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
Click On The Title To Link To A YouTube Film Clip Of Woody Guthrie Performing This Land Is Your Land.
CD REVIEW
Note of Hope: A Collaboration In Words And Music-Woody Guthrie and Rob Wasserman, 429 Records, 2011
Although this space is mainly dedicated to reviewing political books and commenting on past and current political issues literary output is hardly the only form of political creation. Occasionally in the history of the American and international left musicians, artists and playwrights have given voice or provided visual reminders to the face of political struggle. With that thought in mind, every once in a while I have used this space to review those kinds of political expression.
This review was originally used to describe several of Woody Guthrie’s recordings. This review takes an end around look at some previously unknown, if not hidden, work from the 1940 and 1950s that were not songs, but poems, reflections, and “speak-outs” that came to mind when Woody he had his lucid moments. And best of all, best of all for those, like me, who worry about the future of folk music as the generation of ’68 dwindles these works are recreated here and put to music (including producer Rob Wasserman’s fatalistic bass, yes, bass work) by some younger artists who will carry the torch forward.
My musical tastes were formed, as were many of those of the generation of 1968, by Rock & Roll music exemplified by The Rolling Stones and Beatles and by the blues revival, both Delta and Chicago style. However, those forms as much as they gave pleasure were only marginally political at best. In short, these were entertainers performing material that spoke to us. In the most general sense that is all one should expect of a performer. Thus, for the most part that music need not be reviewed here. Those who thought that a new musical sensibility laid the foundations for a cultural or political revolution have long ago been proven wrong.
That said, in the early 1960’s there nevertheless was another form of musical sensibility that was directly tied to radical political expression- the folk revival. This entailed a search for roots and relevancy in musical expression. While not all forms of folk music lent themselves to radical politics it is hard to see the 1960’s cultural rebellion without giving a nod to such figures as Dave Van Ronk, the early Bob Dylan, Utah Phillips, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and others. Whatever entertainment value these performers provided they also spoke to and prodded our political development. They did have a message and an agenda and we responded as such. That some of these musicians’ respective agendas proved inadequate and/or short-lived does not negate their affect on the times.
As I have noted elsewhere in a review of Dave Van Ronk’s work when I first heard folk music in my youth I felt unsure about whether I liked it or not. As least against my strong feelings about The Rolling Stones and my favorite blues artist such as Howlin' Wolf and Elmore James. Then on some late night radio folk show here in Boston I heard Dave Van Ronk singing Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies and that was it. From that time to the present folk music has been a staple of my musical tastes. From there I expanded my play list of folk artists with a political message.
Although I had probably heard Woody’s This Land is Your Land at some earlier point I actually learned about his music second hand from early Bob Dylan covers of his work. While his influence has had its ebbs and flows since that time each succeeding generation of folk singers still seems to be drawn to his simple, honest tunes about the outlaws, outcasts and the forgotten people that made this country, for good or evil, what it is today. Since Woody did not have a particularly good voice nor was he an exceptional guitar player the message delivered by his songs is his real legacy.
And now we have a second legacy for the ages from the hard-edged American populist. Stick outs here include Lou Reed (yes, that Lou Reed from the Velvet Underground) on The Debt I Owe, Voice by Ani DiFranco, I Heard A Man Talking by the late Studs Terkel and Jackson Browne on You Know The Night. All backed up exquisitely by Brother Wasserman. A tip of the hat to Woody and Rob.
This Land Is Your Land-Woody Guthrie
This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.
As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.
I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
Click on the title to link to YouTube's interview of the movie "I'm Not There" by Todd Haynes
DVD Review
I’m Not There, starring Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Leger and others, 2007
If you want Bob Dylan at the beginning, the middle (or middles) and as he moves toward the end of his career this film is for you-if you have decoder ring. After having been introduced to Bob Dylan’s music in the early folk revival days of the 1960s, having gone on with him through the folk rock days, moved away during his preacher Bob days and have come back to his music now that he is in his dotage (otherwise known as the endless tour) it is rather nice for someone to be thoughtful enough to do a little cinematic bio of the man who has been hailed as a cultural icon.
And after watching this film is that still true? A bio you say? Of who, you say? Well, I didn’t say that it was a standard cookie- cutter bio sketch of the many lives of a performer who has been doing it for over forty years, warts and all. No, this is more in the realm of high camp, low camp, surrealism, name games and just pure whimsy as director Todd Haynes (apparently with Dylan’s approval) has set up an allegory of the six main lives of Dylan. And it works. Let’s put it this way. If you want a standard bio there are many, many good film documentaries out there (especially from the British) that chronicle one aspect or another of the ups and downs of Dylan’s recording career. Here we have a puzzle to solve, Dylan from bright young talent to old time Western codger (played by Richard Gere).
Although I would not really suggest this thing for novices, every aficionado should be viewing this thing more than once. I might add that between covers of his music by the likes of Richie Havens (a fantastic version of “Tombstone Blues” done with one of Dylan’s personas) and a sound track filled with his own performances is worth the price of admission. Moreover, Cate Blanchett’s performance as Dylan in his turning folk electric period of the mid-1960s is better than… Dylan's. Go figure.
Tombstone Blues
The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course
The city fathers they're trying to endorse
The reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse
But the town has no need to be nervous
The ghost of Belle Starr she hands down her wits
To Jezebel the nun she violently knits
A bald wig for Jack the Ripper who sits
At the head of the chamber of commerce
Mama's in the fact'ry
She ain't got no shoes
Daddy's in the alley
He's lookin' for the fuse
I'm in the streets
With the tombstone blues
The hysterical bride in the penny arcade
Screaming she moans, "I've just been made"
Then sends out for the doctor who pulls down the shade
Says, "My advice is to not let the boys in"
Now the medicine man comes and he shuffles inside
He walks with a swagger and he says to the bride
"Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride
You will not die, it's not poison"
Mama's in the fact'ry
She ain't got no shoes
Daddy's in the alley
He's lookin' for the fuse
I'm in the streets
With the tombstone blues
Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, "Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?"
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saving, "The sun's not yellow it's chicken"
Mama's in the fact'ry
She ain't got no shoes
Daddy's in the alley
He's lookin' for the fuse
I'm in the streets
With the tombstone blues
The king of the Philistines his soldiers to save
Puts jawbones on their tombstones and flatters their graves
Puts the pied pipers in prison and fattens the slaves
Then sends them out to the jungle
Gypsy Davey with a blowtorch he burns out their camps
With his faithful slave Pedro behind him he tramps
With a fantastic collection of stamps
To win friends and influence his uncle
Mama's in the fact'ry
She ain't got no shoes
Daddy's in the alley
He's lookin' for the fuse
I'm in the streets
With the tombstone blues
The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone
Causes Galileo's math book to get thrown
At Delilah who sits worthlessly alone
But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter
Now I wish I could give Brother Bill his great thrill
I would set him in chains at the top of the hill
Then send out for some pillars and Cecil B. DeMille
He could die happily ever after
Mama's in the fact'ry
She ain't got no shoes
Daddy's in the alley
He's lookin' for the fuse
I'm in the streets
With the tombstone blues
Where Ma Raney and Beethoven once unwrapped their bed roll
Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole
And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul
To the old folks home and the college
Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge
Mama's in the fact'ry
She ain't got no shoes
Daddy's in the alley
He's lookin' for the fuse
I'm in the streets
With the tombstone blues
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Carolyn Hester performing "The Praties They Grow Small".
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 One; Woody Guthrie on “Hard Travelin’”, Big Bill Broonzy on “Black , Brown And White”, Jean Ritchie on “Nottamun Town”, Josh White on “One Meat Ball” Malvina Reynolds on “Little Boxes”, Cisco Houston on “Midnight Special”, The Weavers on “Wasn’t That A Time”, Glenn Yarborough on “Spanish Is A Loving Tongue”, Odetta on “I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain”, The New Lost City Ramblers on “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down”, Bob Gibson and Bob Camp on “Betty And Dupree”, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on “San Francisco Bay Blues”, Peggy Seeger on “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, Hoyt Axton on “Greenback Dollar” and Carolyn Hester on “Turn And Swing Jubilee”."
Carolyn Hester on “Turn And Swing Jubilee”. I will listen to anything by Carolyn Hester anywhere and at anytime and this is a fine effort. However in the year of celebrating the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth (1809) and thinking about his role in the struggle to end slavery, his assassination and Walt Whitman’s great poem in his honor “Oh Captain, My Captain” I really would have liked to hear her eerily beautiful singing of the words to that poem. Wow!
Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
O Captain! My Captain!
1
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart! 5
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
2
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck, 15
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
3
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
I am devoted to a local
folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near
Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in
Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or
just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the
horizon.
So much for radio folk
history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways
to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related
genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with
noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such
happening along the historical continuum.
To “solve” this problem
I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary
basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has
written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best
way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Hedy West performing "Cotton Mill Girl" on Pete Seeger's 1960s television show, "Rainbow Quest".
CD Review
Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001
Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:
Disc Two: Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”, The Chad Mitchell Trio on “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, Hedy West on “500 Miles”, Ian &Sylvia on “Four Strong Winds”, Tom Paxton on “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Peter, Paul And Mary on “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”, Jesse Colin Young on “Four In The Morning”, Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”, Judy Roderick on “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”, Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine” and Eric Von Schmidt on “ Joshua Gone Barbados”.
Hedy West on “500 Miles”. This is a pure classic of the modern American folk songbook and thus needs no further comment from me on that score. What is interesting though about Hedy West is that she, unlike most of the other folk performers who emerged in the early 1960s, is an authentic product of the rural mountain roots. That music was among the types of music that we were searching out as we tried to make sense of the American historical experience that we felt had gone haywire in those times. That said, Ms. West has an interesting comment in the profuse booklet that accompanies these CDs about the arrogant way she was treated by the 'guardians' of the folk faith down in the wilds of Greenwich Village. Apparently, at least one person was not impressed by the surface “holy quest” for roots of, basically, upper middle class white kids who latched onto this music and snubbed the real thing. Interesting. Kudos, Hedy.
"500 Miles"-Hedy West
If you miss the train Im on, you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles,
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.
Lord Im one, lord Im two, lord Im three, lord Im four,
Lord Im 500 miles from my home.
500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles
Lord Im five hundred miles from my home.
Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name
Lord I cant go a-home this a-way
This a-away, this a-way, this a-way, this a-way,
Lord I cant go a-home this a-way.
If you miss the train Im on you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.
Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part One-The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Malvina Reynolds
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 One; Woody Guthrie on “Hard Travelin’”, Big Bill Broonzy on “Black , Brown And White”, Jean Ritchie on “Nottamun Town”, Josh White on “One Meat Ball” Malvina Reynolds on “Little Boxes”, Cisco Houston on “Midnight Special”, The Weavers on “Wasn’t That A Time”, Glenn Yarborough on “Spanish Is A Loving Tongue”, Odetta on “I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain”, The New Lost City Ramblers on “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down”, Bob Gibson and Bob Camp on “Betty And Dupree”, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on “San Francisco Bay Blues”, Peggy Seeger on “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, Hoyt Axton on “Greenback Dollar” and Carolyn Hester on “Turn And Swing Jubilee”." Malvina Reynolds on “Little Boxes”. Like everyone else from the “Generation of ‘68” who paid attention to folk music on their way to greater social and political consciousness I know this song from Pete Seeger’s rendition. I only knew the name Malvina Reynolds much later. I only ‘knew’ the musical work of Ms. Reynold much later through the efforts of Rosalie Sorrels who did a whole CD compilation of Malvina's work (reviewed in this space). The lyrics to “Little Boxes”, by the way, are a very concise and condensed expression of the way many of us were feeling about the future bourgeois society had set up for us back in the early 1960s. As the song details-it was not pretty. I submit that it still is not pretty. Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems
Little Boxes Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990. Malvina and her husband were on their way from where they lived in Berkeley, through San Francisco and down the peninsula to La Honda where she was to sing at a meeting of the Friends’ Committee on Legislation (not the PTA, as Pete Seeger says in the documentary about Malvina, “Love It Like a Fool”). As she drove through Daly City, she said “Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on.” Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1 Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same. There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one, And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same. And the people in the houses All went to the university, Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same, And there's doctors and lawyers, And business executives, And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same. And they all play on the golf course And drink their martinis dry, And they all have pretty children And the children go to school, And the children go to summer camp And then to the university, Where they are put in boxes And they come out all the same. And the boys go into business And marry and raise a family In boxes made of ticky tacky And they all look just the same. There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one, And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Mountain Music Performer Roscoe Holcomb Doing "John Henry". You want the roots. You want what influenced Dylan. Hell, you might as well start here.
DVD Review
Down The Tracks: The Music That Influenced Bob Dylan, White Eagle Productions, 2008
Okay, okay I have gone on and one over the past year or so about the influence of Bob Dylan’s music (and lyrics) on me, and on my generation, the Generation of ’68. But, please, don’t blame me. Blame Bob. After all he could very easily have gone into retirement and enjoyed the fallout from his youthful fame and impressed one and all at his local AARP chapter. But, no, he had to go out on the road continuously, seemingly forever, keeping his name and music front and center. Moreover, the son of a gun has done more reinventions of himself than one could shake a stick at (folk troubadour, symbolic poet in the manner of Rimbaud and Verlaine, heavy metal rocker, blues man, etc.) So, WE are left with forty or so years of work to go through to try to sort it out. In short, can I (or anyone else) help it if he is restless and acts, well, like a rolling stone?
All of this is by way of introduction to a recent (2008) very worthwhile addition to the immense commentary on Bob Dylan’s work, “Down The Tracks: The Music That Influenced Bob Dylan”. Those influences form the stated central premise of this little documentary, filled with many, many knowledgeable “talking heads” that have, apparently, gotten far more hooked on the "meaning” of Dylan than is healthy. That is, however, a separate question for another day.
Here the commentators are full of information about the recording artists, poets, politicos, and other cultural figures that one way or another influenced Bob Dylan’s work at various periods (mainly the youthful parts) of his life. I, nevertheless, have a sneaking suspension that Brother Dylan is merely a foil for a larger project under the following rubric- Bob Dylan as the vital link, the transmission belt, in the chain of the folk tradition going back over the past century or more up to the present.
In aid of that premise the producers of this documentary have brought in seemingly every big and little contributor to what is known as the “American Songbook”, excluding, incorrectly I believe, Tin Pan Alley. Those who have followed the reviews in this space will not be surprised by the names of the performers who influenced Dylan. They form a virtual who’s who of those who influenced the Generation of ’68 as we tried to sort out what was genuine in the American musical tradition and what was merely pabulum. Thus, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger and Josh White are given ample time, especially the folk troubadour Woody Guthrie, a personal idol of Dylan’s on his way up.
Additionally, the pantheon of country blues artists ‘rediscovered’ during the folk revival of the early 1960’s are well represented by Mississippi John Hurt (his material, along with other country blues artists like Skip James, has been covered by Dylan in his early and late periods). A decent amount of space is given to the influence of the "beats" from the 1950's (his growing up period) not so much for the music as for the sensibility. Not so well known, are the country and western influences which, if one thought about it, seem natural for a ‘country boy’ like Dylan growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota. Number one here, and not by accident, is Hank Williams a similarly, at times, dark lyricist. Less apparent is mention of the influence of The Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers from the white rural and mountain country scene.
Finally, the producers here have not only gotten some very knowledgeable commentators to give their take on Dylan (I especially note Tom Paley from the original New Lost City Ramblers, a fountain of information about the New York folk scene as it developed prior to Dylan's splashy entrance) but have buttressed their case for Dylan’s role as the transmission belt for the traditional folk culture by having younger performers play not his music but the music that influenced him (a standout here is a male-female guitar-banjo couple playing the old classic “Banks Of The Ohio”). Nice touch.
Song to Woody Lyrics
I'm out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin' a road other men have gone down
I'm seein' your world of people and things
Hear paupers and peasants and princes and kings.
Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
'Bout a funny old world that's a-comin' along
Seems sick and it's hungry, it's tired and it's torn
It looks like it's a-dyin' and it's hardly been born.
Hey, Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know
All the things I'm a-sayin', and many times more
I'm a-singin' every song, but I can't sing enough
Cause there's not many men done the things that you done.
Here's to Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly, too
And to all the good people that traveled with you
Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind
I'm a-leavin' tomorrow, but I could leave today
Somewhere down the road someday
The very last thing that I'd want to do
Is to say I'd been hittin' some hard travelin' too.
Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon
By Seth Garth
I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.
So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Hedy West performing "Cotton Mill Girl" on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest". That show and this performer are prime examples of the 1960s folk revival down at the base of that revival.
CD Review
Folk Song America: A 20th Century Revival, 4 CD set with booklet, Smithsonian Collection Of Recordings, 1991
In various parts of America this year (2009) marks the 50th anniversary of the formation of many of the folk song societies that, organizationally, drove the folk revival of the early 1960s. That, I know is true for New England, although the genesis of such groups in other sections of the country I am not as sure of. The CD under review, Folk Song America: A 20th Century Revival, was produced and released by the Smithsonian Collection Of Recordings in 1991 and therefore is not directly related to any anniversary celebrations. It nevertheless, in spirit, represents that same long ago taken on ambition by the various local folk song societies to chronicle the history of roots music in America. Forty plus years on we just have a wider selection of items to pick and choice from.
And that is the rub. This 4 CD set has attempted to do two things, and I think has done so successfully. First it has highlighted the starting of roots music with such early influences as The Fisk Jubilee Singers, Buell Kazee, John Jacob Niles, Leady Belly, The Almanac Singers (that included Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger among others), John and Alan Lomax and others who were uncovered in some very strange and interesting ways. Then the set moves on to the interim post World War II figures of Pete Seeger, The Weavers, The New Lost City Ramblers and the like. Those two influences then got assimilated and extended by the early 1960s folk revivalists whose work makes up the bulk of the material here. Such names as Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band and many others who I have reviewed in this space over the past couple of years and who now get a new life here as “the old fogies” that will influence the next generation of folk revivalists.. To finish off this series there are several later post folk revival tracks from the likes of Taj Mahal, Sweet Honey in the Rock and Magpie.
The second task of the series is to act as the magnet for any future interest in folk music. To aid that task, as is to be expected from the Smithsonian as a premium historical music collection provider, there is an incredibly informative booklet available by Norm Cohen. Hey, I know a lot about and lived through most of the 1960s folk revival and I still learned a lot of stuff from this booklet. But here is the really nice part. In the future there will be no need of some young musicologist like Alan Lomax, Harry Smith or Pete Seeger to go into the field to recover our common roots music. This is now your first stop. That will leave more time for singing and creating new songs. Nice, right?
Below is sampler of the lyrics to some folk songs in this set.
"Blowin’ in The Wind"
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, n how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, n how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before theyre forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, n how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, n how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before its washed to the sea?
Yes, n how many years can some people exist
Before theyre allowed to be free?
Yes, n how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesnt see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.
Misc, Big Rock Candy Mountain Tabs/Chords
Looking for Misc Lyrics? Browse alphabet (above).
Artist: Misc
Song: Big Rock Candy Mountain Misc Sheet Music
Misc CDs
Send “Big Rock Candy Mountain” Ringtone to Cell Phone
Peter Lurvey had requested this song. I don't know if it's the same one,
because this is an old one that my sister, Val Heiserman, transcribed MANY
years ago. I don't know who the original artist was, and since I haven't
seen the movie that it's in now, I don't know who's doing it now. Anyway,
here goes.
"Big Rock Candy Mountain"-Harry McClintock
C F C
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, there's a land that's bright and fair,
F C Am G7
For the doughnuts grow on bushes, and there's lots of cookies there,
C F C
For the dogs and cats are happy, and the sun shines every day,
F C F C
There are birds and bees, and the bubble-gum trees,
F C F C
by the lemonade springs, where the whippoorwill sings
G7 C
in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the houses are built of blocks
And the little streams of sody pop come trickling down the rocks,
The soldiers there are made of lead, and they are very brave,
There's a lake of stew, and ice cream too
You can paddle all around in a paper canoe,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the frogs have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth,
and the hens lay hard boiled eggs
There's chocolate pie in all the trees, and jam in all the lakes,
Oh, I'm going to go where the wind don't blow,
there's a big free show, and candy snow,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
RAMBLIN' BOY
Tom Paxton
He was a man and a friend always.
He stuck with me in the bad old days.
He never cared if I had no dough,
We rambled round in the rain and snow.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
In Tulsa town we chanced to stray,
We thought we'd try to work one day.
The boss said he had room for one,
Said my old pal we'd rather bum.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
Late one night in a jungle camp,
The weather it was cold and damp.
He got the chills and he got 'em bad.
Try took the only friend I had.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
He left here to ramble on,
My rambling pal is dead and gone.
If when we die we go somewhere,
I bet you a dollar that he's rambling there.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
So here's to you my Rambling Boy,
May all your rambling bring you joy.
Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon
By Seth Garth
I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.
So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Ramblin' Jack Elliott Performing A Cover Of Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues".
DV Review
The Ballad Of Ramblin’ Jack, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and various musicians, directed by his daughter Ailaya Elliott, Crawford Productions, 2000
Recently, in a DVD review of the film documentary about 1960’s folk legend Bob Dylan’s mid-career crisis, “Bob Dylan: After the Crash: 1966-78”, I noted, in passing, that folk guitarist Tom Paley (who was prominently featured in that film) and his group, The New Lost City Ramblers, were already waiting at the gates of Greenwich Village when the hordes of young folk revivalists started to arrive. The folk artist under review, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, in this very personal film documentary directed by his daughter, Ailaya Elliott, was also waiting there for them. Or, as the film makes clear, he was at least rumored to be waiting for them. This almost two hour bittersweet valentine to the now grand old man of the folk music revival (in 2000) is the story of why he was waiting for them, and more importantly, why they were searching for him as an agent of “authentic” American roots music.
As has also been mentioned, seemingly endlessly, in this space in many reviews over the past year or so about the male division of the folk revival of the 1960’s I have tried to explore, why or why not, certain talented folk singers never reached the status of Bob Dylan, the acknowledged “king of the hill” of that revival. From the first paragraph we already know that Ramblin’ Jack was already on the scene. Moreover, he had the pedigree that all aspiring folkies craved, including Dylan- physical links to the legendary Woody Guthrie the herald of the previous generation of the folk troubadours from the dust bowl 1930’s. Moreover Jack was a quick study, really wanted to expand the folk universe and, as this film also makes abundantly clear, he just plain liked the life style of the itinerant wanderer. So what gives?
Well, Jack just liked to keep wandering, and wandering in motion and speech and not getting attached, at least for long, to any one place person or thing. That, my friends, is the codified social genetic structure that some people live with as they try to reinvent themselves. In Jack’s case from a nice Jewish city boy (the Brooklyn of the title of this review) to an old cowboy. This is hardly the first time that someone has turned their persona around in the whirlwind of the homeland of personal reinvention, America. However, it took something out of him, as he himself reflects on his life as he travels the roads back to the past (in an RV) with his ambivalent director daughter in tow.
But here is my take on why he was left seemingly behind in the mad whirl of the folk revival and its aftermath. He didn’t move, like Dylan, either with the times or with his own drummer. He started out as a Woody acolyte, as did Dylan, but he wanted to preserve the purity of the Woody canon, intact. As a transmission belt from Woody to Dylan Ramblin’ Jack performed a yeoman’s service. But where is Jack’s equivalent of not just “Song to Woody” but “Desolation Row”, “Tangled Up In Blue”, “Visions of Johanna”, and so on. That said, this film is filled with various close-ups of Ramblin’ Jack doing his unique covers of many songs, the usual rare film footage of the early days of the folk revival, of Jack Elliott and his family life and the usual “talking head” commentary from friends, lovers and folk colleagues that round out these kinds of efforts. This is a daughter’s film, this is a folkie’s film and this is a welcome addition to the growing body of visual tributes to American roots music and its practitioners. Kudos, Ailaya.
Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon
By Seth Garth
I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.
So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.
I am devoted to a local
folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near
Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in
Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or
just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the
horizon.
So much for radio folk
history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways
to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related
genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with
noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such
happening along the historical continuum.
To “solve” this problem
I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary
basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has
written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best
way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Bob Dylan Performing "Like A Rolling Stone".
DVD REVIEW
No Direction: The Legacy Of Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and many other commentators, directed by Martin Scorsese, PBS Productions, 2005
Over the past several months or so I have spent some time going over the musical influences back in the early 1960’s that had an effect on my political development as I was growing up, or that just caught my ear. Not surprisingly many of those same musical influences still resonate today. Of those early 1960’s influences none probably was greater than that of Bob Dylan, no only because he had a different sound but because his super-charged protest-oriented lyrics ‘spoke’ to me. That Dylan could only go a very short distance along that political protest route that others, including myself, had to travel does not negate the important of that influence.
As this very well-done almost four hour in-depth Martin Scorsese documentary makes abundantly clear I was not alone in feeling that influence. Others also felt that Dylan ‘spoke’ to them, if not as the voice of the “Generation of ‘68” then for a moment. I have previously reviewed a number of Bob Dylan’s early albums (“The Free-Wheelin’ Bob Dylan”, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, “Bringing It All Back Home”, etc.) in this space as I believe that those albums reflect both the prime period of his musical influence and, when future generations begin to ask their versions of the social questions posed by the 1960’s, will be the music they will be pressing to learn 100 years from now.
This documentary is also formatted to reflect fully on that above-mentioned shared underlying understanding of Dylan’s career and place in the folk/rock pantheon. The structure of the film also reflects the now standard method of doing a film documentary. Plenty of clips of Dylan’s childhood, youth, the early days in the burgeoning folk scene in Greenwich Village in the early 1960’s and plenty of clips of early performances up until that decisive period in 1965 when Dylan decided to move in another direction combining his still thoughtful but by then more personal lyrics with an electric guitar (and band to back that sound up). That changeover gets full attention by having clips of the breakthrough Royal Hall concert interspersed through the film. The film thus has its central focus on this switch-over that is a part of what made Dylan so controversial and upsetting to traditional folkies back in the day.
Additionally, this film also has something that is not always the case with biographic documentaries; the subject himself holding forth on the meaning of it all. Most times that would not necessarily be a revelation as such efforts are usually unproductive. Here, however, the notoriously private and generally unresponsive (to interview questions, at least) Dylan contributes his take on what is bound to be used as a primary source for “the first draft” of his effect on popular music in the late 20th century. Although Dylan generally responded to the interviewers questions here I would argue that for whatever purposes he told no more than we already knew or what he wanted told. Not unusual in the famous but a little maddening here for those, like this reviewer, who happen to be serious looking at the question of “the meaning of the 1960’s. But, so be it.
Fortunately another feature of theses types of documentaries helped out on that question. The film is heavily seeded with comments, performances and anecdotes by many of the performers still standing and other interested parties of the early 1960’s who personally knew Dylan or had something of interest to say about the times. The list of “talking heads” (to the good here, I usually use this phrase with a little tongue-in cheek”) brought into this production formed a veritable who’s who of those in or around that folk scene at the time.
Most informative of this crowd, not surprisingly, were the late folk historian, Dave Van Ronk, and the, as of this writing, very much alive Pete Seeger who not only performed music but made it their business to know and keep the folk tradition alive. Van Ronk was especially informative about the competitiveness of the early folkies mainly the male ones, as Joan Baez was conceded on the female side to be the “queen of the hill”, to see who would become “king of folk”. He also had interesting comments about the commercialization of folk music and the dreaded “selling out to mainstream culture”. By Van Ronk's account backed up by other sources I have run across as well, Dylan was intensely interested in that battle. Seeger was strongest on the transition, of which he was a seminal figure, of the folk tradition from the older 1930’s Great Depression ‘lefties’ like Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Cisco Houston and Lead Belly to the new kids on the block.
Others of note along the way include the afore-mentioned Joan Baez, at one time also Dylan’s girlfriend, with some very insightful comments giving us the “skinny’ of what it was like actually living with such a whirlwind and about the strains on their relationship (and her psyche) of her direction toward more political involvement, and his away from such activity. Liam Clancy (of Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers) and Maria Muldaur (most noted then for her key role as singer in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band) add some spice to the conversation. There are many others who have something to say about particular events but of that crowd I would select John Cohen (of “The New Lost City Ramblers”) as most informative about the history of what was going in those times and the schism between the ‘purists’ and those who wanted to ‘sell out’ for filthy lucre. Again, Cohen is not a surprising choice, as “Lost City” spent much time on tracing the folk traditions (and it included Mike Seeger, Pete’s half- brother so you know they were interested in history).
Others have, endlessly, gone on about Bob Dylan’s role as the voice of his generation (and mine), his lyrics and what they do or do not mean and his place in the rock or folk pantheons, or both. After viewing this documentary it still seems hard to believe now both as to the performer as well as to what was being attempted that anyone would take umbrage at a performer using an electric guitar to tell a folk story (or any story for that matter). The well-known English Royal Hall performance or that equally well-known three song folk/rock set at Newport in 1965 hardly seem worth getting steamed up about now. It is not necessary to go into all the details of what or what did not happen with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 (although this incident gets a full airing by all parties) to know that one should be glad, glad as hell, that Bob Dylan continued to listen to his own drummer and carry on a career based on electronic music.
Note: Although I do not usually spend much time looking through special features sections of DVDs here there are several extras well worth looking at. They include some early performances by Dylan both highlighted in the documentary and others that did not make the cut. Additionally, a number of the “talking heads’ that are heard in the documentary , including Liam Clancy and Maria Muldaur, do renditions of some Dylan’s songs.
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Words and Music by Bob Dylan 1964 Warner Bros. Inc Renewed 1992 Special Rider Music
Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An' the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an' cheated by pursuit
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An' the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An' for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look
Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
MASTERS OF WAR
Words and Music by Bob Dylan 1963 Warner Bros. Inc Renewed 1991 Special Rider Music
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon
By Seth Garth
I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.
So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.
