and 1940s and the urban folk revivalists of the 1960s and 1970s.
Excerpt
By the fall Phil Ochs became a contributor, and throughout most of 1963 we hardly put out an issue that didn't contain one or two Ochs songs.
[...]
Phil Ochs started coming within a few months and continued to come long after we discontinued the monthly meetings. He always visited us when in New York after his move to California; he still put his songs on tape for us, and Gordon and I taped long interviews with him, which we transcribed and printed in Broadside. We later recorded some of the conversations on L-P albums through Folkways Records. He spent a lot of time with us during the summer and into the winter of 1975, talking hour after hour about being under surveillance of the FBI. Phil was quite ill, so we taped none of this. But later we confirmed what he said by sending to the Freedom of Information Act for a report on him and receiving over four hundred pages.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin' - Lyrics/Chords
by Bob DylanAs published in Broadside ("The National Topical Song Magazine") #39 - February 7, 1964
Lyrics/Chords:
G Em C G
Come gather 'round, people, wherever you roam
Em C D
And admit that the waters around you have grown
G E C G
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
Am D
If your time to you is worth saving
C G D
Then you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
G D G
For the times they are a-changin'
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again
Don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no telling who it is naming
For the loser now will be later to win
'Cause the times they are a-changin'
Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call
Don't block up the doorway, don't stand in the hall
'Cause he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
'Cause the battle outside, raging
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
'Cause the times they are a-changin'
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
'Cause the times they are a-changin'
The line it is drawn and the curse it is cast
The slowest one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'
© 1963 Witmark Music
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Monday, 26 October 2009
Pete Seeger - A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
An unlikely Dylan cover by Pete Seeger. First, a live version:
A studio version, where Seeger again puts his own spin on the song:
A studio version, where Seeger again puts his own spin on the song:
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival & American Society, 1940-1970
By Ronald D. Cohen
For a brief period from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, folk music captured a mass audience in the United States as college students and others swarmed to concerts by the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. In this comprehensive study, Ronald D. Cohen reconstructs the history of this singular cultural moment, tracing its origins to the early decades of the twentieth century.
Drawing on scores of interviews and numerous manuscript collections, as well as his own extensive files, Cohen shows how a broad range of traditions - from hillbilly, gospel, blues, and sea shanties to cowboy, ethnic, and political protest music - all contributed to the genre known as folk. He documents the crucial work of John Lomax and other collectors who, with the assistance of recording companies, preserved and distributed folk music in 1920s. During the 1930s and 1940s, the emergence of Left-wing politics and the rise of the commercial music marketplace helped to stimulate wider interest in folk music. Stars emerged, such as Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and Josh White. With the success of the Weavers and the Kingston Trio in the 1950s, the stage was set for the full-blown "folk revival" of the early 1960s.
Centered in New York's Greenwich Village and sustained by a flourishing record industry, the revival spread to college campuses and communities across the country. It included a wide array of performers and a supporting cast of journalists, club owners, record company executives, political activists, managers, and organizers. By 1965 the boom had passed its peak, as rock and roll came to dominate the marketplace, but the folk revival left an enduring musical legacy in American culture.
Excerpt
Broadside attracted many new singer-songwriters. Via Ohio State University. Phil Ochs arrived in the Village in mid-1962 and participated in his first Folk City hootenanny in July, doing more country than folk, but he soon moved into protest music. Gil Turner brought him around to the Broadside meetings and he became a regular. When the editors called for a song about James Meredith's troubles at the University of Mississippi, Ochs responded in November with "Ballad of Oxford, Mississippi." Ochs, Dylan, and their colleagues developed an intense and sometimes competitive fellowship. Josh Dunson described one stimulating taping session at the Friesens' in Broadside no. 20, with Turner, Dylan, Seeger, Ochs and Happy Traum. Dylan sang "Masters of War" followed by "Playboys and Playgirls Ain't Gonna Run My World," then Ochs did one about striking miners in Hazard, Kentucky. "We were all out of breath without breathing hard," Dunson concluded, "that feeling you get when a lot of good things happen all at once. Pete expressed it, leaning back in his chair, saying slowly in dreamy tones: 'You know, in the past five months I haven't heard as many good songs and as much good music as I heard here tonight.'"
Moe Asch, who early on gave Broadside financial support, suggested issuing an album of songs by the regulars under a new Broadside Records label. Ochs, Turner, Matt McGinn, Seeger, Peter LaFarge, Mark Spoelstra, Happy Traum, and Dylan (aka "Blind Boy Grunt" because of his Columbia Records contract) gathered at the Cue Recording studio to cut the sides for Broadside Ballads, which appeared in late 1963. Five of the fifteen songs were Dylan compositions, starting with the New World Singers' performance of "Blowin' in the Wind."
For a brief period from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, folk music captured a mass audience in the United States as college students and others swarmed to concerts by the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. In this comprehensive study, Ronald D. Cohen reconstructs the history of this singular cultural moment, tracing its origins to the early decades of the twentieth century.
Drawing on scores of interviews and numerous manuscript collections, as well as his own extensive files, Cohen shows how a broad range of traditions - from hillbilly, gospel, blues, and sea shanties to cowboy, ethnic, and political protest music - all contributed to the genre known as folk. He documents the crucial work of John Lomax and other collectors who, with the assistance of recording companies, preserved and distributed folk music in 1920s. During the 1930s and 1940s, the emergence of Left-wing politics and the rise of the commercial music marketplace helped to stimulate wider interest in folk music. Stars emerged, such as Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and Josh White. With the success of the Weavers and the Kingston Trio in the 1950s, the stage was set for the full-blown "folk revival" of the early 1960s.
Centered in New York's Greenwich Village and sustained by a flourishing record industry, the revival spread to college campuses and communities across the country. It included a wide array of performers and a supporting cast of journalists, club owners, record company executives, political activists, managers, and organizers. By 1965 the boom had passed its peak, as rock and roll came to dominate the marketplace, but the folk revival left an enduring musical legacy in American culture.
Excerpt
Broadside attracted many new singer-songwriters. Via Ohio State University. Phil Ochs arrived in the Village in mid-1962 and participated in his first Folk City hootenanny in July, doing more country than folk, but he soon moved into protest music. Gil Turner brought him around to the Broadside meetings and he became a regular. When the editors called for a song about James Meredith's troubles at the University of Mississippi, Ochs responded in November with "Ballad of Oxford, Mississippi." Ochs, Dylan, and their colleagues developed an intense and sometimes competitive fellowship. Josh Dunson described one stimulating taping session at the Friesens' in Broadside no. 20, with Turner, Dylan, Seeger, Ochs and Happy Traum. Dylan sang "Masters of War" followed by "Playboys and Playgirls Ain't Gonna Run My World," then Ochs did one about striking miners in Hazard, Kentucky. "We were all out of breath without breathing hard," Dunson concluded, "that feeling you get when a lot of good things happen all at once. Pete expressed it, leaning back in his chair, saying slowly in dreamy tones: 'You know, in the past five months I haven't heard as many good songs and as much good music as I heard here tonight.'"
Moe Asch, who early on gave Broadside financial support, suggested issuing an album of songs by the regulars under a new Broadside Records label. Ochs, Turner, Matt McGinn, Seeger, Peter LaFarge, Mark Spoelstra, Happy Traum, and Dylan (aka "Blind Boy Grunt" because of his Columbia Records contract) gathered at the Cue Recording studio to cut the sides for Broadside Ballads, which appeared in late 1963. Five of the fifteen songs were Dylan compositions, starting with the New World Singers' performance of "Blowin' in the Wind."
Friday, 23 October 2009
Amchitka: The 1970 Concert That Launched Greenpeace
DISC ONEPhil Ochs
1. Intro Irving Stowe 1:38
2. Intro Phil Ochs 00:11
3. The Bells (E. A. Poe/P. Ochs) 3:09
4. Rhythms of Revolution 4:25
5. Chords of Fame 2:47
6. I Ain’t Marching Anymore 3:01
7. Joe Hill 7:10
8. Changes 3:36
9. I’m Going To Say It Now 2:57
10. No More Songs 3:49
James Taylor
11. Intro James Taylor 00:32
12. Something In The Way She Moves 3:09
13. Fire and Rain 3:52
14. Carolina In My Mind 4:39
15. Blossom 2:30
16. Riding On A Railroad 3:04
17. Sweet Baby James 3:27
18. You Can Close Your Eyes 2:31
DISC TWO
Joni Mitchell
1. Intro Joni Mitchell 00:17
2. Big Yellow Taxi/Bony Maronie (Larry Williams) 4:00
3. Cactus Tree 4:28
4. The Gallery 4:26
5. Hunter 2:36
6. My Old Man 4:29
7. For Free 5:08
8. Woodstock 5:16
9. Carey/Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan) 10:13
10. A Case Of You 4:44
11. The Circle Game 2:38
For sale through Greenpeace beginning November 10.
Toronto, Canada — Greenpeace Canada is set to release an exclusive two-disc, re-mastered live recording Amchitka, the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace, featuring Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and the late Phil Ochs. The concert, a fundraiser to protest U.S. nuclear bomb tests near Amchitka, Alaska sees a first-time release on 10 November. The CD is available exclusively through Greenpeace and all proceeds will benefit the organization.
“We are pleased to offer this musical slice of history to Greenpeace supporters and music lovers around the world,” said Bruce Cox, Greenpeace Canada’s executive director. “This CD is a piece of musical magic. It contains never before heard songs, duets and chatter that capture the confidence and hope of the times. It carries a timeless message that change is possible.”
The concert, which took place at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, British Columbia on 16 October 1970, was organized by former trial lawyer and activist Irving Stowe. As co-director of the Don’t Make A Wave Committee, he raised enough money to send 11 peace activists by boat, christened The Greenpeace, to the Aleutian Island of Amchitka. The activists were unsuccessful in stopping the tests, but their voyage in 1971 marks the birth of the worldwide organization known today as Greenpeace.
“The Amchitka voyage would not have happened without the concert, and so we owe a debt of gratitude to Irving Stowe, and the talents of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Phil Ochs for generating the momentum that ultimately launched Greenpeace,” continued Cox. “The activists that traveled to Amchitka set the example that has guided and defined Greenpeace: non-violent direct action to protect our environment and motivate societal change.”
The upcoming release features concert performances by then-rising Canadian star Joni Mitchell and a 22-year old James Taylor. Protest singer, Phil Ochs kicks off the CD. Earlier that year Mitchell had been named Top Female Performer of 1970 by Melody Maker magazine and Taylor had released his major breakthrough album Sweet Baby James.
Of the historic concert, Amchitka emcee and Canadian broadcaster, Terry David Mulligan says, “The crew of ‘The Greenpeace’ took hold of our hearts and minds and pulled all of us along. As always, music carried the day.”
Greenpeace is an independently funded organization that works to protect the environment. The organization challenges government and industry to halt harmful practices by negotiating solutions, conducting scientific research, introducing clean alternatives, carrying out peaceful acts of civil disobedience and educating and engaging the public. For more information on Greenpeace visit http://www.greenpeace.org.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Bob Dylan and Selections from the Newport Folk Festival - July 27, 1963
The Saturday morning set of Newport 1963 (July 27) on Porch 1 was hosted by Jean Ritchie and featured Sam Hinton, Bess Lomax Hawes, Clarence Ashley, Judy Collins, Paul Clayton, Joan Baez, Dock Boggs, Raun MacKinnon, Doc Watson, Jane Chatfield, Bob Davenport, Tony Snow, Jean Redpath, Jim Garland, Tom Paxton, and Bob Dylan.
Video from that day:
Bob Dylan took the stage at the end of the set and began with a captivating performance of "North Country Blues":
He then closed off the morning set with Joan Baez and the song "With God on Our Side" (referencing Jean Redpath, who earlier had played "The Patriot Game," the inspiration behind this song):
Other songs performed that day:
Clarence Ashley - "The House Carpenter":
Judy Collins - "The Great Silkie":
Joan Baez - "The Unquiet Grave":
The complete set list was as follows:
1. Jean Ritchie - Barbara Allen
2. Sam Hinton - Great God I'm Feelin' Bad
3. Sam Hinton - Three Nights Drunk (Our Goodman)
4. Bess Lomax Hawes - An Old Lady
5. Clarence Ashley - The House Carpenter
6. Judy Collins - The Great Silkie
7. Paul Clayton - The Two Sisters
8. Jean Ritchie - (chat)
9. Joan Baez - The Unquiet Grave
10. Dock Boggs - Rowan County Crew
11. Raun MacKinnon - Ballad of Haute Midi
12. Doc Watson - Little Orphan Girl
13. Jane Chatfield - The Green Bed
14. Bob Davenport - Seven Day Drunk
15. Bob Davenport - Shoals of Herring
16. Tony Snow - Fungus
17. Jean Redpath - The Patriot Game
18. Jim Garland - The Death of Harry Simms
19. Tom Paxton - Sully's Pail
20. Bob Dylan - North Country Blues
21. Bob Dylan & Joan Baez - With God on Our Side
Video from that day:
Bob Dylan took the stage at the end of the set and began with a captivating performance of "North Country Blues":
He then closed off the morning set with Joan Baez and the song "With God on Our Side" (referencing Jean Redpath, who earlier had played "The Patriot Game," the inspiration behind this song):
Other songs performed that day:
Clarence Ashley - "The House Carpenter":
Judy Collins - "The Great Silkie":
Joan Baez - "The Unquiet Grave":
The complete set list was as follows:
1. Jean Ritchie - Barbara Allen
2. Sam Hinton - Great God I'm Feelin' Bad
3. Sam Hinton - Three Nights Drunk (Our Goodman)
4. Bess Lomax Hawes - An Old Lady
5. Clarence Ashley - The House Carpenter
6. Judy Collins - The Great Silkie
7. Paul Clayton - The Two Sisters
8. Jean Ritchie - (chat)
9. Joan Baez - The Unquiet Grave
10. Dock Boggs - Rowan County Crew
11. Raun MacKinnon - Ballad of Haute Midi
12. Doc Watson - Little Orphan Girl
13. Jane Chatfield - The Green Bed
14. Bob Davenport - Seven Day Drunk
15. Bob Davenport - Shoals of Herring
16. Tony Snow - Fungus
17. Jean Redpath - The Patriot Game
18. Jim Garland - The Death of Harry Simms
19. Tom Paxton - Sully's Pail
20. Bob Dylan - North Country Blues
21. Bob Dylan & Joan Baez - With God on Our Side
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in America
By Bud Schultz and Ruth Schultz
Bud and Ruth Schultz's vivid oral history presents the extraordinary testimony of people who experienced government repression and persecution firsthand. Drawn from three of the most significant social movements of our time--the labor, Black freedom, and antiwar movements--these engrossing interviews bring to life the experiences of Americans who acted upon their beliefs despite the price they paid for their dissent. In doing so, they--and the movements they were part of--helped shape the political and social landscape of the United States from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century.
The majority of the voices in this book belong to everyday people--workers, priests, teachers, students--but more well-known figures such as Congressman John Lewis, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Abbie Hoffman, and Daniel Ellsberg are also included. There are firsthand accounts by leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World, active early in the century; Southern Tenant Farmers Union of the 1930s; Women's Strike for Peace, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Berkeley's Free Speech Movement of the 1950s and 1960s; and the Hormel meatpackers' Local P-9 in the 1980s. Lively introductions by the authors contextualize these personal statements.
Those who tell their stories in The Price of Dissent, and others like them, faced surveillance and disruption from police agencies, such as the FBI; brutalization by local police; local ordinances and court injunctions limiting protest; inquisitions into beliefs and associations by congressional committees; prosecution under laws that curbed dissent; denaturalization and deportation; and purges under government loyalty programs. Agree with them or not, by dissenting when it was unpopular or dangerous to do so, they insisted on exercising the precious American right of free expression and preserved it for a new century's dissenters.
Excerpt
It did drag out from 1972 until 1975, for the final peace treaty to take place. There was vast relief that the bombing was over, that the carpet bombing of Vietnam was stopped. When the final treaty was signed, we organized the War Is Over rally. Cora Weiss from Women Strike for Peace got Joan Baez and Phil Ochs and a number of entertainers, and we had this big celebration in Central Park. But there was no overwhelming joy. I think that on an intellectual level I felt some satisfaction - you know, recognizing that our movement had some historical impact. But I wasn't happy. The carnage had been so vast. The death toll of Vietnamese was staggering. The loss of our men for nothing. Fodder. Fifty-eight thousand dead, thousands crippled. It was not the kind of situation that gave one joy.
Bud and Ruth Schultz's vivid oral history presents the extraordinary testimony of people who experienced government repression and persecution firsthand. Drawn from three of the most significant social movements of our time--the labor, Black freedom, and antiwar movements--these engrossing interviews bring to life the experiences of Americans who acted upon their beliefs despite the price they paid for their dissent. In doing so, they--and the movements they were part of--helped shape the political and social landscape of the United States from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century.
The majority of the voices in this book belong to everyday people--workers, priests, teachers, students--but more well-known figures such as Congressman John Lewis, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Abbie Hoffman, and Daniel Ellsberg are also included. There are firsthand accounts by leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World, active early in the century; Southern Tenant Farmers Union of the 1930s; Women's Strike for Peace, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Berkeley's Free Speech Movement of the 1950s and 1960s; and the Hormel meatpackers' Local P-9 in the 1980s. Lively introductions by the authors contextualize these personal statements.
Those who tell their stories in The Price of Dissent, and others like them, faced surveillance and disruption from police agencies, such as the FBI; brutalization by local police; local ordinances and court injunctions limiting protest; inquisitions into beliefs and associations by congressional committees; prosecution under laws that curbed dissent; denaturalization and deportation; and purges under government loyalty programs. Agree with them or not, by dissenting when it was unpopular or dangerous to do so, they insisted on exercising the precious American right of free expression and preserved it for a new century's dissenters.
Excerpt
It did drag out from 1972 until 1975, for the final peace treaty to take place. There was vast relief that the bombing was over, that the carpet bombing of Vietnam was stopped. When the final treaty was signed, we organized the War Is Over rally. Cora Weiss from Women Strike for Peace got Joan Baez and Phil Ochs and a number of entertainers, and we had this big celebration in Central Park. But there was no overwhelming joy. I think that on an intellectual level I felt some satisfaction - you know, recognizing that our movement had some historical impact. But I wasn't happy. The carnage had been so vast. The death toll of Vietnamese was staggering. The loss of our men for nothing. Fodder. Fifty-eight thousand dead, thousands crippled. It was not the kind of situation that gave one joy.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Friday, 16 October 2009
Bob Dylan and Selections from the Newport Folk Festival - July 28, 1963
On this date on Porch 2 at the Newport Folk Festival, Pete Seeger hosted "Topical Songs and New Songwriters," which featured Jim Garland, Peter La Farge, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, The Freedom Singers, Mississippi John Hurt, Mike Settle, and Bob Dylan.
Audio/Video from Newport 1963:
Phil Ochs' set included "Too Many Martyrs" and "Talking Birmingham Jam."
Later, Mississippi John Hurt took the stage with "Candy Man Blues":
Bob Dylan's set included a performance of "Who Killed Davey Moore":
To close the set, Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger performed "Playboys and Playgirls":
Other songs performed that day:
Jim Garland - "I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister":
Tom Paxton - "Ramblin' Boy":
Pete Seeger - "Tom Dooley":
Bob Dylan - "Masters of War":
The complete set list from July 28, 1963 on Porch 2 is as follows:
1. Pete Seeger - (intro regarding topical songs and new songwriters)
2. Jim Garland - I'm Crazy 'Bout You, Baby
3. Jim Garland - I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister
4. Peter La Farge - Ira Hayes
5. Peter La Farge - Custer
6. Peter La Farge - Coyote, My Little Brother
7. Tom Paxton - The Willing Conscript
8. Tom Paxton - Ramblin' Boy
9. Pete Seeger - Intoxicated Rat
10. Pete Seeger - Weave Room Blues
11. Phil Ochs - Too Many Martyrs
12. Phil Ochs - Talking Birmingham Jam
13. Phil Ochs - Talking Cuban Crisis
14. Pete Seeger - Tom Dooley
15. The Freedom Singers - Fighting For My Rights
16. The Freedom Singers - I Love Your Dog, I Love My Dog
17. The Freedom Singers - Calypso Freedom
18. Mississippi John Hurt - Candy Man Blues
19. Mississippi John Hurt - Stagolee
20. Mississippi John Hurt - Trouble, I've Had It All My Days
21. Mike Settle - Little Boy
22. Mike Settle - Sing Hallelujah
23. Tom Paxton with Pete Seeger - A Little Brand New Baby
24. Tom Paxton with Pete Seeger - Hope You Have a Mighty Nice Life
25. Bob Dylan - Who Killed Davey Moore
26. Bob Dylan - Masters of War
27. Bob Dylan with Pete Seeger - Playboys and Playgirls
Audio/Video from Newport 1963:
Phil Ochs' set included "Too Many Martyrs" and "Talking Birmingham Jam."
Later, Mississippi John Hurt took the stage with "Candy Man Blues":
Bob Dylan's set included a performance of "Who Killed Davey Moore":
To close the set, Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger performed "Playboys and Playgirls":
Other songs performed that day:
Jim Garland - "I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister":
Tom Paxton - "Ramblin' Boy":
Pete Seeger - "Tom Dooley":
Bob Dylan - "Masters of War":
The complete set list from July 28, 1963 on Porch 2 is as follows:
1. Pete Seeger - (intro regarding topical songs and new songwriters)
2. Jim Garland - I'm Crazy 'Bout You, Baby
3. Jim Garland - I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister
4. Peter La Farge - Ira Hayes
5. Peter La Farge - Custer
6. Peter La Farge - Coyote, My Little Brother
7. Tom Paxton - The Willing Conscript
8. Tom Paxton - Ramblin' Boy
9. Pete Seeger - Intoxicated Rat
10. Pete Seeger - Weave Room Blues
11. Phil Ochs - Too Many Martyrs
12. Phil Ochs - Talking Birmingham Jam
13. Phil Ochs - Talking Cuban Crisis
14. Pete Seeger - Tom Dooley
15. The Freedom Singers - Fighting For My Rights
16. The Freedom Singers - I Love Your Dog, I Love My Dog
17. The Freedom Singers - Calypso Freedom
18. Mississippi John Hurt - Candy Man Blues
19. Mississippi John Hurt - Stagolee
20. Mississippi John Hurt - Trouble, I've Had It All My Days
21. Mike Settle - Little Boy
22. Mike Settle - Sing Hallelujah
23. Tom Paxton with Pete Seeger - A Little Brand New Baby
24. Tom Paxton with Pete Seeger - Hope You Have a Mighty Nice Life
25. Bob Dylan - Who Killed Davey Moore
26. Bob Dylan - Masters of War
27. Bob Dylan with Pete Seeger - Playboys and Playgirls
Thursday, 15 October 2009
The Portable Sixties Reader
Edited with an Introduction by Ann Charters
From civil rights to free love, JFK to LSD, Woodstock to the Moonwalk, the Sixties was a time of change, political unrest, and radical experiments in the arts, sexuality, and personal identity. In this anthology of essays, poetry, and fiction by some of America's most gifted writers, renowned Sixties authority Ann Charters sketches the unfolding of this most turbulent decade. Organized by thematically linked chapters chronicling important social, political, and cultural movements, The Portable Sixties Reader features such luminaries as Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Robert Lowell, Eudora Welty, Bob Dylan, Malcolm X, Susan Sontag, Denise Levertov, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Lenny Bruce, Ishmael Reed, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Rachel Carson, and Gary Snyder. The concluding chapter, "Elegies for the Sixties," offers tributes to ten figures whose lives - and deaths - captured the spirit of the decade.
Excerpt
In the section of 1968 titled "Yeats in the Gas," Sanders described his response to a comment by his friend, the folksinger Phil Ochs, after they had experienced the brutal treatment of the Chicago police during the Democratic Convention.
YEATS IN THE GAS
Phil Ochs later mentioned how
in the horror of the gas and the clubs
he thought of Yeats
"I was in the worst police brutality," he said, "right when they charged up by the Hilton. I was between the charging cops and the crowd and I raced into a doorway in the nick of time. . . . While racing away from the tear gas, I just had a sensation of Yeats. I thought of Yeats (laughs) for some reason."
I wondered about that for years
till it dawned that he might
have been thinking of Yeats' poem
"Easter 1916"
and its repeated line
A terrible beauty is born
That is, those crazy youth and not-so-youth
their hasty signs, their hasty props, their hasty yells
were transformed in the Chicago injustice so that
A terrible beauty was born
"Chicago has no government," said Allen Ginsberg a few weeks later. "It's just anarchy maintained by pistol. Inside the convention hall it was rigged like an old Mussolini strong-arm scene - police and party hacks everywhere illegally, delegates shoved around and kidnapped, telephone lines cut."
From civil rights to free love, JFK to LSD, Woodstock to the Moonwalk, the Sixties was a time of change, political unrest, and radical experiments in the arts, sexuality, and personal identity. In this anthology of essays, poetry, and fiction by some of America's most gifted writers, renowned Sixties authority Ann Charters sketches the unfolding of this most turbulent decade. Organized by thematically linked chapters chronicling important social, political, and cultural movements, The Portable Sixties Reader features such luminaries as Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Robert Lowell, Eudora Welty, Bob Dylan, Malcolm X, Susan Sontag, Denise Levertov, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Lenny Bruce, Ishmael Reed, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Rachel Carson, and Gary Snyder. The concluding chapter, "Elegies for the Sixties," offers tributes to ten figures whose lives - and deaths - captured the spirit of the decade.
Excerpt
In the section of 1968 titled "Yeats in the Gas," Sanders described his response to a comment by his friend, the folksinger Phil Ochs, after they had experienced the brutal treatment of the Chicago police during the Democratic Convention.
YEATS IN THE GAS
Phil Ochs later mentioned how
in the horror of the gas and the clubs
he thought of Yeats
"I was in the worst police brutality," he said, "right when they charged up by the Hilton. I was between the charging cops and the crowd and I raced into a doorway in the nick of time. . . . While racing away from the tear gas, I just had a sensation of Yeats. I thought of Yeats (laughs) for some reason."
I wondered about that for years
till it dawned that he might
have been thinking of Yeats' poem
"Easter 1916"
and its repeated line
A terrible beauty is born
That is, those crazy youth and not-so-youth
their hasty signs, their hasty props, their hasty yells
were transformed in the Chicago injustice so that
A terrible beauty was born
"Chicago has no government," said Allen Ginsberg a few weeks later. "It's just anarchy maintained by pistol. Inside the convention hall it was rigged like an old Mussolini strong-arm scene - police and party hacks everywhere illegally, delegates shoved around and kidnapped, telephone lines cut."
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Pistol Packin' Mama: Aunt Molly Jackson and the Politics of Folksong
By Shelly Romalis
Folklore legend Aunt Molly Jackson grew up a coal miner's daughter in eastern Kentucky. Witness to the terrible strife between miners and mine owners, Molly became a labor activist, writing songs that fused hard experience with rich Appalachian musical traditions to become weapons of struggle.
In 1931, at age fifty, Molly was "discovered" by the Dreiser Committee and brought north. There she was sponsored and befriended by an illustrious circle of left-wing intellectuals and musicians, including Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Alan Lomax, and Charles Seeger and his son Pete. Together with Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, her sister Sarah Ogan Gunning, and other transplanted folk musicians, Molly served as a cultural broker, linking the rural working poor to big-city left-wing activism.
Shelly Romalis's multidimensional portrait of Aunt Molly illuminates Southern Appalachia during the early decades of the twentieth century, New York during the Depression years, and the folk music revival and women's resistance movements.
"This lively book fills out a lot of history and makes a whole period come alive. It is really a thrilling story [and] has challenged us to think about our own work as collectors, educators, and students of folklore and American life."
-Guy and Candie Carawan, authors of Voices from the Mountains
"[Gives] a fresh twist to our understanding of the interaction of politics and culture from South to North through the twentieth century."
-Ronald D. Cohen, author of Wasn't That a Time! Firsthand Accounts of the Folk Music Revival
Shelly Romalis, an associate professor of anthropology at York University, Ontario, is the editor of Childbirth: Alternatives to Medical Control, as well as a singer and fiddler.
Excerpt
A new kind of singer-songwriter - Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan - became media celebrities. Baez's pure American tones rendered multi-versed English ballads emotionally accessible; Ochs's lyrics engaged politically disfranchised youth (although he never reached the popular audiences of the others); and a generation yearning for anchors in a choppy social sea elevated Dylan to a kind of mystical Poet Laureate.
[...]
Revivalist folk singers during these years spanned the interest spectrum from traditional American music (New Lost City Ramblers, Joan Baez), internationalism (Cynthia Gooding and Theodore Bikel) to singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, whose personal/political identity probings characterized the cultural politics of the 1960s.
Folklore legend Aunt Molly Jackson grew up a coal miner's daughter in eastern Kentucky. Witness to the terrible strife between miners and mine owners, Molly became a labor activist, writing songs that fused hard experience with rich Appalachian musical traditions to become weapons of struggle.
In 1931, at age fifty, Molly was "discovered" by the Dreiser Committee and brought north. There she was sponsored and befriended by an illustrious circle of left-wing intellectuals and musicians, including Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Alan Lomax, and Charles Seeger and his son Pete. Together with Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, her sister Sarah Ogan Gunning, and other transplanted folk musicians, Molly served as a cultural broker, linking the rural working poor to big-city left-wing activism.
Shelly Romalis's multidimensional portrait of Aunt Molly illuminates Southern Appalachia during the early decades of the twentieth century, New York during the Depression years, and the folk music revival and women's resistance movements.
"This lively book fills out a lot of history and makes a whole period come alive. It is really a thrilling story [and] has challenged us to think about our own work as collectors, educators, and students of folklore and American life."
-Guy and Candie Carawan, authors of Voices from the Mountains
"[Gives] a fresh twist to our understanding of the interaction of politics and culture from South to North through the twentieth century."
-Ronald D. Cohen, author of Wasn't That a Time! Firsthand Accounts of the Folk Music Revival
Shelly Romalis, an associate professor of anthropology at York University, Ontario, is the editor of Childbirth: Alternatives to Medical Control, as well as a singer and fiddler.
Excerpt
A new kind of singer-songwriter - Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan - became media celebrities. Baez's pure American tones rendered multi-versed English ballads emotionally accessible; Ochs's lyrics engaged politically disfranchised youth (although he never reached the popular audiences of the others); and a generation yearning for anchors in a choppy social sea elevated Dylan to a kind of mystical Poet Laureate.
[...]
Revivalist folk singers during these years spanned the interest spectrum from traditional American music (New Lost City Ramblers, Joan Baez), internationalism (Cynthia Gooding and Theodore Bikel) to singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, whose personal/political identity probings characterized the cultural politics of the 1960s.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Monday, 5 October 2009
Philosophy at 33 1/3 rpm: Themes of Classic Rock Music
By James F. Harris
True friendship, true community, social and sexual alienation, the death of God, the importance of the present moment, individual autonomy, the corruption of the state, revolution, the end of the present age - such are the intellectual themes of classic rock.
Sixties rock music left behind the harmless bubblegum and surfing ditties of the 1950s to become a vehicle for thoughtful commentary upon the human condition. Theories and motifs from philosophy, theology, and literature were reshaped, refracted, and transfigured in this intelligent new popular art form.
Classic rock, argues James Harris, should be taken as seriously as the loftiest creations of art and literature. In Philosophy at 33 1/3 rpm, he lays the groundwork for an informed appreciation by exhibiting philosophical themes in the finest rock songs.
Professor Harris's examples encompass all the major rock artists of the classic period (1962-1974), including Paul Simon, Elton John, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, The Moody Blues, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, Cat Stevens, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Joni Mitchell.
His analyses draw upon the ideas of Aristotle, Bonhoeffer, Camus, Descartes, Freud, Kant, Laing, Marcuse, Marx, Nietzsche, Nozick, Rousseau, Sartre, Thoreau, and Tillich, as well as the Bible and other scriptures, to situate the preoccupations of the classic rock lyricists in the Western intellectual tradition.
James F. Harris is Chair of the Philosophy Department at the College of William and Mary and an amateur musician whose tastes have for 35 years included rock 'n' roll. He is author of the provocative and widely-acclaimed work of pure philosophy, Against Relativism, and of numerous philosophy articles. Professor Harris's outlook was profoundly shaped by his participation in the upheavals of The Sixties. He is co-author (with Mark Waymack) of Single-Malt Whiskies of Scotland (1992) and The Bourbon Book (forthcoming).
Excerpt
Crucifixion
Of all the many classic rock songs which acknowledge the delicate balance between deliverance and destruction, one of my favorites if "Crucifixion" by Phil Ochs from his 1967 album, Pleasures of the Harbor. A compelling version of "Crucifixion" was recorded by little-known duo Jim and Jean on their album entitled Changes. In "Crucifixion" Ochs tells the tale of the morbid delight which we all take in the sagas of our fallen heroes. Which heroes? Well, take your pick - from Jesus to John or Robert Kennedy to Martin Luther King, Jr. to Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin. When iconoclastic rebels become "an assault upon the order" and represent "the changing of the guard", we embrace them and follow them and urge them on in their fight against "the establishment" and "them" and "evil". It's the battle of a hero of truth, justice, and right against overwhelming odds, and we love them for it. But the terrible truth is that "beneath the greatest love is a hurricane of hate", and "success is an enemy of the losers of the day", and "in the privacy of the churches, who knows what they pray?" Until finally, with "the cross trembling with desire", the rebel and savior is crucified and "the eyes of the rebel have been branded by the blind." We who are left and who, of course, are innocent of the rebel's death, must know every detail. "Do you have a picture of the pain?" we ask. And "as the cycle of sacrifice unwinds", the important thing is that it's "good to be alive when the eulogies are read." And "with the speed of insanity, then he dies."
True friendship, true community, social and sexual alienation, the death of God, the importance of the present moment, individual autonomy, the corruption of the state, revolution, the end of the present age - such are the intellectual themes of classic rock.
Sixties rock music left behind the harmless bubblegum and surfing ditties of the 1950s to become a vehicle for thoughtful commentary upon the human condition. Theories and motifs from philosophy, theology, and literature were reshaped, refracted, and transfigured in this intelligent new popular art form.
Classic rock, argues James Harris, should be taken as seriously as the loftiest creations of art and literature. In Philosophy at 33 1/3 rpm, he lays the groundwork for an informed appreciation by exhibiting philosophical themes in the finest rock songs.
Professor Harris's examples encompass all the major rock artists of the classic period (1962-1974), including Paul Simon, Elton John, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, The Moody Blues, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, Cat Stevens, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Joni Mitchell.
His analyses draw upon the ideas of Aristotle, Bonhoeffer, Camus, Descartes, Freud, Kant, Laing, Marcuse, Marx, Nietzsche, Nozick, Rousseau, Sartre, Thoreau, and Tillich, as well as the Bible and other scriptures, to situate the preoccupations of the classic rock lyricists in the Western intellectual tradition.
James F. Harris is Chair of the Philosophy Department at the College of William and Mary and an amateur musician whose tastes have for 35 years included rock 'n' roll. He is author of the provocative and widely-acclaimed work of pure philosophy, Against Relativism, and of numerous philosophy articles. Professor Harris's outlook was profoundly shaped by his participation in the upheavals of The Sixties. He is co-author (with Mark Waymack) of Single-Malt Whiskies of Scotland (1992) and The Bourbon Book (forthcoming).
Excerpt
Crucifixion
Of all the many classic rock songs which acknowledge the delicate balance between deliverance and destruction, one of my favorites if "Crucifixion" by Phil Ochs from his 1967 album, Pleasures of the Harbor. A compelling version of "Crucifixion" was recorded by little-known duo Jim and Jean on their album entitled Changes. In "Crucifixion" Ochs tells the tale of the morbid delight which we all take in the sagas of our fallen heroes. Which heroes? Well, take your pick - from Jesus to John or Robert Kennedy to Martin Luther King, Jr. to Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin. When iconoclastic rebels become "an assault upon the order" and represent "the changing of the guard", we embrace them and follow them and urge them on in their fight against "the establishment" and "them" and "evil". It's the battle of a hero of truth, justice, and right against overwhelming odds, and we love them for it. But the terrible truth is that "beneath the greatest love is a hurricane of hate", and "success is an enemy of the losers of the day", and "in the privacy of the churches, who knows what they pray?" Until finally, with "the cross trembling with desire", the rebel and savior is crucified and "the eyes of the rebel have been branded by the blind." We who are left and who, of course, are innocent of the rebel's death, must know every detail. "Do you have a picture of the pain?" we ask. And "as the cycle of sacrifice unwinds", the important thing is that it's "good to be alive when the eulogies are read." And "with the speed of insanity, then he dies."
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Friday, 2 October 2009
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