Sunday, August 11, 2019

An Encore Salute To The Untold Stories Of The Working- Class 1960s Radicals-“The Sam And Ralph Stories”- When The Wobblies, You Know The Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW) Bloomed

An Encore Salute To The Untold Stories Of The Working- Class 1960s Radicals-“The Sam And Ralph Stories”- When The Wobblies, You Know The Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW) Bloomed
Greg Green, site manager Introduction 
 [In early 2018, shortly after I had taken over the reins as site manager at this on-line publication I “saw the light” and bowed to the wisdom of a number of older writers who balked at my idea of reaching younger and newer audiences by having them review films like Marvel/DC Comics productions, write about various video games and books that would not offend a flea unlike the flaming red books previously reviewed here centered on the now aging 1960s baby-boomer demographic which had sustained the publication through good times and bad as a hard copy and then on-line proposition. One senior writer, who shall remain nameless in case some stray millennial sees this introduction and spreads some viral social media hate campaign his way, made the very telling observation that the younger set, his term, don’t read film reviews or hard copy books as a rule and those hardy Generation of ’68 partisans who still support this publication in the transition from the old Allan Jackson leadership to mine don’t give a fuck about comics, video games or graphic novels. I stand humbled.
Not only stand humbled though but in a valiant and seemingly successful attempt to stabilize this operation decided to give an encore presentation to some of the most important series produced and edited by Allan Jackson-without Allan. That too proved to be an error when I had Frank Jackman introduce the first few sections of The Roots Is The Toots Rock And Roll series which Allan had sweated his ass over to bring out over a couple of years. Writers, and not only senior writers who had supported Allan in the vote of no confidence fight challenging his leadership after he went overboard attempting to cash in on the hoopla over the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love in 1967 but also my younger writer partisans, balked at this subterfuge. One called it a travesty.
Backing off after finding Allan, not an easy task since he had fled to the safer waters of the West looking for work and had been rumored to be any place from Salt Lake City to some mountainous last hippie commune in the hills of Northern California doing anything from pimping as press agent for Mitt Romney’s U.S. Senate campaign in Utah to running a whorehouse with Madame La Rue in Frisco or shacking up with drag queen Miss Judy Garland in that same city, we brought Allan back to do the introductions to the remaining sections. That we, me and the Editorial Board established after Allan’s demise and as a guard against one-person rule, had compromised on that gesture with the last of the series being the termination of Allan’s association with the publication except possibly as an occasional writer, a stringer really, when some nostalgia event needed some attention.      
That was the way things went and not too badly when we finished up the series in the early summer of 2018. But that is not the end of the Allan story. While looking through the on-line archives I noticed that Allan had also seriously edited another 1960s-related series, the Sam and Ralph Stories, a series centered on the trials and tribulations of two working-class guys who had been radicalized in different ways by the 1960s upheavals and have never lost the faith in what Allan called from Tennyson “seeking a newer world” would resurface in this wicked old world, somebody’s term.
I once again attempted to make the mistake of having someone else, in this case Josh Breslin, introduce the series (after my introduction here) but the Editorial Board bucked me even before I could set that idea in motion. I claimed, somewhat disingenuously, that Allan was probably out in Utah looking for some residual work for Mitt Romney now that he is the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator for Utah or running back to Madame La Rue, an old flame, and that high- end whorehouse or hanging with Miss Judy Garland at her successful drag queen tourist attraction cabaret. No such luck since he was up in Maine working on a book about his life as an editor. To be published in hard cop y by well-known Wheeler Press whenever he gets the proofs done. So hereafter former editor and site manager Allan will handle the introductions on this encore presentation of this excellent series. Greg Green]                  
Allan Jackson, editor The Sam And Ralph Stories -New General Introduction
[As my replacement Greg Green, whom I brought in from American Film Gazette originally to handle the day to day site operations while I concentrated on editing but who led a successful revolt against my regime based on the wishes of the younger writers to as they said at the time not be slaves to the 1960s upheavals a time which they only knew second or third hand, mentioned in his general introduction above some of the series I initiated were/are worth an encore presentation. The Sam and Ralph Stories are one such series and as we go along I will try to describe why this series was an important testament to an unheralded segment of the mass movements of the 1960s-the radicalized white working- class kids who certainly made up a significant component of the Vietnam War soldiery, some of who were like Sam and Ralph forever after suspicious of every governmental war cry. Who also somewhat belatedly got caught up in the second wave rock and roll revival which emerged under the general slogan of “drug, sex and rock and roll” which represented a vast sea change for attitudes about a lot of things that under ordinary circumstances would have had them merely replicating their parents’ ethos and fate.        
As I said I will describe that transformation in future segment introductions but today since it is my “dime” I want to once again clear up some misapprehensions about what has gone on over the past year or so in the interest of informing the readership, as Greg Green has staked his standing at this publication on doing to insure his own survival, about what goes on behind the scenes in the publishing business. This would not have been necessary after the big flap when Greg tried an “end around” something that I and every other editor worth her or his salt have tried as well and have somebody else, here commentator and my old high school friend Frank Jackman, act as general introducer of The Roots Is The Toots  rock and roll coming of age series that I believe is one of the best productions I have ever worked on. That got writers, young and old, with me or against me, led by Sam Lowell, another of my old high school friends, who had been the decisive vote against me in the “vote of no confidence” which ended my regime up in arms. I have forgiven Sam, and others, as I knew full well from the time I entered into the business that at best it was a cutthroat survival of the fittest racket. (Not only have I forgiven Sam but I am in his corner in his recent struggles with young up and coming by-line writer Sarah Lemoyne who is being guided through the shoals by another old high school friend Seth Garth as she attempts to make her way up the film critic food chain, probably the most vicious segment of the business where a thousand knives wait the unwary from so-called fellow reviewers.) The upshot of that controversy was that Greg had to back off and let me finish the introducing the series for which after all I had been present at the creation.               
That would have been the end of it but once we successfully, and thankfully by Greg who gave me not only kudos around the water cooler but a nice honorarium, concluded that series encore in the early summer of 2018 he found another way to cut me. Going through the archives of this publication to try to stabilize the readership after doing some “holy goof” stuff like having serious writers, young and old, reviewing films based on comic book characters, the latest in video games and graphic novels with no success forgetting the cardinal rule of the post-Internet world that the younger set get their information from other sources than old line academic- driven websites and don’t read beyond their techie tools Greg found another series, the one highlighted here, that intrigued him for an encore presentation. This is where Greg proved only too human since he once again attempted an “end around,” by having Josh Breslin, another old friend whom I meet in the Summer of Love, 1967 out in San Francisco, introduce the series citing my unavailability as the reason although paying attention to the fact that I had sweated bullets over that one as well.      
This time though the Editorial Board, now headed by Sam Lowell, intervened even before Greg could approach Josh for the assignment. This Ed Board was instituted after my departure to insure the operation would not descend, Sam’s word actually, into the so-called autocratic one-person rule that had been the norm under my regime. They told Greg to call me back in on the encore project or to forget it. I would not have put up with such a suggestion from an overriding Ed Board and would have willingly bowed out if anybody had tried to undermine me that way. I can understand fully Greg’s desire to cast me to the deeps, have done with me as in my time I did as well knowing others in the food chain would see this as their opportunity to move up.  
That part I had no problem with, told Greg exactly that. What bothered me was the continuing “urban legend” about what I had done, where I had gone after that decisive vote of no confidence. Greg continued, may continue today, to fuel the rumors that not only after my initial demise but after finishing up the Roots Is The Toots series I had gone back out West to Utah of all places to work for the Mormons, or to Frisco to hook up with my old flame Madame La Rue running that high-end whorehouse I had staked her to in the old days, or was running around with another old high school pal, Miss Judy Garland, aka Timmy Riley the high priestess of the drag queen set out in that same town whom I also helped stake to  his high-end tourist attraction cabaret. All nonsense, I was working on my memoir up in Maine, up in Olde Saco where Josh grew up and which I fell in love with when he first showed me his hometown and its ocean views.          
If the reader can bear the weight of this final reckoning let me clear the air on all three subjects on the so-called Western trail. Before that though I admit, admit freely that despite all the money I have made, editing, doing a million pieces under various aliases and monikers, ballooning up 3000 word articles to 10,000 and having the publishers fully pay despite the need for editing for the latter in the days before the Guild when you worked by the word, accepting articles which I clearly knew were just ripped of the AP feed and sending them along as gold I had no dough, none when I was dethroned. Reason, perfectly sane reason, although maybe not, three ex-wives with alimony blues and a parcel of kids, a brood if you like who were in thrall to the college tuition vultures.
Tapped out in the East for a lot of reasons I did head west the first time looking for work. Landed in Utah when I ran out of dough, and did, DID, try to get a job on the Salt Lake Star and would have had it too except two things somebody there, some friend of Mitt Romney, heard I was looking for work and nixed the whole thing once they read the articles I had written mocking Mitt and his white underwear world as Massachusetts governor and 2012 presidential candidate. So it was with bitter irony when I heard that Greg had retailed the preposterous idea that I would now seek a job shilling for dear white undie Mitt as press agent in his run for the open Utah United States Senate seat. Here is where everybody should gasp though at the whole Utah fantasy-these Mormons stick close together, probably ingrained in them from Joseph Smith days, and don’t hire goddam atheists and radicals, don’t hire outside the religion if they can help it. You probably had to have slept with one of Joseph Smith’s or Brigham Young’s wives to even get one foot in the door. Done.              
The helping Madame La Rue, real name of no interest or need to mention,  running her high-end exclusive whorehouse out in Half Moon Bay at least had some credence since I had staked her to some dough to get started after the downfall of the 1960s sent her back to her real world, the world of a high class hooker who was slumming with “hippies” for a while when it looked like our dreams were going to be deterred in in the ebbtide. We had been hot and heavy lovers, although never married except on some hazed drug-fogged concert night when I think Josh Breslin “married” us and sent us on a “honeymoon” with a fistful of cocaine. Down on dough I hit her up for some which she gave gladly, said it was interest on the “loan: she never repaid and let me stay at her place for a while until I had to move on. Done
The whole drag queen idea tells me that whoever started this damn lie knew nothing about my growing up days and had either seen me in The Totem, Timmy Riley’s aka Miss Judy Garland’s drinking with a few drag queen who worked and drew the wrong conclusions or was out to slander and libel me for some other nefarious reason. See Miss Judy Garland is the very successful drag queen and gay man Timmy Riley from the old neighborhood who fled to Frisco when he could no longer hide his sexual identity and preferences. To our great shock since Timmy had been the out-front gay-basher of our crowd, our working-class corner boy gay-bashing crowd. I had lent, after getting religion rather late on the LGBTQ question, Timmy the money to buy his first drag queen cabaret on Bay Street and Timmy was kind enough to stake me to some money and a roof before I decided I had to head back East. Done.
But enough about me.  This is about two other working- class guys, Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris, met along life’s road one from Carver about fifty miles away from where Seth, Sam, Timmy and a bunch of other guys grew up and learned the “normal” working-class ethos-and broke, tentatively at times, from that same straitjacket and from Troy, New York. Funny Troy, Carver, North Adamsville, and Josh’s old mill town Olde Saco all down-in-the-mouth working class towns still produced in exceptional times a clot of guys who got caught up in the turmoil of their times-and lived to tell the tale. I am proud to introduce this encore presentation and will have plenty more to say about Sam and Ralph in future segments.]

Allan Jackson Introduction To Sam and Ralph-The Wild Boys of Cambridge When Cambridge Was Jammed Full Of Wild Girls And Boys    
[Some guys from the old days, from the old growing up poor in the working-class Acre section of North Adamsville, I still have contact with over fifty years later. Guys like Seth Garth who is now in a “battle” along with his new protégé Sarah Lemoyne who looks for all the world to be an up and coming contributor to this publication against his, and my, old time friend Sam Lowell who promised me he would retire, especially after he provided the key last and decisive vote when the younger writers rose up against my editorship and forced me to retire. Forced me West seeking another job to keep myself solvent causing all kinds of rumors and fairy tales to enter the world which only muddied up the already murky waters. Other guys like beautiful Si Lannon and generous benefactor to this publication Jack Callahan also come to mind. Of course the elephant in the room has always been, and probably always will be, one Peter Paul Markin, who taught us many things before his sadly untimely demise caused by his own hubris many years ago. I honored his memory for years using his name as my moniker in various publishing efforts and will detail the genesis of that decision in the memoir of my time in the publishing industry which I am working on and expect to complete by next year.     
I am proud to have had the chance to keep so many friendships from the old neighborhoods days as I am a man who puts a great deal into things like loyalty and camaraderie. Of course those relationships do not exhaust the number of long friendships and close working relationships. Josh Breslin met in the Summer of Love, 1967, Zack James, youngest brother of my closest friend in high Alex, and Lance Lawrence come readily to mind. Then there are guys, I am only talking guys today as I will deal with gals in an up-coming introductory segment, like fellow Vietnam veteran Ralph Morris from over in Troy, New York whom I met I believe down in Washington, D.C. in 1971 a few weeks before we, Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW), did our part to try to shut down the government to shut down the war on May Day -and failed. Guys like his friend Sam Eaton from Carver about fifty miles from North Adamsville,  not a veteran since he was exempted from the draft as the sole support of his mother and four sisters after his father passed away suddenly of a heart attack, whom Ralph “met” after both had been arrested in those May Day actions in “jail” at the RFK football stadium. They, Sam and Ralph, and I have stayed in contact over the years and have worked on many political projects mostly against war together.    
That brings me to the idea behind having Sam and Ralph as the central characters in a series I helped plan around the story- and fate- of some working- class radicals who for the most part had kept the faith, had not retreated to self, had not given up the mist of change we were struggling for in those halcyon and heady 1960s upheaval days. At the cost of over-generalization the thing that united the North Adamsville remnant, including me, guys like Josh Breslin and guys like Sam and Ralph was our working-class backgrounds. While the road to new understandings of the ways of the world were different we all arrived at some similar conclusions and since then have seen no reason to dramatically change them if in the aging process we are less able to stir the old energies. Have been ready to “pass the torch” for a while. The stories of the old North Adamsville corner boys had by 2012 or so been done to death as had the stories centered on other working-class guys like Josh Breslin from places like Olde Saco up in Maine and so the natural place to turn was the long-time relationship between Sam and Ralph. Things seemed right in the universe doing the series then-and now with this encore.]          
********
When The Wobblies Bloomed
Sam Eaton comment:
Everybody, or practically everybody, knows the story of how my old friend Ralph Morris from Troy, New York and I met on May Day 1971 so I will just give the highlights since what I want to really talk about is what we discussed and decided to do as a result of what happened that day. See I had gone down to Washington D.C. with several groups (collectives, was what we called them) of red-hot “reds” and radicals from Cambridge in order to “capture” the White House. That is not as weird as it sounds now since what we were trying to do along with thousands of others who opposed the Vietnam War (and shared similar positions on other social questions as well) was to “shut down the government, if it did not shut down the war.” We were angry, we were desperate and some of us, not me then anyway, were acting under the impression that we were opening a second front here in America in aid of the liberation fighters in Vietnam.  
Ralph, an ex-veteran with eighteen months under his belt in Vietnam, had become totally disgusted with what he had done there, what his buddies had done there, and what the American government had made them do to people who were not bothering anybody, at least nobody in America.  He had joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War organization and had come down to Washington with a group from New York state who were going to shut down their old boss, the Pentagon, as part of that same May Day action. They at least had enough sense, unlike us, to realize that this would be a symbolic action. In either case what we all got for our troubles was tear-gassed, billy-clubbed and as Ralph put it once, sent to the bastinado, the RFK football stadium then being used as a holding pen for all those arrested that day. And there is where Ralph and I met when he saw I had a VVAW supporter button on (in respect for my friend Jeff Mullins from my hometown of Carver, Massachusetts who got blown away in Vietnam and got me out in the streets as a result).     
Like I said what was important was not so much that we met, although that did start a lifetime personal friendship and politically active association, but that we began what would be a several years stretch of activity and study in order to see what had gone wrong that day, and what we really needed to do when the government went to war and we needed to stop it in its tracks. After we left RFK and hitchhiked back up North we continued to talk and to make study plans which due to one thing or another didn’t get a big boost until the summer of 1972. That summer I had been living in a Cambridge commune, a very common living arrangement during those years for comradery and to share the bills among people who had little dough. I invited Ralph over from Troy to stay with me and to join a study group/ action group run by one of the many “red collectives” that were sprouting up around Cambridge in those days. He came and spent the summer, although his father who ran a high precision electrical shop was furious since Ralph had been cheap labor for him.
Not everything that we learned that summer, or later when we studied with other groups or on our own, was etched in gold, had a lot of relevance to what we were trying to do but a lot did. A grounding in the basics of classical Marxism except for the book sealed with seven seals Das Capital, the experiences of the Bolsheviks and the three Russian revolutions, the work of Che Guevara and Leon Trotsky on colonial revolutions, closer to home the American Civil War, and the early labor movement here. And of course a drill through of what were called questions, questions with a big “Q” like the black question, the Russian question, the women question, the gay question, the labor party question and so on.         
We wound up not joining any particular group, including not joining the Socialist Workers Party that we were interested in because of its connection with the heroic figure of Leon Trotsky and his windmill facing tasks to save the Russian revolution and because of James P. Cannon whose work in the political prisoner field, especially when he was with the International Labor Defense and its central involvement in the Sacco and Vanzetti case in the 1920s we admired. While we had political disagreements with most groups we were in contact with (and disagreements between us especially on the Labor Party question since I was red-hot to try and use the Democratic Party as a way to change things and Ralph would have none of that since it was a Democrat, LBJ, who sent his “young ass” [his term] to Vietnam) would join and unjoin various ad hoc groups around particular issues much preferring that avenue to joining a hard political organization. The real reason though was that sometime in the mid-1970s while we were still deep in trying to figure things out the glow of the big 1960s jail break-out was beginning to lose steam. And we were beginning to lose steam as well wanting to get on with careers and starting families.
Ralph, who still lives in Troy as I still live around Boston, since we are both practically retired and the kids are grown have gotten together more recently when he makes periodic trips to Boston. One night not long ago we were sitting in our favorite bar, Jack Higgins’ Grille down by the Financial District downtown, talking about this and that, you know of course political this and that, when Ralph mentioned that he had run into Hugo Gans, the old Industrial Workers of the World organizer (IWW, Wobblies) who was out there trying to organize some small clot of restaurant workers in Saratoga Springs. That got us talking about those old study groups and about the process we went through trying to figure out what group we would join in order to do more effective political work (remember we wound up not joining any on-going group).         
No question we were under the sway of Che and Leon Trotsky and that it would be hard to see ourselves in an organization hostile to the work of either men but we paid very close attention in one study class run by an anarchist who went root and branch through the virtues of the old time Wobblies. We caught some of the fever he put out, if only as an historical moment. We stood in thrall to guys like Big Bill Haywood and his Western miners who went through hell to get what they wanted. We admired Frank Little and the others who were martyred to the cause and the heroic struggle against great odds of the IWWs opposition to World War I which put the organization right in the cross-hairs of the government bent on war and which basically crushed organization as an effective pole of attraction for young labor militants. We admired Jim Cannon as well for making the big move from the Wobblies but shared his old time sentimental feeling that the organization grabbed some very good cadre in the early days.
And of course there was Hugo who could always be counted on to bring whoever he could round-up to add bodies to whatever protest we were planning. So it was something of a treat to pick up a copy of a newspaper from one of the young earnest Marxists hocking their wares at an anti-war Iraq and Syria rally that featured some words by Cannon on the subject of the Wobblies. He had a good sense of their strengths in the early day and their limitations when things had changed and the deal went down the wrong way.
[In the original segment there was a short sentence informing the reader to “read on” referring to a major essay by James P. Cannon on the IWW. I have not placed that essay here but it can be easily accessed by Googling the James P. Cannon Internet website and scrolling to 1954. AJ]

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The Children Of Rock And Roll Come Home To Roost-For Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Happen

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The Children Of Rock And Roll Come Home To Roost-For Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Happen       





By Sam Lowell


I my last piece I noted that out of the deep recesses of my mind I have dredged up some memories of my earliest corner boy experiences from down in the mud of the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, let’s not kid each other “the projects” which strikes fear in the now, as it did then. Those dredgings so run rampant and form the basics of yet another piece. Part of what has stirred up those memory jogs those memory jogs revolved around getting together with the still standing members of my high school corner boy gang from Tonio’s Pizza Parlor for drinks and a little food at Jimmy Jack’s Lounge a few towns over from where we grew up, came of age. That in turn got me thinking about genesis and the guys I hung with early on doing the “best we could,” legally or legally. Here is what I had to say in the prior piece still germane to fill in some background as to why I have decided to take the trip to way back when:      

“Of all the corner boys (read: juvenile delinquents in some quarters a big term, a big concern in 1950s sociologist, criminologist, school administration, court and cop circles; sullen schoolboys serious in feeding their “wanting” habits in an age when all around them was plenty so maybe not so much sullen as angry in some other quarters; and,  misunderstood youth in yet others the bailiwick of concerned teachers, social workers, and library personnel- all three probably true in some senses) who hung around Tonio’s Pizza Parlor while we were going to North Adamsville High in the early 1960s I am the only one still standing who started his corner boy career at Carter’s Variety Store across town in the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments (read: “the projects” and although I have already made the point a million times the unwanted fate of plenty down at the base of society, down in the mud where things and people are not pretty). That experience started when I was a student at the Snug Harbor Elementary School located just outside the projects.

“I mentioned that I am the only Carter’s boy still standing but I was not the only one. There was one other one Peter Paul Markin who at Tonio’s was always known as the Scribe and I will use that name here rather than that pretension-filled moniker his mother laid on him. Now much ink (and many tears, many tears still) has been spilled in this publication about his latter exploits and the craziness of the Scribe when he was in high dudgeon at Tonio’s and a little later but little has been noted about the early days, the early corner boy days in elementary school when most of the Tonio’s boys we knew were clueless about the value of desperately poor kids joining together, hanging out to do, well “to do the best they could.”             

“I am not quite sure how the Carter corner boys started since it was already formed when I started hanging out along with the Scribe. Let’s leave it that this store was the only one in the whole projects area (and sadly still is) where residents without cars, including my family many times, or in need of some quick item could shop. The urban legend folk lore if you will was that from about day one of the project’s opening some group of young men, boys really, somewhere about ten or eleven years started hanging around there, to hang around which was alright with Mister Carter as long as we were respectful (which we always were-there). (I would not find out until later through my own progressions that Carter’s was step one in the corner boy stages in that part of town going to Bert’s Market in junior high school and Dexter’s Ice Cream Parlor in high school like in the Acre in North Adamsville the stages were Larry’s Variety, Doc’s Drugstore and Tonio’s.)   

I met the Scribe the first day of school in fourth grade after my family had moved to the projects from another project in Riverdale west of Boston when my father’s company moved to the area and he needed the work. That was in Miss Sullivan’s class, an old biddy who trucked no nonsense and who made it her profession to keep us after school for detention-even that first day which was supposed to be easy stuff. The Scribe was looking at some book, forgotten now, and I commented that it looked interesting to start a conversation. That was all the Scribe needed as he wowed me with the contents. And didn’t wow Miss Sullivan who kept us after for the continuous talking. After that after school detention business we went to Carter’s to see what was up once he told me fourth and fifth grade guys hung out there and it was okay.

“Later and elsewhere the Scribe, and to some extent me, would be the leaders of various corner boy combinations, would plan whatever needed to be planned, legal or illegal but then we were frankly naïve and really just foot soldiers. The deal was already set for leadership with Ronnie, George, Rodger, Lenny and a little later also the legendary Billy Bradley running the operations (all would later do various stretches of time in county and state prisons I think except Lenny who laid his head down in Vietnam during that war). We had no problem with that since we were in thrall to the whole aura of the thing.”

In the first piece, important to set a certain tone for the bad karma fate of most corner boys who wound up serving long jail time, or met with early deaths usually after some cop shoot-out, I mentioned how one pissed off Ronnie, Ronnie Mooney to give a last name since he is long dead from some failed armed robbery, gathered us together to seek revenge for some slight some teacher had given him, and he was going to burn down the school. Although the attempt, a very real attempt failed we went along with his rage, with his plans since he was a fellow corner boy half-strange as that reason sounds today.  


I have mentioned on a number of occasions that they say, maybe they said is better, that juvenile delinquents are born not made. Have some genetic kink missing which throws everything off. That was true of Ronnie I believe for he had a really devious and sadistic bent but as a I noted in subsequent piece about his musical abilities that was not all of what Ronnie was about then, if the bad side, the dark side came out more later. He, and we did too especially the Scribe and Billy Bradley, loved the emerging rock and roll that would define our generation’s main musical thrusts. Ronnie had a natural feel, a natural beat for the music and a very good voice. The same was true of Billy but more on him some other time when I want to develop the bond between the seemingly unbreakable bond between Scribe and Billy (which caused me a serious amount of anguish as the Scribe started describing Bill as his best friend). Ronnie lived to play the latest tunes for us by Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and what is important here the rise of doo-wop be-bop music.

I have already told the story of how Ronnie (and later with Billy) would in the summer after Carter’s closed and we were looking for something to do  would gather us behind the school (that almost burned down school) and we would sing whatever he knew from rock and roll which was extensive and at one point when doo-wop surfaced that genre. At a critical point and maybe by the sheer force of his voice girls would come around, a couple at first then a whole bevy. In the distance at first but before long right up with us clapping and tapping to the new age beat. (That “critical point” reference above being nothing but our hormonal changes making last year’s bothersome stick girls now interesting, go figure and not some modal thing).

Of course the doo-wop sessions led to boy-girl stuff but also led then ambitious Ronnie (and later Billy but the reader will have to wait for that) to realize that maybe he had enough talent to go big, become a rock and roll star. That certainly drove him for a while. Ronnie seemed to think that doo-wop would be his way out of the mud, the way out of the rotten projects. And he, rightly I think, and probably said so to us then focused on that kind of future. Certainly he had the swoony girls swaying in the breezes part down.

The 1950s were the great age of school and church dances usually combined with some kind of talent show during intermissions. A big reason both by school and church authorities for sponsoring these events every week was to keep a lid on the sexually budding kids, keep them away from the ubiquitous petting parties where who knows what went on. Talent shows were open to all and so one night Ronnie signed up as much for the fifty-dollar U.S. Savings Bond prize as anything else. And maybe to check the girl reaction.

I will say Ronnie looked great that night with a white starched shirt, an in fashion then skinny tie, loose sports coat and black trousers without cuffs also then in fashion, the fashion of the rockers back then from Bill Halley to Chuck Berry. I think he was number five on the list after some no talent has-beens or no wases, dweebs really would could not sing for nothing and got nothing but the old raspberry from a sullen put upon crowd, many. Ronnie though got up slowly walking to the center of the stage, grabbed the mike and started doing a version of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven complete with duck walk and other moves. The usually half sullen crowd anxious to get back to dancing went wild, started going crazy. Yeah, I would not be telling any tales out of school to let you know who won the bond that night. Hail Ronnie, even if later things went south on him I wonder if in that last dying breath on some benighted strip mall, alone, he thought about that night. Yeah, I still wonder.


      From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The Children Of Rock And Roll Come Home To Roost-For Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Happen       





By Sam Lowell


I my last piece I noted that out of the deep recesses of my mind I have dredged up some memories of my earliest corner boy experiences from down in the mud of the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, let’s not kid each other “the projects” which strikes fear in the now, as it did then. Those dredgings so run rampant and form the basics of yet another piece. Part of what has stirred up those memory jogs those memory jogs revolved around getting together with the still standing members of my high school corner boy gang from Tonio’s Pizza Parlor for drinks and a little food at Jimmy Jack’s Lounge a few towns over from where we grew up, came of age. That in turn got me thinking about genesis and the guys I hung with early on doing the “best we could,” legally or legally. Here is what I had to say in the prior piece still germane to fill in some background as to why I have decided to take the trip to way back when:      

“Of all the corner boys (read: juvenile delinquents in some quarters a big term, a big concern in 1950s sociologist, criminologist, school administration, court and cop circles; sullen schoolboys serious in feeding their “wanting” habits in an age when all around them was plenty so maybe not so much sullen as angry in some other quarters; and,  misunderstood youth in yet others the bailiwick of concerned teachers, social workers, and library personnel- all three probably true in some senses) who hung around Tonio’s Pizza Parlor while we were going to North Adamsville High in the early 1960s I am the only one still standing who started his corner boy career at Carter’s Variety Store across town in the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments (read: “the projects” and although I have already made the point a million times the unwanted fate of plenty down at the base of society, down in the mud where things and people are not pretty). That experience started when I was a student at the Snug Harbor Elementary School located just outside the projects.

“I mentioned that I am the only Carter’s boy still standing but I was not the only one. There was one other one Peter Paul Markin who at Tonio’s was always known as the Scribe and I will use that name here rather than that pretension-filled moniker his mother laid on him. Now much ink (and many tears, many tears still) has been spilled in this publication about his latter exploits and the craziness of the Scribe when he was in high dudgeon at Tonio’s and a little later but little has been noted about the early days, the early corner boy days in elementary school when most of the Tonio’s boys we knew were clueless about the value of desperately poor kids joining together, hanging out to do, well “to do the best they could.”             

“I am not quite sure how the Carter corner boys started since it was already formed when I started hanging out along with the Scribe. Let’s leave it that this store was the only one in the whole projects area (and sadly still is) where residents without cars, including my family many times, or in need of some quick item could shop. The urban legend folk lore if you will was that from about day one of the project’s opening some group of young men, boys really, somewhere about ten or eleven years started hanging around there, to hang around which was alright with Mister Carter as long as we were respectful (which we always were-there). (I would not find out until later through my own progressions that Carter’s was step one in the corner boy stages in that part of town going to Bert’s Market in junior high school and Dexter’s Ice Cream Parlor in high school like in the Acre in North Adamsville the stages were Larry’s Variety, Doc’s Drugstore and Tonio’s.)   

I met the Scribe the first day of school in fourth grade after my family had moved to the projects from another project in Riverdale west of Boston when my father’s company moved to the area and he needed the work. That was in Miss Sullivan’s class, an old biddy who trucked no nonsense and who made it her profession to keep us after school for detention-even that first day which was supposed to be easy stuff. The Scribe was looking at some book, forgotten now, and I commented that it looked interesting to start a conversation. That was all the Scribe needed as he wowed me with the contents. And didn’t wow Miss Sullivan who kept us after for the continuous talking. After that after school detention business we went to Carter’s to see what was up once he told me fourth and fifth grade guys hung out there and it was okay.

“Later and elsewhere the Scribe, and to some extent me, would be the leaders of various corner boy combinations, would plan whatever needed to be planned, legal or illegal but then we were frankly naïve and really just foot soldiers. The deal was already set for leadership with Ronnie, George, Rodger, Lenny and a little later also the legendary Billy Bradley running the operations (all would later do various stretches of time in county and state prisons I think except Lenny who laid his head down in Vietnam during that war). We had no problem with that since we were in thrall to the whole aura of the thing.”

In the first piece, important to set a certain tone for the bad karma fate of most corner boys who wound up serving long jail time, or met with early deaths usually after some cop shoot-out, I mentioned how one pissed off Ronnie, Ronnie Mooney to give a last name since he is long dead from some failed armed robbery, gathered us together to seek revenge for some slight some teacher had given him, and he was going to burn down the school. Although the attempt, a very real attempt failed we went along with his rage, with his plans since he was a fellow corner boy half-strange as that reason sounds today.  


I have mentioned on a number of occasions that they say, maybe they said is better, that juvenile delinquents are born not made. Have some genetic kink missing which throws everything off. That was true of Ronnie I believe for he had a really devious and sadistic bent but as a I noted in subsequent piece about his musical abilities that was not all of what Ronnie was about then, if the bad side, the dark side came out more later. He, and we did too especially the Scribe and Billy Bradley, loved the emerging rock and roll that would define our generation’s main musical thrusts. Ronnie had a natural feel, a natural beat for the music and a very good voice. The same was true of Billy but more on him some other time when I want to develop the bond between the seemingly unbreakable bond between Scribe and Billy (which caused me a serious amount of anguish as the Scribe started describing Bill as his best friend). Ronnie lived to play the latest tunes for us by Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and what is important here the rise of doo-wop be-bop music.

I have already told the story of how Ronnie (and later with Billy) would in the summer after Carter’s closed and we were looking for something to do  would gather us behind the school (that almost burned down school) and we would sing whatever he knew from rock and roll which was extensive and at one point when doo-wop surfaced that genre. At a critical point and maybe by the sheer force of his voice girls would come around, a couple at first then a whole bevy. In the distance at first but before long right up with us clapping and tapping to the new age beat. (That “critical point” reference above being nothing but our hormonal changes making last year’s bothersome stick girls now interesting, go figure and not some modal thing).

Of course the doo-wop sessions led to boy-girl stuff but also led then ambitious Ronnie (and later Billy but the reader will have to wait for that) to realize that maybe he had enough talent to go big, become a rock and roll star. That certainly drove him for a while. Ronnie seemed to think that doo-wop would be his way out of the mud, the way out of the rotten projects. And he, rightly I think, and probably said so to us then focused on that kind of future. Certainly he had the swoony girls swaying in the breezes part down.

The 1950s were the great age of school and church dances usually combined with some kind of talent show during intermissions. A big reason both by school and church authorities for sponsoring these events every week was to keep a lid on the sexually budding kids, keep them away from the ubiquitous petting parties where who knows what went on. Talent shows were open to all and so one night Ronnie signed up as much for the fifty-dollar U.S. Savings Bond prize as anything else. And maybe to check the girl reaction.

I will say Ronnie looked great that night with a white starched shirt, an in fashion then skinny tie, loose sports coat and black trousers without cuffs also then in fashion, the fashion of the rockers back then from Bill Halley to Chuck Berry. I think he was number five on the list after some no talent has-beens or no wases, dweebs really would could not sing for nothing and got nothing but the old raspberry from a sullen put upon crowd, many. Ronnie though got up slowly walking to the center of the stage, grabbed the mike and started doing a version of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven complete with duck walk and other moves. The usually half sullen crowd anxious to get back to dancing went wild, started going crazy. Yeah, I would not be telling any tales out of school to let you know who won the bond that night. Hail Ronnie, even if later things went south on him I wonder if in that last dying breath on some benighted strip mall, alone, he thought about that night. Yeah, I still wonder.


      

*From The Karl Marx- Friedrich Internet Archives- In Defense Of The Paris Commune And Defense Of Its Class-War Prisoners-The Paris Commune

Click on the headline to link to the Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels Archive online copy of the material mentioned in the title on the defense of the Paris Commune and its class-war prisoners.

Markin comment:

Readers of this space are, by now, familiar with my interest in the defense of class-war prisoners and, perhaps, know that I express that interest through support to the efforts of the Partisan Defense Committee (PDC). One of the reasons for that support of the PDC is its commitment to the non-sectarian defense of all class-war prisoners, a tradition in which it follows the old Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) principle expressed in the slogan, “an injury to one is an injury to all.” That principle also animated the early James P. Cannon-led work of the International Labor Defense, the legal defense arm of the American Communist Party and of the early legal defense work of the Trotskyist American Socialist Workers Party.

Perhaps not as well known, although it would seem axiomatic to their theories, is the even earlier class-war prisoner defense work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as an expression of their concept expressed in the slogan “workers of the world unite.” In no place was this work more ardently pursued that in their defense against all-comers of the Paris Commune during its short, historic existence and later, after it was crushed of its refugees, exiles, prisoners and their families. Much of this work was done early on through the Marx-created and led First International, and after its demise in the wake of that defeat through other Marx-influenced national organizations. I am posting some material here to provide some examples of their efforts.

The important point here is that, to my knowledge, there was, at most, only one proclaimed Marxist in the leadership of the Commune, and not much more adherence among the plebeians and artisans who heroically defended the Commune. So, mostly, those being defended by Marx and Engels were leftist political opponents, in some cases, severe political opponents. That approach is what has animated my own legal defense work and, hopefully, yours. Here, by the way, is another slogan to end this comment, fittingly I think-All Honor To The Paris Communards! Long Live The Memory Of The Paris Commune!

karl marx, Friedrich Engels, paris commune, an injury to one is an injury to all, CLASS-WAR PRISONERS, class struggle defense,

The Struggle For The Labor Party In The United States- Leon Trotsky Speaks-"On the Labor Party Question in America"-To The Communist League Of America (pre-SWP)-1932

Markin comment on this series:

Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.

Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.

As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts run a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.
**********
Leon Trotsky

On the Labor Party Question in America
(1932)


Written: 1932.
First Published: 1932.
Source: Class Struggle Official Organ Of The Communist League Of Struggle (Adhering to the International Left Opposition), Volume 2 Number 7, August 1932. We have added an appendix that was included in the uncopyrighted version of the Merit Publishers version of this interview at the bottom of this article.
Online Version: Vera Buch & Albert Weisbord Internet Archive.
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Albert Weisbord Internet Archive/David Walters.


I reread the theses of the Second Conference of the American League concerning the question of the Labor Party. I find it excellent in every part and I sign it with both hands. I find it necessary to emphasize my full agreement with these all the more as my interview to the New York Times of March 1932 gave rise to the misunderstanding and misinterpretation, especially from the part of the Lovestone group.

1. What was my idea about the “Labor Party” in that statement? I affirmed that American politics will be Europeanized in the sense that the inevitable and imminent development of a party of the working class will totally change the political face of the US. This is a commonplace for a Marxist. The question was not of a “Labor Party” in the specific English sense of that word, but in the general European sense without designating what form such a party would take or what phases it would pass through. There was not the slightest necessity in this interview to enter into the internal tactical differences within the Communist ranks. The translation of my interview from the Russian text which employs the words, “Rabochaya partia” into the English was defective in that it permitted one to get a concrete and specific interpretation of what should have been general.

2. One can declare that even the general term “Party of the working class”, does not exclude a “Labor Party”, in the English sense. Be that as it may. However, such an eventuality has nothing to do with a precise tactical question. We can admit hypothetically that the American trade union bureaucracy will be forced in certain historical conditions, to imitate the British trade union bureaucracy in creating a kind of party based upon the trade unions. But that eventuality, which appears to me to be very problematical, does not constitute an aim for which the Communists must strive and on which one must concentrate the attention of the proletarian vanguard.

3. A long period of confusion in the Comintern led many people to forget a very simple but absolutely irrevocable principle that a Marxist, a proletarian revolutionist, cannot present himself before the working class with two banners. He cannot say at a workers meeting: I have tickets for a first class party and other tickets cheaper for the stupid ones. If I am a Communist I must fight for the Communist Party.

4. One can affirm that under the American conditions a “Labor Party” in the British sense would be a progressive step and by recognizing this and stating so, we ourselves, even though indirectly, help to establish such a party. But that is precisely the reason I will never assume the responsibility to affirm abstractly and dogmatically that the creation of a “Labor Party” would be a “progressive step” even in the United States because I do not know under what circumstances, under what guidance, and for what purposes that party would be created. It seems to me more probable that especially in America, which does not possess any important tradition of independent political action by the working class (as Chartism in England, for example) and where the trade union bureaucracy is more reactionary and corrupt than it was in the height of the British Empire. The creation of a “Labor Party” in America could be provoked only by a mighty revolutionary pressure of the working masses and by the growing threat of Communism. It is absolutely clear that under these conditions the Labor Party would signify not a progressive step but a hindrance to the progressive evolution of the working class.

5. In what form the party of the working class will become a genuine mass party in the United States in the immediate future we cannot prophesy because the Socialist and “Labor” Parties are very different in different countries even in Europe. In Belgium, for example, we see an intermediary sort of party arise. Certainly the phases of development of the proletarian party in America will be sui generis (unique). We can only affirm with the greatest assurance: Especially since the United States, in the period from 1921-1924 has had already an important rehearsal in the creation of a “Labor” or “Farmer-Labor” Party a resurrection of a similar movement cannot be a simple repetition of that experience, but a far more pregnant and more crystallized movement i.e., either under the guidance of the revolutionary Communist Party or under the guidance of reformist elements against the growing Communist Party. And if even in 1921-1924, the Communist Party did not find great possibilities for independent action inside the organization of an inchoate “Labor Party”, it would have less possibility in the new phase of an analogous movement.

6. One can imagine that the trade union bureaucracy and its Socialist and left democratic advisers may show themselves to be more perspicacious and begin the formation of a “Labor Party” before the revolutionary movement becomes too threatening. In view of the groping imperialism and provincial narrowness of the American labor bureaucracy and aristocracy of labor such perspicacity seems very improbable. The failure of such an attempt in the past shows us that the bureaucracy, so tenacious in its immediate aims, is absolutely incapable of a systematic political action on a great scale even in the interest of capitalist society. The bureaucracy must receive a blow on the skull for such a “radical” initiative. However, if the creation of a “Labor Party” would prevent, in a certain period, the large success of Communism, our elementary duty must be not to proclaim the progressiveness of the “Labor Party”, but its insufficiency, ambiguity, and limitations, and its historical role as a hindrance to the proletarian revolution.

7. Must we join that “Labor Party” or remain outside? This is no more a question of principle, but of circumstances and possibilities. The question itself has arisen from the experience of the British Communists and the “Labor Party”, and that experience has served far more the “Labor Party” than the Communists. It is evident that the possibility of participating in and of utilizing a “Labor Party” movement would be greater in the period of its inception, that is, in the period when the part is not a party but an amorphic politic mass movement. That we must participate in it at that time and with the greatest energy is without question, but not to help form a “Labor Party”, which will exclude us and fight against us but to push the progressive elements of the movement more and more to the left by our activity and propaganda. I know this seems too simple for the new great school which searches in every way for a method to jump over its feeble head.

8. To consider a “Labor Party” as an integrated series of united fronts signifies a misunderstanding of the notions, both of united fronts and of the party. The united front is determined by concrete circumstances and for concrete aims. The Party is permanent. By a united front, we reserve for ourselves a free hand to break with our temporary allies. In a common party with these allies, we are bound by discipline and even by the fact of the party itself. The experience of the Kuomintang and of the Anglo-Russian Committee must be well understood. The strategic line dictated by the lack of spirit of independence of the Communist Party and by the desire to enter into the “big” party (Kuomintang, “Labor Party”) produced inevitably all the consequences of opportunistic adaptation to the will of the allies and through them to the enemies. We must educate our comrades in the belief in the invincibility of the Communist idea and in the future of the Communist Party. The parallel struggle for another party produces inevitably in their minds a duality and drives them on the road of opportunism.

9. The policy of the united front has not only its great disadvantages but its limits and its dangers. The united front even in the form of temporary blocs often impels one to opportunistic deviations frequently fatal as for example Brandler in 1923. That danger becomes absolutely overwhelming in a situation when the so-called Communist Party becomes a part of a “Labor Party” created by the grace of the propaganda and action of the Communist Party itself.

10. That the Labor Party can become an arena of our successful struggle and that the Labor Party created as a barrier to Communism can, under certain circumstances, strengthen the Communist Party is true, but only under the condition that we consider the Labor Party not as “our” party, but as an arena in which we are acting as an absolutely independent Communist Party.

11. All the resolutions about the British Labor Party must be taken into consideration not as they were written before the experiences of the Comintern and the British Communist Party in that regard, but in the light of that experience. The attempt mechanically to apply them now in 1932 to the American conditions is characteristic of the epigones’ mind and has nothing to do with Marxism and Leninism.

12. It is not necessary to say that the idea of a Farmer-Labor Party is a treacherous mockery of Marxism.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Appendix: Excerpt From Interview
The New York Times of March 3, 1932, carried an interview with Trotsky, then an exile in Turkey. One of the questions was: “How do you view the position of the United States in the present world situation?” Trotsky gave the following reply:

“ I think, as a result of the present crisis, the predominance of American over European capitalism will grow still more pronounced. In the same way, as a result of every crisis, you see a growth in the predominance of the big enterprise over the small, the trust over the isolated undertaking. However, this inevitable growth of the world hegemony of the United States will entail further deep contradictions both in the economy and in the politics of the great American Republic.

“ In asserting the dictatorship of the dollar over the whole world, the ruling class of the United States will introduce the contradictions of the whole world into the very basis of its own dominance. The economy and the politics of the United States will depend more and more directly upon crises, wars, and revolutions in all parts of the world. The position of’observer’ cannot long be maintained formally. I think that America will create the most colossal system of land, sea, and air militarism that can be imagined.

“ The conclusive emergence of America from its old ‘provincialism,’ the struggle for markets, the growth of armaments, and active world policy, the experience of the present crisis —all these things will inevitably introduce deep changes into the inner life of the United States.

“ The emergence of a labor party is inevitable. It may begin to grow with an ‘American tempo,’ leading to the liquidation of one of the two old parties, just as the Liberals have disappeared in England.

“ To sum it up, you must say the Soviet Union will be American-ized technically, Europe will either be sovietized or descend to bar-barism, the United States will be Europeanized politically.”

Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"

Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"





Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.

SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON

If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.

And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.

The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.

Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.

From The Archives- Rosalie Sorrels Passes At 83 (2017)-A Rosalie Sorrels Potpourri-Idaho, Cafe Lena, Childhood Dreams and Such

From The Archives- Rosalie Sorrels Passes At 83 (2017)-A Rosalie Sorrels Potpourri-Idaho, Cafe Lena, Childhood Dreams and Such







If I Could Be The Rain I Would Be Rosalie Sorrels-The Legendary Folksinger-Songwriter Has Her Last Go Round At 83

By Music Critic  Bart Webber

Back the day, back in the emerging folk minute of the 1960s that guys like Sam Lowell, Si Lannon, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in (and the former two never got over since they will still tell a tale or two about the times if you go anywhere within ten miles of the subject-I will take my chances here because this notice is important) all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. That is where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, and a whole crew of younger folksingers who sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.  

But there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some other colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s where some of those names played but also where some upstarts from the West got a chance to play the small crowds who gathered at that famed (and still existing) coffeehouse. Upstarts like Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about). And out of Idaho one Rosalie Sorrels who just joined her long-time friend Utah in that last go-round at the age of 83.

The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. She was on fire that night except the then recent death of another folk legend, Dave Von Ronk, who was supposed to be on the bill (and who was replaced by David Bromberg who did a great job) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember her cover of Old Devil Time that night -yeah, give me one more chance, one more breathe. But I will always think of If I Could Be The Rain whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels 




A Folk Holiday Tradition

An Imaginary Christmas In Idaho, Rosalie Sorrels & Friends, Limberlost Books&Records, 1999


The first paragraph here has been used in reviewing other Rosalie Sorrels CDs in this space.

“My first association of the name Rosalie Sorrels with folk music came, many years ago now, from hearing the recently departed folk singer/storyteller/ songwriter and unrepentant Wobblie (IWW) Utah Phillips mention his long time friendship with her going back before he became known as a folksinger. I also recall that combination of Sorrels and Phillips as he performed his classic “Starlight On The Rails” and Rosalie his also classic “If I Could Be The Rain” on a PBS documentary honoring the Café Lena in Saratoga, New York, a place that I am also very familiar with for many personal and musical reasons. Of note here: it should be remembered that Rosalie saved, literally, many of the compositions that Utah left helter-skelter around the country in his “bumming” days.”

I do not usually do Christmas holiday-oriented CD reviews but I am on something of a Rosalie Sorrels streak after getting, as a Christmas gift, a copy of her “Strangers In Another Country”, her heart-felt tribute to her recently deceased long time friend Utah Phillips. Thus, in the interest of completeness I will make some a couple of comments. I will skip the obvious Christmas-oriented material here, although the spirit of anti-Christmas at least as the CD unfold is ‘in the air’ on this CD, including a little send-up of the old yuletide season by the above-mentioned Brother Phillips (“Jingle Bells’- Phillips style). The core of this presentation is the alternative take on the various traditions of Christmas out in Idaho (“The Fruitcake” and “Christmas Eve” , out in Minnesota (“Just A Little Lefse”)and among those who live a little closer to the edge of society (“Winter Song” and Grandma”), like Rosalie and her friends.

I need not mention Rosalie’s singing and storytelling abilities. Those are, as always, a given. I have noted elsewhere that Rosalie and the old curmudgeon Phillips did more than their fate share of work in order to keep these traditions alive. Old Utah handled the more overtly political phase and Rosalie, for lack of a better expression, the political side as it intersected the personal phase. That is evident here, especially in her recitation of a note and poem written by a Native American woman in response to the lingering death of her grandmother. Powerful stuff, at Christmas or anytime, and a rather nice way to come to terms with the tragedy of death that we all sooner or later face. Listen to this fine piece.

A special note to kind of bring us full circle. My first review of Rosalie’s and Utah’s combined works together mentioned a spark of renewed recognition kindled by long ago PBS documentary about the famous folk coffee house “The Café Lena” in Saratoga Springs, New York whose owner, Lena Spenser, sheltered them at various times from life’s storms. Lena, from all reports, was something of a 'fairy godmother' to many later famous folk singers and artists when they were either down on there luck or just starting out (or both). I have my own strong ties to Saratoga, its environs and Café Lena but Rosalie’s tribute to her late friend here, “Bufana and Lena”, about the Italian version of the Santa Claus myth can stand as the signpost for what this CD has attempted to do, and what that long ago folk revival that Lena represented was trying to do as well.