Markin comment:
This is great stuff for any music aficionado, especially of folk, social protest, and roots music. I am going to be "stealing" entries off of this site periodically but you should be checking it out yourselves. Kudos, Bob Feldman.
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On GI Coffeehouses by Irwin Silber--Part 2
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Music
In a 1970 article, titled "About The GI Movement," former Sing Out! magazine editor Irwin Silber wrote the following about the GI Coffeehouses of the Vietnam War Era:
"Not surprisingly, the GI coffee house turned out to be the only place in town where many GIs could really feel at home. The prices were reasonable, the mood was low-key, and the civilians there cared about him not just as a cash customer, but as a human being. In addition, the GI coffee house usually had the best show or the most interesting program in town. Anti-war singers, theater groups, and rock bands came from all over the country to perform on the simple stages of the GI coffee houses. Black Panthers, members of the Conspiracy, labor organizers, civil rights fighters and many others have engaged in free-swinging open-ended discussions with GIs about the war, racism, imperialism, and the nature of the class struggle. Folksinger Barbara Dane, who has performed at just about every military base where a coffee house or some other kind of organizing project has been initiated, has worked together with GIs to begin creating a new song literature that has grown directly out of this movement. Today, at army bases from North Carolina to Washington, GIs are singing such songs as "Insurbordination"--"Don't want nobody over me, Don't want nobody under me...Subordination is a drag, Liberation is my bag"--and "Bring'Em Home"--and "GIs fight and GIs die, Some get rich while Nixon lies." But the most enthusiastic response from GIs come when Barbara sings:
"I am a GI rebel,
As brave as I can be,
I don't like the Army brass,
And the generals don't like me.
"Join the GI movement,
Come and join the GI movement.
"Other artists who have performed for GIs in the anti-war coffee houses include actress Jane Fonda, singer Peter Seeger, Mabel Lillary, Bernice Reagon and Phil Ochs, and theater groups such as the Bread and Puppet Theater and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Films produced by Newsreel, the radical documentary film-making collective, and American Documentary Films are probably the main cultural-political staple of the coffee house circuit."
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music/blog?page=4#ixzz0xwiNr8Mu
This is great stuff for any music aficionado, especially of folk, social protest, and roots music. I am going to be "stealing" entries off of this site periodically but you should be checking it out yourselves. Kudos, Bob Feldman.
*********
On GI Coffeehouses by Irwin Silber--Part 2
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Music
In a 1970 article, titled "About The GI Movement," former Sing Out! magazine editor Irwin Silber wrote the following about the GI Coffeehouses of the Vietnam War Era:
"Not surprisingly, the GI coffee house turned out to be the only place in town where many GIs could really feel at home. The prices were reasonable, the mood was low-key, and the civilians there cared about him not just as a cash customer, but as a human being. In addition, the GI coffee house usually had the best show or the most interesting program in town. Anti-war singers, theater groups, and rock bands came from all over the country to perform on the simple stages of the GI coffee houses. Black Panthers, members of the Conspiracy, labor organizers, civil rights fighters and many others have engaged in free-swinging open-ended discussions with GIs about the war, racism, imperialism, and the nature of the class struggle. Folksinger Barbara Dane, who has performed at just about every military base where a coffee house or some other kind of organizing project has been initiated, has worked together with GIs to begin creating a new song literature that has grown directly out of this movement. Today, at army bases from North Carolina to Washington, GIs are singing such songs as "Insurbordination"--"Don't want nobody over me, Don't want nobody under me...Subordination is a drag, Liberation is my bag"--and "Bring'Em Home"--and "GIs fight and GIs die, Some get rich while Nixon lies." But the most enthusiastic response from GIs come when Barbara sings:
"I am a GI rebel,
As brave as I can be,
I don't like the Army brass,
And the generals don't like me.
"Join the GI movement,
Come and join the GI movement.
"Other artists who have performed for GIs in the anti-war coffee houses include actress Jane Fonda, singer Peter Seeger, Mabel Lillary, Bernice Reagon and Phil Ochs, and theater groups such as the Bread and Puppet Theater and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Films produced by Newsreel, the radical documentary film-making collective, and American Documentary Films are probably the main cultural-political staple of the coffee house circuit."
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music/blog?page=4#ixzz0xwiNr8Mu
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