The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- Bob Dylan Is Here- Somewhere - A Film Review Of "I'm Not There"

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

Copyright ©1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *For The Folkies From Muskogee And Elsewhere- The Bob Feldman Music Blog On "My Space"- In Honor Of Woody Guthrie's 98th Birthday

Click on the headline to link to the Bob Feldman Music Blog( for lack of a better name) entry above on My Space.

Markin comment:

This is great stuff for any music aficionado, especially of folk, social protest, and roots music. I am going to be "stealing" entries off of this site periodically but you should be checking it out yourselves. Kudos, Bob Feldman.

Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-From The Archives "Bob Feldman '68" Blog- On Bob Dylan- "Poet Of PBS" -Ouch!

2 Comments:
b.f. said...

Too bad Dylan will apparently be performing at a concert in Tel Aviv in June 2011--despite the call by Palestinian solidarity activists around the globe and the BDS movement for an anti-apartheid cultural boycott by musicians of Apartheid Israel. Perhaps some of the lyrics to "The Poet of PBS" folk song of a few years ago might explain why Dylan--unlike John Lennon--became more mainstream in his politics during the late 1960s and early 1970s (and later wrote his "Neighborhood Bully" song that seemed to support Israeli government militarism in the Middle East):

The Poet of PBS

Was just in it for himself
He took tunes from the Folk
Made money and then sold out.

His manager's got some footage for a commercial promo film
To justify him selling out and his silence while his government killed
So they hired a director and controlled how he did the edits
And the Corporate Rock house artist is now The Poet of PBS.

He moved to his cousin's frat house near a campus in the Midwest
Then impersonated Woody Guthrie and added hip black lyrics
He hung out in the Village and Broadsides taught him to write protest
And the Times man composed the album notes for The Poet of PBS.

With his corporate media backing and his crafty manager
He turned his back on the Folk community to become a millionaire
Then he hid in his country mansion, while Vietnam was wrecked
And cash or drugs destroyed the soul of The Poet of PBS.

Forty years of artistic failure followed his creative moral youth
Forty years of defensiveness, forty years of obscuring truth
And when his tour has ended and they write his epitaph
They'll say: "The rebel poet became The Poet of PBS".

8:55 AM


Markin said...

Bob- Good point (and nice jabbing lyrics) on Dylan's politics which were always ugly after the first early 1960s rush. I would point out that John Lennon's, after he got into immigration trouble, also took a dive right, or rather ducked his head. I like Trotsky's position on these cultural types (Breton, Rivera, Kahlo, Malraux, etc.in his day)-let them do their cultural thing to add to humankind's storehouse of knowledge- and basically keep out of our way.

Happy Birthday Eric Andersen -Folk Music For Aging Children- The Music Of Judy Collins And Friends- The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-1967-Folk Music For Aging Children- The Music Of Judy Collins And Friends

Happy Birthday Eric Andersen -Folk Music For Aging Children- The Music Of Judy Collins And Friends

CD Review

Wildflower Festival, Judy Collins, Eric Andersen, Tom Rush, Arlo Guthrie, Wildflower Records, 2003


Okay, just when you thought there could not possibly be any more country folk, urban folk, suburban folk, folk rock, rock folk, semi-folk, or quasi-folk music from the folk revival of the early 1960 to review here I am again reviewing some of the stars of that time-in their dotage. Well, maybe not dotage, but we are all, including Judy Collins, Eric Andersen, Tom Rush, and Arlo Guthrie, getting a little long in the tooth, and no one can dispute that hard fact. The real question is whether the artists in this compilation still have it, at least for those of us in that dwindling, graying, arthritic, prescription-needing folk audience that fills the small church basement “coffee houses” on this planet. And they do. Still have it, I mean.

That said, this little Wildflower Festival setting in 2003 provided Judy and her guests with a chance to show their stuff, new and old. Now, for those who have heard Judy Collins sing back in the day the question is why she did not challenge Joan Baez for the “queen” of folk title. She had the voice, the style, and the looks (ya, that WAS important, even then) to do so. I have been running a “Not Joan Baez” series and will deal with that question there at some other time but her work here is pretty good, especially her well-known cover of Ian Tyson’s “Someday Soon”. Eric Andersen, who I have already looked at in a “Not Bob Dylan” series hold forth on his “Blue River”. Tom Rush, ditto, on “The Remember Song”. Finally, Arlo, whom I have covered in relation to his father’s, Woody Guthrie, music “steals” the show here with his storytelling, notably the kids’ story, “Mooses Came Walking”.

Someday Soon
Ian Tyson

There's a young man that I know whose age is twenty-one
Comes from down in southern Colorado
Just out of the service, he's lookin' for his fun
Someday soon, goin' with him someday soon

My parents can not stand him 'cause he rides the rodeo
My father says that he will leave me cryin'
I would follow him right down the roughest road I know
Someday soon, goin' with him someday soon

But when he comes to call, my pa ain't got a good word to say
Guess it's 'cause he's just as wild in his younger days

So blow, you old Blue Northern, blow my love to me
He's ridin' in tonight from California
He loves his damned old rodeo as much as he loves me
Someday soon, goin' with him someday soon

When he comes to call, my pa ain't got a word to say
Guess it's 'cause he's just as wild in his younger days

So blow, you old blue northern, blow my love to me
He's ridin' in tonight from California
He loves his damned old rodeo as much as he loves me
Someday soon, goin' with him someday soon
Someday soon, goin' with him
© 1991

Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Three- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Richard &Mimi Farina

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Richard and Mimi Farina performing on Pete Seegers' "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 Three: Phil Ochs on “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”, Richard &Mimi Farina on “Pack Up Your Sorrows”, John Hammond on “Drop Down Mama”, Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band on “Rag Mama”, John Denver on “Bells Of Rhymney”, Gordon Lightfoot on "Early Morning Rain”, Eric Andersen on “Thirsty Boots”, Tim Hardin on “Reason To Believe”, Richie Havens on “Just Like A Woman”, Judy Collins on “Suzanne”, Tim Buckley on “Once I Was”, Tom Rush on “The Circle Game”, Taj Mahal on “Candy Man”, Loudon Wainwright III on “School Days”and Arlo Guthrie on “The Motorcycle Song”


Richard &Mimi Farina on “Pack Up Your Sorrows”. Okay, if you have gotten tired (as I sometimes have in all truth) of my going on and on about “the king”, Bob Dylan, and “the queen”, Joan Baez of the old folk revival of the 1960s then try this pair on for an alternative. Joan’s late sister, Mimi, and Bob’s greatest writing competitor before his early motorcycle death in 1966. Mimi’s mountain harp and their nice harmonies on work that he wrote still sound good. This one, by the way, is definitely in the modern American folk songbook. That, my friends, says it all. Richard’s “Birmingham Sunday” is a classic of topical political songwriting. Powerful stuff.

"Birmingham Sunday"

Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun,
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one.
At an old Baptist church there was no need to run.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,

The clouds they were grey and the autumn winds blew,
And Denise McNair brought the number to two.
The falcon of death was a creature they knew,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The church it was crowded, but no one could see
That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three.
Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four.
She asked for a blessing but asked for no more,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground.
And people all over the earth turned around.
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

The men in the forest they once asked of me,
How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea.
And I asked them right with a tear in my eye.
How many dark ships in the forest?
The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone.
And I can't do much more than to sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
And the choirs keep singing of Freedom.

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 7^th 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.         

For Bob Dylan Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Three- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Phil Ochs

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Phil Ochs performing the classic anti-war song "I Ain't Marching Anymore".

CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001

Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc Three: Phil Ochs on “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”, Richard &Mimi Farina on “Pack Up Your Sorrows”, John Hammond on “Drop Down Mama”, Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band on “Rag Mama”, John Denver on “Bells Of Rhymney”, Gordon Lightfoot on "Early Morning Rain”, Eric Andersen on “Thirsty Boots”, Tim Hardin on “Reason To Believe”, Richie Havens on “Just Like A Woman”, Judy Collins on “Suzanne”, Tim Buckley on “Once I Was”, Tom Rush on “The Circle Game”, Taj Mahal on “Candy Man”, Loudon Wainwright III on “School Days”and Arlo Guthrie on “The Motorcycle Song”


Phil Ochs on “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”. Phil Ochs wrote the very politic songs that Bob Dylan either ceded to him or that he did not want to write as he went his own way in the musical world. Phil got the notion that some things desperately needed fixing (and still do) and he was the guy to write about them. Except a bad, a very bad thing happened to Brother Ochs. His generation, our generation of ’68, got cold feet when the deal went down and abandoned the struggle to “seek a newer world”. For a political songwriter that is the kiss of death and no more needs to be said. Someday, Brother, we will not be marching anymore. But until then we have to fight the bastards.

I Ain't Marching Anymore
By Phil Ochs

D G C D
Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
G C D
At the end of the early British war
G C
The young land started growing
G
The young blood started flowing
C Am D
But I ain't marchin' anymore

For I've killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying
I saw many more dying
But I ain't marchin' anymore

C G
It's always the old to lead us to the war
C Am D
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all

For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brother
And so many others
And I ain't marchin' anymore

For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore

(chorus)

For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning
I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore

Now the labor leader's screamin' when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it "Peace" or call it "Treason,"
Call it "Love" or call it "Reason,"
But I ain't marchin' any more.


There seems to be a variety of opinions about the chords for this song. Since I am not able to judge which is right, I will simply present all of them.

The first set of chords were provided by Dave Miller:

D G C D
Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
G C D
At the end of the early British war
G C
The young land started growing
G
The young blood started flowing
C Am D
But I ain't marchin' anymore

C G
It's always the old to lead us to the war
C Am D
It's always the young to fall


Jeffrey Shallit tells me that these are the correct chords:
D G C C/B D/A
Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
G C C/B D/A
At the end of the early British war
G C
The young land started growing
F Em
The young blood started flowing
Am C D
But I ain't marchin' anymore

Am G
It's always the old to lead us to the war
C Em A
It's always the young to fall
C Em
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
Am C D
Tell me is it worth it all

Simultaneously, I got a message from James Barnett giving these chords:
G C D
Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
G C D
At the end of the early British war
G C Am
A young land started growing
F Em
The young blood started flowing
Am D
But I ain't marchin' anymore

C G
It's always the old to lead us to the war
C Em A
always the young to fall
C Bm Em
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
C Am D
Tell me was it worth it all


NOTE:

Most of the historical events referenced in this song are probably pretty obvious, with the possible exception of ``United Fruit.'' Further information can be found in the notes to the song United Fruit.

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 7^th 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.         

*The Not Joan Baezs- The Music Of Ronee Blakley

The Not Joan Baezs- The Music  Of  Ronee Blakley

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Ronee Blakley performing "Need A New Sun Rising".


CD Review

Welcome, Ronee Blakley, Collector’s Choice, 1975


A couple of years ago I spend a little time, worthwhile time I think, running through the male folk singers and songwriters of the folk revival of the 1960s. The premise, at the time, was to compare the fates of those singers to the man who has stood up as the icon of the era, Bob Dylan. I went through a litany of such male artists as Jesse Winchester, Jesse Colin Young, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and the like and found no particular common denominator other than they were still performing (those who were still alive) at some level acceptable to them, if not at Dylan’s level and status.

As another aspect of that premise I looked at some (fewer) women folk singers and songwriters in comparison to the acknowledged “queen” of that folk revival, Joan Baez. Alas, other more political work interfered with a more extensive look at the “not Joan Baezs”. I will begin to make partial amends here, with the artist under review, Ronee Blakley. Oh, you are not familiar with the name? That is probably fair enough unless you might have gotten around to the local folk club circuit in the 1970s, or seen her as Barbara Jean- a Loretta Lynn prototype in Robert Altman’s classic, edgy homage to country music, “Nashville”. Or perhaps, some other movies like “Nightmare On Elm Street”.

You, in any case, probably do not know her from her two great albums produced in the early 1970s and composed of, mainly, her own songs. That is a shame because between her majestic voice and her fiery, sometimes acid-etched, lyrics, including taking on some very topical subjects like the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by the Chicago police and touting all the varieties of female independence and assertiveness she did some very good work. And then “puff”. No more music, at least recorded music. I have not been able to find out exactly why but she certainly takes her place in that group that I, sadly in this case, call one-note “janies”.

So what is good here: certainly the acid-etched “American Beauty”; her ode to female independence “Young Man”; the old-timey homage to home and family “Idaho Home” that I often find myself singing out of the blue; and, another grasp at autobiography “She Lays It On The Line”. Nice stuff.

*Ya, Let’s Hang Around Mama And Put A Good Buzz On- The Music Of Jonathan Edwards

*Ya, Let’s Hang Around Mama And Put A Good Buzz On- The Music Of Jonathan Edwards

CD Review

Jonathan Edwards, Atlantic Records, 1971


Over the past several years I have spent some time working around the idea of why certain folk revival performers of the early 1960s, or later folk rock artists either never made it big and stayed big (relatively) as with the obvious case of the staying power of Bob Dylan, or were more one-hit wonders who faded from the scene quickly, if not quietly. I have mentioned names like Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and Jesse Winchester who made their names in that era. Singer/songwriters of immense talent yet except among the ever dwindling core of aficionados have faded from any spotlight. With the artist under review, Jonathan Edwards, who came a little later and can be more rightly classified under the folk rock genre, I find myself asking the same question.

Now in this case I am not asking merely an academic question. I recently attended a performance of the very much alive Mr. Edwards at a local folk club in Cambridge, Ma. and came away from the very up tempo performance of his, mainly, older work scratching my head. The man and his band (including a couple of his old band members on this CD, Bill Elliot and Stuart Schulman) have, if anything, more energy that in the old days and certainly more stage presence. The versions of the tunes played were perhaps more clearly done in bluegrass/country tempo which always helps. But that does not solve the question. Of course sometimes one's personal life, for good or evil, sets you on a different path. Or one gets tired of the road. Or one runs out of musical energy and thoughts but I am still, nevertheless, scratching my head on this one.

That said, in his prime Jonathan Edwards had a number of minor classics of the folk rock genre, all of which he played at that local club. The highlight, as to be expected, is the song, some of whose lyrics form part of the headline of this entry, “Shanty”. Others include a tribute song going back to his roots in Ohio, “Athens County”, “Everybody Knows Her”, “Don’t Cry Blue”, “Sunshine”, and one of my favorites, “Emma”. Not bad for a “minor” light in the folk firmament.

JONATHAN EDWARDS EMMA LYRICS

The first time I saw Emma
She was above me in a dream
And she throwed her arms around me
And off we flew, it seemed
Like an airplane
Moving up and down
Through the country town
Passing oe'r the cities so slow
Slowly...

But Emma comes to see me
About 8 o'clock each night
And she throws her arms around me
And off we go in flight
Like an airplane
Moving up and down
Through the country town
Passing over the cites so slow
Slowly...

But Emma's late
Emma's late
Oooh and I
I can't wait
My dinners served by half past eight and
I can't wait
Can't wait 'til 9

The last time I saw my Emma
She made me love her 'til I died
And we walked through clouds together
Searching open skies
fFr airplane
Moving up and down though the country town
Passing over the cites so slow
Slowly

But Emma's late, Emma's late, Emma's late
and I
I can't wait
My dinner's served by half past 8 and
I can't wait
I can't wait 'til 9 oooh no no noooo

*The Not Joan Baezs- The Work Of Ronee Blakley

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Ronee Blakley perfroming "Attachment".

CD Review

Ronee Blakley, Ronee Blakley, Collector’s Choice, 1972

A couple of years ago I spend a little time, worthwhile time I think, running through the male folk singers and songwriters of the folk revival of the 1960s. The premise, at the time, was to compare the fates of those singers to the man who has stood up as the icon of the era, Bob Dylan. I went through a litany of such male artists as Jesse Winchester, Jesse Colin Young, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and the like and found no particular common denominator other than they were still performing (those who were still alive) at some level acceptable to them, if not at Dylan’s level and status.

As another aspect of that premise I looked at some (fewer) women folk singers and songwriters in comparison to the acknowledged “queen” of that folk revival, Joan Baez. Alas, other more political work interfered with a more extensive look at the “not Joan Baezs”. I will begin to make partial amends here, with the artist under review, Ronee Blakley. Oh, you are not familiar with the name? That is probably fair enough unless you might have gotten around to the local folk club circuit in the 1970s, or seen her as Barbara Jean- a Loretta Lynn prototype in Robert Altman’s classic, edgy homage to country music, “Nashville”. Or perhaps, some other movies like “Nightmare On Elm Street”.

You, in any case, probably do not know her from her two great albums produced in the early 1970s and composed of, mainly, her own songs. That is a shame because between her majestic voice and her fiery, sometimes acid-etched, lyrics, including taking on some very topical subjects like the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by the Chicago police and touting all the varieties of female independence and assertiveness she did some very good work. And then “puff”. No more music, at least recorded music. I have not been able to find out exactly why but she certainly takes her place in that group that I, sadly in this case, call one-note “janies”.

So what is good here: “Dues”, of course, from “Nashville” that got me tuned into her works, although the soundtrack version from that movie might be better; the above-mentioned righteously bitter “Fred Hampton”; the pathos of “I Lied”, and, the spunky “Bluebird” also from “Nashville” which I think kind of spoke for her life at that time.

From The Citizen K Blog

Monday, June 8, 2009
Ronee Blakely: Dues
SONG Dues

WRITTEN BY Ronee Blakely

PERFORMED BY Ronee Blakely

APPEARS ON Ronee Blakely (1972); Nashville: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1975)

When Ronee Blakely's character Barbara Jean sings "Dues," she provides the emotional epicenter of Robert Altman's film Nashville. Barbara Jean's heart-wrenching account of her tortured marriage connects with her fans at the same time that her preoccupied, insensitive husband remains oblivious. Hence the marvelous lines
It's the way that you don't love me
When you say that you do, baby
Better than almost any song I know, "Dues" depicts the anguish of a spouse who wants to leave the marriage almost as much as she wants to "love you the way I used to do." As much as she wants to "walk away from this battleground," what she'd sacrifice for ("I'd give a lot to love you") is to have things the way they were. Whipsawed between wanting to go and needing to stay, she's reduced to the plaintive entreaty of "how long must I pay these dues?" Sacrifice has become unbearable, too.


While consistent with Barbara Jean's character, Blakely's use of the vernacular also enables a universal expression of desperation: Fraught, complex, co-dependent relationships can and do happen to anyone. In that sense, "Dues" reaches out to anyone who knows deep down that their spouse has retreated so deeply into their "own private world" that they are "hidin'" their "blues" and "pretendin' what" they "say," to anyone in that fearsome place where communication is dead but the need to connect with that one person remains.


LYRICS

It's that careless disrespect
I can't take no more, baby
It's the way that you don't love me
When you say that you do, baby


It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down
I want to walk away from this battleground
This hurtin' life, it ain't no good
I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do
Wish I could...


You've got your own private world
I wouldn't have it no other way
But lately you've been hidin' your blues
Pretendin' what you say


It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down
I want to walk away from this battleground
This hurtin' life, it ain't no good
I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do
Wish I could...


Writin' it down kinda makes me feel better
Keeps me away from them blues
I want to be nice to you, treat you right
But how long can I pay these dues?


It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down
I want to walk away from this battleground
This hurtin' life, it ain't no good, no
I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do
Wish I could...

*Ya, Let’s Hang Around Mama And Put A Good Buzz On- The Music Of Jonathan Edwards-An Encore

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Jonathan Edwards performing his classic, "Sunshine".

CD Review

Lucky Day, Jonathan Edwards, Atlantic Records, 1974

Over the past several years I have spent some time working around the idea of why certain folk revival performers of the early 1960s, or later folk rock artists either never made it big and stayed big (relatively) as with the obvious case of the staying power of Bob Dylan, or were more one-hit wonders who faded from the scene quickly, if not quietly. I have mentioned names like Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and Jesse Winchester who made their names in that era. Singer/songwriters of immense talent yet except among the ever dwindling core of aficionados have faded from any spotlight. With the artist under review, Jonathan Edwards, who came a little later and can be more rightly classified under the folk rock genre, I find myself asking the same question.

Now in this case I am not asking merely an academic question. I recently attended a performance of the very much alive Mr. Edwards at a local folk club in Cambridge, Ma. and came away from the very up tempo performance of his, mainly, older work scratching my head. The man and his band (including a couple of his old band members on this CD, Bill Elliot and Start Schulman) have, if anything, more energy that in the old days and certainly more stage presence. The versions of the tunes played were perhaps more clearly done in bluegrass/country tempo which always helps. But that does not solve the question. Of course sometimes one personal life, for good or evil, sets you on a different path. Or one gets tired of the road. Or one runs out of musical energy and thoughts but I am still, nevertheless, scratching my head on this one.

That said, in his prime Jonathan Edwards had a number of minor classics of the folk rock genre, all of which he played at that local club. The highlight, as to be expected, is the song, some of whose lyrics form part of the headline of this entry, “Shanty”. Others include “Give Us A Song”, “Sunshine” (a variation), “Have You Seen Her” and the title track, “Lucky Day”. Not performed at the club is a nice cover of the country classic “Today I Started Loving You Again” that shows a certain country influence in his work, especially his later work.

Jonathan Edwards
Shanty lyrics

Gonna sit down in the kitchen
And fix me something good to eat
And make my head a little high
And make this whole day complete
Cuz we gonna lay around the shanty, mama
And put a good buzz on

Well pass it to me baby
Pass it to me slow
We'll take time out to smile a little
Before we let it go
Cuz we gonna lay around the shanty, mama
And put a good buzz on

Well there ain't nothin' to do
And there's always room for more
Fill it, light it, shut up
And close the door
Cuz we gonna lay around the shanty, mama
And put a good buzz on

We gonna sit around the kitchen
Fix us somethin' good to eat
And make ourselves a little high
And make the whole day complete
Cuz we gonna lay around the shanty, mama
And put a good buzz on
Cuz we gonna lay around the shanty, mama
And put a good buzz on