I Wasn’t Planning On This But These Days We Have To Start Thinking About Restarting An International Anti-Fascist United Front-Reflections On Dick Powell’s “Cornered” (1945)-A Film Review

I Wasn’t Planning On This But These Days We Have To Start Thinking About Restarting An International Anti-Fascist United Front-Reflections On Dick Powell’s “Cornered” (1945)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Frank Jackman

Cornered, starring Dick Powell, Walter Slezak, Morris Carnovsky. Luther Adler, directed by Edward Dymtryk, produced by Adrian Scott, 1945

I took this film review with all hands. This anti-fascist film Cornered from 1945 which featured performances by two  men, Luther Adler and Morris Carnovsky and two men director Dymtryk (who would later turn stoolie to protect his oh so very precious career) and producer Adrian Scott, who were to be very soon on the notorious and scandalous Hollywood black-list as the post-World War II red scare Cold War night descended on the Western World is just the vehicle I needed to express some things about what is going on in the United States in an age when the fascists here (and internationally) are hearing the siren call of their return to the glory days. I had not thought as I passed my sixth decade that I would be spending time, much time anyway, worrying about the rise of the fascist movement kindled by events emanating from the White House and other high spots in the Western firmament. So be it. The fascists were buried deep down in some hole and as this film, this now cautionary tale film, points out they are keen to arise like phoenix from the ashes. As the main notorious villain and object of an international manhunt, Jarnac, played by red scare Cold War black-listed Luther Adler, said when confronted by the anti-fascists toward the end of the film as long as there are hunger men (and women) ignored by the “winners” in the global economy there will always be people like him ready to follow any half-mad adventurer. Good point, and a good reason to seriously re-start that international anti-fascist united front while there is still time, while the fascists and their allies, acknowledged and not so, are still relatively small in numbers. Remember 1933 was too late and maybe 1923 had been too (the year of the Munich putsch attempt).             

I should explain that when I mentioned I grabbed this film with “all hands” I was understating the case since the reader may not know that I have not done a film review since the days of the East Bay Other in the late 1970s before it folded like many other alternative hard-copy operations. Then I was primarily interested in French cinema, Godard, Truffaut, Celine, Dubois and other European cinematic efforts with an occasion scape handed to me by editor Sally Simmons doing film noir material helped by my association with Sam Lowell who wrote the definitive book on the subject back in the 1970s. Sam, a guy I grew up with in North Adamsville and I spent many an ill-advised (then) afternoon watching noir double-features at the old Strand Theater which was our home away from home when things got too crazy in our respective large households.

As I mentioned this film can stand as a cautionary tale for our times as well as a summing up for what happened, what ignited the backdrop to World War II. The fascists, called other names like Nazis and ultra-nationalist but fascists will do these days, rose up to smite the calm Europe, the so-called calm Europe from the days when World War I was thought, even by rational men after the carnage, to be the war that ended all wars. But like all mass movements which built up a head of steam they expanded internationally, had supporters who went the German and Axis tanks rolled in across Europe acted as fifth columns, acted in defense of the new world order as if their lives depended on it. Which it did if they lost. But when they were riding high, well, scum, like the main villain Jarnac, a Frenchman, a Vichy when the Fascists came storming into France, taking Paris and leaving the south to be administered by collaborators worked like seven dervishes to keep their power and place. Among Jarnac’s actions, the one that drives the action of the film and which will eventually lie him low he summarily had a cadre of resistance fighter shot and buried in their hideout caves. This Jarnac then left for parts unknown leaving little or no paper or physical trail behind him except that he was to be considered dead, not real dead but fake dead so you know which way the winds will blow hereafter.     

Among the resistance fighters executed in the caves was the too short time married wife of one Canadian Air Force pilot,  Gerard, played by Dick Powell last seen in this space, according to Seth Garth who did the review, in the film adaptation of  Raymond Chandler’s Private Detective Phillip Marlowe classic Farewell, My Lovely ( on screen titled Murder, My Sweet) also directed by Edward Dymtryk, who wanted to know, and know fast as you will find out, who ordered the execution of his own people, of Frenchmen, of his wife so it was personal with him. From various sources we find out that it was Jarnac and his underlings who did the dastardly deed and that Jarnac was presumed to be dead as already mentioned. Marlowe was a tough as nails no nonsense P.I. and Gerard is no less a tough anti-fascist fighter cum enraged widower. The chase is on. 

Not surprisingly, take note, Gerard, picks up Jarnac’s trail in Buenos Aires, meaning that Jarnac was not without resources, contacts or organization. (The “take note” part is today “on the low” there are similar resources available for fascists and their allies to do their dastardly work.) Of course Buenos Aires was a favored watering hole, a pleasant waiting area, for legions of fascists on the run as the clamp closed down on them in Europe so plenty of intrigue and cash are on the line. Getting nowhere for a while Gerard meets an independent agent who will sell his services to the highest bidder, played by Walter Slezak, who is out to make as many dishonest dollars as he can by working the rat hole circuit of scum fleeing Europe. He leads Gerard to Madame Jarnac, the widow, but she is really just a front, hired help to keep the charade going.

From that meeting on it is tag team who will get to Jarnac first-enter what Gerard thinks are some unsavory characters but who in reality are anti-fascist fighters looking for Jarnac too-to bring him to Nuremburg-style justice-to see him hang high if it comes to that. Gerard though keeps getting in his own way (which he will admit at the end) and after fake news Madame Jarnac gives him a sliver of information about where Jarnac might be meeting others to pull off some nefarious caper on the road back to the glory days, to power he is doggedly on the trail. Winds up grabbing Jarnac and killing him to the chagrin of the anti-fascist agents. It can’t happen here, it can’t happen again. Believe that if you will and dismiss this as a nice political thriller. Then look at today’s world headlines. Jesus.     

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-A Working Class Anthem For Labor Day- " Solidarity Forever"

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-A Working Class Anthem For Labor Day- " Solidarity Forever"

A YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger, appropriately enough, performing old Wobblie songwriter Ralph Chaplin's labor anthem, Solidarity Forever. A good song to hear on our real labor holiday, the holiday of the international working class movement, May Day, but even today on this country's consciously competing holiday.

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, Josh Breslin, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square with the big names, some small too which one time I made the subject of a series, or rather two series entitled respectively Not Bob Dylan and Not Joan Baez about those who for whatever reason did not make the show over the long haul, passing through the Club 47 Mecca and later the Café Nana and Club Blue, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. Those are the places where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, Collins and a whole crew of younger folksingers, some who made it like Tom Rush and Joni Mitchell and others like Eric Saint Jean and Minnie Murphy who didn’t, like  who all sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger got their first taste of the fresh breeze of the folk minute, that expression courtesy of the late Markin, who was among the first around to sample the breeze.

(I should tell you here in parentheses so you will keep it to yourselves that the former three mentioned above never got over that folk minute since they will still tell a tale or two about the times, about how Dave Van Ronk came in all drunk one night at the Café Nana and still blew everybody away, about catching Paxton changing out of his Army uniform when he was stationed down at Fort Dix  right before a performance at the Gaslight, about walking down the street Cambridge with Tom Rush just after he put out No Regrets/Rockport Sunday, and about affairs with certain up and coming female folkies like the previously mentioned Minnie Murphy at the Club Nana when that was the spot of spots. Strictly aficionado stuff if you dare go anywhere within ten miles of the subject with any of them -I will take my chances here because this notice, this passing of legendary Rosalie Sorrels a decade after her dear friend Utah Phillips is important.)

Those urban locales were certainly the high white note spots but there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some of the other upstate colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s, run by the late Lena Spenser, a true folk legend and a folkie character in her own right, where some of those names played previously mentioned 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 the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about and rounded out his personality). 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.

Yeah, came barreling like seven demons out there in the West, not the West Coast west that is a different proposition. The West I am talking about is where what the novelist Thomas Wolfe called the place where the states were square and you had better be as well if you didn’t want to starve or be found in some empty arroyo un-mourned and unloved. A tough life when the original pioneers drifted westward from Eastern nowhere looking for that pot of gold or at least some fresh air and a new start away from crowded cities and sweet breathe vices. A tough life worthy of song and homage. Tough going too for guys like Joe Hill who tried to organize the working people against the sweated robber barons of his day (they are still with us as we are all now very painfully and maybe more vicious than their in your face forbear). Struggles, fierce down at the bone struggles also worthy of song and homage. Tough too when your people landed in rugged beautiful two-hearted river Idaho, tried to make a go of it in Boise, maybe stopped short in Helena but you get the drift. A different place and a different type of subject matter for your themes than lost loves and longings.  

Rosalie Sorrels could write those songs as well, as well as anybody but she was as interested in the social struggles of her time (one of the links that united her with Utah) and gave no quarter when she turned the screw on a lyric. The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at the majestic Saunders Theater at Harvard University out in Cambridge America at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. (That theater complex contained within the Memorial Hall dedicated to the memory of the gallants from the college who laid down their heads in that great civil war that sundered the country. The Harvards did themselves proud at collectively laying down their heads at seemingly every key battle that I am aware of when I look up at the names and places. A deep pride runs through me at those moments)

Rosalie Sorrels as one would expect on such an occasion 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 banging out the blues unto the heavens) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember the crystal clarity and irony of her cover of her classic 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 and thoughts of washing herself down to the sea whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels 

Solidarity Forever
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the union makes us strong

When the union's inspiration
through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater
anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker
than the feeble strength of one?
But the union makes us strong.


They have taken untold millions
that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle
not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power;
gain our freedom when we learn
That the Union makes us strong.


In our hands is placed a power
greater than their hoarded gold;
Greater than the might of armies,
magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world
from the ashes of the old
For the Union makes us strong.


This labor anthem was written in 1915 by IWW songwriter and union organizer Ralph Chaplin using the music of Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic. These song lyrics are those sung by Joe Glazer, Educational Director of the United Rubber Workers, from the recording Songs of Work and Freedom, (Washington Records WR460)

A Writer’s Tale-Vincente Minnelli’s Film Adaptation Of James Jones’ “Some Came Running” (1958)-A Film Review

A Writer’s Tale-Vincente Minnelli’s Film Adaptation Of James Jones’ “Some Came Running” (1958)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Fritz Taylor    

Some Came Running, starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, directed by Vincente Minelli, adapted from the novel by James Jones, 1958  

No question I was first drawn to Some Came Running, a film based on the novel of the same name by James Jones whose more famous novel Here To Eternity also was adapted to the screen and stands as one of the great classic films of the modern cinema, by the ex-soldier’s story and then by his plight as a blocked writer. The draw of the ex-soldier’s story reflected something that had been in my own experience about coming back to the “real” world after the military. That seems to be the character played by Frank Sinatra Dave Hirsh’s situation. That inability to go to the nine to five routine, to settle down after military service had shaken him out of his routine rang a bell. In my own military service generation, in my own service, I ran across plenty of guys who couldn’t deal with the “real” world coming back from Vietnam and who tried to hide from that fact as “brothers under the bridges” alternate communities out in places like Southern California. I spent time in such places myself. I see and hear about young Iraq and Afghanistan War service personnel having the same woes and worse, having incredibly high suicide rates. So yeah, I was drawn to Dave’s sulky, moody, misshapen view of the world.           

The story line is a beauty. Dave, after a drunken spree, finds he was shipped by bus back in that state by some guys in Chicago to his Podunk hometown in Parkman, Indiana, a town he had fled with all deliberate speed when he was a kid orphaned out by his social-climbing older brother Frank because, well, because he was in the way of that social-climb after their parents die. Dave was not alone in his travels though since he had picked up, or had been attached to, a floozy named Ginny, played by Shirley MacLaine, who will make life hell for him in the end. As he became accustomed to his old hometown and while deciding whether to stay or pick up stakes (the preferred fate of his brother and his also social-climbing wife) he was introduced to a local school teacher Gwen, played by Martha Hyer, who will also make hell for him in the end since he was quickly and madly in love with her but she was seriously stand-offish almost old maid stand-offish since she had had a few tastes of his rough-hewn low life doings. Doings which were encouraged by a gambler, Bama, played by Dean Martin who became his sidekick.        

But here is the hook that almost saved Dave and almost lit a spark under dear Gwen. Dave was a blocked writer, had some time before written a couple of books that were published and had gathered some acclaim, were well written. Gwen attempted to act as his muse, and did prove instrumental in getting a work of his published. To no avail since Dave was not looking for a muse, well, not a muse who wasn’t thinking about getting under the silky sheets. No go, no go despite Dave’s ardent efforts. Frustrated Dave turned to Ginny and whatever charms she had-and the fact that she loved him unconditionally despite their social and intellectual differences. In the end Dave in a fit of hubris decided to marry Ginny after being rebuffed by Gwen enough times. The problem though was that Ginny had a hang on gangster guy trailing her who was making threatening noises about putting Dave, and/or Ginny, underground. In the end they were not just threatening noises as he wounded Dave and killed poor bedraggled Ginny. Watch this one-more than once and read James Jones’ book too which includes additional chapters about those soldiers who could not relate to the “real” world after their military experiences. This guy Jones could write, sure could write about that milieu based on his own military service. (There is a famous photograph of Jones, Norman Mailer, and William Styron, the three great soldier boy American literary lights of the immediate post-World War II war period with Jones in uniform if I recall.)                

Welcome Young-With Remembrances Of Golden Age Fourth Of July’s In Mind (2017)

Welcome Young-With Remembrances Of Golden Age Fourth Of July’s In Mind (2017)

By Prescott Blaine

Si Lannon had always been a man of unmitigated memories. Had always been the guy, the kid when that term was appropriate, who kept vigil over what had occurred and when from the surprise of the first conscious Christmas (and thereafter the unscrambling of the Santa question) to the scent of Laura Perkin’s perfume (or when she was a kid herself the smell, the intoxicating smell, of that bath soap that drove him crazy when they danced close in that first school days dance meant to keep unruly thoughts in check. He would, such was his memory drive, often later wonder whether she had used that article for a certain effect that far back in the boy-girl tango. He knew later she would do such things consciously and he was glad of it). Si, now having lived long enough to have a treasure trove of memories, had of late been drawn to the faraway events that made up his early childhood in the old neighborhood where he grew up, came of age (along with that Laura Perkins with whom he was an item all through high school but when he went off to college they broke up since she did not want to wait four years or more to get married-such were the times and expectations back then). Since it was that time of year he had been musing over the old days when the Fourth of July was something of a watershed in the summer.      

This series of recollections back in time to those particular times were no mere happenstances and it was a question in Si’s mind whether he would have been dwelling on this seasonal event if it had not been for the fact that he had recently moved back into the old neighborhood. As Si would say “to make a long story short” so we can get to the heart of what has possessed the man of late his marriage, his long-time marriage, to Lana Shea had ended when she decided that she had to go “find herself” and that adventure was not to include Si who she considered part of the problem for not having been able to “find herself” in some earlier time. (Admittedly Si did not, does not, understand how all they had together could blow away like some mistral wind since he believed, believes, that he never stood in her way to do whatever finding was to be found). He had spent some time up in Maine after the break-up in order to see if distance would help heal some wounds. They didn’t and one night, maybe less, he decided that he was not cut out for the isolation of the wilds of Maine and that he needed to get back around cities and some sense of rootedness. So back to the much changed old neighborhood-and memories.   

Si had adjusted pretty well to his return, knew some things like the change in the ethnic composition of his old working class neighborhood from overwhelming Irish to mostly Asian was a fact of life in mobile America. He could understand the Chinese exodus from Boston’s Chinatown and environs since the Irish and Italians had respectively exited the North End and South Boston in search of fresher air in his grandparents’ time but the Vietnamese migration had him baffled since there had been no previous indigenous grouping in the Greater Boston area. Moreover, Si, a Vietnam veteran himself although he had long ago made his peace with the Vietnamese if not his own government wondered how Jimmy Jenkins and Vince Riley two neighborhood guys who had laid down their heads in Vietnam would have reacted to the fact that right there on Kenny Street which he passed almost every day Vietnamese families were living in their respective growing up houses. Probably not any better than when they joined up to kill commies.

But Si also knew some things had been lost although he could not put his finger on exactly what that was until the Fourth of July. And then only by becoming aware of the absence of any celebration, a hallmark of the old neighborhood come America’s birthday. Such celebrations having gone the way of the horse and buggy it seemed in an age when people flee their neighborhoods on the holidays to vacation or “to summer” elsewhere, anyway perhaps. In the old days “to summer” was to hike the mile to Adamsville Beach to roast in the sun and roast weenies. Then people stayed put either because they had no car to flee with (Si’s family situation until he was a late teenager) and no additional funds beyond the weekly white envelopes to fend off the bill collectors-for a while.    

So much for the sociology and cultural aspects which really was not what was driving Si’s memory bank on reflection. All he could think about were those maybe half a dozen maybe eight years when his (and that of his four other brothers) Fourth of July centered on events not one hundred yards away from his family’s house. Si grew up and lived across from the Welcome Young ballfield (still there although shortened up with the addition of some tennis courts). Welcome Young an apt name and which was actually the name of the person who gave the town the property to be used for the young.  This Welcome Young field most of the summer was a hot, dusty usually during the day vacant lot (at night the local fathers and older brothers played softball there as an excuse  to have a few beers at the three barrooms located directly across from the field and those institutions collectively sponsored some of the teams in the makeshift league). But on the Fourth it was turned into something like a carnival. 

What would happen every year is that some of the guys who frequented the barrooms (and their owners’), including Si’s father, formed what was called the North Adamsville Associates whose members would comb the neighborhood in search of donations from residents and local businesses in order to put on “a time” (an old expression from the Irish diaspora not heard expressed in many a moon). That “time” included everything from food, drink, and prizes to paying for the band at the night’s end dance (mostly for adults and older kids). Si claims he never attended one but could hear the music from across the way as he drifted off to sleep after a hard day’s work at having fun.   

Si had to laugh to himself as he thought about the various silly kid escapades he had partaken in. The first in time was early on exploiting the fact that for once the tumbledown house where he and his siblings grew up actually proved of strategic importance. One of the highlights of the day was that twice, at ten and at one, members of the Associates would put up makeshift tables and distribute tonic (an old New England term for soda also not heard in many a moon) and ice cream to the throngs of kids milling about nervously waiting for the distribution. All well and good. The cause of Si’s laughter though was that he and his brothers would form a relay from those tables to their house. Or rather the refrigerator in the back hall of that house which before the day ended would be filled with enough tonic (remember soda) and ice cream to last the whole summer (or that was the idea). Kids holy goof stuff.             

Of course there were rides, baby carriage contests, singing contests, pie-eating contests, beauty contests and the like although Si never got a prize for anything like that. What Si remember though were the foot races (including the silly three-legged ones), the fifty yard dashes. He never won any of those either. But the last year that he attended the festivities, the summer of the year that he entered the ninth grade he did win a race. The vaunted, locally vaunted, six hundred yard race around several of the neighboring streets. This was for the older boys, boys and young men a lot older than him. He would always remember that race since he made a cardinal mistake of running too fast (out of fear of the older guys) at the beginning and running into oxygen debt toward the end. He won though, barely, and would wear the jacket that was the prize seemingly forever before it bit the dust.

Ah, such is memory…maybe next year he will check out and see if anybody wants to “put on a time” for the kids. Payback-okay.            

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-An Old Wobblie Goes Home- Farewell Working Class Warrior Utah Phillips

Click On Title To Link To Utah Phillips Web page.

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, Josh Breslin, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square with the big names, some small too which one time I made the subject of a series, or rather two series entitled respectively Not Bob Dylan and Not Joan Baez about those who for whatever reason did not make the show over the long haul, passing through the Club 47 Mecca and later the Café Nana and Club Blue, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. Those are the places where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, Collins and a whole crew of younger folksingers, some who made it like Tom Rush and Joni Mitchell and others like Eric Saint Jean and Minnie Murphy who didn’t, like  who all sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger got their first taste of the fresh breeze of the folk minute, that expression courtesy of the late Markin, who was among the first around to sample the breeze.

(I should tell you here in parentheses so you will keep it to yourselves that the former three mentioned above never got over that folk minute since they will still tell a tale or two about the times, about how Dave Van Ronk came in all drunk one night at the Café Nana and still blew everybody away, about catching Paxton changing out of his Army uniform when he was stationed down at Fort Dix  right before a performance at the Gaslight, about walking down the street Cambridge with Tom Rush just after he put out No Regrets/Rockport Sunday, and about affairs with certain up and coming female folkies like the previously mentioned Minnie Murphy at the Club Nana when that was the spot of spots. Strictly aficionado stuff if you dare go anywhere within ten miles of the subject with any of them -I will take my chances here because this notice, this passing of legendary Rosalie Sorrels a decade after her dear friend Utah Phillips is important.)

Those urban locales were certainly the high white note spots but there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some of the other upstate colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s, run by the late Lena Spenser, a true folk legend and a folkie character in her own right, where some of those names played previously mentioned 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 the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about and rounded out his personality). 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.

Yeah, came barreling like seven demons out there in the West, not the West Coast west that is a different proposition. The West I am talking about is where what the novelist Thomas Wolfe called the place where the states were square and you had better be as well if you didn’t want to starve or be found in some empty arroyo un-mourned and unloved. A tough life when the original pioneers drifted westward from Eastern nowhere looking for that pot of gold or at least some fresh air and a new start away from crowded cities and sweet breathe vices. A tough life worthy of song and homage. Tough going too for guys like Joe Hill who tried to organize the working people against the sweated robber barons of his day (they are still with us as we are all now very painfully and maybe more vicious than their in your face forbear). Struggles, fierce down at the bone struggles also worthy of song and homage. Tough too when your people landed in rugged beautiful two-hearted river Idaho, tried to make a go of it in Boise, maybe stopped short in Helena but you get the drift. A different place and a different type of subject matter for your themes than lost loves and longings.  

Rosalie Sorrels could write those songs as well, as well as anybody but she was as interested in the social struggles of her time (one of the links that united her with Utah) and gave no quarter when she turned the screw on a lyric. The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at the majestic Saunders Theater at Harvard University out in Cambridge America at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. (That theater complex contained within the Memorial Hall dedicated to the memory of the gallants from the college who laid down their heads in that great civil war that sundered the country. The Harvards did themselves proud at collectively laying down their heads at seemingly every key battle that I am aware of when I look up at the names and places. A deep pride runs through me at those moments)

Rosalie Sorrels as one would expect on such an occasion 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 banging out the blues unto the heavens) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember the crystal clarity and irony of her cover of her classic 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 and thoughts of washing herself down to the sea whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels 

Tribune Commentary

I have just received word that the legendary folksinger/ union organizer and old-fashioned Wobblie Utah Phillips has died out in California. Apparently he died on Saturday May 24th. Ironically, given some of my comments below regarding a review of his last CD, Starlight on the Rails, that date is also Bob Dylan's birthday. I have reposted commentaries that I have done over the last couple of years on Utah. Adieu, old class warrior


Commentary

I have just received this communication about Utah Phillips from a local folksong society newsletter. I would add that I saw Utah playing at a club in Cambridge last spring (2007) and he looked a little off then. I have reposted below a CD Review of his anthology Starlight On The Trail from 2006 for those unfamiliar with his music and his politics. We differ on the politics but please help this old class warrior. I have added a link to his website here.

I have also added a link to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) website.

Utah Phillips needs help

Unions Passing Resolutions to Honor, Assist Folksinger/Storyteller Bruce "Utah" Phillips

The great folksinger and storyteller Utah Phillips has had to retire from performing due to chronic and serious heart problems that have plagued him for years. In recognition of his great love for and work on behalf of the union movement and working people of the United States, several union locals have passed resolutions honoring Phillips and attaching donations for his "retirement fund." Unable to travel or stand the rigors of performing a two-hour concert, Phillips has seen his main source of income vanish just when his medical problems are demanding more money for treatment and medications.

In response, Local 1180 of the Communications Workers of America (NYC), and both the Detroit and the James Connolly (Upstate New York) Branches of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have recently passed the following resolution:

Bruce "Utah" Phillips is a truly unique American treasure. Not just a great folksong writer and interpreter, not just a great storyteller, Utah has preserved and presented the history of our nation's working people and union movement for audiences throughout the world. His recorded work keeps these songs and stories alive. He has spoken up against the injustices of boss-dominated capitalism and worked for peace and justice for more than 40 years.

Now Utah finds himself unable to continue performing due to severe heart problems. We wish to honor and recognize his great talent, spirit and love for the working people and the union movement of the United States. Therefore, we move to pass this resolution in gratitude for all he has done and will continue to do in his
work and life. We also wish to contribute to Utah Phillips in appreciation and in solidarity as he and his wife, Joanna Robinson, deal with his health and the loss of his ability to work.

This news is being released with the hope that other unions, anti-war and labor-affiliated organizations will respond in kind by passing this or similar resolutions in appreciation for all Utah Phillips has done for the cause of unions and peace.

Another way that organizations and individuals can help is by purchasing some or all of Utah's vast catalog of songs and stories. All of his CDs and more information are available at his website, www.utahphillips.org, and Utah has begun posting pod casts up there that you can download and listen to! You can also order his CDs online (credit card sales) through www.cdbaby.com but be advised that prices are cheaper and more of that money will go into Utah's hands if you order directly from him. More info on his website.

Here's the address for CD orders and to send a donation: U. Utah Phillips, No Guff Records, P.O. Box 1235, Nevada City, CA 95959, (530) 265-2476

Utah has given so much of himself to the labor and peace movements. It is great news that some unions and many have chosen to give something back to him, to allow him and his wife, Joanna Robinson, to rest easy, work on his long-term health, and not have to worry about where money will come for the medicine and bills he has to pay.

In Solidarity, George Mann


AN UNREPENTANT WOBBLIE AT WORK

CD REVIEW

STARLIGHT ON THE RAILS- UTAH PHILLIPS, 2005

Although this space is mainly dedicated to reviewing political books and commenting on past and current political issues as a way to orient today’s alienated radical youth on the lessons of the past literary output is hardly the only form of political creation. Occasionally in the history of the American and international left musicians, artists and playwrights have given voice or provided visual reminders to the face of political struggle. With that thought in mind, every once in a while I will use this space to review those kinds of political expression.

My musical tastes were formed, as were many of those of the generation of 1968, by ‘Rock and Roll’ music exemplified by the Rolling Stones and Beatles and by the blues revival, both Delta and Chicago style. However, those forms as much as they gave pleasure were only marginally political at best. In short, these were entertainers performing material that spoke to us. In the most general sense that is all one should expect of a performer. Thus, for the most part that music need not be reviewed here. Those who thought that a new musical sensibility laid the foundations for a cultural or political revolution have long ago been proven wrong.

That said, in the early 1960’s there nevertheless was another form of musical sensibility that was directly tied to radical political expression- the folk revival. This entailed a search for roots and relevancy in musical expression. While not all forms of folk music lent themselves to radical politics it is hard to see the 1960’s cultural rebellion without giving a nod to such figures as Dave Van Ronk, the early Bob Dylan, Utah Phillips, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and others. Whatever entertainment value these performers provided they also spoke to and prodded our political development. They did have a message and an agenda and we responded as such. That these musicians’ respective agendas proved inadequate and/or short-lived does not negate their affect on the times.

My leftist political consciousness, painfully fought for in my youth coincided with an expansion of my musical tastes under the influence of the great blues and folk revivals of the 1960’s. Unfortunately my exposure to the blues greats was mainly on records as many of them had been forgotten, retired or were dead. Not so with the folk revival which was created mainly by those who were close contemporaries. Alas, they too are now mainly forgotten, retired or dead. It therefore is with special pleasure that I review Utah Phillips Songbook while he is very much alive.

Many of the folksingers of the 1960’s attempted to use their music to become troubadours for social change. The most famous example, the early Bob Dylan, can be fairly described as the voice of his generation at that time. However, he fairly quickly moved on to other concepts of himself and his music. Bob Dylan’s work became more informed by the influences of Rimbaud and Verlaine and the French Symbolists of the late 1800’s and thus moved away to a more urban, sophisticated vision. From the start and consistently throughout his long career Utah has acted as a medium giving voice to the troubles of ordinary people and the simpler ethos of a more rural, Western-oriented gone by day in the American experience. He evokes in song the spirit of the people Walt Whitman paid homage to in poetic form and John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck gave in prose. He sits comfortably in very fast company. Therefore, Utah Phillips can justly claim the title of a people’s troubadour.

A word about politics. Generally, one rates music without reference to politics. However, Utah has introduced the political element by the way he structured the Songbook. Each song is introduced by him as to its significance heavily weighted to his political experiences, observations and vision. Thus, political comment is fairly in play here. Utah is a long time anarchist and unrepentant supporter of the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World, hereafter IWW). Every militant cherishes the memory of the class battles led by the IWW like the famous Lawrence strike of 1912 and honors the heroes of those battles like Big Bill Haywood and Vincent St. John and the militants they recruited to the cause of the working class in the first part of the 20th century. They paved the way for the later successful organization drives of the 1930’s.

Nevertheless, while Utah and I would both most definitely agree that some old-fashioned class struggle by working people in today’s one-sided class war would be a very good thing we as definitely differ on the way to insure a permanent victory for working people in order to create a decent society. In short, Utah’s prescriptions of good moral character, increased self-knowledge and the creation of small intentional communities are not enough. Under modern conditions it is necessary to take and safeguard political power against those who would quite consciously deny that victory. History has been cruel in some of the bitter lessons working people have had to endure for not dealing with the question of taking state power to protect their interests. But, enough said. I am more than willing to forgive the old curmudgeon his anarchist sins if he’ll sing ‘I Remember Loving You’ the next time he tours the Boston area.

Poet's Corner- William Wordsworth's "Ode To The French Revolution"- In Honor Of Its Anniversary

On The Anniversary Of The Russian Revolution Of 1905-

By Frank Jackman

For the attentive reader of this unabashedly left-wing publication which moreover not only takes history seriously but commemorates some historical nodal points worthy of attention today I have drawn attention this month of January to the 100^th anniversary of the assassinations of key nascent German Communist Party leaders Rosa Luxemburg, the rose of the revolution, and Karl Liebknecht the heart of the left-wing German workers movement. In that commentary I noted that history in the conditional, especially when things turned out badly as they did in Germany with the failure of the Communists to take power within a few years of the Armistice and aid the struggling isolated and devastated Russian revolution, is tricky business. There were certainly opportunities closed off by the decimation of the heads of the early German Communist Party that were never made up. That failure helps in its own way to pave the road to the Nazi takeover and all that meant for Europe and the world later. I also cautioned against stretching such conditionals out too far without retreating to an idea that the rise of the Nazis was inevitable. Give it some thought though.
History in the conditional applies as well to events that would in the future turn out well, well at the beginning in any case, and that leads to the role played by what many parties including Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky referred to as the “dress rehearsal” for the October Revolution in Russia in 1917. That was the Revolution of 1905 which although it was shattered and many of the leading participants either killed, exiled or banished still provided some hope that things would turn on that proverbial historical dime in the end. The key organization structure set up in 1905, the Workers Soviets, councils, which in embryo provided the outline for the workers government everybody from Marx and to his left argued for to bring socialist order to each country, to the world in the end almost automatically was reestablished in the early days of 1917. Who knows in conditions of war and governmental turmoil what would have happened if that organizational form had not already been tested in an earlier revolutionary episode. Again, let’s not get too wide afield on history in the conditional on this end either. Think about those episodes though as we commemorate that 1905 revolution. 


   

Poets' Corner- William Wordsworth's "Ode To The French Revolution"- In Honor Of Its Anniversary


Markin Comment:

Here is William Wordsworth's famous ode to the beginning of the French revolution full of all the youthful enthusiasm such a world historic event can elicit. That he, like many another former 'friend' of revolutions over the ages, went over to the other side when things got too hot does not take away from his efforts here.


The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts

. Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—

Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,

When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress--to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,

The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself )
The budding rose above the rose full blown.

What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,

And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;--they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,--the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!

William Wordsworth

In Honor Of The 100th Anniversary Of The Founding of The Communist International-*From The Pages Of The Communist International- From The Third Congress- "On Tactics" (1921)

Click on the headline to link to the Communist International Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.


Markin comment:

This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.

The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review

The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon

The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring James Stewart, Doris Day, directed again (first time 1934) by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1956   

People, historians, especially counter-historians, often speculate if one little fact was changed then history would have taken a decisive turn the other way. You know stuff like if Hitler had been killed at the beer garden in Munich in 1923 or if Lenin could not have gotten back to Russia in the spring of 1917. That idea runs to the personal side of life as well, sometimes with strange results like being in the wrong place at the wrong time like the protagonists in the late Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s off-beat remake of his 1934 classic The Man Who Knew Too Much. So just like with great historical figures and events we can play the same game here what if Ben, played by Jimmy Stewart, Jo played by Doris Day and their young son had not been  heading from Casablanca to Marrakesh on some dusty woe begotten bus and run into a French intelligence agent whose dying words talked of an assassination plot against a big shot foreign dignity in bloody England.      

But, of course, they were and the chase was on from there ruining a perfectly respectable little family vacation and putting Ben and Jo on the edge-to speak nothing of their son who will eventually be kidnapped just because Ma and Pa knew too freaking much. Once the conspirators know they know that young son’s life isn’t worth much, maybe. He is kidnapped to insure Ben and Jo’s silence. But they trace the party to London where the action gets hot and heavy and the conspiracy to kill the foreign big wigs in is full gear. Except through keen analysis and some luck Ben and Jo figure out that the plot is going to be hatched, that dignitary is going to be killed while attending a symphony concert at Royal Albert Hall (where else). The long and short of it is that Ben and Jo discover where the kidnappers have taken their son, they struggle to get to him and eventually find out about the Royal Albert caper. They are able to foil the plot by a timely scream from Jo who sights the paid assassin as he attempts his dastardly work. After much ado their son is recovered and they can go on about their average American family life.

But let’s say that big wig was killed maybe there would have been another Sarajevo, 1914. There’s a little history in the conditional for you. See this one it is better that the 1934 version which as Hitchcock himself is quoted as saying was the work of an inspired amateur and the 1956 was done by a master artist, a pro. And that is right.   

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- When Lady Day Chased The Blues Away, Again And Again-“The Quintessential Billie Holiday (Volume 1-1933-1935)”-A CD Review

When Lady Day Chased The Blues Away, Again And Again-“The Quintessential Billie Holiday (Volume 1-1933-1935)”-A CD Review 

CD Review

By Seth Garth

The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Volume 1, 1933-1935,

[Sometimes I get in a Nelson Algren moment as here. But that I mean I want to get down in the mud, get back to the roots, talk about the days when it was not clear which way I was heading-a life of crime or its cousin reading and writing to try to make sense of the world (just kidding on the cousin part, okay so avoid a tweet storm please). Want to talk about the blues since I am here reviewing a Lady Day, Billie Holiday of the orchid-ripped hair. Want to talk about the people like Billie who lived on the edge, who fell down, who got back up and fell down again. Yeah, the ones Nelson Algren he of the Walk On The Wild Side, Man With The Golden Arm talked about, the Frank Machines, the Dove Linkhorns, the people I came from if the truth be told.

I swear I don’t to this day understand what those people I talked to several years ago that I noted below who wrote Billie off as some long-gone junkie of no account. Not after she saved many a day for me when I was blue, maybe beyond blue, maybe ready to meet the dawn turned into night, if you really want to know. See even a stone-cold junkie has the capacity to give something-if she or he has some talent. But here is what the squares and by that I include those dunces who dismissed Billie out of hand, didn’t want to hear how she “saved” me on many a misbegotten tough day or estimate, fathom what pain she had to endure to give what she could give. Maybe some people have become so sanitized, so vanilla they know not of what I speak when I talks about Lester Young blowing that seldom attained high white note every instrumentalist seeks out to the damn China Seas. Don’t know what it took even on good days for Billie to run the rack, to pick up her head long enough to do what she had to. Who gives a fuck, the old corner boy from the hard-pressed Acre section of downtrodden North Adamsville coming out with that fuck word, whether she needed the fixer man to come and get her well when you think about it for a minute. Yeah, no wait let me go and listen to about two hours of Billie rather than slip into a blue funk and forget that Nelson Algren spoke for the little voiceless people who knew their Billie backward and forward. Knew her junkie pain, needed their own fixer man to get well.

For the record I will say it here again today-if I had had the capacity to do so I would have provided Billie with all the dope she needed-be her every loving fixer man just so she could chase my weary blues away. That’s the ticket. The hell with the squares. S.G.]               

Everybody, that meaning everybody who knows anything about the blues knows of legendary blue singer Billie Holiday. Knew she was tied up hard with junkie fever, knee deep in junk. Knew that information either from having read her biography, the liner notes on her records (vinyl for those who have not become hip to the beauties of that old-fashion way to produce recordings in the recent retro revival of that method), newspaper obituaries, or from the 1970s film starring Diana Ross (lead singer of Motown’s Supremes). So everybody knew that Lady Day had come up the hard way, had had a hard time with men in her life and had plenty of trouble with junk, with heroin. Had turned her into some hustling gal with dark lights out of a Nelson Algren story about her daddy making her blues go away, had the “fixer” man making the pain going away for a moment.

(I believe that the Prez, the great saxophonist Lester Young who himself blew many a high white note out to the China seas as the phrase went on the West Coast when he was “on” gave her that name. Put lady and day together and it stuck. He backed her up on many recordings, including here, and in many a venue, including New York café society before they pulled her ticket. The name fit her as did that eternal flower arrangement, sweet gardenia speaking of sexual adventures and promise, in her hair)     

Yeah, that is the sad part, the life and times part. But if you listen to this CD under review like the other ones in this series and other compilations that I am reviewing at this time while I am in a “from hunger” wanting habits mood about Lady Day’s work like I get into every once in a while about music that moved me, spoke to me. In this second volume in the series you will also know why in the first part of the 21^st century guys like me are still reviewing her work, still haunted by that voice, by that meaningful pause between notes that carried you to a different place, by that slight hush as she envelopes a song which kept your own blues at bay. I repeat kept your blues away whatever she suffered to bring that sentiment forward.

That last statement, those last two sentences are really what I want to hone in on here since Billie Holiday is an acquired taste, and a taste which grows on you as you settle in to listen to whole albums rather than a single selection spending half the night turning over vinyl, flipping tapes, changing CDs if you don’t have a multiple CD recorder, or grabbing the dial on an MP3 player. Here is my god’s honest truth though. Many a blue night when I was young, hell, now too, I would play Billie for hours, tune that vinyl over in my case, and my own silly blues would kind of evaporate. Nice right.

Here is the not nice part, maybe better the not respectful part for a sanctified woman’s voice and spirit.  Once a few years ago I was talking to some young people about Billie and, maybe under the influence of the Diana Ross film or from their disapproving parents, kind of wrote her off as just another junkie gone to seed. I shocked them, I think, when I said if I had had the opportunity I would have given Billie all the dope she wanted just for taking my own blues   away. That is why we still listen to that sultry, slinky, sexy voice today. 

Is everything in this CD or in her overall work the cat’s meow. No, toward the end in the 1950s you can tell her voice was hanging by a thread under the strain of all her troubles, legal and medical. But in the 1930s, the time of her time, covering Cole Porter, Gershwin and Jerome Kern songs with a little Johnny Mercer thrown in, the time of Tin Pan Alley songs which seem to have almost been written just for her she had that certain “it” which cannot be defined but only accepted, accepted gratefully. This first may be a little more uneven that her later work when she teamed up with serious jazz and blues players like the aforementioned Lester Young blowing out high white notes to the China seas while she basked in the glow of the lyrics. But just check out Miss Brown To You, What a Little Moonlight Can Do, and the classic Sunbonnet Blue and you will get an idea of what I am talking about. And maybe get your own blues chased away