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
“And The Choir Kept Singing
Of Freedom”- Birmingham Sunday-1963-A Reflection After Viewing "Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project"Photograph
Display At The National Gallery Of Art
Richard Farina's Birmingham Sunday
Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project
September 12, 2018 – March 24, 2019
West Building, Ground Floor
Dawoud Bey, Mary Parker and Caela Cowan, 2012, 2 inkjet prints mounted to dibond, overall: 101.6 x 162.56 cm (40 x 64 in.), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the Collectors Committee and the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund
For more than 40 years photographer Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) has portrayed American youth and those from marginalized communities with sensitivity and complexity.Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project marks the National Gallery of Art's recent acquisition of four large-scale photographs and one video from Bey's series, The Birmingham Project, a tribute to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Coinciding with the 55th anniversary of this tragedy, the exhibition focuses on how Bey visualizes the past through the lens of the present, pushing the boundaries of portraiture and engaging ongoing national issues of racism, violence against African Americans, and terrorism in churches.
On September 15, 1963, four girls were killed in the dynamiting of the church, and two teenaged boys were murdered in racially motivated violence. Each of Bey’s diptychs combines one portrait of a young person the same age as one of the victims, and another of an adult 50 years older—the child's age had she or he survived. Alongside these photographs, the exhibition features Bey's video 9.15.63. This split-screen projection juxtaposes a re-creation of the drive to the 16th Street Baptist Church, taken from the vantage point of a young child in the backseat, with slow pans that move through everyday spaces (beauty parlor, barbershop, lunch counter, and schoolroom) as they might have appeared that Sunday morning. Devoid of people, these views poeticize the innocent lives ripped apart by violence.
This exhibition is curated by Kara Fiedorek, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow in the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
By Seth Garth
Sometimes things, events,
ideas, and such lead into one another. Recently I had written a short piece
based on hearing a segment on NPR’s Morning
Edition where the reporter was ruminating about the effect that folk-singer/songwriter
Bob Dylan’s “anthem” The Times They Are
A-Changin’ had on her and the Generation of ‘68 when it first hit the
airwaves in 1963. That reportage got my attention since I have spent plenty of
cyber-ink throughout my journalistic career highlighting various aspects of the
tremendous push on my generation, that Generation of ’68 or the best part of it,
of events in the early 1960s which were harbingers of what we expected to have
occur that would change the world, would turn the world upside down. I thus
need not go into detail here about my notion that Bob Dylan’s song set him up
as the “voice” of a generation whether he wanted to be that or not. Nor about
what effect that song, and songs like his had on us, gave us our marching
orders.
As part of her presentation
the reporter mentioned that some events, some events down South around the
black civil rights movement against one Mister James Crow like the beatings,
the water-hosing and the unleashing of the vicious dogs by the police on
innocent protestors had on her growing political consciousness, her desire to
work for social change. Although she did not specifically mention Birmingham
Sunday, the bombing of a black church killing four innocent children and
wounding others that event triggered the activism button of many young people,
including myself.
I have detailed elsewhere some
of the events like the black civil rights struggle down South, the fight for
nuclear bomb disarmament, the emerging struggle against the escalating Vietnam
War as acting as catalysts to action. Also tried to convey a more general sense
of the mood of the times among young people that the world, a world then on the
brink, on as one song had it on the “eve of destruction” was not responding to
their needs, was not changing in ways that we could understand. Most of all
that we had no say, had not been asked about what had been created in our
names. And nobody in power seemed to think that they needed to consult us.
All of this came to mind as
well by a recent visit to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. where
on the ground floor there was a small photographic exhibit centered on that
Birmingham Sunday bombing. A kind of what if, or rather what would those who
were killed or maimed look like today if they had been permitted to live out
their precious lives. That got me to thinking the thoughts I expressed in that
“voice of a generation” commentary and about the changes in people who did
survive, who now have aged, gracefully or not, and who are thinking about, are
summing up their lives and what they did, or did not do. Powerful stuff
although when one realizes what is what in the world today one has to be very
circumspect about the little changes we have made. Not profound but something
to think about whatever generation designation.
Once Again On
Frederick Douglas-Happy 200th Birthday Brother We Have Not Forgotten
You Or Brother John Brown Either
In this 200th
birthday year of Frederick Douglas the revolutionary abolitionist and women’s
rights advocate we have been graced with radio programs dedicated to his
outstanding career. A new biography by Douglas Blight with many insights into this
brilliant orator, lecturer, advocate and activist against grim slavery for himself
and his people has been highlighted on several talk shows. Here’s a link to one
recent one on NPR’s On Point:
This is what you need to
know about Frederick Douglass and the anti-slavery, the revolutionary abolitionist
fight. He was the man, the shining q star black man who led the fight for black
men to join the Union Army and not just either be treated as freaking contraband
or worse, as projected in early in the war by the Lincoln administration the return
of fugitive slaves to “loyal” slave-owners. Led the fight to not only seek an
emancipation proclamation as part of the struggle but a remorseless and probably
long struggle to crush slavery and slaver-owners and their hanger-on militarily.
Had been ticketed at a desperate moment in 1864 to recreate a John Brown scenario
if they logjam between North and South in Virginia had not been broken. Yes, a
bright shining northern star black man.
Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Revolutionary Abolitionist Frederick Douglass
Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry reviewing the autobiography of Frederick Douglass. Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices. Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Lords performing John Brown's Body.
John Brown's Body
Download Midi File
Mark R. Weston
Information Lyrics
The tune was originally a camp-meeting hymn Oh brothers, will you meet us on Canaan's happy shore? It evolved into this tune. In 1861 Julia Ward Howe wife of a government official, wrote a poem for Atlantic Monthly for five dollars. The magazine called it, Battle Hymn of the Republic. The music may be by William Steffe. John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
His soul goes marching on
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on
He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true
He frightened old Virginia till she trembled
through and through
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew
His soul is marching on
His soul is marching on
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
But his soul is marching on!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
On the grave of old John Brown
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on
Information and lyrics from
Best Loved Songs of the American People
See Bibliography for full information.
Midi File From
Lance Corporal Robert Kent Mattson, USMC, Memorial Page which is no longer active.
Once I had heard Joni Mitchell on a friend’s radio (we were not allowed to have our own radios or record players since dear father did not want to hear the “noise” he called it) I think or maybe a young Rosalie Sorrels (who I found out later but then unknown to me had stayed at Lena’s for various periods of time as had her friend folksinger/songwriter/genial anarchist Utah Phillips) I was hooked and have paid attention to the ebbs and flows, mostly ebbs, since then. A lot of what kept me going on the folk jag once I shed my two ex-husbands who were both serious rockers of the Tom Petty (the late Tom Petty) type, I don’t know how many times I heard his Saving Grace around those respective marriage houses until I went crazy, was when I started hanging around with Sam Lowell who also writes here and who knows a million things, a million songs about folk music having a been a music critic here and at the Folk Almanac. (Sam in what under the previous regime was titled emeritus status when he retired but now just a vanilla occasional writer under the new regime which he had helped bring in.Every chance we got we would try to make folk performances in the area, especially of the aging artists who had names in the 1960s but who were starting to slip away into that good night, raging or otherwise. Checking out guys like Taj Majal, Dave Von Ronk, Tom Rush, and gals like that Rosalie Sorrels mentioned above, Anita Dolan, Etta James to see if they still had “it.” Some did, some didn’t.
The real nut, the thing that still holds the “folk community” together if we can designate those still standing under that banner is a network of privately run labor of love coffeehouses like that Desert Bloom Coffeehouse out in Joshua Tree just mentioned. How much these places form a conscious network is up for debate since they are scattered around certain urban areas where the folkie remnant live, mainly on the Coasts or nearby. Attending one of these the other weekend Saturday got me thinking about a few things in my now long coffeehouse experiences and this little piece.
This piece brought to life after I convinced site manager Greg Green that this was not a nostalgia trip back to the 1960s but a look at a remnant of that movement that still exists, is still somewhat vibrant today. He rolled his eyes, looked at Sam who I made the mistake of taking with me since he is a hardened veteran, an actual participant in the early 1960s folk minute, which I thought might help my case. Not knowing that part of the change in regimes had been centered on breaking away from the 1960s nostalgia trips they were coming to define this space to the exclusion of the rest of the American left cultural and political historical experiences and hence the rolling eyes. That look at Sam as well as if to say he wanted no nonsense about who or what was in the firmament, folk, rock, hippies, beatniks, dope addicts, summers of love and that whole cartload of things he had come to detest about the 1960s before he took over fully from the previous regime. Only now coffeehouse stuff. Agreed.
As Sam likes to say here is the hook. Here is the social reality too. Most of these private coffeehouses are housed in churches, church auditoria usually, and put on by church members and their friends. Sam calls the whole network ‘the U/U circuit” since a great number of them in New England at least are in Universalist-Unitarian churches, sometimes with both “Us,” sometimes singularly. Usually they are held once a month and have names like Second Street Coffeehouse, The Turks, Beautiful Day and so on. Everybody committed to these presentations, the volunteers, does “Jimmy Higgins” work turning on the lights, setting up tables and chairs, working the sound system where somehow there is always one technie grabbed from somewhere who rules the roost. Setting up a refreshment stand after all it is a coffeehouse and so you must provide coffee and…to the captive audience.
The question of performers at these events is a separate issue. Some of these are what are in what is called an “open mic” format simply meaning that anyone who wishes to sign up, after paying a nominal cover charge at the door to cover house expenses, can perform usually one or two songs and do so in some kind of order which varies with the venue. You would be surprised how many old folkies who I will discuss in a minute come out of the woodwork at the beck and call of an “open mic.” Some of the more venturesome venues like that Desert Bloom out in Joshua Tree try to lure whatever still standing professional folk singers can be corralled for cheap money (which also allows for higher cover charges-usually not too crazy like big ticket places). Iris Dement, Greg Brown, Tom Paxton, Tom Rush, Taj Mahal acts like that but that is the exception.
What usually takes place in these sites is what Sam and I saw that other week at the Second Coming Coffeehouse down in Carville about forty miles from Boston. The setting a U/U Church naturally. The set-up in the auditorium lights on, maybe fifteen tables four seats to each, sound system checked, coffee and… put out, a small table with CDs for sale, a standard set-up. This night there wa an “open mic” where one of our friends was performing, performing as the “feature” meaning that she got a half hour, maybe eight songs with an encore, for her set. She was sandwiched in between a few one song jacks and janies before her and a few afterward to make the evening complete.
What interests me every time I go to one of these things, and Sam and I have talked for hours about it afterward, is what road did these committed folkie performers take away from making a career out of doing folk venues and recordings. While there are a few duds overall the performance level is high amateur with many seemingly professionally trained voices, interesting lyrics by those who write and test out their own compositions and some virtuosity among the instrumentalist. We know some of the stories somebody like our feature friend Rosalita. We know Rosalita gave up the road after about ten years when her voice just gave out from overuse and so the “circuit” allows her to use it in more measured terms which she tends to her business as a graphic artist. Like every other musical genre, maybe more so as a sidebar genre folk music careers are a very tough dollar to make money at. No matter how good you are in a genre that is not mainstream enough to have more than a few making money at the venture.
Certainly a good number of performers are totally committed to their craft if not their profession. Sam and I during intermissions will ask that very question, asked their stories. The answers are as varied as the interviewees. Wanting to be stable which the road, especially the folk road in small clubs scattered all over forbids one to do, wanting a family, having been trained in another profession which allows for time and space to do this “volunteer” work, to flat out not motivated enough to go the distance. All good answers and true. True too I hope that this little slice of the American life gone a bit by the wayside now as the aficionados get greyer never grows extinct. That the U/U churches never close their doors to the music and the to aficionados.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Paul Robeson (who else should do it when you think about it) performing "John Brown's Body". February Is Black History Month
Lyrics- Section from Wikipedia's Entry For "John Brown's Body"
The lyrics generally show an increase in complexity and syllable count as they move from simple, orally-transmitted camp meeting song, to an orally composed marching song, to more consciously literary versions.
The increasing syllable count led to an ever-increasing number of dotted rhythms in the melody to accommodate the increased number of syllables. The result is that the verse and chorus, which were musically identical in the "Say, Brothers", became quite distinct rhythmically in "John Brown's Body", and even more so in the more elaborate versions of the "John Brown Song" and in the "Battle Hymn of the Republic".
Say, Brothers
(1st verse)
Say, brothers, will you meet us (3x)
On Canaan's happy shore.
(Refrain)
Glory, glory, hallelujah (3x)
For ever, evermore!
(2nd verse)
By the grace of God we'll meet you (3x)
Where parting is no more.
(3rd verse)
Jesus lives and reigns forever (3x)
On Canaan's happy shore.
John Brown's Body
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave; (3X)
His soul's marching on!
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah! his soul's marching on!
He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord! (3X)
His soul's marching on!
(Chorus)
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back! (3X)
His soul's marching on!
(Chorus)
His pet lambs will meet him on the way; (3X)
They go marching on!
(Chorus)
They will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree! (3X)
As they march along!
(Chorus)
Now, three rousing cheers for the Union; (3X)
As we are marching on!
(From the Library of Congress:[32])
The version by William Weston Patton:[24]:
Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.
John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;
Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on.
He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;
They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon thruout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on.
The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.
And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on.
Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,
The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,
For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,
And his soul is marching on
Come on now when you are thinking about the super-duper advanced mathematicians, computer whizzes or aerospace engineers who put men and women into space and to the moon you are thinking about short-haired crew-cut white guys in white shirts with those plastic sleeves in their shirt pockets filled with off-hand pens sitting in mission control at Houston calling the shots as part of a vanilla team of anonymous figures (except the head guy whose head was always being fitted for the platter with each early rocket failure back in the late 1950s and early 1960s after the red scare Cold War Russians put an object and then a man in space leaving the United States of America flat-footed and looking kind of foolish what with all the expertise and dough around).
Yeah, you are thinking in those days, somewhat still true now as well of guys who went to big time science schools like Cal Tech and MIT maybe an oddball from Stanford (although now you will see at least at MIT which I am most familiar many Asian guys and gals filling the classrooms with their computers at the ready but also with those plastic sleeves still holding their pens-the gals too.) What you would not be thinking about is three black women (complete with kids at home something you don’t associate with those white-shirted guys too busy figuring out the latest orbital trajectory) who did not go to Cal Tech, MIT or even an oddball at Stanford but in the case of one Podunk West Virginia and another having to attend night school at some previously all white high school to get up to speed in order to become an aerospace engineer. But that hard if long delayed acknowledgement is what drives the film under review Hidden Figures about those three black women who were pioneers in a man’s world (along with help from other black women from the “colored” pool of human computers from which they were selected). Hell there weren’t even that many white women come to think of it but this film is a black-etched story not a generic women’s story.
Here’s the way the plot-line played out and why we should admire the tenacity and their sense of patriotism of those women. As mentioned above the U.S. was caught flat-footed by the Russians in the late 1950s with Sputnik first of all and so NASA down in Virginia was pushed hard, pushed hard politically to show some results-to catch up and surpass the Ruskkies (with the object of winning the big prize-landing on the moon not in the distance future but as per Jack Kennedy by the end of the 1960s). So everybody needed to pull some weight-all those highly prized Cal Tech and MIT guys had to push the envelope. Aided of course by those human computers who if you can believe this in the age of the personal computer and an average eight year old’s ability to handle the damn thing with ease used adding machines and pocket calculators-maybe slide rulers too. They appear to have been mainly women-“colored” (hey that is the term of the time so let’s let that stand here as well) and white women working in separate areas of the complex at Langley.
That seemingly ancient situation which may seem weird in our so-called “post racial” society was however the social reality in early 1960s Virginia due to the Mister James Crow laws and their strict enforcement in that state despite whatever the courts had proclaimed in the 1950s (or for that matter the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution from the 1860s). This is the “race” part of the “race and space” title of this review. Those laws and “customs” extended right up to those highly educated white- shirted guys who in a very telling scene put a separate “colored” coffee pot in their break area (and in another scene it took almost a second civil war to get convenient restroom facilities against the previous distant “colored” women’s restroom- Jesus)
Why was all this breaking down of the social norms of post-bellum Virginia necessary beyond the national goals and pacing set in far-off Washington? Well one Katherine Johnson, played here by Taraji Henson, a natural and brilliant mathematician, was put on the team on her merits which would be fully tested as the white guys were behind the curve most of the time on the critical trajectory tight numbers needed to insure a safe reentry from orbit to “splash down.” One Dorothy Vaughn, played by Olivia Spencer, who was in charge of the “colored” human computers and for a long while not given her due with the actual rank of supervisor who brought her “girls” over after learning the Fortram computer language which was the wave of the future in the computation world. And one Mary Jackson, played by Janelle Monae, who at great effort would become the first African-American (not “colored”) aerospace engineer at NASA. Their neglected contributions to the space program and their having to facing with dignity the skewed racial ethos of the time made this an enjoyable and thoughtful two hours. Yeah, move over Cal Tech and MIT the sisters are in town.
I’m all alone in this world, she said, Ain’t got nobody to share my bed, Ain’t got nobody to hold my hand— The truth of the matter’s I ain’t got no man.
Big Boy opened his mouth and said, Trouble with you is You ain’t got no head! If you had a head and used your mind You could have me with you All the time.
She answered, Babe, what must I do?
He said, Share your bed— And your money, too.
Langston Hughes
The whole world knew, or at least the important parts of that world, that summer of 2012 downtown Boston world (near the Common say from the Public Gardens to Newbury Street but also near birth place Columbus Avenue), knew that Larry Johnson was Ms. Loretta Lawrence’s every day man (and it goes without saying her every night man too). Make no mistake, girls, women, even though they didn’t hold hands in public or throw public kisses at each other, they were an an “item.” Loretta at five-ten and rail thin, fashion model day thin and what in the old days was called a very light “high yella,” mixed blood from some old South Mister’s wanting habits and some “passing for white” along the way but in any case very highly sought after just then for coffee table magazine shoots didn’t look like trouble, but anytime a a woman gave Larry a side glance look Loretta’s eyes said keep your hands off. And they did, those in the fashion industry, mostly her fellow models, and maybe a few longing sidewinder guy designers too. But somebody had Larry’s attention and Loretta was going to get to the bottom of it.
It had all started back in February when Larry asked her for a hundred dollars one night, out of the blue. Now Larry had been on a tough stretch ever since the financial collapse in 2008 (although it only bagged him in early 2010) when the markets went crazy and he got caught short, and since business was bad he eventually got that old dreaded pink slip from the big finance company that had hired him straight out of the Harvard Business School MBA program to diversify their employee mix. (Larry found out later that one manager, who had publicly said he was crazy to get him had told a friend of his that he hired Larry to add “color” to his staff). Nobody was hiring so he had just been kind of living off his old time bonuses, and a little of this and that.
Funny, funny now, Larry and Loretta had met at a bar down in the financial district where he had stopped off for a drink after passing his resume around for about the umpteenth time and she had just finished a shoot (for a cosmetic company as they were trying to expand their markets that had keyed on her for her ravishing looks, brown hair, brown eyes, very light brownish high cheek-boned skin which was a plus since whatever diversity there was in the fashion market the hard fact was there was a drop off when dark as Africa black women graced the covers of most magazines or other advertising venues) down near the water at International Place and her photographer had offered to buy her a drink. His eyes met hers, her eyes met his in return and before anyone really knew it he had moved in on her like something out of one of those old time thriller romance novels that you read and at the end can’t believe that you spent your good hard-earned rest reading and cannot believe either that the “she” of the story would be so stupid in the end to have gotten mixed-up with a wacko like that.
Larry had moved in on her too, literally, after a few weeks of downy billow talk and his argument (which she was okay with, she wasn’t saying she wasn’t) that two could live as cheaply as one (which isn’t true but close enough) and he could cut down on expenses during his rough patch. And it was nice, nice to have a man around, with man’s things, a man’s scent, and a man’s silly little vanities that she had not experienced since Phil (she would not use a last name because Phil was well known, too well-known) had left her a few years back. Every once in a while though she would notice a ten here or a twenty there missing from her pocketbook but figured that either she, spendthrift she, had spent it on some forgotten bobble or Larry had taken it for some household thing and didn’t report the fact (although she, they, had insisted on a collective counting of expenses). Then came the night of Larry’s official request. And she gave it to him, a loan, a loan was all it was. The first time.
After a few more requests for dough, and the granting of those requests, Loretta started to try to figure out what the heck he was doing with the dough (he said it was to help get a job, or he needed new shirts, or something, something different each time). Then she thought about Phil, not about the money part (Jesus, he had thrown his dough at her when he was strong for her, called her his little money-machine and laughed) but as he started losing interest in her he stopped showering the money because he was seeing another woman on the side and showering it on her (that “her” being a friend of hers, and not even beautiful, just smart). And so she started thinking that Larry, Larry the guy who was sharing her bed every night (every night so it had to be a daytime dalliance), was having another affair. She resolved that Larry would get no more money, no more loans, as he called them and if she found out that he was two-timing her that woman had better leave town because, two-timer or not, bum-of-the-mouth or not, he was her man and she had told one and all hands off. And she meant it.
Artist’s Corner-For Black History Month-J. M.W. Turner’s Slave Ship
Sometimes, to paraphrase the old saw about a picture telling more than one thousand words, a painting or film will tell more about what was going on in a society than a million books or speeches on the subject. Once can think a Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and the scene against the black and white film of the red coat of a little girl walking in what amounted to her death in the concentration camp and the later shot of that same red coat on a pile of clothes to tell more than a lot of speeches about the horrors inflicted there. Similarly the short scene in the film Amistad when dead and sick slaves going through the Middle Passage are slipped overboard as a matter of course to know the repugnance of slavery.
J.M.W. Turner, himself a slavery abolitionist, did the same thing with his masterpiece Slave Ship for an earlier generation to graphically show what that institution was all about. Amazingly his style was based on color schemes rather than defined bodies and other details like the fish and sea monsters circling in for a feast which makes the whole scene that much more compelling. Hopefully that painting, as Turner intended it, turned its viewers to action against that vile institution. It certainly affected me the first time I saw it in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston almost over a hundred and fifty years later. If you are in Boston go to the second floor of the old building where the artists of the Romantic period in European painting are exhibited and spent a few moments looking at the details of this one.
*In Honor Of The Late Kate McGarrigle- "Going Back To Harlan" With Sister Anna And Friends A "YouTube" film clip of the late Kate McGarrigle, his sister Anna, and assorted friends performing "Going Back To Harlan".
Markin comment;
Earlier I placed an entry with Kate and her son and daughter, Rufus and Martha Wainwright performing together on "Talk To Me Of Mendocino". It only seems fitting to include a song with her sister, Anna. "Going Back To Harlan" is the thing that links everything together, theirs and mine.
Emmylou Harris, Goin' Back To Harlan Lyrics
There where no cuckoos, no sycamores
We played about the forest floor
Underneath the silver maples, the balsams and the sky
We popped the heads off dandelions
Assuming roles from nursery rhymes
Rested on the riverbank
And grew up by and by, and grew up by and by
Frail my heart apart
And play me a little shady grove
Ring the bells of rhymney
Till they ring inside my head forever
Bounce the bow, rock the gallows
For the hangman's reel
And wake the devil from his dream
I'm going back to Harlan
I'm going back to Harlan
I'm going back to Harlan
And if you were Willie Moore
And I was Barbara Allen
Or Fair Ellen all sad at the cabin door
A-weepin' and a-pinin', for love
A-weepin' and a-pinin', for love
Click on title to link to "The Harry Smith Project" website. DVD Review
The Harry Smith Project: Concert Film, various artists covering material gleaned from “The Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music”, Shout Factory, 2006
In a recent CD review of “Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music” I made the following comments that apply to this well-done concert (or rather concerts, done in 1999 and 2001) film documentary based on that anthology, some of Smith’s own other creative work and some Fugs, an off beat old time folk/rock group, material. I will comment on some individual performances from the concerts below. Here is the CD review:
“It is no secret that the reviewer in this space has been on something of a tear of late in working through a litany of items concerning American roots music, a music that he first ‘discovered’ in his youth with the folk revival of the early 1960s and with variations and additions over time has held in high regard for his whole adult life. Thus a review of musicologist (if that is what he though he was, it is not all that clear from his “career” path that this was so) Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music” is something of a no-brainer.
Since we live in a confessional age, however, here is the odd part. As familiar as I am with Harry Smith’s name and place in the folk pantheon, his seemingly tireless field work and a great number of the songs in his anthology this is actually the first time that I have heard the whole thing at one sitting and in one place. Oh sure, back in the days of my ill-spent youth listening to an old late Sunday folk show I would perk up every time the name Harry Smith came up as the “discoverer” of some gem of a song from the 1920s or 1930s but to actually listen to, or even attempt to find, the whole compilation then just didn’t happen.
In 1997 Smithsonian/Folkway, as least theoretically in my case, remedied that problem with the release of a high quality (given the masters) six CD set of old Harry’s 80 plus recordings. Not only that but, as is usual with Smithsonian, a very nicely done booklet with all kinds of good information from the likes of Greil Marcus and the late folklorist Eric Von Schmidt (of songs like “Light Rain” and "Joshua’s Gone Barbados”, among others, fame) accompanies this set. That booklet is worth the price of admission alone on this one. But here is the funny thing after running through the whole collection. I mentioned above that this was the first time that I heard the collection as a whole. Nevertheless, over time I have actually heard (and reviewed in this space), helter-skelter, most of the material in the collection, except a few of the more exotic gospel songs. So I guess that youth was not so ill-spent after all. If the "roots is toots" for you, get this thing.
Note: For a list of the all the tracks in the entire collection just Google “The Harry Smith Collection” and click onto Wikipedia’s entry for Harry Smith.”
That said, this concert presentation (actually concerts) covers about twenty-something of the eighty-four songs in the Smith anthology. Here is my take. Folk music is meant to be passed on to future generations and those generations will place their own spin on the material. That is the case here. Some successfully like Elvis Costello’s cover of “Butcher Boy”, Geoff Muldaur’s “Poor Boy Blues” and “K.C. Moan”, Bob Neurwith’s (with Eliza Carthy playing a great fiddle on a version that can truly be declared better than the version on the anthology, much better) “I Wish I Were A Mole”, Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s “Sugar Baby”, Beth Orton’s “Frankie and Albert”, Lou Reed’s cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” and Nick Cave’s “John The Revelator” (Son House and Blind Willie Johnson must have rolled over in their graves on that one). Other more jazzy or gospelly renditions did not fare so well. But here is the real secret. Not all the material that Harry Smith, back in the days, collected was unalloyed gold either. His tastes were, as pointed out here, eclectic. That collection, nevertheless, was a historic archive, good or bad. And this concert will share that same fate. Watch this though, several times.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Eric Andersen performing "Thirsty Boots".
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 Three: Phil Ochs on “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”, Richard &Mimi Farina on “Pack Up Your Sorrows”, John Hammond on “Drop Down Mama”, Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band on “Rag Mama”, John Denver on “Bells Of Rhymney”, Gordon Lightfoot on "Early Morning Rain”, Eric Andersen on “Thirsty Boots”, Tim Hardin on “Reason To Believe”, Richie Havens on “Just Like A Woman”, Judy Collins on “Suzanne”, Tim Buckley on “Once I Was”, Tom Rush on “The Circle Game”, Taj Mahal on “Candy Man”, Loudon Wainwright III on “School Days”and Arlo Guthrie on “The Motorcycle Song”
Eric Andersen on “Thirsty Boots”. I mentioned previously that Eric Von Schmidt was there to greet the folkie hordes coming into Cambridge in the old folk days. Eric Andersen was one of the hordes. He made some very personal lyrical songs in his time like “Violets Of Dawn” and his various female name songs (presumably to then current girlfriends, or some such). This one, however, is a "political” effort to honor the civil rights workers in the South. Nice touch. And, damn, they did deserve all honor. Kudos on this one, Eric.
Eric Andersen Thirsty Boots written by Eric Andersen
C C/B C/A C/G
You've long been on the open road
F C C/G
You've been sleepin in the rain
C C/B C/A C/G
From the dirty words and muddy cells
F G
Your clothes are soiled and stained.
C C/B C/A C/G
But the dirty words and muddy cells
F G
Will soon be hid in shame
C F C
So only stop to rest yourself
F G
Till you'll go off again.
C F
So take off your thirsty boots
C F
And stay for awhile
C C/B C/A
Your feet are hot and weary
Dm G
From a dusty mile
C F
And maybe I can make you laugh
C F
Maybe I can try
C C/B C/A
I'm just lookin' for the evening
Dm G C
And the morning in your eyes.
C C/B C/A C/G
But tell me of the ones you saw
F C C/G
As far as you could see
C C/B C/A C/G
Across the plain from field to town
F G
A-marching to be free
C C/B C/A C/G
And of the rusted prison gates
F G
That tumbled by degree
C F C
Like laughing children one by one
F G
They looked like you and me
C F
So take off your thirsty boots
C F
And stay for awhile
C C/B C/A
Your feet are hot and weary
Dm G
From a dusty mile
C F
And maybe I can make you laugh
C F
Maybe I can try
C C/B C/A
I'm just lookin' for the evening
Dm G C
And the morning in your eyes.
C C/B C/A C/G
I know you are no stranger down
F C C/G
The crooked rainbow trails
C C/B C/A C/G
From dancing cliff-edged shattered sills
F G
Of slender shackled jails
C C/B C/A C/G
But the voices drift up from below
F G
As the walls they're being scaled
C G C
All of this and more
F G
Your song shall not be failed.
C F
So take off your thirsty boots
C F
And stay for awhile
C C/B C/A
Your feet are hot and weary
Dm G
From a dusty mile
C F
And maybe I can make you laugh
C F
Maybe I can try
C C/B C/A
I'm just lookin' for the evening
Dm G C
And the morning in your eyes.
From Eric Andersen "Bout Changes & Things LP"
Vanguard Records 1966
copyright 1965 by United Artists Music.
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The Blues Ain’t Nothing But A Good Woman On Your Mind- With Howlin’ Wolf’s Little Red Rooster In Mind
Little Red Rooster
I am the little red rooster Too lazy to crow for day I am the little red rooster Too lazy to crow for day Keep everything in the farm yard upset in every way The dogs begin to bark and hounds begin to howl Dogs begin to bark and hounds begin to howl Watch out strange cat people Little red rooster's on the prowl If you see my little red rooster Please drive him home If you see my little red rooster Please drive him home Ain't had no peace in the farm yard Since my little red rooster's been gone
Johnny Prescott daydreamed his way through the music that he was listening to just then on the little transistor that Ma Prescott, Martha to adults, had given him for Christmas after he has taken a fit when she quite reasonable suggested that a new set of ties to go with his white long-sleeved shirts might be a better gift, a better Christmas gift and a bit more practical too when he played with his band at outings, for a sixteen-year old boy. No, he had screamed he wanted a radio, a transistor radio, batteries included, of his own so that he could listen to whatever he liked up in his room, or wherever he was, and didn’t have, understand, didn’t have to listen to some Vaughn Monroe singing about some unknown place over there, or Harry James’ Sentimental Journey or Tommy Dorsey or his brother Jimmy doing the inevitable Tangerine 1940s war drum thing. Or worse, the Inkspots, Jesus, he was tired of that spoken verse they include in every freaking song doing I’ll Get By or If I Didn’t Care which he had had to listen to on the huge immobile radio compliments of RCA Victor downstairs in the Prescott living room in the place of honor.
Hearing shades of that stuff all day every day when Ma Prescott got dreamy while dusting the furniture, doing the daily laundry, or washing the floors had finally gotten to him. Even more disturbing than that, if such a thing was possible, was passing through the downstairs from his room on Saturday night after dinner, maybe out for some elusive infrequent date with somebody’s lame sister, or maybe one of the easily picked up girls from the weekly sock hop dances held at various locations but mainly in the North Adamsville gym (easily picked up and escorted home but hard, hard as hell to get to first base with, or even a kiss after all was said and done), or just hanging with the guys in front of Doc’s Drugstore looking at the girls passing by or stepping inside every now and again to hear what one of those passing girls who stepped into his door was playing on Doc’s super-jack jukebox, and seeing his mother and father gearing up for a full night, seven until eleven of that stuff presented by Bill Marlowe on his Stagedoor Johnny show on WJDA. Strictly squaresville, cubed.
[Hey, for a minute I forgot who my audience might be. Sure those of you from the generation of ’68, those who for a minute in the 1960s thought along with me that we might turn the world upside down, might change things for little guys and gals for the better, turn things around so that they might look like something we might just want to pass on to the next generation know what a transistor radio was. Lived and died by that neat invention invented by some guy who knew what the hell he was doing, knew we who came of age in the cold war red scare 1950s needed our own way of getting privacy and created a radio that was small enough to conceal, put in our pockets if need be, and let us at the flick of a wrist listen to whatever radio station was providing that be-bop music that we craved. Those of you not from that generation of ’68 should know that this gizmo was like a primitive iPod or MP3 player except, well, except you could not download whatever songs you were interested in. Yeah, I know primitive now but a breath of fresh age back then when we needed to break-out from our parents’ music just like you and every generation needs to do.]
So Johnny glad that he had won one battle although he knew he was behind, seriously behind in the war, that inevitable generational war (although he did not, and probably his parents did not either if they had forgotten their own battles against intransigent parents, know enough then to call the tussle of wills a battle) was primed to go nightly to his room to hear all those songs that he first heard on that Doc’s jukebox, or maybe got featured by the DJ Rockin’ Rich at the weekly dances since he was in tune with all the latest. But here was Johnny’s dilemma, here is what he could not make heads or tails out of at first. One night as he listened to this new drippy record Shangra-la by The Four Coins that just finished up a few seconds before and as this Banana Boat song by The Tarriers was starting its dreary trip through his ears was not sure that those ties his mother had suggested wouldn’t have been a better deal, and more practical too.
Yeah, this so-called rock station, WAPX out of North Adamsville, the closest station that Johnny could receive at night without some static in the air had sold out to, well, sold out to somebody, because except for late at night, midnight late at night, one could not hear the likes of Jerry Lee, Carl, Little Richard, Fats, and the new, now that Elvis was gone, killer rocker, Chuck Berry who proclaimed loud and clear that Mr. Beethoven had better move along, and said Mr. Beethoven best tell one and all of his confederates, including Mr. Tchaikovsky that rock ‘n’ roll was the new sheriff in town. As he turned the volume down a little lower (that tells the tale right there, friends) as Rainbow (where the hell do they get these creepy songs from he thought, rainbows for chrissakes) by Russ Hamilton he was ready to throw in the towel though.
Johnny could not quite figure how that magic that first got him moving, first got him swaying his hips, first got him feeling funny thoughts about girls and how they had changed one year from being kind of just plain nuisances (and they had been, no question in Johnny’s mind about that whatever subsequent charms they possessed) to kind of nice to have around changed and why. Changed from every guy around town (young guys anyway, the guys who counted) wearing long sideburns, wearing a built-in slightly suggestive sexy swagger, and wearing a sneer that they hoped some foxy girl, maybe any girl would wipe off their faces (and the girls, those not totally and fantastically addicted to the “king” himself, and forever, were hoping that they could wipe off). Changed from running home, yes, running home, after school each and every week day afternoon to watch on television for the latest dances and tunes on American Bandstand (and the latest foxy chicks too don’t forget that Johnny) ever since Bill Haley and the Comets rocked the joint, or beloved Eddie Cochran went summertime blues crazy. Changed from sexually-charged lyrics by Chuck Berry and what he would do, or not do, to his sweet little sixteen. Changed from the high energy explosion of Jerry Lee working off the back of some hokey flatbed truck, piano keys flailing away, hair bouncing with the beat, on High School Confidential in the movie by the same name when he put his name forward as the new king of the rock hill (although the movie itself was kind of dippy). Yeah, changed to soft soap, nicely dressed, nicely mannered, not a hair out of place and no sideburn guys like Fabian, Bobby Vee, and Neil Sedeka who you would not dream of hanging around with, would not allow on your corner boy corner but who all the girls, well, most all of the girls flipped out over. Worse, worse than anything else these guys and their music was stuff that parents actually went for, would get the Ma and Pa high recommendation of “wasn’t that a young man singing” just like Frank [Sinatra for those not in the bobby-soxer 1940s know] in the old days, saw too as innocent and nice. Jesus.
Desperate Johnny fingered the dial looking for some other station when he heard this crazy piano riff starting to breeze through the night air, the heated night air, and all of a sudden Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 which he had not heard for a long time blasted the airwaves. But funny it didn’t sound like the whinny Ike’s voice so he listened for a little longer, and as he later found out from the DJ (Be-Bop Benny by name) it was actually a James Cotton Blues Band cover. After that performance was finished fish-tailing right after that one was a huge harmonica intro and what as it turned out had was none other than mad-hatter Junior Wells doing When My Baby Left Me splashed through (that “none other” part learned later when he got deeper into the electric blues night). No need to turn the dial further then because what Johnny Prescott had found in the crazy night air, radio beams bouncing every which way, was direct from Chicago, and maybe right off those hard-hearted Maxwell streets was Be-Bop Benny’s Chicago Blues Radio Hour. Be-Bop Benny who started Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino on their careers, or helped.
Now Johnny, like every young high-schooler, every "with it" high school-er in the USA, had heard of this show, because even though everybody was crazy for rock and roll, just now the airwaves sounded like, well, sounded like music your parents would dance to, no, sit down to at a dance, some kids still craved high rock. So this show was known mainly through the teenage grapevine but Johnny had never heard it before because, no way, no way in hell was his punk little Radio Shack transistor radio with two dinky batteries going to ever have the strength to pick Be-Bop Benny’s live show out in Chicago. So Johnny, and maybe rightly so, took this turn of events for a sign. When he heard that distinctive tinkle of the Otis Spann piano warming up to Spann’s Stomp and right after with his Someday added in he was hooked. And you know he started to see what Billie, Billie Bradley from over in Adamsville, meant when at a school dance where he had been performing with his band, Billie and the Jets, he mentioned that if you wanted to get rock and roll back you had better listen to blues, and if you wanted to listen to blues, blues that rocked then you had very definitely had better get in touch with the Chicago blues as they came north from Mississippi and places like that.
And Johnny thought, Johnny who have never been too much south of Gloversville, or west of Albany, and didn’t know too many people who had been much further either, couldn’t understand at first why that beat, that da, da, da, Chicago beat sounded like something out of the womb in his head, sometime out of Mother Africa (although again what did he know of old African instruments and that sound, that beat that seemed like eternity beating on his brain). How on some bars he could hear that rock ‘n’ roll ready to explode if only they could speed it up a shade, how the beat in his head was now making the transition, maybe not smooth but making it. That beat just then turning his own very personal teen-age blues (some sociologists were making big money or at least making a splash by frightening every red scare cold war parent with the idea of their Jimmy or Susie being in the grip of teen angst and alienation and ready to try anything to get to the bottom of it) to something else for the duration of the song anyway. But when he heard Big Walter Horton wailing on that harmonica on Rockin’ My Boogie he knew those be-bop beats had to be in his genes.
Stand By Your Man-Marlene Dietrich And Tyrone Powers’ “Witness For The Prosecution” (1957) –A Film Review
DVD Review
By William Bradley
Witness For The Prosecution, starring Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Powers, Charles Laughton, based on a story by murder mystery writer Agatha Christie, directed by Billy Wilder, 1957
If you have noticed over the past few months that many of the reviews, film reviews in particular, have material added to them which is not directly, and in many cases not indirectly, related to the film itself that is not happenstance but by design. Not the design of any individual reviewer but by the preferences of new site manager Greg Green and the Editorial Board that was created in the wake of the internal struggle with the old regime and its seemingly increasingly autocratic site manager. The new regime’s idea is two- fold, one, to be more transparently democratic in assignment selection and, two, to demonstrate to the reader the inner workings of a social media site and its day to day workings. Whether one or either of those reasons is satisfied in any particular review is up to the reader to decide.
In any case I have been asked, I won’t say ordered, by Greg Green acting under authority of the Editorial Board, to explain how I got this assignment. (I might add here as well that I came on board this site after the internal struggle had died down so I know only what I have heard as rumor around the “water cooler” about the disputes and the process that led to the new regime.) A couple of months ago I had to go to Washington, D.C. on another assignment for another social media site and was asked by Greg to stop by the National Gallery of Art to take a look at the Vermeer and friends (my term since I forget what the official title was but that will do) exhibition that was being held there. I did a review on it which can be found in the December 2007 archives although I know nothing, or knew nothing about 16th and 17th century art, Dutch and Flemish art in its golden age, which Bart Webber who does know about the subject took me to task on.
That trip also started the ball rolling on how I came to be a Marlene Dietrich “expert” even though I know nothing about the old-time black and white films which she starred in or the first thing about her career. This is where the example of how assignments are divvied up here comes into play. During that Washington trip I had also gone for my own purposes to the National Portrait Gallery to meet somebody and noticed walking through the halls that they had a Marlene Dietrich exhibit, mostly photographs, complete with a several page brochure about the life and times of the woman. When I passed in the Vermeer assignment in for editing I mentioned to Greg, my mistake granted, I mentioned in passing something about the Dietrich exhibit. A few days later I was saddled not with an assignment about the exhibit but a film that Greg was hot to have reviewed a thing called Stage Fright starring Ms. Dietrich among others.
Like I said on Vermeer and friends I knew nothing about Ms. Dietrich’s career, her private life, or her aura in films except the photos I had seen and the brochure. I gave Greg what I thought was a pedestrian review which he, after serious editing, posted. A few weeks later now that I was a Dietrich “expert” he cornered me to do the film under review, Witness for the Prosecution, directed by legendary director Billy Wilder. By rights this assignment should have gone to Sam Lowell who is something of a Billy Wilder expert. Mr. Wilder was last seen in this space in a review by Sam of his classic Sunset Boulevard where Sam tried to figure out how Joe Average Hollywood screenwriter wound up dead, very dead in has-been silent film star Norma Desmond’s swimming pool. Greg brushed that objection and suggestion off telling me that I needed to “broaden my horizons,” a favorite expression of his it seems. So here goes.
Even I know that the minute you mention any storyline, film or book, involving Agatha Christie, that murder, murder most foul is in the air. Usually the murder of a high society or wealthy figure for money, dough ,moola for some off-hand expenses. That is the case here where Vole, the Tyrone Powers role, is picked up for the murder of a wealthy widow whom he had befriended for the prosecution’s contention that he did it for that big haul dough. Worse, worse for Vole anyway, was the hard fact that the old dame left him a bundle. The problem though is that if he doesn’t get out from under that murder rap he won’t get a chance to spent nickel one of the loot.
Enter two figures to the rescue. First Vole grabs the best barrister in town (the guy in the English justice system who gets to try the cases, murder cases anyway), the sickly Sir Wilfrid Robarts, the Charles Laughton role, who having some doubts about Vole’s innocence, really about whether he can get his man off and away from the big step-off gallows, nevertheless takes the case. Takes the case once Vole can give an airtight alibi-his wife. His German-born cool and demure wife Christine, the Dietrich role, whom he picked up in some German gin mill during his post-World War II British Occupation duty and brought back to London when he was discharged from the service. Christine would all assumed back up Vole’s story that he could not have been at the murder scene since he was home with his ever-loving wife, her, at the time.
An easy acquittal and all will be well. Whoa, hold on Christine as it turned out showed up at trial not to defend her husband but as a witness for the prosecution of the title. She contradicted Vole’s story to the dismay of the good barrister. Now there is a tradition in Anglo-American jurisprudence that says a wife cannot testify against her husband. Good idea except Christine was already married to a German national when she married Vole. Bigamy and no alibi and no exception so Vole’s goose is cooked although for what purposes who knows.
Those Christine purposes are what drives the latter part of the film and as the announcer at the end of the film tells the audience, tells me, don’t let on about the ending. Don’t tell whether Christine did what she did for love or money. Don’t tell why Vole desperately needed that withdrawn alibi. All I will tell you is Christine is cool, calm and collected during this whole process. The look that she had groomed over many years and many performances. I will say this one has many twists that will keep you guessing right until the end.
