This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
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.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bob Dylan performing "Boots Of Spanish Leather".
CD Review
Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001
Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD.Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:
Disc Two: Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”, The Chad Mitchell Trio on “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, Hedy West on “500 Miles”, Ian &Sylvia on “Four Strong Winds”, Tom Paxton on “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Peter, Paul And Mary on “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”, Jesse Colin Young on “Four In The Morning”, Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”, Judy Roderick on “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”, Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine” and Eric Von Schmidt on “ Joshua Gone Barbados”.
Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”. Whew! After bashing old Peter, Paul and Mary and The Chad Mitchell Trio around it is nice to get back to basics. There is no reason to go on and on about Bob Dylan, his place I the folk revival and his later career as our generation’s “Frank Sinatra”. I have heard many versions of this song but nobody gets the pathos, the longing for love and the betrayal of that dastardly sentiment as right as Brother Dylan does in this song. More than one time in my youth I was more than happy with the idea that ...yes, that ”there is something you can sent me to remember you by. Spanish boots of Spanish leather”. Kudos. Bob.
Boots Of Spanish Leather
Oh, I'm sailin' away my own true love,
I'm sailin' away in the morning.
Is there something I can send you from across the sea,
From the place that I'll be landing?
No, there's nothin' you can send me, my own true love,
There's nothin' I wish to be ownin'.
Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled,
From across that lonesome ocean.
Oh, but I just thought you might want something fine
Made of silver or of golden,
Either from the mountains of Madrid
Or from the coast of Barcelona.
Oh, but if I had the stars from the darkest night
And the diamonds from the deepest ocean,
I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss,
For that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'.
That I might be gone a long time
And it's only that I'm askin',
Is there something I can send you to remember me by,
To make your time more easy passin'.
Oh, how can, how can you ask me again,
It only brings me sorrow.
The same thing I want from you today,
I would want again tomorrow.
I got a letter on a lonesome day,
It was from her ship a-sailin',
Saying I don't know when I'll be comin' back again,
It depends on how I'm a-feelin'.
Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way,
I'm sure your mind is roamin'.
I'm sure your heart is not with me,
But with the country to where you're goin'.
So take heed, take heed of the western wind,
Take heed of the stormy weather.
And yes, there's something you can send back to me,
Spanish boots of Spanish leather.
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.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bob Dylan performing "He Was A Friend Of Mine", a song that he learned from Dave Van Ronk.
CD Review
Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001
"Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:
Disc Two: Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”, The Chad Mitchell Trio on “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, Hedy West on “500 Miles”, Ian &Sylvia on “Four Strong Winds”, Tom Paxton on “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Peter, Paul And Mary on “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”, Jesse Colin Young on “Four In The Morning”, Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”, Judy Roderick on “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”, Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine” and Eric Von Schmidt on “ Joshua Gone Barbados”."
Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”. There is no way to truly discuss the roots, toots and hoots of what went on in the folk revival scene in the lower depths of Greenwich Village in the early 1960s without a tip of the hat to the “Mayor” of McDougall Street, Dave Van Ronk. Not only did he give Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton and others a leg up on what was happening in his home town but he took seriously, very seriously the study of the roots of folk music (and other genres). If you want to get the barest taste of his encyclopedic knowledge on this subject get your hands on what turned out to be his last live album, “..and the tin can bended, and the story ended”, a work that is interspersed with great songs and very nice stories about this period, his role in it and that of others as well. I’ve created a mini-furor among the "keepers" of his shrine for criticizing his apolitical stance in performances from a very political man (a hard Trotskyist in his youth waging battle against the local New York City Stalinists, not a simple task even in the 1950s) and I still maintain that criticism but as a performer and historian he was a piece of work.
He Was A Friend Of Mine-Bob Dylan lyrics
He was a friend of mine He was a friend of mine Every time I think about him now Lord I just can't keep from cryin' 'Cause he was a friend of mine
He died on the road He died on the road He never had enough money To pay his room or board And he was a friend of mine
I stole away and cried I stole away and cried 'Cause I never had too much money And I never been quite satisfied And he was a friend of mine
He never done no wrong He never done no wrong A thousand miles from home And he never harmed no one And he was a friend of mine
He was a friend of mine He was a friend of mine Every time I hear his name Lord I just can't keep from cryin' 'Cause he was a friend of mine.
Click Ob Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Woody Guthrie Doing " This Land Is Your Land".
DVD Review
Woody Guthrie And His Guitar: This Machine Kills Fascists, narrated by Billy Bragg with other artists and commentators, 2004
Most of the points made in this space in an April 1, 2006 review of Woody Guthrie’s CD “This Land Is Your Land”, reposted directly below, and his place in the folk pantheon, his work and his influence are germane to this extremely informative, well-produced almost three hour film documentary of the life and times of the legendary folk troubadour, “Woody Guthrie And His Guitar: This Machine Kills Fascists”. I will make additional points at the end:
“*A Populist Folk Singer For The Ages- The Dust Bowl Refugee- Woody Guthrie
CD REVIEW
This Land Is Your Land -Woody Guthrie, Smithsonian Folkways, Washington, D.C., 1997
Although this space is mainly dedicated to reviewing political books and commenting on past and current political issues literary output is hardly the only form of political creation. Occasionally in the history of the American and international left musicians, artists and playwrights have given voice or provided visual reminders to the face of political struggle. With that thought in mind, every once in a while I will use this space to review those kinds of political expression.
This review is being used to describe several of Woody Guthrie’s recordings. Although I have listened to most of his songs and recordings these represent those songs that best represent his life’s work.
My musical tastes were formed, as were many of those of the generation of 1968, by Rock & Roll music exemplified by The Rolling Stones and Beatles and by the blues revival, both Delta and Chicago style. However, those forms as much as they gave pleasure were only marginally political at best. In short, these were entertainers performing material that spoke to us. In the most general sense that is all one should expect of a performer. Thus, for the most part that music need not be reviewed here. Those who thought that a new musical sensibility laid the foundations for a cultural or political revolution have long ago been proven wrong.
That said, in the early 1960’s there nevertheless was another form of musical sensibility that was directly tied to radical political expression- the folk revival. This entailed a search for roots and relevancy in musical expression. While not all forms of folk music lent themselves to radical politics it is hard to see the 1960’s cultural rebellion without giving a nod to such figures as Dave Van Ronk, the early Bob Dylan, Utah Phillips, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and others. Whatever entertainment value these performers provided they also spoke to and prodded our political development. They did have a message and an agenda and we responded as such. That these musicians’ respective agendas proved inadequate and/or short-lived does not negate their affect on the times.
As I have noted in my review of Dave Van Ronk’s work when I first heard folk music in my youth I felt unsure about whether I liked it or not. As least against my strong feelings about The Rolling Stones and my favorite blues artist such as Howlin' Wolf and Elmore James. Then on some late night radio folk show here in Boston I heard Dave Van Ronk singing "Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies" and that was it. From that time to the present folk music has been a staple of my musical tastes. From there I expanded my play list of folk artists with a political message.
Although I had probably heard Woody’s "This Land is Your Land" at some earlier point I actually learned about his music second hand from early Bob Dylan covers of his work. While his influence has had its ebbs and flows since that time each succeeding generation of folk singers still seems to be drawn to his simple, honest tunes about the outlaws, outcasts and the forgotten people that made this country, for good or evil, what it is today. Since Woody did not have a particularly good voice nor was he an exceptional guitar player the message delivered by his songs is his real legacy.
Woody’s relationship with the American Communist Party while no secret is not widely known. Even Bob Dylan, a worshipper of Woody’s in his youth, was not aware of it or at least that is his claim. What is interesting is that the subjects of his songs fairly closely reflect the party line as it changed to reflect the winds blowing from Moscow. Woody’s best work is reflected in the Popular Front-style lyrics of, for example, " This Land is Your Land" when the party developed its class-collaborationist policy with the Rooseveltian Democratic Party and accordingly all liberals were good fellows and true. The Hitler-Stalin Pact was obviously not good news for his lyrical style. Still, listen to his recordings and learn about hard times and struggle.”
This film documentary, narrated by Billy Bragg, is a welcome addition to the Woody Guthrie archival materials both for the nice array of photographs and film clips of various aspects of Woody’s life from an early age in those hills of Oklahoma through the 1930’s, on to his period of fame and then to his decline due to his physical disabilities (due to degenerative Huntington’s disease). Moreover, it is enhanced by the commentaries of Woody’s co-worker, the venerable folk singer/historian Pete Seeger, Woody’s daughter, Nora, who seems to have made a conscious and well-thought out effort to preserve his work for future generations, and by his son Arlo, a well-known folk musician in his own right. I would just add that if you only have time for one piece of Woody Guthrie biographical work then this is the one to get- it will stand as the video monument to his life and work. Kudos.
This Land Is Your Land
This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.
As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.
I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
So Long, It's Been Good To Know Yuh (Dusty Old Dust)
I've sung this song, but I'll sing it again,
Of the place that I lived on the wild windy plains,
In the month called April, county called Gray,
And here's what all of the people there say:
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin' my home,
And I got to be driftin' along.
A dust storm hit, an' it hit like thunder;
It dusted us over, an' it covered us under;
Blocked out the traffic an' blocked out the sun,
Straight for home all the people did run,
Singin':
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin' my home,
And I got to be driftin' along.
We talked of the end of the world, and then
We'd sing a song an' then sing it again.
We'd sit for an hour an' not say a word,
And then these words would be heard:
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin' my home,
And I got to be driftin' along.
Sweethearts sat in the dark and sparked,
They hugged and kissed in that dusty old dark.
They sighed and cried, hugged and kissed,
Instead of marriage, they talked like this:
"Honey..."
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin' my home,
And I got to be driftin' along.
Now, the telephone rang, an' it jumped off the wall,
That was the preacher, a-makin' his call.
He said, "Kind friend, this may the end;
An' you got your last chance of salvation of sin!"
The churches was jammed, and the churches was packed,
An' that dusty old dust storm blowed so black.
Preacher could not read a word of his text,
An' he folded his specs, an' he took up collection,
Said:
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin' my home,
And I got to be driftin' along.
Pretty Boy Floyd
If you'll gather 'round me, children,
A story I will tell
'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw,
Oklahoma knew him well.
It was in the town of Shawnee,
A Saturday afternoon,
His wife beside him in his wagon
As into town they rode.
There a deputy sheriff approached him
In a manner rather rude,
Vulgar words of anger,
An' his wife she overheard.
Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain,
And the deputy grabbed his gun;
In the fight that followed
He laid that deputy down.
Then he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame;
Every crime in Oklahoma
Was added to his name.
But a many a starving farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes.
Others tell you 'bout a stranger
That come to beg a meal,
Underneath his napkin
Left a thousand dollar bill.
It was in Oklahoma City,
It was on a Christmas Day,
There was a whole car load of groceries
Come with a note to say:
Well, you say that I'm an outlaw,
You say that I'm a thief.
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.
Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.
Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon
By Seth Garth
I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.
So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Mountain Music Performer Roscoe Holcomb Doing "John Henry". You want the roots. You want what influenced Dylan. Hell, you might as well start here.
DVD Review
Down The Tracks: The Music That Influenced Bob Dylan, White Eagle Productions, 2008
Okay, okay I have gone on and one over the past year or so about the influence of Bob Dylan’s music (and lyrics) on me, and on my generation, the Generation of ’68. But, please, don’t blame me. Blame Bob. After all he could very easily have gone into retirement and enjoyed the fallout from his youthful fame and impressed one and all at his local AARP chapter. But, no, he had to go out on the road continuously, seemingly forever, keeping his name and music front and center. Moreover, the son of a gun has done more reinventions of himself than one could shake a stick at (folk troubadour, symbolic poet in the manner of Rimbaud and Verlaine, heavy metal rocker, blues man, etc.) So, WE are left with forty or so years of work to go through to try to sort it out. In short, can I (or anyone else) help it if he is restless and acts, well, like a rolling stone?
All of this is by way of introduction to a recent (2008) very worthwhile addition to the immense commentary on Bob Dylan’s work, “Down The Tracks: The Music That Influenced Bob Dylan”. Those influences form the stated central premise of this little documentary, filled with many, many knowledgeable “talking heads” that have, apparently, gotten far more hooked on the "meaning” of Dylan than is healthy. That is, however, a separate question for another day.
Here the commentators are full of information about the recording artists, poets, politicos, and other cultural figures that one way or another influenced Bob Dylan’s work at various periods (mainly the youthful parts) of his life. I, nevertheless, have a sneaking suspension that Brother Dylan is merely a foil for a larger project under the following rubric- Bob Dylan as the vital link, the transmission belt, in the chain of the folk tradition going back over the past century or more up to the present.
In aid of that premise the producers of this documentary have brought in seemingly every big and little contributor to what is known as the “American Songbook”, excluding, incorrectly I believe, Tin Pan Alley. Those who have followed the reviews in this space will not be surprised by the names of the performers who influenced Dylan. They form a virtual who’s who of those who influenced the Generation of ’68 as we tried to sort out what was genuine in the American musical tradition and what was merely pabulum. Thus, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger and Josh White are given ample time, especially the folk troubadour Woody Guthrie, a personal idol of Dylan’s on his way up.
Additionally, the pantheon of country blues artists ‘rediscovered’ during the folk revival of the early 1960’s are well represented by Mississippi John Hurt (his material, along with other country blues artists like Skip James, has been covered by Dylan in his early and late periods). A decent amount of space is given to the influence of the "beats" from the 1950's (his growing up period) not so much for the music as for the sensibility. Not so well known, are the country and western influences which, if one thought about it, seem natural for a ‘country boy’ like Dylan growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota. Number one here, and not by accident, is Hank Williams a similarly, at times, dark lyricist. Less apparent is mention of the influence of The Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers from the white rural and mountain country scene.
Finally, the producers here have not only gotten some very knowledgeable commentators to give their take on Dylan (I especially note Tom Paley from the original New Lost City Ramblers, a fountain of information about the New York folk scene as it developed prior to Dylan's splashy entrance) but have buttressed their case for Dylan’s role as the transmission belt for the traditional folk culture by having younger performers play not his music but the music that influenced him (a standout here is a male-female guitar-banjo couple playing the old classic “Banks Of The Ohio”). Nice touch.
Song to Woody Lyrics
I'm out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin' a road other men have gone down
I'm seein' your world of people and things
Hear paupers and peasants and princes and kings.
Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
'Bout a funny old world that's a-comin' along
Seems sick and it's hungry, it's tired and it's torn
It looks like it's a-dyin' and it's hardly been born.
Hey, Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know
All the things I'm a-sayin', and many times more
I'm a-singin' every song, but I can't sing enough
Cause there's not many men done the things that you done.
Here's to Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly, too
And to all the good people that traveled with you
Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind
I'm a-leavin' tomorrow, but I could leave today
Somewhere down the road someday
The very last thing that I'd want to do
Is to say I'd been hittin' some hard travelin' too.
Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon
By Seth Garth
I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.
So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Hedy West performing "Cotton Mill Girl" on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest". That show and this performer are prime examples of the 1960s folk revival down at the base of that revival.
CD Review
Folk Song America: A 20th Century Revival, 4 CD set with booklet, Smithsonian Collection Of Recordings, 1991
In various parts of America this year (2009) marks the 50th anniversary of the formation of many of the folk song societies that, organizationally, drove the folk revival of the early 1960s. That, I know is true for New England, although the genesis of such groups in other sections of the country I am not as sure of. The CD under review, Folk Song America: A 20th Century Revival, was produced and released by the Smithsonian Collection Of Recordings in 1991 and therefore is not directly related to any anniversary celebrations. It nevertheless, in spirit, represents that same long ago taken on ambition by the various local folk song societies to chronicle the history of roots music in America. Forty plus years on we just have a wider selection of items to pick and choice from.
And that is the rub. This 4 CD set has attempted to do two things, and I think has done so successfully. First it has highlighted the starting of roots music with such early influences as The Fisk Jubilee Singers, Buell Kazee, John Jacob Niles, Leady Belly, The Almanac Singers (that included Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger among others), John and Alan Lomax and others who were uncovered in some very strange and interesting ways. Then the set moves on to the interim post World War II figures of Pete Seeger, The Weavers, The New Lost City Ramblers and the like. Those two influences then got assimilated and extended by the early 1960s folk revivalists whose work makes up the bulk of the material here. Such names as Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band and many others who I have reviewed in this space over the past couple of years and who now get a new life here as “the old fogies” that will influence the next generation of folk revivalists.. To finish off this series there are several later post folk revival tracks from the likes of Taj Mahal, Sweet Honey in the Rock and Magpie.
The second task of the series is to act as the magnet for any future interest in folk music. To aid that task, as is to be expected from the Smithsonian as a premium historical music collection provider, there is an incredibly informative booklet available by Norm Cohen. Hey, I know a lot about and lived through most of the 1960s folk revival and I still learned a lot of stuff from this booklet. But here is the really nice part. In the future there will be no need of some young musicologist like Alan Lomax, Harry Smith or Pete Seeger to go into the field to recover our common roots music. This is now your first stop. That will leave more time for singing and creating new songs. Nice, right?
Below is sampler of the lyrics to some folk songs in this set.
"Blowin’ in The Wind"
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, n how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, n how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before theyre forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, n how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, n how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before its washed to the sea?
Yes, n how many years can some people exist
Before theyre allowed to be free?
Yes, n how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesnt see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.
Misc, Big Rock Candy Mountain Tabs/Chords
Looking for Misc Lyrics? Browse alphabet (above).
Artist: Misc
Song: Big Rock Candy Mountain Misc Sheet Music
Misc CDs
Send “Big Rock Candy Mountain” Ringtone to Cell Phone
Peter Lurvey had requested this song. I don't know if it's the same one,
because this is an old one that my sister, Val Heiserman, transcribed MANY
years ago. I don't know who the original artist was, and since I haven't
seen the movie that it's in now, I don't know who's doing it now. Anyway,
here goes.
"Big Rock Candy Mountain"-Harry McClintock
C F C
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, there's a land that's bright and fair,
F C Am G7
For the doughnuts grow on bushes, and there's lots of cookies there,
C F C
For the dogs and cats are happy, and the sun shines every day,
F C F C
There are birds and bees, and the bubble-gum trees,
F C F C
by the lemonade springs, where the whippoorwill sings
G7 C
in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the houses are built of blocks
And the little streams of sody pop come trickling down the rocks,
The soldiers there are made of lead, and they are very brave,
There's a lake of stew, and ice cream too
You can paddle all around in a paper canoe,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the frogs have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth,
and the hens lay hard boiled eggs
There's chocolate pie in all the trees, and jam in all the lakes,
Oh, I'm going to go where the wind don't blow,
there's a big free show, and candy snow,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
RAMBLIN' BOY
Tom Paxton
He was a man and a friend always.
He stuck with me in the bad old days.
He never cared if I had no dough,
We rambled round in the rain and snow.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
In Tulsa town we chanced to stray,
We thought we'd try to work one day.
The boss said he had room for one,
Said my old pal we'd rather bum.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
Late one night in a jungle camp,
The weather it was cold and damp.
He got the chills and he got 'em bad.
Try took the only friend I had.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
He left here to ramble on,
My rambling pal is dead and gone.
If when we die we go somewhere,
I bet you a dollar that he's rambling there.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon
By Seth Garth
I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.
So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Ramblin' Jack Elliott Performing A Cover Of Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues".
DV Review
The Ballad Of Ramblin’ Jack, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and various musicians, directed by his daughter Ailaya Elliott, Crawford Productions, 2000
Recently, in a DVD review of the film documentary about 1960’s folk legend Bob Dylan’s mid-career crisis, “Bob Dylan: After the Crash: 1966-78”, I noted, in passing, that folk guitarist Tom Paley (who was prominently featured in that film) and his group, The New Lost City Ramblers, were already waiting at the gates of Greenwich Village when the hordes of young folk revivalists started to arrive. The folk artist under review, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, in this very personal film documentary directed by his daughter, Ailaya Elliott, was also waiting there for them. Or, as the film makes clear, he was at least rumored to be waiting for them. This almost two hour bittersweet valentine to the now grand old man of the folk music revival (in 2000) is the story of why he was waiting for them, and more importantly, why they were searching for him as an agent of “authentic” American roots music.
As has also been mentioned, seemingly endlessly, in this space in many reviews over the past year or so about the male division of the folk revival of the 1960’s I have tried to explore, why or why not, certain talented folk singers never reached the status of Bob Dylan, the acknowledged “king of the hill” of that revival. From the first paragraph we already know that Ramblin’ Jack was already on the scene. Moreover, he had the pedigree that all aspiring folkies craved, including Dylan- physical links to the legendary Woody Guthrie the herald of the previous generation of the folk troubadours from the dust bowl 1930’s. Moreover Jack was a quick study, really wanted to expand the folk universe and, as this film also makes abundantly clear, he just plain liked the life style of the itinerant wanderer. So what gives?
Well, Jack just liked to keep wandering, and wandering in motion and speech and not getting attached, at least for long, to any one place person or thing. That, my friends, is the codified social genetic structure that some people live with as they try to reinvent themselves. In Jack’s case from a nice Jewish city boy (the Brooklyn of the title of this review) to an old cowboy. This is hardly the first time that someone has turned their persona around in the whirlwind of the homeland of personal reinvention, America. However, it took something out of him, as he himself reflects on his life as he travels the roads back to the past (in an RV) with his ambivalent director daughter in tow.
But here is my take on why he was left seemingly behind in the mad whirl of the folk revival and its aftermath. He didn’t move, like Dylan, either with the times or with his own drummer. He started out as a Woody acolyte, as did Dylan, but he wanted to preserve the purity of the Woody canon, intact. As a transmission belt from Woody to Dylan Ramblin’ Jack performed a yeoman’s service. But where is Jack’s equivalent of not just “Song to Woody” but “Desolation Row”, “Tangled Up In Blue”, “Visions of Johanna”, and so on. That said, this film is filled with various close-ups of Ramblin’ Jack doing his unique covers of many songs, the usual rare film footage of the early days of the folk revival, of Jack Elliott and his family life and the usual “talking head” commentary from friends, lovers and folk colleagues that round out these kinds of efforts. This is a daughter’s film, this is a folkie’s film and this is a welcome addition to the growing body of visual tributes to American roots music and its practitioners. Kudos, Ailaya.
Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon
By Seth Garth
I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.
So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.
