Happy Birthday To You-
By Lester Lannon
I am devoted to a local
folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near
Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge
but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed
on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.
So much for radio folk history
except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to
commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related
genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with
noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such
happening along the historical continuum.
To “solve” this problem
I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary
basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has
written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best
way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.
The Last Of The Classical Lyric Poets?- Bob Dylan’s 121st Dream-With Professor Richard Thomas’ “Why Bob Dylan Matters” In 2017 In Mind
[During the past several
years, which has built up some extra stream the past couple of year, there has
been a storm brewing among the writers who write for various departments in
this space, for the American Left History
blog (and the on-line Progressive
American, American Film Gazette and American
Folk Gazette websites with which we have fraternal relations including
cross-publication of certain articles). Since a great deal of the storm has
subsided after we have now reached agreement on some decisions about the road
forward I feel it is appropriate as the about to retire administrator to let
the reading public know what those decisions entail, what way we are heading.
Over the past few years we have brought younger writers like Zack James,
Bradley Fox, Jr., Alden Riley and the writer of the article below, Lance
Lawrence, in to begin the transition away from writers, including myself, who
were totally “washed clean” as one of the older writers Fritz Taylor is fond of
saying by the turbulent 1960s, a watershed in American culture, politics and
social arrangements.
While it has been
entirely possible to read plenty of other material including older films, music
and books over the years the strongest component, the subject that has held
sway more often than not has been somehow involved with the growing up days in
the 1950s and coming of age in the 1960s of the first wave of writers. That has
tilted all have agreed, although I have dissented, vigorously dissented as to
the degree and to the extent of my alleged role in the process, the axis of the American Left History experience we are trying to educate people
about and preserve too one-sidedly around experience from fifty or sixty years
ago when we came of age as if nothing has happened since then beyond the long
haul rearguard actions against the reactionary trends of the past forty or so
years when we have taken it on the chin once the “60s” ebbed.
Almost naturally the
storm (what my old high school friend and low time associate here oldster Sam
Lowell called a “tempest in a teapot” as he sided with the younger writers
against the old guard, against my leadership casting the decisive vote against
me) reflected the generational divide-the sensibilities of the old guard
against the very different perspectives of the younger writers who were plainly
way too young to have appreciated except second-hand all the tales and lies
that we older folk have imposed on them. This whole dispute came to a head,
although other similar disputes this year played a role, over the figure of Bob
Dylan not what Lance will write about below but an earlier dispute over our
tendency to have a music review on every one of the seemingly never-ending,
seemingly never-ending to me as well, bootleg series volumes including Volume
12 which Zack had considered nothing but a commercial rip-off and composed of nothing
but a million out takes and other crap and not worthy of giving review space
here.
That dispute was the
beginning of our awakening to the fact that not everything the man (our “the
Man”) did was pure gold something which would have been blasphemy if one of
older generation had uttered those words. The hard fact, as the younger writers
were at pains to explain, younger writers who self-styled themselves as the
“Young Turks,” Bob Dylan to the extent than any of them listened to him or saw
him as anything but some old fogy who will probably die on the road doing his
two hundred boring concerts a year, to draw anything from his music was
something like our reaction to Frank Sinatra when we were young. Square, too
square. That comment by I think Bradley Fox cut me especially to the
quick. In any case other writers can
give their respective takes on what has gone on of late. Since I am headed for
retirement which just this minute feels like some kind of exile that seems best
rather than my going on and on in defense of various objectionable actions I
have taken over the past few years. Soon to be retired administrator Peter Paul
Markin]
************
By Writer Lance
Lawrence
I suppose if a man, if a
man like Bob Dylan the subject of this short piece, has lived long enough, has
been in the public eye, mostly in his case the public eye of a dwindling number
of hard core folkie aficionados then somebody will write what he or she thinks
is the definitive say on the subject. Especially some academic somebody like
Harvard Professor Richard Thomas who has indeed written a treatise called “Why
Bob Dylan Matters” where he regales the brethren, the devotees who will buy the
book because they buy everything Dylan-etched including bogus Bootleg series
volumes some of which are nothing but stuff better left on the cutting room
floor. The good professor’s premise is that Mister Dylan is the second coming
of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid, who knows maybe Cato and Cicero too in the “big
tent” lyrical poet pantheon.
Originally this piece
was going to be written by I think Bart Webber, one of the older writers who
would probably like a number of the older writers in this space, on this American Left History blog drool on and
on in agreement with the good professor. (This is nothing personal against Bart
which has pulled me out of more dead-ends on stories than I care to count but
he unlike the more thoughtful Sam Lowell who was like a breath of fresh air in
the dispute Markin mentioned above in that quasi-introduction was his most
rabid supporter.) Would have make up a laudatory piece which according to my
archival research on this site has had over four hundred Bob Dylan-related
articles almost all of them “soft-ball puffs” like Dylan was the King of the
world and not the nightshade of the old guard. Looking over the archives nobody
except Leon Trotsky, who after all was a world historic revolutionary, led a
real revolution, and was a key historic figure even if he seemed to have been
snake-bitten in his struggle to keep the faith in the Bolshevik future when old
“Uncle Joe” Stalin bared his fangs in public has more entries.
Markin, I might as well
say it since we have all been given the go ahead to give our respective takes
on the internal fight now that the smoke has apparently cleared, mercifully
soon to be retired Markin, or is it “purged” like his buddy Trotsky, started
the whole madness early in his regime on when he wrote a ton of his own stuff
rather than just run the site and hand out assignments as he was supposed to
do. He lashed together extensive 3000 word reviews of Dylan’s five or ten first
albums and then went over the top when he decided several years ago to write a
series entitled “Not Bob Dylan.” That series seemingly endless series about the
ten million or so it seemed male folkies who had not been dubbed by Time magazine to be the “King” of the
1960s folk minute (and it was only a minute despite all the hoopla here making
it seem like some world-historic event like Trotsky’s Russian Revolution which even
I could see had some merit for that designation rather than a tepid passing fad)
and who had gone on to something else or who still inhabit the nether-world of
the backwaters folk venue world.
I swear Markin must have
written up the employment bios, resumes, and fates of every guy who knew three
chords and a Woody Guthrie song learned in seventh grade music appreciation class
with the likes of Mister Larkin at my middle school who walked into a
coffeehouse back then. Even guys I had never heard of in passing like Erick
Saint Jean who was supposed to be big in Boston and New York and Manny Silver
who was supposed to be the greatest lyric writer since Woody (and probably if
Professor Thomas took a whack at it probably since Milton or somebody like
that). If I hear one more word about
those guys, hell now that I think about it he also added insult to injury by
doing a series on the ten million folkie women who were “Not Joan Baez” Dylan’s
paramour and the queen of that 1960s folk minute (according to omnipotent Time).
But enough of taking
cracks at the folk aficionados wherever they are who saw Dylan as a god, a guy
who wrote lyrics better than he could sing. Frankly the guy was a has-been by
my time, a leader of the folk minute that had passed mercifully away. We used
to laugh at the graying long-haired guys guitar in hand in the subway still
singing covers of his songs while the trains roared by. Would drop a dollar in
the guitar case if they DID NOT sing Blowin’ In The Wind or The Times Are
A-Changin’ one more freaking time remembering Mr. Larkin that music teacher
in seventh grade, another guy from the 1960s line-up, trying to get us to sing
that crap since the words were so meaningful, so important to know and remember
according to him.
Finally since I am
supposed to be an objective reporter of sorts, supposed to give all sides a
short at reasoned opinion let me take Professor Thomas’ thesis at face value.
Now my take on Homer is that he wrote pretty good stories made up of whole
cloth no crime and created quite an oral tradition. Same with plenty of Greeks
and Romans we read about in high school and college. They survived the cut,
they represented some pretty high standards for the lyric form. Got quite
workout by Miss Laverty my high school English teacher who was crazy for those
guys and the way she read their words out loud you could see why they lasted.
Literary comparisons aside about who was the king the lyrical poetic hill who except
those guys like Markin and Sam Lowell, despite his honorable part in our
internal fight, and who I do not believe know one song later than maybe 1972
which everybody will admit is a long time to be stuck on an old needle even
listens to Dylan anymore except for old nostalgia trips.
For those three people who
may be interested in exploring Professor Thomas’s ideas, see what makes him
tick, see why he seemingly a rational man is a Dylan aficionado who probably
one of the two guys who bought that dastardly Volume 12 which started this “revolution”
here is a link to an NPR On Point broadcast hosted by Tom Ashbrook where the
good professor holds forth:
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/21/563736161/a-classics-professor-explains-why-bob-dylan-matters
[Although Professor
Thomas’ thesis about Dylan’s place in the pantheon was not central to the
recent disputes among the coterie of writers who ply their trade here Dylan did
figure in the mix when all hell broke loose the day Zack James refused to write
a review on Volume 12 of the never-ending Bootleg series. I would still be
surprised if going out the door Pete Markin will let my “venomous” words see
the light of day. As is. If he does then maybe we will have new day after
all.]
The Answer My Friend Is Blowing (No Clipped “G”) In The Wind-The Influence Of Bob Dylan’s “The Times
They Are A-Changin’” On The “Generation of’68”-The Best Part Of That Cohort
Link to NPR Morning Edition 'The Times They Are A-Changin" Still Speaks To Our Changing Times https://www.npr.org/2018/09/24/650548856/american-anthem-the-times-they-are-a-changin
By Seth Garth
No question this
publication both in its former hard copy editions and now more so in the
on-line editions as the, ouch, 50th anniversary of many signature
events for the “Generation of ‘68” have come and gone that the whole period of
the 1950s and 1960s had gotten a full airing. Has been dissected, deflected,
inspected, reflected and even rejected beyond compare. That is not to say that
this trend won’t continue if for no other reason that the demographics and
actual readership response indicate that people still have a desire to not
forget their pasts, their youth.
(Under the new site manager
Greg Green, despite what I consider all good sense having worked under taskmaster
Allan Jackson, we are encouraged to give this blessed readership some inside
dope, no, no that kind, about how things are run these days in an on-line
publication. With that okay in mind there was a huge controversy that put the
last sentence in the above paragraph in some perspective recently when Greg for
whatever ill-begotten reason thought that he would try to draw in younger
audiences by catering to their predilections-for comic book character movies,
video games, graphic novels and trendy music and got nothing but serious
blow-back from those who have supported this publication financially and
otherwise both in hard copy times and now on-line. What that means as the target
demographic fades is another question and maybe one for a future generation who
might take over the operation. Or perhaps like many operations this one will
not outlast its creators- and their purposes.)
Today’s 1960s question, a
question that I have asked over the years and so I drew the assignment to
address the issue-who was the voice of the 1960s. Who or what. Was it the
lunchroom sit-inners and Freedom Riders, what it the hippies, was it SDS, the
various Weather configurations, acid, rock, folk rock, folk, Tom Hayden, Jane
Fonda, Abbie Hoffman, Grace Slick, hell the Three Js-Joplin, Jimi, Jim as in Morrison
and the like. Or maybe it was a mood, a mood of disenchantment about a world
that seemed out of our control, which seemed to be running without any input
from us, without us even being asked. My candidate, and not my only candidate
but a recent NPR Morning Edition
segment brought the question to mind (see above link), is a song, a song
created by Bob Dylan in the early 1960s which was really a clarion call to
action on our part, or the best part of our generation-The Times They Are A-Changin’.
I am not sure if Bob Dylan
started out with some oversized desire to be the “voice” of his generation. He
certainly blew the whole thing off later after his motorcycle accident and
still later when he became a recluse even if he did 200 shows a year, maybe
sullen introvert is better, actually maybe his own press agent giving out
dribbles is even better but that song, that “anthem” sticks in memory as a
decisive summing up of what I was feeling at the time. (And apparently has
found resonance with a new generation of activists via the March for Our Lives
movement and other youth-driven movements.) As a kid I was antsy to do
something, especially once I saw graphic footage on commercial television of
young black kids being water-hosed, beaten and bitten by dogs down in the South
simply for looking for some rough justice in this wicked old world. Those
images, and those of the brave lunch-room sitters and Freedom bus riders were
stark and compelling. They and my disquiet over nuclear bombs which were a lot
scarier then when there were serious confrontations which put them in play and
concern that what bothered me about having no say, about things not being
addressed galvanized me.
The song “spoke to me” as
it might not have earlier or later. It had the hopeful ring of a promise of a
newer world. That didn’t happen or happen in ways that would have helped the
mass of humanity but for that moment I flipped out every time I heard it played
on the radio or on my old vinyl records record-player. Other songs, events,
moods, later would overtake this song’s sentiment but I was there at the
creation. Remember that, please.
