Freedom in the Air: Song Movements of the Sixties

DEEDO . I THE

'i:;

AID

song . movements

fthe60s by JOSH DUNSON

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born in New York, 1941, Josh Dunson received his BA at the University of Chicago, having spent his first two undergraduate years at Amherst College. He has ~een widely published in the journals of folk music. He has been a Contributing Editor to Broadside, the National Topical 'Song Magazine, for two years, and a regular contributor to Sing Out! He has reported major folk festivals and maintains close contact with the personalities of the folk song movements, North and South. This is his first book.

FREEDOM IN THE AIR Song Movements of the Sixties

by JOSH DUNSON

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS New York

© copyright by

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS Co., INC., 1965 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-22365 Manufactured in the United States of America

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To the Friesens For their warmth, kindness and understanding

Acknowledgments Since there is little material in printed form on the subjects treated in this study, the aid of the writers and singers of songs proved invaluable. For their interviews and correspondence and general encouragement I wish to thank deeply Guy Carawan, Len Chandler, Sis Cunningham, Barbara Dane, Gordon Friesen, Myles Horton, Julius Lester, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Bernice and Cordell Reagon, Malvina Reynolds. Pete Seeger, Irwin Silber, Pat Sky, Gil Turner and Don West. I am especially grateful to Guy Carawan, Gordon Friesen. Julius Lester and Pete Seeger, who read and criticized the manuscript. All songs are used with permission of the authors and are copyrighted as indicated in the references. Permission to reprint these songs must be obtained from the writers themselves. I wish to thank Oak Publications and Broadside magazine for permission to quote printed matter. The author regrets that he had to delete from his original manuscript all quotations from the songs, prose and poetry of Bob Dylan, whose manager refused to grant permission.

Contents Introduction

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1. THE PREDECESSORS Early Roots, 13 Union Songs, 14 People's Songs and People's Artists, 18

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2. HARD TIMES IN THE SOUTH Southern Folk Tradition, 22 Commonwealth Labor College, 24 Kentucky Workers Alliance, 26 Highlander Folk School, 27

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3. THE STUDENTS MOVE End of the Organization Man, 31 Nashville, 33 Highlander and Civil Rights, 37

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4. THE OLD AND THE NEW "Folk Process," 44 Woody Guthrie, 45 From "We" to "I," 47

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5. THE GATE OF IVORY AND THE GATE OF HORN The Left Tradition, 49 Commercial Success, 52 Early Topical Song Popularity, 54 A Singers' Magazine, 56 6. THE SOUTH SPREADS ITS SONGS The Albany Movement, 61 The Freedom Singers, 64 The New Songs, 65 Other Trends, 68 7

49

61

CONTENTS

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7. TOPICAL SONGS FIND AN AUDIENCE Broadside's Growth, 72 Freewheelin',74 Pete Seeger and Newport '63, 75 Problems of Success, 76

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8. SONG WRITER-SINGERS Singer and Subject, 78 NYCPA,80 Bob Dylan, 81 Phil Ochs, 86 Tom Paxton, 89 Mark Spoelstra, 92 Peter La Farge and Pat Sky, 93 Len Chandler, 95 Other Writers, 96

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9. ATLANTA "SING FOR FREEDOM" Formulation, 99 From the South, 100 North Meet South, 105

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10. A SONG-WRITING COUNTRY

108

Caravan of Music, 108 Commercialism, 111 The Picture Today, 113

Suggested Reading and Listening List

117

Reference Notes

123

I ntrod uction The important role of freedom songs in the Southern civil rights struggle was given official recognition on the front page of the nation's paper of record (New York Times, August 20, 1962) in an article by its folk music critic, Robert Shelton. In 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary, top recording artists, recorded Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and it became the best-selling record in the nation. Freedom songs had gained national recognition and a song of striking social significance had been accepted and sung by millions of Americans. For many, these songs seemed to come out of nowhere. They appeared to have no roots, and unfortunately they were sung by some pop artists as if they were an endurance contest rather than a sincere ex· pression of folk feeling. :Sut these songs have deep roots. There is a tradition of freedom singing that dates back to the earliest balladry. Further, in 20th· century United States, there were many movementsthe Industrial Workers of the World, the Populists and the CIO, to name a few-in which songs played a vital role. In our time, the songs have sprung up out of the mass movements and social discontents of the 1960's. Their music is heard far beyond the hollow sound of tin-pan alley's cash registers. Hundreds of men, women and children helped to compose thousands of verses in scores of towns and cities in the South, with the Negro people's attempts to register to vote, and with the movement to gain access to restaurants and movie 9

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INTRODUCTION

houses. There are over 100 song writers who are expressing in ballad form such events as the sinking of the S.S. Thresher, the assassination of President Kennedy; or, in more general songs, the wandering in search of knowledge, the desire for healthy children in a peaceful world, and the martyrdom of those who died in Alabama and Mississippi. The movements and individuals closely associated with these songs had taken shape and direction long before the songs had received national recognition. The Highlander Folk School, founded in 1932, carried forward the older traditions and later participated in the singing of today's songs, through the efforts of Guy Carawan and Julius Lester, among others. "Onward Christian Soldiers" at mass demonstrations has given way to "We Shall Overcome." Broadside magazine, founded in February 1962, had published over 50 topical song writers and hundreds of new songs, including "Blowin' in the Wind," by the time that song made the hit parade. This brief study seeks to give the background and the development of the two major streams of new songs of social meaning in the 1960's: the Broadsidetype songs in the North and the songs of the freedom movement in the South. Although their development was in many ways closely parallel, their form and content are basically different. These songs have achieved a new popularity and even a commercial appeal-that is not without its problems. As the freedom movement takes on new dimensions in the South, so do the songs that emerge from it. While it may be foolhardy to predict what lies ahead, I think the possibilities are worthy of examination. It will be noted that many important and influential artists have here received only a small part of the attention they merit. Woody Guthrie, Earl Robinson and others deserve to have chapters and books devoted

INTRODUCTION

11

to their contributions. However, it is not my purpose to make a comprehensive examination of the past; rather, I want to center attention on the current song movements that in a real sense reflect, in song, the social conscience of the nation.

1

The Predecessors Early Roots

The use of music to record specific events in the life of the people is as old as the Anglo-Saxon ballad fomi itself. "Sir Patrick Spence," for example, which first appeared in written form in the 18th century, pos"' sibly refers to a voyage resulting from a royal marriage of the 13th century. But it is inaccurate to associate this ballad with a specific historical event; as the bal· lad was passed on orally through the centuries, its new singers added their own touches, their own details, moving the ballad out of its own time, and making it meaningful for the singer and the contemporary audio ence. "Sir Patrick Spence" is a ballad whose melody and poetry possess great beauty. It had an appeal that was to attract the attention of young people for hundreds of years, an appeal so great that they, in their turn, would want to teach it to their children. But for every great ballad that survives, there are in all probability hundreds that were lost with the death of the singer or the passing of the event they recorded. A song may have been popular for three months during a Whig. Tory election campaign, but after the election was over and after the candidates were forgotten. the bal· lads about them were, too. In order for a topical song to survive it must be able to reach out and touch people who have not lived through the experience or emotion described in the song. Sometimes a song will not be sung for several generations, and then, because it captures a theme that is currently alive, it is sung again, sometimes with 13

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

changes. "Miner's Lifeguard," a parody of the hymn "Life is Like a Mountain Railway," was used as a miner's union organizing song around 1900; then it was revived by the Almanac Singers in the CIO organizing days of the early 1940's. The topical songs with which this book is concerned can be said to have a tradition that dates back to the Broadside ballads of the 16th and 17th centuries, when sheets of paper selling for a penny were peddled on the streets of London, with topics ranging from the latest seduction to the latest election. One can also cite the important industrial ballads of Britain, the songs of the Chartists and of the British socialist and tradeunion movement, as well as those of the Irish rebellion. If today's songs are to be understood in context, it may be more profitable to examine the relatively recent trunk from which they have stemmed rather than their distant roots. Union Songs

The first great outpouring of political songs in 20thcentury United States came out of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), founded in 1905. Two musical traditions went into the songs of the Wobblies: the Methodist-Baptist revival music as employed by evangelists and the Salvation Army, and the singing of the "jungle" hobo camps, whose songs about railroad "bulls" and "John Farmer" readily lent themselves to the IWW radicalism. In fact, the early songs of the Western Wobblies were the songs of lumberjacks, migrant workers, hoboes and cowboys. Mac McClintock's "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" was the IWW calling card for a good number of years before McClintock helped to start "the little red song book" to "fan the flames of discontent." From 1911 to 1961, thirty editions of the Wobbly song book carried the potent mixture

THE PREDECESSORS

15

that made up Western Wobbly folklor~. the poetry and songs of Ralph Chaplin, the sharp digs of T-Bone Slim, the humor and wisdom of Joe Hill's songs, and the anonymous poetry and songs rising out of the strikes in the mine and lumber camps of the West and Southwest. None of the songs had original tunes; they relied on melodies already well known to IWW members-old hymns, Stephen Foster ballads and hobo songs. Their subjects reflected class war at its sharpest; they told of the Wobbly martyrs killed by company guards; and they gave instructions for strike struggles. The songs were by and about Wobblies. The IWW did not especially care what others thought. They knew the boss was paying them less than they were worth, and they did not like collective bargaining, preferring to post their demands on the employer's door. The employer could take them or leave them. In the East, the IWW strength was in the textile industries and the various immigrant groups. There, the poetry of Arturo Giovanetti and songs in the languages of Eastern Europe came directly from vibrant national and ethnic cultures. Despite its variegated membership, the IWW was a strongly unified movement supporting wholeheartedly the doctrine of internationalism. Many of the songs were anti-war, warning fellow-workers not to let themselves be used as "cannon fodder" for capitalist's profits. Much of the language seems stiff today, but to a worker ready to shoot it out with company guards, Richard Brazier's words were most meaningful: 1

The workers of the world are now awaking; The earth is shaking with their mighty tread. The master class in fear now is quaking, The sword of Damocles hangs o'er their head.

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

IWW ,opposition to World War I resulted in the arrest of hundreds of leaders and the end of the IWW .as an active force in American labor. But even after the organization was no longer functioning, the songs continued tq be sung by ex-Wobblies. The IWW was a singing movement in which all the members knew, loved and sang. the songs. No movement had been so immersed in singing as the IWW-until the civil rights freedom movement of the 1960's. The songs associated with the building of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) cannot be traced to a single source, and although there were many singers whose songs were important, the CIO could hardly. be called a singing organization. The Almanacs, who popularized union songs in the early 1940's, sang mostly at large union rallies. After World War II these songs were for the most part forgotten by union members. But there were hundreds of CIO singers in addition to the Almanacs. When, in 1935, John L. Lewis led his United Mine Workers to form the CIO, he headed a union which had in its possession the best of American traditional and topical folk songs. George Korson, the major collector of miners' songs in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Southern Illinois, tells of the importance of the old-time union musician Orville Jenks III organization drives: 2 "Jenks and his guitar went all over McDowell County and adjacent areas carrying the union message in ballad form. His presence assured the success of a union meeting. When word was passed in advance that Jenks would sing and play his ballads, those hillbilly mine workers flocked to the meeting, for love of balladry was in their blood." Cqmmunist-Ied strikes at Gastonia, North Carolina, and Harlan, Kentucky, in the late 1920's and early 1930's, laid the militant basis for the CIO Textile

THE PREDECESSORS

17

Workers and the United Mine Workers, later successfully established in those areas. The strikers' solidarity was strengthened by the singing of the martyred Ella Mae Wiggins and Aunt Molly Jackson, two outstanding traditional performers, who were also local union leaders. On the other hand, the Almanacs included urban intellectuals like Millard Lampell and Harvard dropout Pete Seeger, as well as "Oakie" Woody Guthrie and Lee Hays, the "Arkansas Preacher." Passing in and out of the Almanac picture were such varied talents and styles as Cisco Houston, Josh White, Burl Ives, Tom Glazer, Sis Cunningham (present editor of Broadside), Peter and Baldwin Hawes, Bess Lomax, Arthur Stern, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Huddie Ledbetter, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Earl Robinson, their musical director. The records of the Almanacs included not only their own songs like "Reuben James" and "Talking Union" but also union songs from the past which they introduced to the young workers in steel and auto. Stemming from the IWW, Ralph Chaplin's "Solidarity" was adopted by the United Auto Workers as their anthem. The Almanacs did not confine themselves strictly to union topics but were actively creating anti-war songs before Pearl Harbor and songs to fight fascism once the war was on. As was the case with many intellectuals and artists in the 1930's, the Almanacs were part of the progressive and Left movements of the time. In those years, the Communists played a pioneering and leading role in the fight for social security, unemployment insurance, Negro rights, and the organization of the CIO, as well as in the struggle against fascism. Not only the Almanacs, but many traditional singers in those years identified themselves, intellectually as well as musically, with the broad Left movements.

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

Woody Guthrie, Huddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetter and Aunt Molly Jackson are a few of the more famous. It is vital to understand the feeling of purpose and accomplishment these movements engendered. The hardwon victories of the union drives of the 1930's and the anti-fascist crusades of that decade and the 1940's had a great and moving influence on the thinking and action of topical song writers after the war. People/s Songs and People/s Artists Pete Seeger, Executive Secretary of People's Songs, writes of the tremendous spirit of hope after World War II, which was found not only among folk singers but extended to Americans in all walks of life: 3 "In 1945 Americans came home from the war. We dived enthusiastically into long-deferred projects. A number of us who loved to sing folk songs and union songs thought it the most natural thing in the world to start an organization which could keep us all in touch with one another, which could promote new and old songs and singers, and in general bring closer the broad revival of interest in folk music and topical 'Songs which we felt would sooner or later take place." There appeared at first to be a basis for such hopes and actions. True, an ominous note had been struck when a right-wing Congress, elected in 1938, abolished the Works Progress Administration (WPA). But it appeared that President Truman was committed to FDR's policies, and the union movement had never seemed stronger. At its height, People's Songs had chapters in many states; its organ, People's Songs Bulletin, published songs that came from both traditional and topical sources, and articles that still make lively reading today. The enthusiasm which they felt for the CIO evoked responses from the educational directors of local unions, who sent in songs and occasional

THE PREDECESSORS

19

articles. People's Songs sponsored their own big sings and concerts or, as they were named in the Almanac days, Hootenannies. But with the turn to the Truman Doctrine, to the cold war and domestic red-baiting, it slowly became clear that organized labor, with some important exceptions, was going to ride on the antiCommunist bandwagon. After compiling a sheaf of songs for the Henry Wallace campaign in 1948, People's Songs folded, in early 1949, because of lack of funds. People's Artists, however, continued to run exciting and varied "Hoots" through the 1950's, with Pete Seeger hosting a wide range of singing styles-from dramatic baritones like Leon Bibb to the hard blues of Rev. Gary Davis, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Central to all the Hoots were topical songs; many of the favorites were Almanac compositions and songs of the Spanish Civil War. With the first issue of Sing Out! in May 1950, new songs once again had a place for publication. Sing Out!, in the early days, was essentially a song book that came out once a month, and many people bought it to see the guitar chords and the words of songs they had heard at the last Hoot. The first and second people's song books, People's Song Book (1948, reprinted 1956) and Lift Every Voice (1953), were the bibles of the guitar strummers, and Sing Out! was that extra special Sunday sermon. The first people's song book illustrates the strong connection in those years between topical and militant trade-union singing. Of the 95 songs, 39 deal with unions or their aims. It includes a special section of 22 union songs, everyone of which was associated with the militant days of the CIO. In the World Freedom Song section, 13 out of 21 songs were associated with anti-fascist campaigns. The traditional songs reflected the basic repertoires of Leadbelly and Pete Seeger. 4

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

Lift Every Voice, edited by Irwin Silber, appeared after People's Artists had lost direct contact with large masses of people. As the Left was becoming isolated under the blows of the McCarthyite persecution, professional folk music, the only place where the Left was not blacklisted, was in its own way growing and alive. Of the 77 songs in Lift Every Voice, 28 were topical, 25 were in the American tradition and 24 were foreign in origin.1) Still dominant was the repertoire of Pete Seeger, which fortunately was varied; but gradually replacing the union songs of the 1930's were the topical songs of the postwar period: "Passing Through," "Hammer Song" and "Wasn't That a Time?" In my opinion, the topical songs of the 1950's, with a number of exceptions, left a great deal to be desired. The folk singers and writers, like the Left in general, were awaiting the resurgence of labor as a militant force. This deferred hope in the songs made them thin. Nostalgia could go only so far, and, by the late 1950's, major interest had shifted from the old songs to traditional music and instrumentation-areas that had been neglected by many city singers and listeners until then. Fortunately for the future of topical song writing, Pete Seeger's popularity grew and he kept the best of the older songs alive. He created interest in material of social significance, especially with his Gazette albums for Folkways records, based on the idea of song as living newspaper. In a period when most song writers were thinking of the past, Malvina Reynolds was one of the first to break away from the old cliches. In 1954, the California Labor School issued a beautiful booklet of her songs, Song in my Pocket, with illustrations by the San Francisco Graphic Arts Workshop and an introduction by Pete Seeger. "Bury Me in My Overalls,"

THE PREDECESSORS

21

written for her carpenter husband Bud when he was very ill, illustrated that there are all kinds of labor songs: 6

Bury me in my overalls Don't use my gabardines. Bury me in my overalls Or in my beat-up jeans. Give my suit to Uncle Jake He can wear it at my wake. And bury me in my overalls. Bud recovered upon hearing his funeral dirge. The contribution of People's Songs and People's Artists was not only essential; it was superlative. The old Hootenannies in many ways had far greater balance than the Hoots of today. Not only were there good traditional singing and great group song leading, but also short theater bits; the biting comedy of Lloyd Gough and Les Pine; that excellent choral group, the Jewish Young Folksingers; and, again through Pete's influence, a far greater respect and appreciation for songs originating in foreign countries. Despite the harassment by creditors and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Pete Seeger, Irwin Silber; Wally Hille and many others not only kept a vital tradition alive but also created a solid background for today's topical song writers.

2

Hard Times in the South Southern Folk Tradition

Southern folk traditions have been the primary area of interest for academic study and the principal source of inspiration for folk-music fans. The written collections of white and Negro music, as well as recordings from the South, run far ahead of those from any other region. The South, as the possessor of a rich folk culture, has in many ways exercised a strong influence on the development of folk music in the North and the increasing interest in it. The background and history of Southern protest songs have been and continue to be essentially different from those of topical songs in the North. In the South, there was a live folk tradition that reflected happenings of the day. In the Northern urban centers, there was no single tradition that all the ethnic groups could claim. Sometimes songs were borrowed from other regions of the country or from the cultures of other lands. An interesting example of this process is the rich harvest of Yiddish union and work songs gathered by the clothing workers' unions from their Jewish members during the first three decades of the century. By the late 1920's, coal and mill towns were a frequent and depressing sight in the South. Company stores and shacks managed by a company union confronted the workers and their families-if they were lucky enough to survive the day's hazards of cave-in, dust explosion and silicosis. As bitter strikes became part of the people's lives, this theme entered into their songs. 22

HARD TIMES IN THE SOUTH

23

Ella Mae Wiggins of Gastonia and Aunt Molly Jackson and Jim Garland of Harlan County were among the more famous of the local traditional singers who became union bards for the Communist-led Trade Union Unity League and Trade Union Educational League in the early thirties. When the old National Miners Union (NMU) organizers helped John L. Lewis recruit for the CIO, the words of Aunt Molly Jackson'S song changed from "Join the NMU" to "Join the CIO." It is interesting to note that the songs themselves stayed with the local people and were not generally known until Aunt Molly Jackson traveled around the country raising funds for the miners of Harlan County. They were not sung nationally until the Almanacs popularized them in 1940-41. Commercial records in the "hillbilly" field also contained a great deal of de facto protest material written in folk or "old-timey" style. In the 1920's and 1930's, large companies like Okeh and RCA Victor found it profitable to sell country folks their own music. As times became hard, country people expressed their troubles in song. With harmonica and guitar, the Carolina Tar Heels, a best-selling group at that time, sang the "Farm Land Blues."1

Conna sell my farm, gonna move to town Conna sell my farm, gonna move to town Cot the farm land blues right now, Got the farm land blues, Cot the farm land blues right now (2X) Not another furrough Will I plow. The best general collection of "old-timey" songs illustrating on commercial recordings the depth of de facto protest is Songs of the Great Depression, sung by the New Lost City Ramblers.2 The sources of the songs range from commercial recordings to union and

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

Left folk schools in the South. The topics reflect an uncynical hope for the future and often an infectious humor in the face of hard times. The song "There'll Be No Distinction There" says, "the white, the colored, the gentile, and the Jew will all be alike in that heavenly light." Sis Cunningham's "Keep Moving" portrays the situation of the farm laborer, and "The Farmer Feeds Them All" of the 1880's is still well known. With the advent of social security, Roy Acuff's "Old Age Pension Check" makes grandmothers the most eligible girls in town. The New Deal is reflected in "NRA Blues," "Death of the Blue Eagle" and "Why Did I Join the CCC?" (Civilian Conservation Corps). Although the circulation of the songs was confined to the South, their subject matter and approach recognized factors at work beyond the local area in which they were written. The mass movements of the nation also had an effect in the South. The protest against the frame-up of the nine Negro "Scottsboro" boys, unemployment demonstrations and union organization moved along radical lines in the South, often under what has come to be known as "New York leadership." The results of this leadership were sometimes a mixed blessing, due to a lack of understanding of the local people's methods ofexpression and their ~eeds. As contact with the community grew and methods changed, these pioneering efforts eventually helped develop and influenced native radical movements. Commonwealth Labor College

Commonwealth Labor College was founded in the late 1920's, nine miles out of Mena, Arkansas, and was purchased not· for its location but for the low cost of facilities and land. Although one or two students came

HARD TIMES IN THE SOUTH

25

from the South, the rest were from the militant union backgrounds of Chicago, Detroit and New York. The courses, at $40 per quarter, consisted largely of history from a Marxist standpoint. The living was entirely communal, teachers and students putting in four hours a day in the cannery or garden to support the school. All the buildings were unfinished, with only a wood stove to prevent freezing in the cold winter. Sis Cunningham, who taught at Commonwealth in 1932-33, commented that the songs they sang (which she had mimeographed), were not generally in what might be considered the American folk tradition. The most popular was the "International," and there was great interest in Chartist and IWW songs; as well as those in support of the Soviet Union, like "Bankers and Bosses Hate Soviet Stars" and "The Song' of the Red Air Fleet." People would sing spontaneously at breakfast, lunch, supper and at every chore. At first there was no mutual learning process going on between the students and the local people, nor was there a close connection between the protest songs and the surrounding mountain tradition. Sis Cunningham, originally from farm country in Oklahoma, talks about the separation typical of the early years at Commonwealth: 8 "There was some contact. These' kids would come into the store to exchange a bucket of blueberries for canned goods. I remember a little kid saying, 'Do you think anybody here wants to buy a song-ballad?' So every once iil a while there was some talk about there being some songs in the neighborhood, but nobody was particularly interested to go out and get them .... "I wasn't a folk-song collector at that time. I was a school teacher. I had no idea of collecting folk songs." There was little recognition of the community "out there" until contact was created by weekly square dances at Commonwealth Hall, at which a local farmer

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

called while Sis played the organ behind a fiddler, as she used to do with her father in Oklahoma. Many local people attended these dances. In the last period of Commonwealth, Lee Hays, who later sang bass with the Almanacs and the Weavers, explored the countryside for songs. It was he who brought in the late Emma Dusenberry, one of America's greatest traditional singers, to sing-an event that regularly attracted local people. It was through Emma Dusenberry that a bond was built between the farmers and the students at Commonwealth. While, as Lee Hays could observe in the People'S 'Songs Bulletin,4 the "hill farmers" thought social plays like Waiting for Lefty "were in the worst possible taste," they could still feel a friendliness for many of its ideas when expressed in terms of Emma Dusenberry's singing. Kentucky Workers. Alliance

Quite different in conception and execution was the Kentucky Workers Alliance. This was an organization of Southerners under Southern leadership singing their own songs. Georgia poet Don West prepared their song book as part of his function as state organizer. In many ways Songs for Southern Workers 5 resembled the little red song book of the IWW. There was no musical notation, since the words were fitted to well-known tunes. On the last page are the demands of the KWA, representing the WPA workers and unemployed in Kentucky. These included demands for jobs for the unemployed by expanding WPA, for union scale on WPA jobs, for a guaranteed minimum for WPA workers of $40 per month, for direct relief from the State of Kentucky and no discrimination against Negroes. Although the book included songs popular

HARD TIMES IN THE SOUTH

27

with the radical movements, like "Solidarity" and the "International," most of the songs were composed by Don West and others to traditional Kentucky secular and religious tunes. Some are familiar today, like Jim Garland's "Greenback Dollar," to the tune of "East Virginia," a popular mountain song, and Aunt Molly Jackson'S version of "Poor Miner's Farewell." An interesting use of popular folk melodies among Southern labor leaders is "It Takes Unity." Don West took "Worried Man Blues," then a big hit of the Carter Family, the most loved popular country performers of their time, and wrote the following words to that tune: It takes u-ni-ty to build the union strong (2X) We're starving now, but we won't be starving long. The pot-bellied boss thinks he is so strong Smokes a big cigar, thinks he is so strong He's bossing now, but he won't be bossing long.

Well-loved tunes and words that made a great deal of sense to the Kentucky unemployed gave the song book and the demands of the KWA a large following. Eventually, its parent body, the Workers Alliance of America, with a nation-wide following, gained official recognition by Harry L. Hopkins, National Administrator of WPA, as the official union for unemployed and WPA workers. It earned the praise and support of both William Green, President of the AFL, and John L. Lewis, President of the CIO. Highlander Folk School

The Highlander Folk School is the only school of its kind in the South that has survived and remained in contact with mass movements, during the more than 30 years of its existence. Originally founded by

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

Don West and Miles Horton, in November 1932, it was designed to· provide a center where "average citizens could pool their knowledge, learn from history, sociology, and seek solutions to their social problems."6 Unlike the earlier Commonwealth College, Highlander drew its students from the South and, particularly in the 1930's and the 1940's, from the Southern labor movement. By the mid-1940's it was sponsored and supported by both the AFL and CIO. From 1935 to 1956, the late Zilphia Horton was the singing heart of the folk school. During these years Mrs. Horton collected and compiled 1,300 songs. Most of them were from unions and left-wing groups, although a significant number came from the older Negro and white folk traditions of the South. The Tennessee State Library and Archives have available on microfihn Zilphia Horton's collected songs, song books and, correspondence. 7 The correspondence list indicates the varied connections of the school. Along with directors of People's Songs like Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, there are also Alan Lomax, representing DECCA Records; David McDonald, when he was Secretary-Treasurer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee; Mark Starr, former educational director of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and Sis Cunningham, when she was a folk singer with the Red Dust Players of ,oklahoma. Other names indude many workers and directors of Southern unions. Centered around union work, Highlander was always integrated, and it provided an integrated experience for those who had essentially come to gain knowledge and exchange experiences in union organization. In the later 1930's, there was a great deal of influence from outside the South on the school. Zilphia Horton's dose ties with the New York-based Textile Workers Union of America provided a meeting point for Southern union leadership and the national union. John L.

HARD TIMES IN THE SOUTH

29

Lewis, Sidney Hillman and Emil Rieve wrote short introductory notes on the importance of union songs in Labor Songs,S the TWUA song book compiled in 1939. It is interesting to note Rieve's comment that "labor songs are part of the folk music of America," for in this book, in contrast to the Commonwealth Song Book, native American songs appear as well as the topical songs of organizations. Along with a modified "Bandiera Rossa" (Red Flag), which changed "communism" to "unionism," there was also the Negro sharecroppers' song by John Handcox, "Strange Things are Happening in this Land" and the Southern Populist election song, "When the Farmer Comes to Town." The majority of songs in the Horton Collection are not from the native Southern area, due largely to the influence of New York-based national radical movements. The Horton Collection includes most of the songs of the mimeographed Commonwealth Song Book. Commonwealth was forced to close its doors, but Highlander has survived. The two main reasons for its survival were its interest in native folk music, some of which was published, and, much more important, the serious involvement of Southerners in the activities and leadership of the Highlander Folk School. It provided courses for Southern union leaders of both races in labor history, labor law, public speaking, organizing methods and collective bargaining. Zilphia Horton is reported to have possessed a wonderful voice, strong and intense in its power, which enabled her to teach as well as to collect hundreds of songs throughout the South. An important segment of her work endures and will endure. "We Shall Overcome," the central song of today's freedom movement, can be traced to Mrs. Horton's activity among the tobacco workers on strike in the 1940's. They had adopted the old Baptist hymn "I'll Be All Right,"

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

changing it to "We Will Overcome" for their strike. It was collected by Mrs. Horton and became part of the Highlander song books. Zilphia Horton slowed down the tempo of the song and accompanied herself with an accordion in the white-mountain hymn-style. She taught it to Pete Seeger, who played it for a number of years in the North, adding verses and using a tremulo-banjo background. When Guy Carawan came to Highlander in 1959, he put the pulse or beat back into the song but kept Mrs. Horton's slower pace. At the April 1960 sitin workshops, a number of other verses were added, including Myles Horton's "The truth shall make us free," when Carawan taught over 80 sit-in leaders the song for the first time. The last significant addition was made by the Albany Movement, which added the phrase "I know that I do believe" before the final "We shall overcome some day." Most of the songs in the Horton Collection are no longer sung, since the unions have ceased to sing. But the influence of the Highlander Folk School should not be underestimated, for in many ways it has been deeply felt in the mass movements that were and are shaping the South. If few of the songs the School collected in the 1930's and 1940's are sung today, those which are sung have continued a militant tradition of native topical song that first blossomed with the Depression, grew with unionization, and then became a vital part of the present civil rights movement.

3 The Students Move End of the Organization Man

If any Dne single fDrce can aCCDunt fDr the recent Dutburst Df new sDngs, bDth freedDm and tDpical, it is the civil rights mDvement. The waters were stirred in 1956 by the MDntgDmery, Alabama, bus bDycDtt and the first civil rights marches in the late 1950's. A shock was sent thrDugh the country frDm GreensbDrD, NDrth CarDlina, by the first student sit-in, and by the end Df 1960, the civil rights mDvement was putting an end to. student apathy. AlthDugh there was SDme indicatiDn Df future develDpments in the Easter peace marches spDnsDred by the CDmmittee fDr a Sane Nuclear PDlicy, the Friends and Dther grDups, the cDllege campus in 1959 had been relatively quiescent. A favDrite bDDk fDr vacatiDn reading was William H. Whyte's The Organizatwn Man, since it prDvided a fDrecast Df what seemed to. be ahead fDr the student. On many campuses, the first sit-in at GreenSbDro. did nDt have an immediate effect. What did shake thDusands Df students to. the CDre was the Sharpville massacre, where pDlice and sDldiers machine-gunned thDusands Df defenseless SDuth African natives who. had assembled to. prDtest apartheid. The anger this Dutrage eVDked SDDn turned to. fear when the first reports Df brutality and arrest started to. CDme from Nashville; fear that the fascist terrDr Df SDuth Africa was gDing to. be repeated in Dur Dwn cDuntry. Student governments that had in the past never even cDnsidered acting Dn any pDlitical issue sent wire after wire Df suppDrt to. the student leaders in Nash31

32

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

ville. Sympathy picketing was initiated by high school and college students across the country against the chain stores that were discriminating in their Southern city branches. Soon the need was felt for some kind of organization for the new activity on campus. At times, the student government was adequate for this role. More often, ad hoc committees were created or campus chapters of established national organizations were utilized. Campus NAACP, CORE, ADA, SANE were a few of these. The name or the reputation of the organization was usually not the determining consideration. Much more important was the time that could be saved by not having to bother with a constitution or regulations for a completely new organization. Interest in the specific organization was slight; it was rp.e goal of a movement that counted. Thus, the non-political and sleepy National Student Association (NSA) eventually became the co-ordinator of liberal student action. The important point is that the students, some of whom were later to become topical song writers, did not regard organization as primary. Often, a "tired" organization's name was abandoned without the blinking of an eye. Then, as now, the immediate goals of a preferably loose and non-ideological movement were paramount. The civil rights movement torpedoed the lethargy. The willingness to think and the demand to be free to listen to anyone brought a powerful civil liberties movement to the campus, most frequently in the form of an ad hoc committee concerned with the abolition of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The peace movement also grew in great numbers. The Student Peace Union, although low in membership, was able to pull out hundreds and then thousands as Easter peace marchers. The written materials of these organizations and the songs sung by them, mostly

33

THE STUDENTS MOVE

derived from British topical song writers, did not seek out basic causes, but directed themselves to specific and fragmented objectives. Many SPU members knew little about civil liberties issues, while anti-HUAC people knew little about peace issues. Each student went into the movement that suited his interest and needs best; he went into a movement, not an organization. The favorite recreation of many of the students was folk music, and the most popular singer was Pete Seeger. He was among the first to sing topical songs from England, the songs of Woody Guthrie and freedom songs from the South. As students began to think and act upon problems that moved them emotionally, there was a need for some personal expression more individualized than walking picket lines. This expression took the form of poetry, drama and song. It was in the years 1960 and 1961 that the pronoun "I" replaced "we" in topical songs, and that a new group of song writers emerged, influenced by, yet very different from, 'their spiritual fathers.

Nashville This change, discussed in detail in the following chapter, was brought about by a 'movement whose singing was not individualized, but whose spirit~irect action and rejection of the past-hit a sympathetic chord in the Northern schools. The first sit-in in a metropolitan Southern city occurred in Nashville in February 1960. It was there that the seed of freedommovement singing was sown by the Nashville Quartet and Guy Carawan in the fertile fields of traditional Negro-American church and popular music. The start of the Nashville sit-in movement, though in many ways similar to the initial stages of the Northern student movement, was different in some important areas. The most significant difference was the

34

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

degree of social transformation necessary to make the South a center of demonstrations. The first stirrings occurred in Nashville in the fall of 1959. James Lawson, a pacifist who was jailed during the Korean war and was the first Negro student at Vanderbilt, began workshops on the methods of non-violent resistance. They attracted only several students at that time; among them was Diane Nash, a native Chicago resident who was deeply affected by her first contact with flagrant segregation. Later that fall, Lawson, Nash and others approached downtown luncheonette managers, asking them to open their counters to all who wanted service. The talks continued throughout the fall with no tangible results, but they were the first student action to attempt to change the old laws. That winter, Nashville looked as if it would be as gray as it had been in past winters. There was no place downtown where Negro students could relax and eat a meal, and no integrated movie theater where they could date. The laws of segregation recognized neither the body nor the soul of the individual, and the seemingly "small" demands for the right to eat at a restaurant or see a movie meant a great deal in terms of everyday life. The four students at Greensboro, North Carolina, who walked into a counter asking service on February 1, 1960, did so on their own, but in their desire to have their fundamental needs met, they sounded the desires of millions in the South. About eight days after the first sit-in, James Lawson received a call from Greensboro asking for a sympathy demonstration in Nashville. Lawson, Nash and other students from the Baptist Theological Seminary, Tennessee State University and Fisk organized their sit-ins to take place Thursday and Saturday mornings in downtown Nashville. Thursday mornings were free at Fisk for convocation, and there were no classes. Satur-

THE STUDENTS MOVE

35

days normally meant hanging around on campus, as the only recreation in downtown Nashville was the segregated movie house. There were heavy snows the first eight days which had turned the luncheonette into a study hall, with the few other customers who were there creating little tension. The first nice day, Saturday, February 28, the Chief of Police called Diane Nash to inform her that if any students asked for service that day, they would be arrested. Diane asked why, and the police chief hung up. A meeting was called at which the students were told of police policy. Fifteen or 20 students decided to go downtown, and when they were arrested Diane Nash phoned the news back to the Fisk campus, whereupon a fresh shift came to sit in. They were arrested, too. Diane called again. This pattern was repeated until by the end of the day over 70 students were under arrest. It was at this point that the sit-ins at Nashville turned from a sympathy demonstration for Greensboro to a movement for integration in Nashville. A mass meeting the following day drew wide segments of the Negro community, without whom the battle could not have been fought. The adults provided the bail money, but in the early stages it was the students who participated in the direct action. Singing was an important part of the first mass meeting but the variety of songs seemed inadequate to meet the needs of the new movement. Julius Lester states: "They sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic to death, as well as a number of hymns." Candy Anderson, a white exchange student at Fisk, complained that the speeches were great but there was "too much" singing. From the start, however, singing was an important unifying medium for the movement-singing which at first stemmed from popular religious and secular music.!

36

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

Four students from the American Baptist Theological Seminary formed the Nashville Quartet. Joseph Carter, Bernard Lafayette, James Bevel and Samuel Collier were primarily leaders in the N ashviIIe civil rights movement, and only in a secondary capacity song creators and singers. While in jail, the Nashville Quartet drew from the gospel tradition and popular rhythms and blues to create new songs for the mass movement. They spoke and sang at mass rallies and, with well-known tunes and harmonies, soon had the teen-age and college students of Nashville singing with them. Out of the Nashville jails came "Dog Dog," popularized in the North by the Freedom Singers of Albany, Georgia. The Quartet took the tunes right off the Nashville hit parade. Rhythm-and-blues singer Little Willie John'S "You Better Leave my Little Kitten Alone" was parodied: 2

You'd better leave segregation alone Because they love segregation Like a hound dog loves a bone, a bone. Well, I went down to the dime store to get some eats. They put me in jail when I sat on them folk's seats. And Ray Charles' big hit, "Moving On":3

Well, I thought they was jiving about Jim Crow's gone But I went down to his house and he sure wasn't home He's moving on (keep moving on) (2X) Old Jim Crow's been here but now he's moving on. New verses came with new demonstrations. Candy Anderson, who at first wondered what all the singing was about, wrote her own jail-house song, a parody of the Wobbly "They Go Wild Over Me":4

THE STUDENTS MOVE

37

Will my children go wild or go free When it's time for them to go down for tea'! . Will those bedsheet wearin' whites Still yell "Down with Civil Rights?" Or will justice have come to T ennessee'l Candy's song was the first real instance of another tradition, the IWW, injecting itself into the flow of songs that found their source in the traditions of the Southern Negro. Later, other influences, as well as much of the hidden power of the Afro-American tradition, was infused into the freedom movement, largely by the efforts of one man and one institution, Guy Carawan and the Highlander Folk School. Highlander and Civil Rights

During the 1950's, the Highlander Folk School had been among the first in the South to recognize the importance of the growing civil rights movement. Even before the death of Zilphia Horton in 1956, the Hortons had participated in a conference on integration with Judge Waring of Charlestown and Septima Clark, then a school teacher and civic leader in Charlestown, South Carolina. After the death of Zilphia Horton, even closer connections were made between Highlander and the integration movement. At a Highlander workshop in 1958, Esau Jenkins, a successful Negro businessman of John's Island, South Carolina, who had taught illiterates to read and write on his bus line from Charlestown to the Island, approached Myles Horton, director of Highlander, to start a regular school for adults on the Island. Bernice Robinson, a beautician from the mainland, was recruited to do the teaching, with Highlander furnishing school supplies and expenses for the teacher.

38

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

This adult school was highly successful in preparing citizens for voter registration, and similar schools were established, at first in surrounding islands, and then on the mainland itself. With these efforts, Highlander was the first major Southern institution to lead a South-wide registration drive in the modem civil rights movement. Septima Clark, Highlander's director of education, was a woman whose beauty and goodness inspired seemingly impossible achievements from her associates. Miss Clark traveled throughout the South, and over the years brought thousands to the Highlander workshops, in which the specific barriers to voter x:egistration in each locale werestudied. 1I In 1959, Guy Carawan became the musical director of Highlander. In July of that year, a mailing was sent containing two letters to the many communities where Highlander had helped to establish citizenship schools under Miss Clark's direction. A letter from Myles Horton announced that Guy Carawan's folk-singing services were available "without regard to color, religion, or class." Carawan's letter outlines his personal history as well as his plans for a musical program. Almost all the items below that he listed as being under discussion became realities in the following five years: -that Highlander put out a book of songs for integration; -that Highlander hold some workshops to train song leaders who will go back and function in their own communities and organizations; -that Highlander put out some records of songs for integration to go with the book and to help new song leaders (and the public in general) to learn these songs; -a festival, bringing together different kinds of Negro and white music, song and dance, both old

THE STUDENTS MOVE

39

and new, that could and would be well attended and well integrated; -workshops for music educators and workers in schools and churches; -workshops for folklorists. Below Carawan describes the early influences that molded his approach, the real contribution of People's Artists to the movement, and the state of singing prior to the sit-ins: 6 "After three months at Highlander I knew that there was something special that I could offer.... I had seen from my couple of years in New York, watching Pete Seeger use singing to express the feelings of people for a cause, being in the Jewish Young Folksingers with Bob DeCormier, and seeing great numbers of people singing to express their feelings together and create a sense of cohesion, that singing could be a powerful force. After being in the South for this short time, it was apparent to me that there was the potential for a great singing movement in the Negro struggle...• "But I found the singing that went on in the civil rights movement gatherings stiff and formal. It seemed most of the leaders running the meetings were those educated type of Negroes who have gotten rid of all traces of folk speech, humor and old Baptist style in their behavior and are afraid to sing a spiritual or gospel song that might cause a foot to tap, hands to clap or bodies to sway. Instead it would be an attempt to sing the two octave range in the best bel canto style." On April 1 to 3, 1960, eighty sit-in leaders from all over the South attended the Seventh Annual Highlander Folk School College Workshop. These students had come from the jails of Nashville, Atlanta and Orangeburg, South Carolina, to discuss the concepts of non-violence and relationships with the white com-

40

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

munity. At this meeting they started to learn "We Shall Overcome." The most important meeting so far as spreading the songs over a wide area was concerned was the first South-wide conference in Raleigh, called by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, from April 19 to 21, 1960. Carawan comments: "The Raleigh Conference had 200 students there from all over the South involved in the sit-ins singing 'We Shall Overcome' for three days. Who was there? John Lewis, Marion Barry, James Bevel,BernardLaFayette."1 It was under the direction of Myles Horton and Septima Clark that in August 1960 the first "Sing For Freedom" workshop was organized. Leaders and singers of the embattled Southern communities came, as well as many outstanding topical and folk singers from the North. Attending and participating in the discussions were singers and individuals who were to have an important effect upon the Freedom Movement and. the nature and dissemination of its songs. Carawan led the conference and, from Nashville, fresh from their experiences, were Candy Anderson and Julius Lester. Four girls from Montgomery brought their gospel renditions of freedom songs, while two important leaders. in the SCLC, the Revetends C. T. Vivian and Frederick Shuttlesworth, set the tone for and keynoted the meeting. From the North came Gil Turner, Pete Seeger, Bill McAdoo and Ethel Raim, and all the way from California came Wally Hille, editor of the first People'S Song Book. Ernie Marrs rode up from Atlanta, and Richard Chase ran his wonderful story-telling workshops. Hedy West, daughter of Don West, the share, cropper and Southern poet, sang her father's "Anger in the Land" and reminded the participants of the radical heritage of the Southern Appalachians that

THE STUDENTS MOVE

41

dates back to its large-scale resistance to the Confederacy. A number of publications are a direct result of this conference. They are worth a close look, for they have helped to determine the direction of freedom singing and illuminate the relationships that arose in the course of that development. The first, The Art of Artless Rhyme by Ernie Marrs, was published in mimeographed form the following September. Written by one of the most prolific song writers, a strong admirer of Woody Guthrie, it was 13 pages in length, presenting what is still the most detailed and concise instruction manual for writing topical songs. Though it never was disseminated in the North, some of the 15 suggestions on what to ask about a new song are in line with the techniques of the best Northern song writers, for example: "Is it true? If not, is the satire or burlesque a big enough lie to bring the truth out? Does it stick to the subject or wander? How would it sound coming from a little kid? Is the mood of the tune suited to the subject of the verses, and the message you are trying to get across to others?" . Marrs' work has had little relation to freedom songs, which have arisen largely from established traditions. However, the fact that a freedom song workshop could .inspire a manual like this is additional evidence of the fundamental contribution the civil rights movement has made in encouraging the work of song writers all over the nation. A mimeographed song book came out of the song workshop of the conference. I think it is important to note the variety of the songs, and how many of them have remained with the freedom movement. Below is . a ·list that includes most of the songs in the book. It is divided into two categories: Southern traditional songs or those based on Southern traditional tunes, and those written by Northerners:

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

42

TRADITIONAL

NORTHERN-WRITTEN

We Shall Overcome Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning Sowin' on the Mountain I'm Comin' Home on the Mournin' Train We Are Soldiers Moving on to Victory Oh Freedom John Brown's Body Plenty Good Room

The Beatitudes The Burning Cross Picket, Picket Jim Crow Has to Go Integrate the Schools For Just a Little Drink We Have Gathered The Ink is Black I'm Gonna Walk and Talk for My Freedom It Could Be a Wonderful World The Whole Wide World Around Man of the Whole Wide World

Examining the songs in both columns, one finds that while. the best song writers of the 1950's were represented by the excellent singing of Pete Seeger, it is evident that in 1965 the movement is not singing the same songs but rather those out of the Afro-NegroAmerican tradition. The songs based on tradition that the Negro people had been singing in and out of .church were adopted as the new freedom songs. "Qh Freedom" and "We Are Soldiers" could bring hundreds at mass meetings in with the first note, for the songs were known and just a word or two could be changed to make them freedom songs. At first the significance of these songs was not realized by many of the student leaders. Some .thought of the spiritual and gospel songs sung at mass meetings as being old-fashioned and "down country." Guy Cara'wan found this to be true when he travelled to Nashville after the April workshop, attracted both by the ,movement and his future wife, Candy Anderson. More than anyone person in the early period, it 'was,Cara-

THE STUDENTS MOVE

43

wan who focused the minds of the student leaders and demonstrators on the necessity of singing to keep the movement going through the hard and vicious repression it encountered. It was his profound conviction that while it was important to bring in the music of other traditions, recognition of, and pride in, the AfroAmerican cultural heritage were basic to the freedom struggle. Singing with the Nashville Quartet, Carawan led singing at rally after rally in Nashville and throughout the South. Singing "We Shall Overcome," "Hold On" and "Sit at the Welcome Table," he was teaching and re-teaching the younger people in the movement the old songs and their new meaning. The importance the movement attached to Carawan's role can be recognized by the invitation he reo ceived to sing at the first three large Student Non· Violent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC) conferences in 1960 and 1961, as well as at three large SCLC gatherings in the earlier period. Guy Carawan's presence provided an excellent and powerful catalyst.

4 The Old and the New "Folk Process" In the initial period of student organization and turmoil in the North (1960-61), there were only the first glimmerings of interest in the topical song. During these years, Phil Ochs was learning guitar, but his major activity was putting out a small independent college newspaper, which dealt with many of the ideas he later expressed in song. Pete Seeger was achieving his first national popularity on campus. He focused attention on Woody Guthrie's songs and those of the outstanding British song writers. Seeger would often wonder out loud at a concert how soon America's own young writers would come forward. By 1962, Sing Out! expanded its articles, its sizl;! and its coverage to center around the new interests of the followers of folk music: both the traditional old-time music and the new freedom songs from the South. It was the only folk-song magazine with national distribution and it commanded the respect of the growing numbers who were finding pleasure and self-expression through playing the guitar, banjo or autoharp, and writing their thoughts on everything from love to the bomb. In the 1950's, the principal outlet for new songs by unknown young writers was a section in Sing Out! called the "Folk Process." Only parodies of well-known folk and pop tunes could be printed, because of the lack of musical notation. Although everyone had the best intentions, the general level of the songs was at best cute, and at worst dull. Many of the songs appearing on the other pages of the magazine were musi44

THE OLD AND THE NEW

45

cally of a formal rather than a folk orientation. In the late 1950's, when Sing Out! began to study traditional music and to print more old folk songs, there was not much room left for new songs outside of the uninspiring "Folk Process" section. This in itself was not too bad, for not much was being written in the 1950's that was worth more than an appearance in "Folk Process." Many lovers of folk music were following with interest the new and exciting singing of a number of traditional singers, who were introduced and publicized by the New Lost City Ramblers and college folk-song societies. Woody Guthrie

This interest extended to the work of Woody Guthrie, but it was really the singing of Pete Seeger and Jack Elliott that made. the students realize the scope of Woody's writings. If there is anyone man whose work was responsible for the high quality of the new songs, it was Guthrie. Although he was part of the radical movement in the 1930's and wrote a regular column, "Woody Sez," in the Daily Worker, he was not given to the heavy cliches of that period. His columns, his autobiography, Bound For Glory, and, most of all, his songs, made real sense to many college students. They, too, rejected, as individuals, the raw deal described by Guthrie, even when they did not share his interest in a basic solution. Along with his songs, Guthrie's life had great appeal for many of the more restless students. They felt the need to reject strongly, in some meaningful way, the security their parents held dear. Thousands of students hitchhiked across country, following Guthrie's travels on Route 66, remembering the verses in his "Hard Traveling": 1

FREEDOM IN .THE AIR

I been a-hittin' that Lincoln Highway, I thought you knowed; I been a-hitten' that sixty-six, Way down the road; Heavy load and a worried mind, Lookin' for a woman that's hard to find I have been havin' some hard trav-el-in' Lord. Of course, there was an essential difference between Guthrie's wanderings in search of work, and those of the students who were seeking experience and new values. Once on the road, people find there is much to learn as one travels over the thousands of miles, among them the idioms of the various regions and peoples of the United States. Many young people adopted Guthrie's manner of speech; others blend6d regional accents into their own talk. What has come to be known as the folk-music "outfit" (boots, leather jacket, long hair) actually arose out of the necessity of traveling on the road in warm and light gear that would fit into a knapsack or into the spaces in a guitar case. The new songs reflected Guthrie's marked influence. There were many dropped final "g's" and the songs were sung in highly personal form. Since the students had little interest in social systems and basic change, the subject matter of these songs was specific and immediate. The use of terms that punctuated Left literature of the 1930's and 1940's, like "fascist," "counter-revolutionary," "capitalist," or labor terms like "scab," "strike" and "organize" did not appear in the new songs. The labor movement had become self-satisfied and politically apathetic; the college students of the 1960's considered it, at best, passive, and, at worst, a conservative force ridden by gangsters, and bureaucratic in structure. The students knew little of its history of

THE OLD AND THE NEW

47

struggle, and still less of its present problems. The· college students' new approach was based on a humanitarian need to right wrongs. The new Left was a young Left with few obvious roots in the radical tradition, although influenced by it to a limited degree. From "We" to "1"

Many of the older song writers continued to write. With the exception of a few like Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger, they wrote in the old terms and their songs did not meet the reception and acceptance that the younger song writers received. The most significant difference was the change in the personal pronoun from "we" to "I." The young song writers, as Woody Guthrie used to do, give their reactions in the first person, but, unlike him, they seldom notice others to their left or to their right. They write their songs while riding in subway cars, while waiting out in the cold for one or two hours, while trying to "bum" a ride, while sitting in a bar drinking, while alone in a room thinking. The songs that came from the older song writers in the 1930's and 1940's reflected the intense feeling of unity and power that rallies of thousands and organizations of millions can render. They came from the bitter hatred that could only arise from seeing a woman beaten by a company thug or from the experience of the concentration camp and the never-ta-beforgotten odor of decaying bodies. The songs came out of the unshakeable and immense feeling that the singer had discovered some truth, a plan that was going to make the world one of "bread and roses." The young song writer today is sparked by disillusionment and anger. Often he has gone through the hardship of rejecting the values of his parents and those he had considered infallible during childhood~

48

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

His rejection of segregation, war and exploitation often grows into a conviction that none of the older people knew what they were doing when they made or tried to remake the world. He has little faith in their organizations even when their goals may have been and still are similar. In the songs they wrote, the young people asked questions. The older song writers gave in their songs what they believed to be the answers. The new song writers, like those in the student movement, did not think in terms of ideology. They were, at first, concerned with what injustices they saw and felt, and not until later with how the evil should be removed. The subjects of the new songs were the conditions that aroused the students' concern and feeling. There was little reference to the labor movement, but many dealt with the theme of civil liberties, peace and civil rights. The songs were first sung on the campus, at parties and in folk clubs that catered to a college audience. Often these songs, along with "Ban the Bomb" songs from the English peace movement, were sung at student rallies and outdoor demonstrations. In the beginning, very few students thought of writing and singing these songs professionally. They sang for personal satisfaction and expression. There was hardly an opportunity, in 1960, for the few folk singers who were trying to make a living at it, let alone for anyone singing songs on "controversial" subjects. The folk boom that preceded Peter, Paul and Mary changed that picture considerably.

5

The Gate of Ivory and the Gate of Horn

Fully two years before Peter, Paul and Mary became top stars, singers Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and the Weavers were on the best-seller album lists. These recording artists developed a following independent of the tin-pan alley distribution apparatus that first circulated the Kingston Trio. Largely through the efforts of Pete Seeger, Sing Out! and its Hoots, an audience of serious folk music fans numbering in the tens of thousands had been created. The changes that Sing Out! itself had undergone since its first issue in May 1950 and its effect on this audience had played a key role in the development of the topical song movement. The Left Tradition

In 1950, People's Artists pretty much carried on the tradition of People's Songs, which, as has been noted, was associated with the organized progressive movement. However, by that time the Left was already being seriously isolated and weakened by McCarranism and McCarthyism, by the hysteria accompanying the Korean War, and to a certain extent, by the tactics of the movement itself. Nevertheless, the Hoots described in Chapter One were at their artistic height in the early and mid-1950's. The Hoots were the only place where the blacklisted could gather together to sing and create their own entertainment. Folk music in New York as well as in other cities offered a last refuge, where singers and thousands of young people could set their own standards of entertainment. Perhaps this is one reason 49

50

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

for the growth in interest and depth of understanding in folk music during a period of political repression. Gordon Friesen, journalist and critic, comments in a letter: 1 "So we had, in the 50's, a period of flux. One of the beneficial aspects, I suppose, was that without definite obligations to tie them down, the proponents of folk music were free to experiment. The Almanacs, obviously, had committed themselves irrevocably to certain causes. The Weavers, on the other hand, could branch out. They went down the road of traditional folk music where they enjoyed their greatest success. (By traditional I mean the old classics like 'Old Smokey: the old songs, without, at least, an immediate message.)" The isolation of the 1950's had its benefits in that high standards of performance and close understanding and enjoyment of folk music could develop without the interference of commercial interests. Although many "People's Artists" would have liked to be on the hit parade, what they usually envisioned was a new society where the "new man" and the "new woman" would listen to folk music as the nation's hits. In the 1950's, commercial outlets would have nothing to do with the "red folksingers" who hung around Washington Square. If you played the guitar, said the press, you were a Leftist. Nevertheless, this involuntary isolation had. I think, a positive effect in that it evoked a selfless devotion to the songs in the face of harassment. The noncommercial standards that were developed in these years, in addition to keeping alive the desire to write songs, later led the way to a significant recognition of traditional music under the guiding banjo of Pete Seeger. When he sang a song, everyone wanted to learn· it. Seeger did .not confine himself to topical ma-

THE GATE OF IVORY AND THE GATE OF HORN

51 .

terial, but went to great lengths to introduce, via Folkways Records, endless lists of songs from the Southern mountains and lowland regions. "Hootenanny Tonight,"2 for example, recorded live at the Hoots along with topical material, featured two traditional songs, "Mule Skinner's Blues" and "California Blues," sung by Sonny Terry. In spite of efforts by Seeger, Irwin Silber and others to keep folk music closely associated with American folk tradition, the same sectarian tendencies that plagued the Left movement in the 1950's also influenced Sing Out! Early Sing OutIs were filled with predominently topical material of variable quality on the issues of the day: the Santiago Continental Congress of Culture, the Progressive Party campaign of 1952, and the Trenton Six. This, in itself, I think, was healthy, in that it reflected concern with important issues affecting people. But the orientation was onesided because it favored such songs, as well as Spanish Civil War and union songs, over anything else. Traditional songs and traditional singers, the lifeblood of any folk music, were listened to, but never with the study nor with the respect they deservedly receive today. From 1956 to the present, there has been an ever increasing concentration on traditional folk music. A negative reaction to the isolation of the older organized Left and the outdated character of the topical songs available were instrumental in driving young people away from topical to traditional music. A further factor was far more dramatic. In 1954, the Hoots could be held at the Pythian Temple, seating around 800, but by 1958 they were selling out Carnegie Hall, seating capacity 2,500. It is significant that the catalyst for this growth was a nationally distributed record, "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall."3

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FREEDOM IN THE AIR

Commercial Success

Vanguard Records, though still small at that time, had the largest distribution apparatus for a folk music list of all the general record companies. "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall," featured Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman. They· sang arranged folk music, with a great moving spirit and respect for tradition, reflecting Seeger's influence. The record sold to thousands who never heard of folk music, as well as to those who had been introduced by the Kingston Trio to something faintly resembling it. The Weavers, who had been on the hit parade before the blacklist in 1950, had made a comeback on longplaying records. There are hundreds of performers and writers in their early and mid-twenties who can point to the "Weavers at Carnegie Hall" as the record that seriously aroused their interest in folk music. . Other Weavers' records followed. Reinforced by Seeger's solo concerts and the development of modern jazz, they caused a basic shift of interest from jazz to folk music on the college campus. With the issuance of American Favorite Ballads4 sung by Pete Seeger in 1959, the interest in folk music was great enough to push this record to the top ten in best-selling albums, despite the fact that Folkways Records was non-commercial in its orientation. This record helped spread folk music to the high schools as well as the colleges. 'Sing Out! could not at once jump on the bandwagon because it lacked funds. It published on a nonprofit and selfless basis. Volunteer labor and monthly Hoots kept it going. It was even in danger of folding in 1958, when it became a private business under the ownership of Moses Asch, Irwin Silber and Pete Seeger. By February 1960, the date of the first sit-in, Sing Out! had grown into a booming enterprise, with advertising, increased size and full coverage. The folk

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music "revival" had flowered a full two years before tin-pan alley discovered the millions that might be made from it. When Sing Out! became a commercial venture, it had the financial resources to offer its readers what it could not have afforded in previous lean years. It became a journal of record. Today it has over 25,000 circulation. Copies of Sing Out! are saved. On the other hand, Sing Out! ceased to initiate interest in various realms of folklore, including that of topical song. For a song to be printed in Sing Out!, it was necessary for it to have been already circulated. In the words of its editor, Irwin Silber: 1i "Once Broadside began and for a couple of years before then, it became our policy in Sing Out! to literally print many fewer original topical songs. When some writers say: Well, when we became a success, then they want us, it is a different way of saying what our policy is; namely: In the years previous we took hupon ourselves to say 'This is a good song. We tried it out. Nobody else has ever heard it. Let's print it.' Less and less, are ~e doing that, and this is not only true of topical songs, but now we are saying so and so is singing this song, and it is interesting to pass it on to you, or people have asked us for this song. In other words, responding more to the fact of a song than passing judgment on it before it's ever been tried out." Most of the new writers had come to New York with Sing Out! as their bible. But as their work was not known and of course not recorded, most of them found a cool, business-like "no" awaiting them when they submitted their songs for publication. However, Sing Out! played a vital role in encouraging Broadside when it was forming in late 1961, for Irwin Silber realized the need for another magazine to assume the function his no longer undertook to fulfill.

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Early Topical Song Popularity

In the late 1950's, Sing Out! and Pete Seeger exerted a national influence. In New York, The Bosses' Song Book and Bill McAdoo encouraged song writers through those lean years with a potential place to publish and the example of an unknown who was gaining popularity as a singer of his own songs. The Bosses' Songbook, Songs to Stifle the Flames of Discontent was published in 1959 and went through two editions. Its contributors came from many political backgrounds, and were in their early twenties. Almost all reflected a cynicism regarding the old organized Left. Some of the songs like "Talking Little Rock" and "Bomb Dirge" were humorous New York "sophisticate" comments on contemporary events. The majority of songs, none serious, concentrated on the old Left and the Left song movement, sometimes in good fun and other times in bitterness. Typical is this parody of the British dock workers' "Hold the Fort:"s

There is a group in this here town That really goes too far. They've traded in their Ph.Do's For a folk guitar. Cho: Sing a song for People'S Artists Balladiers unite! Buy your latest People's Songbook There's a Hoot tonight.

Organize and fertilize And sing your little song. You are right on every issue, A II the rest are wrong. There was no music, and perhaps this book was visualized by the editors, Dave Van Ronk and Dick

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Ellington, as Greenwich Village's answer to .the "Folk Process." Few of the songs are meaningful today, for the student movement has replaced cynicism with hope, and the old factional gripes, with sharp criticism of the establishment. In 1960, the people around Sing Out! were envious of the British topical song movement. Alex Comfort, Ewan McColl, and Mat McGinn were singing new and fresh songs that were both part of a tradition (Scot folk music) and of a mass movement (the Committee for Non-Violent Disarmament-CNVD). The films of the Aldermaston Marches drew long sighs as the folk singers and jazz bands made their way with tens of thousands along that country road to protest nuclear arming. Bill McAdoo achieved tremendous immediate popularity, partially because he seemed to be America's answer to the British song movement. A college graduate and very close to the organized Left, McAdoo was gifted with a good bass voice. He was the first singer in the Hoots to make up songs about the civil rights movement and to utilize his own tradition by relying on the· blues form for his lyrics and on spirituals for some of his melodies. His first Folkways record, on which he was accompanied by Pete Seeger, was well received and sold widely. Within a very short period, there were many teen-age Hootenanny-goers who were singing McAdoo's songs and looking up to him as an idol. His songs were northern commentaries on southern situations, and although they revealed a few original glimpses, the cliches he resorted to did not reflect the fresh character of the civil rights movement. When the first freedom songs started to drift North, ·his work suffered a great deal by comparison. Nevertheless, Bill .McAdoo was the only topical singer in the late :1950's, outside of Pete Seeger, who created intense emotional

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interest in topical song writing, and showed that a young writer could gain recognition singing his own songs. A Singers' Magazine The American radical tradition and the need to combat commercialism influenced the formation of Broadside. From the start, Broadside resolved to leave complete control of the songs in the hands of the authors. No publishing company would be formed in connection with it. Broadside meetings were held to hear new songs and select them for publication as well as to thrash out editorial decisions. Topical singers and song writers who were in town attended these, for Broadside visualized itself as a singers' magazine. The need for such a magazine was felt very strongly by Malvina Reynolds, Pete Seeger, and Sis Cunningham's family. Sis Cunningham, formerly a singer with the Almanacs and Broadside's editor, describes why her family accepted the terrible chore of putting out a twicemonthly mimeographed song publication: 7 "I wanted to work very much on a topical song paper whether we got it out ourselves or worked with somebody else on it. What I think made me decide that if possible it had to be done was it was· being said around that all these topical songs were coming out of Great Britain, and in this country none were being written. I just didn't go along with that. I figured that a lot of topical songs were being written, and just didn't have any way of getting out. It was a challenge to me when everyone kept on saying there were no good topical songs being written about what's going on in the United States. I got a little bit mad I guess, and I said: 'I don't believe that they're not being written, and that the reason people think they're not being written is because they don't see them in print.' ..

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Along with Pete Seeger and Gil Turner, it was Sis Cunningham, her husband Gordon Friesen, Gordon's brother Ollie, and daughters Agie and Jane Friesen who did the work of transcribing music, turning by hand an old discarded mimeograph, and recruiting singers and songs. In February 1962, 300 copies of· the seven-page first issue were mimeographed. Israel Young, an early and enthusiastic supporter, purchased 100 for his Folklore Center in Greenwich Village, and 200 were sent out as samples. The total cost of the first issue was $45. It was non-commercial in the extreme, and owed its life to the enthusiasm of Seeger, the toil and the inventiveness of the Friesens, and the songs corralled by both Seeger and Gil Turner. It operated on the faith that throughout the United States there were song writers desperately needing a place to air their musical thoughts and the ideals of the student movements. Broadside's strength has stemmed from both the talents of its song writers and its availability as a forum. From the first issue, it served as an independent publisher of songs reflecting the current events and social issues that stirred the song writers. Some were personally known to. the editors, but others merely introduced themselves by mail and got their songs printed. This open access. was made possible because established song writers did not crowd Broadside's pages and because action groups were not concerned with influencing the magazine'S policies. Prior to publication in late 1961, letters were sent to 12 older song writers and singers like Lee Hays, Earl Robinson and the Rices, asking their opinions on the advisability of initiating a twice-monthly topical song magazine. The replies varied from enthusiasm to skepticism about whether there were enough good songs to merit such a publication. On the other hand, Pete Seeger thought that organizations and unions

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would send in their own songs already mimeographed, and all Sis Cunningham would have to do would be to staple them in. There was also the hope that the older progressive and the newer student movements would encourage Broadside. Confounding all expectations, none of this happened. The first real aid came from the folk-music community. Sing Out! printed advertising free of charge and welcomed Broadside as a home for all those bothersome topical singers who want their songs published. The songs themselves were those Pete Seeger and Sis Cunningham received in the mail or they came from the singers who had traveled to New York in an effort to make a living in the folk music field. Instrumental in introducing Bob Dylan, the Freedom Singers, Phil Ochs, Mark Spoelstra and others to Broadside, was the ex-Baptist minister and the magazine's early co-editor, Gil Turner. A full two years before its first issue, along with Bob Cohen and Dee Dixon, he had sung in the Mark Lane campaign for the New York State Assembly. At that time, Lane dubbed the three "The New World Singers." This was the first Northern folk music group to participate actively in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, in August 1961. The New World Singers, later joined by Happy Traum, spread the new freedom songs at Hoots and SNCC benefit concerts throughout New York City. Both Turner and Cohen are personal friends of SNCC leader Robert Moses. Their contacts, through work in the South, resulted in the appearance of a number of freedom songs in Broadside. During the winter of 1961-1962, Turner was master of ceremonies for Monday night Hoots at Gerdes Folk City, a popular folk music bar in Greenwich Village. There was no pay for most performances, but if the manager liked you, there was a good chance you might get a week's work at a good salary. There was also a

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responsive audience on Monday nights, and the song writers would use Gerdes to try out their latest efforts. Turner got to know many of them well. Even upon a first meeting, he introduced them to Broadside. He would then ask them to come up and tape their songs-at a Broadside meeting held in the small apartment that served as its office. There were many times when Phil Ochs or Bob Dylan or Tom Paxton would write a new song, and just drop in to tape and discuss it. All the writers except Bob Dylan were still passing the hat at Village coffee houses for a living, and the apartment where Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen lived provided a warm reception with kindly encouragement and a good audience who could offer criticism and aid in writing songs. But most important was the magazine itself, for it provided a forum for these singers and others, who sent their songs in by mail. In maintaining a strictly open forum, Broadside developed, along with the varying currents of the topical song-writing movement, and came to be known as the journal of that movement. Songmaker's Almanac, initiated before Broadside, served a regional need well as a form for the older song writers of California. Broadside was a national magazine and as such played and plays a unique role. College students or, as many of them were, college drop-outs could find a warm welcome in Broadside for the songs that expressed their personal reactions. The outstanding older song writers like Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger enjoyed a new birth and contributed many fine songs. New freedom songs did appear in the early Broadside, but not frequently enough, since no direct connection existed during the first year of publication between Broadside and individuals in the movement. The first issue came out in the middle of Mark

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Lane's anti-shelter campaign. This was reflected in Agie Friesen's "Will You Work for Peace or Wait for War?" and Gil Turner's "Carlino." Another deeply controversial public issue was captured in Bob Dylan's "Talking John Birch." There were also labor songs by Ernie Marrs and Malvina Reynolds. The next few issues developed along with the songs. These were rarely about workers or unions, but mainly on peace, civil liberties, and above all else, on civil rights. From the earliest issues, two outstanding British song writers, Alex Comfort and Matt McGinn, were represented. The layout was always imaginative. Due to the lack of funds for photographs, only original art work was used along with newspaper clippings. Agnes Friesen, an outstanding young artist, gained first recog~ nition through the pages of Broadside. Aside from the enthusiasm of the singers and a following of several hundred, many people in the folk music field constantly expected Broadside to cease publication. It was sold and spread by its singers. Phil Ochs and the New World Singers carried bundles on their trips and sold them without commission. In the first year and a half of publication, its singers and their material were considered too "controversial," sometimes amateurish. But since they were never profitable, they were not worth serious attention. It was only when the singers associated with Broadside became well-known and were valuable for benefit performances and concert bookings that the singers, their songs and their magazine began to receive belated recognition. Perhaps, though it was a problem at the time, the earlier lack of commercial appeal may have been Broadside's greatest asset. It meant that during its formative years, unimpeded, the magazine could publish singers and artists whose weight and ability would not have to be measured in gold.

6 The South Spreads Its Songs The Albany Movement Simultaneously, in the winter of 1961-1962, the songs originally introduced by Guy Carawan and the Nashville Quartet were losing identification with the originators, and becoming part of the movement. Albany was the first singing movement. Every song that entered Albany was changed in the process, for here the whole community sang-a community dominantly influenced by the older church traditions. The Albany movement was initiated by two field secretaries of the SN CC, Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon. They arrived with no money and depended upon the poorer citizens and students for support. Their initial point of organization was Albany State College, a campus that had seen large demonstrations a year earlier protesting the poor food and demanding police protection from white men who were abusing the Negro co-eds. For two months Sherrod and Reagon sounded out the students on what commitment they were ready to make in the event of demonstrations and arrests. The college administration was hostile to this activity and the president issued a warrant for their arrest. 1 The first major incident was the arrest of two students attempting to buy tickets at the white-only counter of the Albany bus station on the same day that the Interstate Commerce Commission had ruled segregation illegal in interstate bus depots. The 100 people who attended the hearing were arrested, herded in an alley, and forced to stay there in the pouring rain. This arrest and treatment caused great commu61

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nity concern. Adults of all ages along with little children attended a mass meeting which resulted in the first marches downtown and further arrests,at first numbering in the hundreds and then in the thousands. The participation of adults in the movement and the absence of students in the later stages-they were suspended from school as a penalty for demonstrating -had a strong effect on the songs of the Albany movement. Bernice Reagon comments on this: 2 "Every song that went through Albany took a change; 'This Little Light of Mine,' 'We Shall Not Be Moved,' 'Oh Freedom'-all of these songs took a drastic change when they hit Albany. "It had to, basically, since the people who made up the movement were not students. Because after we got suspended from Albany State, and they suspended the head of the student government, there was no leadership on campus, and we got no more cooperation from there. The cooperation came from the community. This was the first movement outside of the Montgomery Bus Boycott that was basically adult. There were more adults than students. "And the music that is sung in Albany is still the very old-fashioned kind, the church-religious type of music, and it had a lot of influence on the. type of songs that we did sing. "We had a few rock-and-roll style things which we never did in church. We never did 'Dogs' or 'You Better Leave Segregation Alone' in a church in Albany. . . . It's a very, very strict thing. That's why I am still averse to verses like 'Doin' the Twist with my mind on freedom' to 'Woke Up This Morning' because 'Woke Up This Morning' is taken from a church song." Bernice Reagon pointed out that there were many in the movement who disagreed with the last statement. However, in Albany, where SNCC, NAACP and SCLC participated under local leadership, respect for

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the religious feelings of the people was strictly maintained. The Albany movement contained some of the best singing and gave many new songs based on old church spirituals to the freedom movement. It was the singing in the mass meetings and marches that sustained the spirit of the community during the long months of arrests which were carefully geared by Police Chief Prichett not to shock the nation but to "nonviolently" smother the movement. As far as public accommodations are concerned, the Chief's tactics were successful, and it was not until the 1964 Civil Rights Act that the color bar was finally brought down. But it was the Albany movement that gave the Negro community a pride, purpose and unity that resulted later in a highly successful voter registration drive and made possible the nomination of a Negro candidate in Southwest Georgia. When several thousand people of all ages have sung well all their lives and are vitally caught up in an emotionally charged movement, there is nothing comparable to the songs they spontaneously create or their singing. The Albany movement made the non-violent army a singing army all the way from its minister generals to six-year-old buck-privates. The songs persist. haunting Chief Pritchett in his sleep:!

Over my head I see freedom in the air Over my head, Oh Lord I see freedom in the air. Over my head, I see freedom in the air, There must be a God somewhere. The Albany movement's singing and spirit had a national effect. But the quality and style of singing in different local areas of the South varied greatly, often depending on the talents of the song leaders and the methods of organization in the community. Some-

FREEDOM IN THE AIR

times SNCC would organize a community by living among the people and with the support of the local leadership, they would involve them in mass meetings, songs and discussion. At other times, it was SCLC that utilized the churches as a base for organization, depending upon leading speakers and an outstanding gospel choir to attract people to listen at mass meetings. Often there was an overlap. In Birmingham, Dorothy Cotten and Rev. Andrew Young introduced and promoted mass singing, whereas in Albany the local gospel choir occasionally performed. The Freedom Singers

The Freedom Singers were the major group responsible for spreading freedom songs over the nation. Their main body of songs came from the Nashville sit-ins, the Albany movement and the songs of the jailed CORE and SNCC freedom riders at Parchman Penitentiary, Mississippi. The first group of Freedom Singers-Chuck Neblett, Rutha Harris, Bertha Gober, and Bernice and Cordell Reagon-consciously attempted to present and, I think, succeeded in presenting both the content and the form of the new songs from the South. The group was formed with the aim of raising money and spreading the ideas of SNCC. All the singers were SNCC field secretaries. They did not sing with instruments. They used the same basic equipment -hands, feet and strong voices-that they had used while leading mass meetings in the South. The Freedom Singers presented both the rhythmand-blues "Dog, Dog" and the many freedom songs that originated from church singing. In the first six months of 1962, conditions were very difficult. Bernice Johnson describes the first part of the Freedom Singers' tour: 4

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"In the beginning we sang for transportation, board, and for whatever funds were offered. Our main purpose was informative, because at that time, January 1962, SNCC was not well known, not even on campuses. The agreement with SNCC was that we were to receive $10 a week subsistence and traveling expenses. We received $20 a month the first six months. At times, we were in really bad shape. We travelled by car, a 1963 Buick compact station wagon donated by Len Dressler of Chicago...." Borrowing money to keep going and initiating Friends of SNCC organizations in many parts of the country, the Freedom Singers finally were able to command high fees for engagements. These fees were turned over to SNCC and netted between $45,000 and $50,000. The successful concert tour managed by Toshi Seeger, Pete's wife, acquainted tens of thousands of college students and adults with the work of SNCC and the significance of the movement. The picture the country has of freedom singing is the result of this successful tour plus the deep impression made by the Freedom Singers at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, which, as Cordell Reagon puts it, "turned into one big freedom sing."5 The New Songs

The new songs, at times, use only a one-word change as in "Woke up this mornin' with my mind on Jesus" to "Woke up this mornin' with my mind on Freedom." Other new songs depend on new couplets; for example, different reasons for not finding the singer at the "back of the bus." The first verse of the song starts like this: 6

If you miss me at the back of the bus, And you can't find me no where,

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Come on up to the front of the bus, I'll be ridin' up there. Dozens of verses in every town in the South have appeared. Here is a variation I heard at Atlanta in 1964: 7

If you miss me at my girl friend's house, And you can't find me no where, Come on over to the picket line I'll be do in' my lovin' there. Or in the election campaign of .Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer on the 1964 Democratic Party ticket in Mississippi: 8

If you miss me in Missus' kitchen, And you can't find me no where, Come on over to Washington, I'll be sitting Congress there. Songs of sadness and strength capture the emotions of those who must think of what will happen when "we walk downtown" or when the night riders come with bombs and guns. From Sam Block of Greenwood, Mississippi, came the slow and mournful song that now is sung in mass meetings and churches in the COFO project: 9

They say that freedom is a constant dying. (3X) Lord, we died so long, We must be free. We must be free.

o

The most important central element in freedom songs is that they are functional and that they grow spontaneously, quickly fitting into the different needs of different local areas. When police clubs, snarling dogs and hoses start to attack the line of march, praying to one's self gives some courage, but when hundreds sing their hopes together the songs provide the

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shield and identification necessary to withstand even the fury of a hostile mob. Many songs arise out of moments of waiting. Will a worker in Mississippi come back? Has he been delayed or has he disappeared? So many marches, so many beatings. The church tradition of testifying, rising in front of the freedom congregation to tell your soul in frank, unashamed language, is an important part of many mass meetings. Often, emotion is too strong to come out in words, so a new song is born, and the congregation joins in, arm in arm: 10

We are soldiers in the army We've got to fight although we have to cry We've got to hold up the freedom banner We've got to hold it up until we die. There are, as Cordell Reagon repeatedly states, as many freedom singers as there are marchers. The predominant form of expression is the old church tradition, but in many communities where the freedom fight has been especially strong, the modem gospel tradition of singing prevails. The gospel style contains many of the same harmonies and musical accompaniments as its secular sister-form, rhythm and blues. Both are extremely popular in the South, and they constitute the bulk of the segregated Negro radio station's hit parade. The long struggle in Birmingham, organized by the SCLC in 1963, shook the reign of old "Bull" Conner to its foundation. Despite fire hoses, dogs and vicious riot squads, the strength of the Birmingham movement grew. There were nightly mass meetings that attracted thousands. The main attraction at these meetings was Carlton Reese's Gospel Freedom Choir of the Alabama Christian Movement for Civil Rights. The members of the choir were the leading. gospel singers from the churches involved in civil rights ac-

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tivity. As Rev. Andrew Young pointed out at the Atlanta 1964 "Sing," forming a local choir consisting of the best singers from the community's churches is a highly effective civil rights tactic. It is an additional factor in unifying church leadership and getting it firmly behind the struggle--a unity of purpose which is at times difficult to achieve and maintain. Many new songs were sung. They were based on gospel tunes, and were sung in complex four-part harmonies. "99 and One Half Won't Do" uses "100" as perfect or complete freedom, with no settling for anything less. The song has a great call-answer section in which the choir leader Carlton Reese asks "five" and the choir answers "won't do!" then "ten"-"won't do!" and "fifteen"-"won't dol" and so by fives all the way up to ninety. After 90, the speed increases with "ninety-one"-"won't dol" then "ninety-two"-"won't do!" right on up to where the leader and choir join to $ing "99 and one half won't do." Other Trends

Some of the singers come from rhythm-and-blues backgrounds, and this is the source that produced "Dog Dog" and "Fighting For My Rights," based on a Ray Charles hit. Matthew Jones, leader of a group of SNCC field secretaries now touring and recording as the Freedom Singers, represents an essentially different but, I think, valid approach to freedom singing. Formerly a jazz musician, Jones utilizes jazz phrasing in writing some of the songs his group performs. This group of Freedom Singers does not represent the main body of Southern freedom singing in style, but it certainly does in approach. What is retained is the spontaneity and statement as a movement. Although Jones is a conscious song composer in the same way Bob Dylan is, his attitude is essentially different: l l

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"It is hard to say. For even though you write a folk song, there are really so many things that come in, you know, because while you are writing it somebody might say how somebody else is feeling and it will affect you. It is very difficult to say that you are solely the composer of a folk song especially of this nature. It is very difficult because there are so many things that happen. Somebody might get up in church and say something and from this a song is born in you. It's not like sitting down to say 'Well, I'm going to write a song about freedom.' It's not this kind of thing." Matthew Jones and his Freedom Singers sing in an over-arranged fashion, but there is a clarity in the words and presentation in much of what they sing that is very moving. The songs are not, as Jones states, written down on a piece of paper. They are summoned at a church meeting or while riding through the South. When the Freedom Singers were riding into Tuscaloosa they saw a road sign showing a Klansman riding a horse with the words, "Welcome to the Friendly City of Tuscaloosa." Chuck Neblett, a member of the group, started the "Ballad of the KKK" at that moment. It is written to the theme tune of Zorro: 12

Out of the night when the full moon is bright Rides a devil known as Klansman. Devil makes the sign of a K Devil, you're bound to see your day. As a number of student leaders move North to study, their style changes with the influence of new factors. Many leave behind the couplet composition in favor of the more personal ballad-type form. In 1964, Charles Sherrod had left Albany, and was attending the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington_ In May of that year, on our way to Atlanta, Sherrod

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sang a new song that had ballad verses and a gospel chorus, "Nothing But A Soldier." It was the first ballad to be written by a SNCC field secretary who had previously sung in the church tradition. In it, he tells of his life, "Mr. Charley" (the white man), and the meaning of the movement. In writing an autobiographical ballad, he tells of the thousands who were arrested and beaten while trying "to make it in."18

Blood ran down my forehead, Blood ran down my back, Threw me in the jailhouse, Face down on the rock, Told Judge Jim Crow slowly, I may not be brave, You can jail my body, But I'll never be your slave. Chorus: Nothing but a soldier (3X) Can make it in. Julius Lester, who was a senior at Fisk at the time 01 the Nashville sit-ins and later became the musical director of Highlander Folk School, has been North for two years. During that time he has been exposed to, and has both liked and disliked, New York's folk musicians, topical singers and magazines. One of the finest performers and still a Southerner in musical feeling and insight, Lester went back to his tradition when he started to write songs. His first two were blues in the Mississippi Delta bottleneck style of running a bottleneck up and down the strings to obtain the notes of the melody. One warns: 14

Long side of the river, flowers smell so sweet (2X) But when you go fishing, take along a winding sheet. Dead and gone, po' boy, dead and gone (2X)

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Lord, he's lyin' in his grave, never did a damn thing wrong. A few months later, he used an instrument he had learned in the North, the banjo, and picked a melody resembling a tune from Eastern European folk culture. He wrote these words: 15

See how the rain falls. It falls on the tree where he hung. It falls on the farmer who tied the noose, And on the grave where the last hymn was sung. There is effective conscious poetry and melodic composition in this song. Nonetheless, it is a freedom song. It was born out of the freedom struggle, as were the songs Guy Carawan introduced, and the thousands of verses made up in every community in the South. They are songs that are inseparably tied to the Southern Negro and to his history. Whether he remains in the South or comes North, the meaning of "master" in the days of slavery or "Mr. Charley" today still sears the tissues of his brain. The freedom songs owe much to the initial spurt provided by the Nashville Quartet, Guy Carawan and the Freedom Singers, but the influence of the pioneers has been eclipsed. Every marcher has become a freedom singer, and it is they, rather than the outstanding individuals, important as they were, who have made the movement rock with song.

7

Topical Songs Find an Audience

During the second year of Broadside's publication, topical songs and a number of topical singers became tremendously popular. Peter, Paul and Mary's version of "Blowin' in the Wind" sold over one million records. Far more important, Bob Dylan's own album, consisting almost entirely of topical songs, made the top lists, selling over 150,000. Broadside itself more than tripled in circulation. The ground for this considerable success was laid by the emerging group of talented, professional topical song writer-singers. The most outstanding were Bob Dylan, Peter La Farge, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton and Mark Spoelstra. During 1962, these writers appeared at small concerts, traded songs and continued to sing in their respective coffee houses. What is most important is that these singers, all in their twenties, matured as writers, and the quality of their work improved immeasurably during that period. Almost all the outstanding songs by these writers were written in 1962 or later. Broadside's Growth

The outpouring of higher quality topical songs marked a turning point for Broadside that can be placed approximately at issue No. 20, February 1963. Among other songs published for the first time were Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" and "It's All Right," Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" and Phil Ochs' "Hazard, Kentucky." The following issues were maintained at a minimum level by offering at least one or two good songs. An important part of early publicity were Broad72

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side-sponsored concerts in March and May 1963, which gave topical singers like Phil Ochs and Mark Spoelstra a special chance to try their songs in a quiet concert atmosphere. Although the series had to be cancelled, the enthusiastic response that the topical singers received at the early concerts was repeated again and again at their growing list of small engagements. More important than the concerts was the first Broadside recording developed under the guidance of Gil Turner and produced and distributed by Folkways. Songs that could look impossibly dull and long on a sheet, like the "Ballad of Monroe," sounded very good when sung by Pete Seeger on that record. Seeger and the New World Singers sang Malvina Reynolds', Woody Guthrie's and Bob Dylan's songs, while the song writers themselves, the Freedom Singers, Blind Boy Grunt (a pseudonym for Bob Dylan), Phil Ochs, Pete La Farge, Gil Turner and Matt McGinn sang their own.! This record spurred on many new song writers and was an important factor in spreading the name and the content of the magazine, since the recording presented a good cross section of songs and singers. It was an exciting record with a fresh spirit and a relevance not heard in recorded topical music since the 1940's when the Almanacs made their records for Keynote. In the general history of the folk music "revival," the record industry has played a dominating role. It is only after the songs are heard that they take on their real and full vitality. However, even at the time of the first Broadside record, the new singers were considered "hot" and their material "too controversial." Their songs would stir up too many waters, cause too many phone calls from "patriotic organizations." Bob Dylan, who is by far the best of all the topical song writers,

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found himself in a posItion of having recorded his songs for Columbia and not having them released. Only two songs out of the twelve on his first record were written by himself, and neither of them could be considered political in nature. 2 Freewheelin' Bob Dylan attracted much attention when he first came to New York, and his first record sold over 8,000 copies in the folk music market. Besides being an excellent song writer, Dylan was also one of the better city performers of traditional music. However, his popularity grew even greater when he started to sing songs dealing with integration, war and the anti-shelter campaign. Finally, realizing their commercial potential, Columbia released his topical songs on Freewheelin'.3 When Columbia took this step, they gave their Artist and Repertoire man, John Hammond, a big green light. An extensive advertising campaign was initiated months before the actual release of the album. Freewheelin' contained the lyrical "Blowin' in the Wind" and the highly poetic "Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall." Alongside the clever and light "It's All Right" there was the heated address to those whose wealth was based on war in the song, "Masters of War." In this song, Dylan expressed a bitterness that thousands of young people felt toward the generals and war manufacturers who rule a world ready to destroy itself. It has been said so many times that it has become a cliche, but there is some truth to the statement that Dylan is the "spokesman for our generation." Perhaps it is more exact to say that Dylan has the talent to picture in his songs what people his age are feeling and thinking.

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Freewheelin' is, I think, the best of his first four records. It found its way onto the bookshelves of the college dormitories and into the rooms of middle-class high school students. His success forced other large commercial companies to listen to the audition tapes of topical singers with more interest than they had previously shown. Dylan had forced his songs and his contemporaries into the mass media. Within a year, "B1owin' in the Wind" was leading the hit parade, and Dylan was to appear in a feature story in Life and as a performer on the Steve Allen Show. This record spread more radical ideas to more people in a few short months than all the northern protest meetings and marches since 1960. But without the sit-ins and the peace marches, Dylan's voice, no matter how brilliant, would have fallen on the same limited number of ears as did those of Bill McAdoo and the Bosses Song Book writers of the 1950's. Pete Seeger and Newport '63 An important factor in the rise and acceptance of Bob Dylan's songs, as well as those of other song writers like Malvina Reynolds, has been the singing of highly skilled interpreters like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. Seeger, unlike Joan Baez, had always sung protest or topical songs. When they began to be written in everimproving quality, Seeger changed the content of his concerts to favor the new songs that appeared in Broadside. He made this shift in the spring and summer of 1963, just before his world-wide tour. He never failed to mention Broadside as the source for obtaining the songs he was singing and as a forum that new song writers could utilize. At the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, all the Broadside writers who appeared sang especially well. Phil Ochs received a standing ovation for his "Talking Birming-

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ham Jam," a song that struck right at the heart of the most important issue stirring his audience. This was not a prepared audience. Although most had heard Seeger and Dylan sing, few had heard Peter La Farge, Tom Paxton or Phil Ochs. It was heartening to know that there were so many good song writers who sang their songs well. After the Festival, the song writers received many in· vitations for concerts and benefits. The song writers of Broadside had become accepted as part of the student and folk music movements. Problems of Success

Meanwhile, back at the apartment, screams and protestations came from the Friesens as the growth of Broadside imperilled its very existence. Although a volunteer crew kept the magazine alive, there was no appreciable help in the transcription and typing. There was almost no time left for the vital corre· spondence, which was, in the first year of its existence, an important part of Broadside's contribution to the topical song movement. Many times Sis Cunningham would find a song that had three or four good verses and one that just didn't work, or a tune that was fine, with the exception of one phrase or one note. In the early days, she would send Pete Seeger's and her own suggestions to the writer, and this played a key role in developing new song writers. As this correspond. ence had to be neglected, the new song writers' work would have to qualify for publication pretty much as it stood. Although new song writers could and did still enter into Broadside's pages, it was with less frequency, since their work, unaltered by criticism, had to com· pete with the songs of professional topical song writer· singers. Fortunately, Broadside has kept an open policy, and

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the apartment has hosted a whole new set of faces who are among the "second generation" of topical song writers. Bill Frederick and Gene Kadish are among the number Who primarily earn their living from other sources and write songs for the personal satisfaction it gives them. The professional song writers start with the same motivation, but, in addition to expressing their personal feelings, they must take into consideration performability by others and audience reaction. In the summer of 1964, the pressure became too great, and Broadside was forced to go into monthly publication. Although the size is larger, the total of songs being published monthly is smaller. Broadside's printing fewer songs, coupled with the grass roots interest in topical song composition, has produced a raft of small topical song publications. They vary from the informal Comment of the Potomac Folklore Society to the Broadside of New Britain, Conn., issued by "Bill" Comeau, a young minister at the First Church of Christ, to the state-wide Et Tu of California that includes songs, poetry and articles. The second issue of Et-Tu was devoted to opposing Proposition 14 in the 1964 election. The new little magazines are mostly mimeographed, and provide a place for a local artist or two to express himself with illustrations. The emergence of many small magazines around the country that devote themselves to the publication of the work of local song writers is an excellent index to the breadth and vitality of the topical song movement. Inspired by the success that in many ways has limited Broadside, thousands of song writers, editors, poets and artists across the country are finding their creative and political expression in the new publications.

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Song Writer-Singers Singer and Subject

The topical song movement in the North, quite unlike its sister freedom movement in the South, is centered around the personalities of its leading singers. It is generally true of the folk music "revival" that admiration for performers goes far beyond an appreciation of their talents. It includes the imitation of their clothes, methods of speech and singing styles. A.round folk music centers like Washington Square in New York are to be found the "Huck Finn" caps associated with Bob Dylan, as well as the energetic singing approach typical of Phil Ochs' performance. This imitation, of course, holds true for the traditional forms of folk music when teen-agers who have never seen a medicine show or the inside of a bar imitate the old blues men and the country singers. Singing folk songs from a tradition other than one's own raises the question of how a stranger to a culture can interpret its songs with validity. This problem is easily seen when a young boy from Minneapolis plays a guitar with a chain-gang song like "Take This Hammer." Unless an original, new relationship is made between the singer and the song to put the song into perspective, the performance will have little meaning. This problem presents itself whether it is a traditional love song like "Pretty Sara," which refers to the singer's longing to be a "freeholder" and own some land (a concept meaningless in 20th-century USA), or a traditional topical song like "Take This Hammer," which refers to a situation the singer has never experienced. Current topical songs, as an expression of the au78

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thor's feelings about love he has felt, things he has seen, or what he has read about in the newspapers, generally do not involve this problem. The author is expressing something with which he has had some kind of contact and which has had such strong relevance to his life that it has compelled him to write a song about it. Still, there are difficulties that arise in this area even for the topical song writer-singer. Once he becomes a professional, that is, one who makes his living by singing his songs or by others singing them, he necessarily enters into contact with the profit-oriented demands of tin-pan alley. These can and do exert influence independent of the content of the songs. For example, after "Blowin' in the Wind" made the hit parade, a great demand arose for topical songs that were general in character and that contained enough protest to catch what was in the air, but not enough to start any winds blowing. Topical song writers were writing such songs anyway, but the commercial importance of them led many singers, especially interpreters of topical songs, to feature them at their concerts. More importantly, the publishers push the more innocuous general songs rather than the more damning direct statements for popular singers like Peter, Paul and Mary and the Brothers Four. Secondly, once involved in singing for a living and actually residing in the various communities where city folk singers live (Greenwich Village being the largest), living habits are changed to fit one's trade and the customs of the profession. If you are working, your last set usually ends after one or two in the morning, and many nights you will fall asleep at four in the morning. For many singers, this means getting up at two or three in the afternoon, having supper at one of the local folk bars like the "Limelight" and proceeding to the night's activities, either performing or watching

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others perform. This life is exhausting and, in its own way, limiting. The opportunity for reading is far less than in student days, since a great deal of spare time must be spent traveling on tour, practising and, of course, writing. Unlike the singers of the 1940's and 1950's, none of the topical song writers are members of organizations or even inseparably associated with any particular movement, although many have their favorites as far as benefits are concerned. Their form of expression is in song, but ironically, the success of their songs threatens to keep them out of contact with their subject matter; NYCPA

Whether young or old, the problem of the isolation of a professional song writer from his themes persists. Many have felt this strongly and have made trips to the scene of the movements about which they write. It was after such a trip to Hazard, Kentucky, that a number of song writers and folk singers joined together to form the New York Council of Performing Artists (NYCPA) in April 1964. Tom Paxton's statement about this trip is revealing (Broadside, No. 45): "Saturday night, we had the first honest-to-goodness Hootenanny I was ever in. We sang union songs, mostly, and they never sounded like that in Washington Square. I could go on, but what mattered was here was a grass-roots, feet-on-the-ground movement moving towards real goals." The NYCPA is open to all in the performing arts but at this writing participation has been limited to folk singers. Besides acting as a clearing house for benefits, the NYCPA played a vital role in recruiting volunteers for the summer's Mississippi Caravan of Music. It is still in its formative stages, and has yet to

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fulfill its early promise, but if the following declara· tion of principle is any sign, then the NYCPA will have helped a long way in keeping the folk music performers in touch with the folk: "The New York Council of Performing Artists, in order to participate in the building of a society in which each individual is free and able to develop and express himself as much as his individual capacities allow, has adopted the following principles: "The best means to achieve this end is through support and participation in organized movements dedicated to ending racial, economic, and political injustice." Although each singer has his own style and songs, there is much about the background of the leading song writers that is similar. None of the young song writers were raised in New York nor were their formative years spent there. Bob Dylan comes from Minnesota, Phil Ochs and Len Chandler from Ohio, Tom Paxton from Oklahoma, Peter La Farge from Colorado, and Mark Spoelstra from California. All have traveled extensively, and mostly by the hard routes-hitch.hiking and riding the freights. They brought to New York an experience which was based on living in many different parts of the country. The fact that their experience reflects a cross section of the country is a great factor, I think, in the wide appeal of their songs. Their common denominator is that they all function politically through writing and singing their own songs. Bob Dylan

Most influential in shaping the habits of the younger song writers and best known is the generally acknowl· edged leading writer of the topical song move· ment, Bob Dylan. He left the University of Minnesota

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during his freshman year and "bummed" around the country. He picked up odd jobs singing country and western style, listened to the records of dead bluesmen and to the live sounds of Muddy Waters' band in Chicago. At first, he sang very few of the songs he wrote himself. He was rejected by Folkways records in 1961 when he asked to sing for them, and was accepted by John Hammond of Columbia records. His singing and his first record created a sensation in the folk music community. However, it was not until he started to sing his own songs that Dylan achieved national prominence. By 1965, Dylan's writing had developed in three major stages. The first and most basic influence on him was that of Woody Guthrie. The latter's confinement in a Brooklyn Hospital with Huntington's Cholera was one of the major reasons for Dylan'S coming to New York. One of his first published songs was "Talking John Birch" (Broadside, No. I). It utilized one of Guthrie's favorite forms of composition-the talking blues-a satirical spoken commentary in rhyme, with a base run guitar background. Dylan's sympathy with the anti-shelter campaign expressed itself in an exciting song, "I Will Not Go Down Under the Ground" (Broadside, No.3). It made sense and was consistent with the reactions of the people, who were refusing to go into the dark shelters. Dylan's initial statement, like Guthrie's great writing, is in the first person, and there is no hesitancy based on "wise moderation." Dylan does not cite statistics to prove his point, but sees, in the great lands of America, the reason for refusing to submit to the death shelters. Like Guthrie, he took most of his tunes, and sometimes the basis for his lyrics, from folk tradition. Even in what many consider his best poetic song, "Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall," the tune and the structure of the Childe ballad "Lord Randall" provide the

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framework. Dylan uses the images of thunder and lightning in a style not very different from Guthrie's in much of his prose. Although greatly influenced by Guthrie in this period Dylan is his own writer and creates images and pictures that rise out of the 1960's. A significant amount of Dylan's writing, quite apart from the music, is pure poetry. He has, for a long period, considered himself a poet. The best example is "Hard Rain," which appears in a poetry anthology edited by a leading American man of letters, Walter Lowenfels. 1 In the song, the realm of Dylan's experience is concisely expressed with lyrical imagery. He lists what he has seen, what he has heard and whom he has met. In the long series of deeply sensual images there is present both the sharp bitterness and proud enjoyment of what Dylan feels is life. In the second period of song-writing Dylan came entirely into his own, leaving behind the dominant influences of Woody Guthrie and country music. It's too bad that he confined himself solely to serious subjects, failing to tap the excellent comic sense that made his talking blues so popular. Although there were a number of fine songs written, like "The Times They Are A-Changing," one of them has been remembered above all the others, "The Ballad of Hattie Carroll." This song sensitively describes the murder of a house maid by a young member of one of Maryland's first families. Great indignation was caused by the crime, and a number of songs were written about it. But it is Dylan's "Hattie Carroll" that continues to be sung and remembered even after the more shocking murders in Alabama and Mississippi. In an article on Hattie Carroll in Broadside (No. 48), Phil Ochs summarized what is most outstanding about Dylan's art as a song writer: "The understatment, the subtle lyric, the ironic twist, are demonstrated time and time again

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throughout the song. There is no empty cry of shame or bland plea for decency." In the current stage of his song writing, there seems to be an attempt to try and recapture some of the humor and personal statement typical of his early writings. There is also the explicit rejection of outright political statement. His latest album, "Another Side of Bob Dylan,"2 recorded in one session, contains a minimum of political statement and includes a composition which relegates his early more political songs to a time when he was "older." On this record, Bob claims he is "younger now" and therefore writing songs that offer no moral judgments. The poems that constitute the album notes reveal quite clearly that Dylan has taken refuge in the assertion that there are no morals. He will no longer condemn, although the events that moved him in 1963 still stir others in 1965. On the other hand, Dylan shows an increased understanding of the beauties of an individual in his description of a conversation by gesture between himself and a Greek working woman. But Dylan also sings a song with a gimmicky pun name, "Motorpsycho Nitemare," which is a "farmer'sdaughter" type story that reveals, at its worst, a "citybilly's" complete ignorance of the farmer, his ways, and his customs. The Greek lady is real but the American farmer is a callous stereotype. These contradictions run throughout his latest work. He wants to reach more Americans by using many of the melodic phrases of the Beatles, a popular rock-and-roll group imported from England. But in using the Beatles as his source, Dylan denies the heart of their music which is the rhythm-and-blues records sold in the American Negro communities. The Beatles have taken the surface structure of rhythm and blues, and Dylan, in taking over the Beatles, makes the music just one step further away from the real stuff, just one shade thinner.·

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In the light of the general level· of popular tunes, I think most people would be very pleased if Dylan's latest songs made the hit parade. Their poetry alone is far superior to the records generally produced by the hack slaves to tin-pan alley. But when compared to the lyrics and music of Dylan's earlier songs, they fail. Musically, he has accepted the framework of American popular music and has permitted this to limit him. One need only compare the melodies of "Blowin' in the Wind" and "It Ain't Me Babe" to see the superior composition of his earlier work. A most important question is why the leading p0litical-topical song writer, second only in ability to Woody Guthrie in this century, and with great promise of surpassing his early mentor, has abandoned that at which he is best. An excellent article on this subject, with some interesting quotations from Dylan, is Nat Hentoff's profile in the New Yorker (October 24, 1964). In it, Dylan discusses the confusion and chaos thatresuited from his appearance before the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee to accept their Tom Paine award. Dylan's own reaction is worth studying carefully because of his revulsion at the display of finery at the dinner in the Grand Ballroom of the Americana Hotel which contrasted sharply with his own dungarees. These differences in dress were symptomatic of a more meaningful gap between Dylan and his adult audience. In the article, Dylan states that even on first arrival he felt hemmed in. He felt no connection between the people in the Grand Ballroom and himself. He insulted the audience, asking what all the "bald heads" were doing there and observing that he did not see any of his friends from the "March on Washington." The hostility and misunderstanding between speaker and audience reached its height when he stated there was so much violence in the land that a little of the late

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President Kennedy's assassin was in him, and that he was there in spirit at Dallas when it happened. Judging by his own assessment in the New Yorker interview, Dylan was as quick to condemn his audience completely without understanding it, as the audience was to boo him without fathoming his intent. Dylan claims that his audience had little real courage, seekingrespectability as a means of retaining their jobs. Of course, there are healthier ways to keep a job than by attending the dinner of a progressive civil liberties organization, but thousands of young poets, singers, and writers do share Dylan's disdain of those who mime the manners of the establishment they are supposed to be challenging. Although at this time Dylan has ceased to express political feelings in song, what remains is a large body of outstanding political-topical song writing. Further, Dylan now focuses on the "generation gap." "It's All Right Ma" (Broadside No. 56), one of his best lyrics, is a stark statement of the alienation felt by the younger generation. What lingers and is disturbing is that Dylan found so little in common with the older generation that he not only rejected what appeared to be their foolishness, but also the hope he had once held in common with

them. Phil Ochs

The song writing movement is made up of individuals with different song styles as well as different outlooks on life. Dylan hit a certain nerve in our generation most deeply, but there are others who stimulate different responses, and these have also gained wide popularity. Phil Ochs was introduced to folk music by his Ohio State roommate, Jim Glover, who had a radical politi-

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cal background and was, as Ochs described him, "part of the Seeger school of the '50'S."3 Ochs listened to the general run of folk music records popular at that time on the college campus, which included-along with Pete Seeger-Paul Robeson, The Kingston Trio, Odetta and the Weavers. Phil's major interest then was in journalism. Dissatisfied with censorship on the school paper, he started his own called The Word. Later he and Glover left school to sing at a Cincinnati coffee house for $30 a week in a group called the Sundowners. There he met Bob Gibson, whose dressed.up folk melodies have been a guiding musical influence. At first, the Sundowners considered themselves a commercial group who performed political songs occasionally. Then, Ochs wrote his first song, "The Cuban Invasion." It became more popular than any other number. This surprising acceptance paved the way for writing other topical songs, with "Billie Sol" being first in demand. While performing in Cincinnati, Ochs met the balladier John Wynn, who urged him to come to New York and told him about Broad, side. Ochs moved to the city, first working in a Village coffee house and passing the hat, and only later establishing himself as a top song writer. In high school, Ochs patterned himself after country and western singers, especially the legendary Hank Williams. In college, his first conception of himself as a folk singer was as "a cross between Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger." After going professional, he combined the influence of his high school and college experiences with the influence of Bob Gibson and developed a very exciting and fast-moving style of delivery. He has been especially effective in his talking blues, where his wonderful sense of humor has forced hostile audiences to laugh and even question their beliefs on such controversial topics as Cuba and Vietnam. Ochs' style is not poetic, it is, rather, straightforward and

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natural, well adapted to the understatement of the talking blues. In "Talking Cuba," he gave a humorous twist to the absurdity of our policy during the missile crisis: 4

Yes, it seemed the stand was strong and plain But some Republicans were going insane. (And they still are.) They said our plan was just too mild Spare the rod and spoil the child. Sink Cuba into the sea Give them back democracy. (Yes, under the water.) This song is typical of Phil Ochs' work in its humor, and in the number of its versions-he is always rewriting and improving his songs. The basic part of the above verse appeared in Broadside, but the parentheses enclose words added since its publication in late February 1963. Rewriting has produced some of his best work.. "Lou Marsh," a ballad of a youth board worker who was beaten to death when he prevented a gang war, contained what Seeger considered at that time the finest chorus he had heard in a topical song. It was accompanied by a beautiful flowing melody, but the verses were far below the quality of the chorus. Before it was recorded on his first record, Ochs rewrote "Lou Marsh" three times. The results of this painstaking effort are apparent in his stage appearances and recordings. He has written some of the most moving and incisive songs in today's topical song movement. His training as a journalist is an invaluable asset. Ochs' songs contain clearly stated ideas that are at times brilliantly merged with flowing tunes. Perhaps the best example is "Links on the Chain."

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The central image is a chain that represents labor's strength. Ochs traces early labor struggles "when the police on the horses were waiting on demand/riding through the strike with a pistol in their hand." When labor leads the way in the anti-fascist struggle, the links on the chain multiply. But when the "black man was a-rising fast and racing from the shade," the union did not take a stand, and the "union was betrayed." A link on the chain was lost. Ochs tells the workers who are confronted by civil disobedience that the Negroes learned these tactics from labor's own militancy, and they are building their "links on the chain." In the last verse, he tells his union friends it is automation that threatens both labor and the Negro:1I

For now the times are telling you the times are rolling on And you're fighting for the same thing the jobs that will be gone Now it's only fair to ask you boys, Which side are you on'! Tom Paxton

Born in Chicago and raised in Oklahoma, Tom Paxton was originally interested in drama. He turned to folk music while attending the University of Oklahoma and listening to Ed McCurdy's effective renditions of murder and drinking songs on the record "Blood Booze and Bones." He went to New York City during his army leaves and fell under the influence of Dave Van Ronk and a number of politically oriented singers who gathered around the Gaslight coffee-house folk club in Greenwich Village. Through many long "'bull sessions" Paxton developed a radical approach which visualized a change in society as being essential

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to set right the abuses attacked in his songs. In this respect, he is quite different from Phil Ochs, who envisions only changes within the present system, and Bob Dylan who conceives of the self as of prime importance and not the movements within society. Like Ochs and Dylan, he is not a member of any political organization. Paxton's approach in writing songs relies on traditional methods as well as traditional tunes. The late Frank Walker, who recorded country musicians in the 1920's and 1930's, stated that those who wrote their own songs were "rhymsters." They wrote about events in rhyme and then fished around for a tune to fit the mood and words of their poems. Paxton has a similar approach, and for his tunes he is most inspired by white country music, for which he has a great affinity. He is an expert writer, and the term "craftsmanlike" has often been used to describe his work. The musical phrasing is neat and orderly and the words are "plain." His simple sentences are profoundly affecting, giving his children's songs a special appeal. Even to a greater extent than Phil Ochs, he is concerned with the effect automation is having on the worker and on the country as a whole. His songs are not union-centered ballads, but reflect the great hardships that are inflicted on the individual worker. Even "The High Sheriff of Hazard," a song about a maverick union movement in Kentucky, which was necessitated by the national United Mine Workers' failure to meet the miners' needs, is written in the first person, out of his experience in Hazard. In "A Job of Work" Paxton exhibits a feeling for and concern with the problems of the working man rarely found in the topical song movement. He has an acute sense of the pride of the unemployed, and why a job and not relief is the answer: 6

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The man from the Government says it's fine To walk on over to the free food line. Nice of the Government to be so fair But 1 don't want my friends to see me there. Chorus: Lord, give me a job of work to do (2X) That's all 1 want That's all 1 ask of you. In "Standing on the Edge of Town" he writes of the "funny looking machine" that throws men out of work and forces them to leave family and friends to search new communities for jobs. There is no doubt as to where he puts the blame: 7

Well that machine is pretty and fast as the devil, And it's just one thing that 1 see. You bet the boss, he didn't take no loss, It was Jimmie and Billy and Me. Chorus: An' I'm standing on the edge of town Gonna get chilly when the sun goes down. Cardboard suitcase full of my clothes, Just where I'm heading the good Lord knows. Paxton's finest, considered by many the greatest song today, is "Ramblin' Boy." Its tune and words meet in: tribute to a friend of the road who died one cold morning of pneumonia. Like Bob Dylan, Paxton writes many songs about his experiences in traveling, and the strong need to keep moving, learning continually. In ''I'm Bound for the Mountains and the Sea" he writes a love ballad for the broad reaches of the country and explains to his woman why he must leave her to traveL This song has deep meaning to hundreds of ramblers, from Woody Guthrie right down to the

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young men of today, who feel they have to keep moving despite the pain they cause those they love: 8 It's so hard to explain Why I'm leaving once again. It aint nothing that I haven't done before, It aint nothing much I guess But the thing that I love best Is ramblin' this land from shore to shore, in this land Ramblin' this land from shore to shore.

Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs have provided the greatest body of new songs. There are a number of other important song writers--only some of whom can be mentioned here-who for varying reasons have a different relationship to song-writing from the first three discussed. Ma·rk Spoelstra

Mark Spoelstra came to New York as an excellent performer of blues on the 12-string guitar, which he did in his own style. He has used this blues background for many of his own songs and expresses himself very softly. He is not flashy or overpowering, but after hearing a song like "My Love is Like a Dewdrop on the Mountain" a number of times, the images haunt the listener. Unlike the other song writer-singers, Spoelstra does not confine himself to his own songs, but sings many from white and Negro Southern sources. The political songs he writes are very free in form and highly original. Many center around peace, as he is a conscientious objector serving two years in peace-time social work. "Just a Hand to Hold" was written in memory of David Anthony Lee, a six-year-old boy enrolled in the pre-school program, who was murdered

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by a hit-and-run driver. Spoelstra wrote in Broadside (No. 49): "Now there is another little boy who comes to the Center, Timmy Chapel. . . . I tried to write a song about David Anthony but I couldn't. But the feeling I have about David is in the song. You see, it is Timmy who always wanted to walk with me and hold my hand and be pushed on the merry-go-round. His is the face that is like a jewel-HE IS THE ONE WHO HAS ABOUT AS MUCH CHANCE TO MAKE IT IN THIS WORLD AS DID DAVID ANTHONY LEE. In some weird way I thought that by writing this song, it might help give him the chance that David Anthony did not have." Spoelstra's poetic ability to wield an ordinary image like "a hand to hold" becomes strikingly apparent in this verse: 9

It makes no difference where he's from or where he's bound. And it makes less difference if he's lost or been found. He's dead and gone. But there is no power Anywhere in this land Like the voice that used to say "Will you hold my hand?" Peter La Farge and Pat Sky

Mark Spoelstra's soft-spoken words and songs are quite different from the aggressive and angry singing of Peter La Farge. The adopted son of the late Oliver La Farge, he is the dean of a group of song writers who grew up with a particular political movement, the Federation for American Indian Rights (FAIR). Concentrated government action continues to threaten the cultures of the more than 300 Indian tribes with assimilation, but each tribe tries individually to solve its

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own problems. Peter La Farge, the founder, and Pat Sky and Buffy St. Marie, field secretaries, traveled from tribe to tribe in an attempt to coordinate protest in a single action organization, FAIR. These travels had a great deal to do with the content of their sop.gs. Pat Sky describes how he came to write his penetrating indictment of the assimilators, "Leave Us Alone:"lo "I was a field representative. I was going around to reservations while I was traveling across country, and talking to people. It was then I wrote 'Leave Us Alone: "That was prompted by a Winnebego Indian. An old man. He was about 105 years old. And we had a long discussion, and I tried to convince him that the thing the Indians needed is to be unified, to get together and to stand together, and you know, to help fight each other's causes together. We were sitting talking about this and he got to telling me about the reservation, and how the white man came on, and held out one arm in peace saying 'Thou shalt not steal' and six months after that they got kicked off their reservations. God knows how much land. "That statement is the exact statement in 'Leave Us Alone: This is what the Indians want. They're tired of being treated like kids, patted over the head, and being given lollypops. . . . There is a decided effort by the United States government to assimilate, and that's what we're trying to fight:' La Farge's songs range from love ballads to songs about .the civil rights movement and Abe Lincoln. Pat Sky sings some good blues. Both are well-known in city folk-music circles, but the thing that is central to their lives also creates their best songs-the ballads of American Indian history and current struggles. Peter La Farge's use of Indian imagery strengthens his songs, and gives many of them the stature of poetry. Hi$ "Vision of a Past Warrior" is the only topical song composition, other than Dylan's "Hard Rain,"

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that appears in Lowenfels' Poets of Today, a significant tribute to its power. His "Ira Hayes" was first on the country and western hit parade. It is through FAIR's singers that thousands of young white Americans have learned of the Indian's struggle to keep his identity. Len Chandler

Len Chandler came to song writing with the background of a highly trained musician. He has played the oboe since he was 14 and has performed in the Akron Symphony and Greenwich Village Symphony orchestras_ He has a MA from Columbia in musicology_ Formal music has had a great influence on his singing and his songs, which are often closer to jazz than to folk. Chandler started fooling around with folk music when he worked in recreation at children's homes. He became acquainted with New York City'S folk music community, performing in coffee houses as well as in orchestras. "To Be a Man" and "Secret Songs" reflect the denial to the American Negro of full being. They are effective and subtle statements, but it is my opinion that his best writing occurred after his first trip to Atlanta for the May "Sing for Freedom." He remained South with Cordell Reagon after the workshops to participate in the Nashville and Arkansas movements. He has been traveling South ever since to sing at registration drives whenever his commercial schedule will allow. In this period Chandler wrote new verses to "Which Side Are You On?"-a song that had been previously adopted from the union movement by the freedom riders at Parchman Penitentiary. The lines are straight and stabbing statements on the attitudes of younger people who reject the ways of their parents and grand-

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parents as not being "cultured." There were many older women who cheered Chandler after he sang this verse last summer in Mississippi: l l

Come all you high tone college girls Pronounce your final "G's" But don't forget your Grandma She's still scrubbing on her knees. Or about the priviledged Negro businessmen who make their profits out of ghetto life:

You need not join our picket line If you can't stand the blows But join your dimes with dollars Or be counted with our foes. During the COFO project in the summer of 1964, Len wrote two ballads, "My Father's Grave" (Broadside, No. 48) and "Going to Get My Baby out of Jail" (Broadside, No. 51), which reflected a sensitivity tliat was far more advanced than in any of his earlier work. Largely responsible for this, I think, was his contact with SNCC in the South and the great influence of Cordell Reagon, who became a close personal friend and frank critic. Other Writers Even among the young song writers, it seems clear that it would be a mistake to type or classify them. They may have certain things in common-association with Broadside, the influence of traveling experience and independence from political organizations. But each song writer has a unique personality that is expressed in his songs. This is true of the older song writers who survived the pitfalls of the 1950's to improve with the years.

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Pete Seeger, besides being the single person most responsible for spreading others' songs, has continued to write his own. Some, like "My Hudson River" (Broadside, No. 44), contain the most soothingly melodic tunes of the whole revival. Pete's gentleness finds wonderful expression in his songs. Ernie Marrs, who does construction work in Atlanta, Georgia, writes two or three songs a day and helped to start Pat Sky, among others, on the songwriting trail. Marrs is a strong opponent of censor· ship of any kind, and probably has written more serious songs that could not be sent through the mail because of their profanity than any other man. His songs are his own spontaneous reactions, and just as an articulate man comments' on something that hap. pened during the day, Marrs, with equal ease, offers a song. Despite great speed of production, his wry sense of humor has produced some classics, including a popular version of "Plastic Jesus" (Broadside, No. 39), a take-off on the religious plastic images that are supposed to prevent accidents. Malvina Reynolds is a warm and informal singer of her own songs. Both her husband, the Detroit labor leader Bud Reynolds, and she herself have been involved in the radical movement for over four decades, and, amazingly, have not lost their sense of humor. However, it was only after Pete Seeger's single recording of "Little Boxes" made the hit parade on the West Coast in 1964 that her wit and insight gained general recognition. Now a resident of Berkeley, California, Malvina Reynolds sings for many benefits, ranging from the fight to stop "the concrete octopus" from bursting through San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to the "vote no" campaign on Proposition 14 which negated California's fair housing laws. For the latter, she wrote "Positively No," which was not only printed for state·

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wide use, but was also made into a recording for the 1964 campaign. She has written numerous songs on demand from movements and ad hoc committees, but just as often inspiration comes while driving. Many is the time when the Reynolds' compact may be seen pulling over to the side of the road with Malvina saying: "Bud, grab the wheel! I've got an idea'" The idea gets written down and sung around and a new song is born. What is especially appealing about her songs is their uncluttered frankness. The use of the word "ticky-tacky" to describe the material with which little boxes are built is a simple yet revealing way to talk about the substance that surrounds and determines middle-class life. "Ticky-tacky." Her serious songs like "Are You Walking There for Me?"-written for the people in the Southern voter registration drives-unobtrusively state the frank feelings and fears that Malvina and millions of Americans share: 12

Would I be as brave as you'! Would I live through what you do'! Would I face the whip and pistol'! To make freedom'S dream come true'! There are heroes in our country Great as all in history, And they're walking there for me, For you and me. The songs of Reynolds, Seeger and Marrs are well liked and widely sung, but few young people who are in the "second generation" of young song writers are strongly influenced by them in style or approach. The new writers, Eric Anderson, Dave Cohen, Carl Watanabe, to name a few, are much more influenced by writers of their own generation-Dylan, Ochs and Paxton-and, as a constant inspiration, America's "Homer," Woody Guthrie.

9 Atlanta "Sing for Freedom" Formulation

The paths of the topical songs in the North and the freedom songs in the South have been closely parallel. But they have had little chance to meet each other on common musical ground where each could take a look at itself and a long look at the other. The 1963 and 1964 Newport Folk Festivals were too hectic and afforded no workshops in which people of different backgrounds could work and talk together. A meeting was attempted at the first "Sing for Freedom" at Highlander in 1960 but at that time neither movement had developed its many forms. Initiated by the SCLC, SNCC, and the Highlander Folk School, the Atlanta "Sing for Freedom" was held May 7-10, 1964. It afforded the opportunity for Northern and Southern songs to meet, and gave the time and framework in which they could interact and grow. More important, the depth and variety of the movement's songs were demonstrated to song leaders from all over the South whose previous contact with freedom songs was confined to a few from their own areas. The old campus of the Gammon Theological Seminary was the site. The invitation addressed itself to the Southern communities: "Would you like to know more freedom songs and have better singing at your mass meetings and community gatherings? If so, please carefully choose one or two people in your group who are good at singing and song leading and will be able to learn something at this workshop and festival which they can use to help your organization and local movement." 99

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The repertoire was described as "freedom songs from different protest areas for mass meetings, demonstrations, etc." Movement leaders who are also great song singers, like Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, Bernice and Cordell Reagon and Betty Mae Fikes, were announced. Song writers from South and North were indicated as participating, and emphasis was also placed on traditional Negro folk music: "Learn some of the best old songs that are meaningful today, the stories and backgrounds behind them." The application blank, in which scholarships were offered, indicates that far from being a festival, the "Sing for Freedom" was viewed as a serious function of the civil rights movement in which the music is part of the method of struggle. The planning committee, Bernice and Cordell Reagon, Ruby D. Robinson, Dorothy Cotten, the Rev. Young and director Guy Carawan, made this quite clear in Section Two of the questionnaire: "If you have participated in the Student Movement or civil rights work, briefly describe your activities: Have you worked with music? Describe: Why do you wish to attend this festival? What do you expect to get out of it to make you a better musical worker in your community?" Song writers Phil Ochs, Len Chandler and Tom Paxton came from the North, as well as Theodore Bikel, who has had a long and close association with the Southern student movement. Bud Foote and Ernie Marrs of Atlanta sang their songs. The only press present were from four folk music magazines and a German TV station. From the South

Ninety per cent of the people at the festival were from various areas of the South and had participated

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in civil rights activities. Both Bessie Jones with her Sea Island Singers and Dock Reese are active in their respective home locations, the Georgia Sea Islands and Palestine, Texas. It is relevant to note that Reese had to leave the "Sing" early as his wife was running for the election she won as the first non-white precinct leader in the history of Palestine. Dock Reese himself is an important civil rights and church leader and advisor to Senator Yarborough (D-Texas). Although the majority of singers sent from all parts of the South were high school and college-age students, a goodly minority were older community leaders who had braved Klan harassment and kept citizenship and freedom schools open despite economic reprisals. Every person from the South had literally risked his life by being in the movement and singing. The variety of styles was overwhelming. In the song "This Little Light of Mine," five, six, seven or eight leaders would introduce verses that were from their communities. Betty Mae Fikes of Selma. Alabama. whose voice is steel. set the pace with the clapping of her hands: "Up and down this street Lord. I'm going to let it shine." Sam Block of Mississippi belted out "Every time I'm bleeding I'm going to let it shine." Dock Reese sang: "Voting for my Freedom. I'm going to let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine." There was that tremendous impact that only occurs when 50 or 60 song leaders bring their voices and clapping together in thunderbolts of song for 20, 25 minutes. just on and on and on. The Northern guests were out of breath, for they were not used to 20 minutes of letting your whole body explode into song. The older people sing more quietly than the younger and wonder if the "children" are not going to injure their voices by singing full blast. In between workshops there is a great deal of jamming and the two pianos are always being played. Dancing. letting

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your body go, to the gospel beat of freedom songs fills in the time between morning workshops and lunch. Three older ladies from Wagener and Rev. Browne from Aiken tell of the SCLC citizenship schools they teach. They modestly claim that they are not singers, but when pressed, they softly sing the freedom songs of their South Carolina communities.

I feel like to go ahead Go ahead, go ahead (2X) Well, there's something telling me Go ahead. Sing a song, go ahead. Or, accompanying the freedom sermon of Rev. Aikens, they sing very softly ''I'll Be All Right":

I'm marching to be all right (3X) Someday Segregation will be over And I'll be free at last. I'm marching to be all right some day. Amanda Lee Bowens and two young leaders from Americus, Georgia, sing: "You should have been there to roll freedom roll." Amanda, a slight girl of 90 pounds, was in jail for two months for civil rights activity. Her eyes sparkle with pride and she knows as she sings: ''I'm gonna get my freedom before I die, roll freedom roll." Carlton Reese, one of the best gospel pianists in the land, leads the Birmingham Freedom Choir in four-part gospel freedom singing, with Cleo Kennedy warning the segregationists to the tune of "Go Tell It on the Mountain":

I wouldn't be Governor Wallace I'll tell you the reason why,

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I'd be afraid He might call me And I wouldn't be ready to die. Freedom songs have spread so that every community in the movement has its freedom singers. The variety of words and the variations on the music change from community to community. There are two forms of music that seem strange alongside the freedom songs-the northern Broadside songs and the traditional Negro songs and stories. Dock Reese's chain gang songs are accepted. They have too plain a relevance to the movement not to be understood, but there are murmurs whenever Bessie Jones and the Sea Island Singers act out songs with dances, tell the old slave stories, and fold the handkerchief on the group to "Throw Me Anywhere Lord, in this Old Field." Tension builds, with whispers of "Uncle Tom," until Saturday morning when Charles Sherrod's questions "Why? Why these songs here?" provoke a heated discussion. The debate that ensued was the most important single event at the "Sing." Bessie Jones defended her songs as the culture of the slave who despite the master's attempts to force him into an animal's life like that of his cow or dog, succeeded in making his own system of songs which not only provided a form of expression but also served as signals for escape. Len Chandler commands great attention, for, to many, his knowledge of guitar and his classical background is a model for success. When he effectively dissected the brainwashing that a hostile white society forced on the Negro people, it moved many of the audience: "I went through this scene man. I was ashamed of my Grandmother's music. I went to school to get a degree, in Akron, and things were all put in a nice little

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box, a package of the Western World's music. But there was nothing in that box about my music. Why, even the spirituals were fitted out to a white audience to sound nice and polite-you know the bit: Marion Anderson.... It wasn't until this white professor took me to his house to listen to some tapes that I started to know what my music was about. It took a white man to teach me about my own music. Why this music (Bessie Jones') is great, and the boys on the radios and the TV's have stopped you from hearing it-but this is it man, this is the stuff." Still, others had doubts. One woman, in her forties, stated: "I came here to sing and hear freedom songs. I can hear the old songs anytime I want back home. What do people back home want with it? Why should I bring it back?" There was still a strong feeling by a number of young and old against the very music that had provided them with the basic melodies and words for the new freedom songs. Amanda Bowens, her eyes flashing with anger, just let loose: ''I'm tired of going to church and listening to teen-agers giggle and laugh when the old songs are sung. I want to know what the old songs are. I want to sing them. I want to know that my parents were working for 15 cents a day. What these songs are is what most of this means." The Rev. Young settled it with, "We all know you can't trust a Negro on the negotiating committee who doesn't like his people's music. We learned that in Birminghaml" The Sea Island Singers were the only group to receive a standing ovation at that night's concert. Although not everyone was convinced, there was a realization by many song leaders of the importance of their own traditions. The movement was beginning consciously to tap the strong and militant Afro-Negro-American heritage. 1

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North Meets South The guitars of the topical singers as well as their individual ballads were strange to almost all at the "Sing." Yet when Phil Ochs sang "What's That I Hear Now?" or Tom Paxton performed "Ramblin' Boy" or Len Chandler sang his "Time of the Tiger," there was an excited and enthusiastic response. More than one of the SNCC field secretaries wished to learn how to play the guitar and to keep the sample Broadsides that were given out. This acceptance meant a great deal to the topical singers themselves, for although they had received great acclaim from sympathetic audiences in the North, this warm reception was from people who did not know about folk or topical songs, and who sang musically about some of the same subjects but in an entirely different way. More important was the effect the "Sing" had on the topical singers. It exposed them to a form of singing from which many learned to loosen up, and it got them emotionally involved in first-hand experience in the power of the movement through its songs. Tom Paxton reflected what I think all of us felt about the songs at the festival: 2 "There is an enormous difference musically between what they're doing and what we're doing, and I wouldn't-I don't think there is any reason to say which is more effective. But I was tremendously moved by the music we heard down there, and the thing that knocked me out was that all those songs are what I call action songs. Songs to be sung in the thick of it with no need for guitars or microphones, or any of it because with the first bar sung by one man, they all know the song. "The songs are structurally set for mass singing which of course is not at all true of our songs, with the possible exception being when people join in a

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chorus. What we write are essentially musical editorials where, if you agree with me, you sing the chorus. But there the entire song, sometimes with only a few words being changed from verse to verse, is sung right in the face of the cops and mobs and they're fantastic. Songs to be sung in jails. They are much more utilitarian songs than ours are. And there is no comparison as to their value to the civil rights movement. Our songs hopefully might line up a little support and a little bread but their songs are right in the fight." Thanks to the direction of Guy Carawan and the arrangements made by his wife Candie, all the participants had a chance to get to know each other well. For four days, we all ate three meals a day together in the dining room, sang and talked, traded experiences and songs, gaining new insights all the time. The song leaders from the South all received a free copy of the SNCC song book, We Shall Overcome, so they could bring the songs back with them for their own communities to assimilate and develop. The Atlanta "Sing for Freedom" played a great role in spreading many new songs throughout the South. For the Northern singers, the Atlanta experience drew them into a number of close friendships with people in the freedom struggle and gave them the strong feeling that they had to be there themselves. The effect was most immediate on Len Chandler who stayed in the South an additional three weeks, joining Cordell Reagon in SNCC activity in Tennessee and Arkansas. Those weeks led to a total commitment to the movement, and to eventual participation for most of the summer in the COFO Mississippi Summer Project of 1964. The contact with a live and functioning movement that operated in terms of its members' goals made the

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singers and writers down there feel right at home. The "Sing" brought together and spread the new and the old of Negro-American tradition and created a strong bond between the topical song writer of the North and the new Negro citizen-singer of the South.

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By the summer of 1964, the civil rights movement had not only become the central concern of the students involved in political activity, but it had created enough national ferment to force many previously hidden emotions into the open. The summer riots in cities across the nation made it clear that integration was not the problem of a regional area, but of the whole nation. The obscenities hurled at school children in New Orleans by screaming mothers were repeated at a West Side New York civil rights rally, where 300 hostile adults yelled "nigger lovers" at 200 people calling for school integration in a mixed though predominantly white neighborhood. The glow of the 1963 March on Washington that had forced through the first real civil rights legislation since Reconstruction was tempered by the reality of needed changes in one's own local area. Caravan of Music

The moral urgency that many young people felt "to go to Mississippi" in a summer's crash project to smash the state's economic and political racism with a voter registration drive was often in direct opposition to the wishes of parents and friends, some of whom feared for the young people's safety and others who openly opposed the civil rights movement. In the folk music community there was a similar need "to go to Mississippi" to sing at the mass meetings and freedom schools, as well as to continue fund-raising activities in the North. The singers who went down with COFO's Missis108

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sippi Caravan of Music were of different backgrounds and musical approach. Among them were the highly commercial Jim and Jean and Judy Collins, as well as the straight.blues singer, Barbara Dane. Non·professionals Ricki Sherover and David Segal were very popular. The former sang a general folk music repertoire and Segal drew everyone into singing and clapping with Hebrew songs. The largest single body of singers were either performers of topical songs or song writers. Besides Len Chandler and Julius Lester who travelled with Cordell Reagon, the Caravan included Peter La Farge, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Gil Turner, the Eastgate Singers and Bob Cohen. The orientation for student workers and singers from the North emphasized the fact that by welcoming COFO project people into his home, the Southern host was risking, at the very least, his job, and very possibly his life. Two Northern workers, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered, but many more times that number of Southern Negroes, including James Chaney, were killed. Powerful church singing and sharing the risks that thousands of people incurred in order to exercise their basic rights had a profound effect on the singers. Phil Ochs' first comment when asked about his trip to Mississippi is indicative of the feelings aroused by direct contact with the movement. It did not relate to his performance or personal experience, a reaction to be expected from creative performers, but about the movement: "Gosh, they are really doing something down there," he told me. "People are getting registered. They are changing things. Slowly, but changing things." Every singer is as good as any other in the COFO program. There is no "star system," and the performing conditions are probably more difficult than most of the topical singers had experienced in a long while.

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A large number of the audience could out-sing them. The audience itself was made up of school-age children and people over 40, since the great majority of young people in their twenties or thirties were North earning money to send home. On many occasions, singers like Phil Ochs and Peter La Farge did not come across very well in relation to the audience's tastes in music, but these singers had come down to help them to get the vote, and that was a close and endearing bond. Barbara Dane, whose church-style singing was especially well received, tells a story that could probably be repeated by all the singers down there. After hearing her sing at one of the mass meetings, a community leader rose and stated:! "Now this lady has come all the way from California, leave her children behind, come all this way to sing some songs to us. The least we can do is get up tomorrow morning and register." Communication was sometimes limited to some warm smiles and some hugs because of the crowded schedule of most of the singers: traveling in the morning, singing at a freedom school in the afternoon and at a mass meeting in the evening. The contact that was made was significant and quite different from the blind adulation lavished on the performers in the North. In general, Northern topical songs and freedom songs have come together in a vital way in the South, the scene of the largest organized movement. Many of the young civil rights workers have been influenced by Northern music, both folk and jazz. The topical singers who have been exposed to freedom and church singing have been, at the very least, emotionally broadened. In the cases of Len Chandler and Tom Paxton, they have influenced the composition and performance of their new songs.

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With all their similarities, the two movements are basically different. The movement in the South sings "we," and in the rest of the country hundreds of in· dividuals sing about problems as they relate to them· selves. One movement comes from a church tradition developed for over 200 years, and the other has its earliest vital roots in the 20th century. One has a de· cisive political direction and the other comments on movements rather than making them. Both want to sing to the greatest number of people who will, hope· fully, listen and learn. In doing this they face a most difficult common problem, the conflict of interest with profit·oriented mass media. Commercialism

The years 1963-1964 proved in the breakthrough of "Blowin' in the Wind" that a great deal of money was to be made from songs of the protest movements. The fact that freedom songs and topical songs were, and to some extent still are, highly profitable, had a dual effect. It circulated the songs over a large area, but at the same time the meaning of many of the songs was toned down to suit the managers, agents and disc jockeys. As Barbara Dane said exaggeratedly: "Just like people who are not in love write love songs, now topical songs are the big thing, so people who don't particularly care about freedom are writing freedom songs." There is some truth in this statement, especially in the case of commercial song writers. The difference in approach between the freedom singer who has risked his or her life while singing and the producer who sees a potential profit in these songs is too great to be ignored. Situations are not necessarily black and white, but the clash between the topical singer and

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the Artist and Repertoire man exists and is real. Very revealing is Freedom Singer Bernice Reagon's commentary on this clash of interests: 2 "This is what happens when people start to go from traditional to commercial. You listen to Mahalia Jackson years and years ago, and compare her with now. There is a drastic change. I don't know if it was voluntary, but it might have been that things were going so well, and she thought, 'It doesn't matter if I give in this time.' "When we cut our first record in Chicago, the first draft for it, there was this insistence by the guy who was backing it financially to put in drums and electric guitar. And I stood out and said No, no, no, no! . . . But it didn't make any difference. Everybody else said he's backing us, so do it. "But I was mad during the whole recording and he knew it. So, he finally asked Cordell what was wrong with me, and Cordell told him, and he said, 'Well, some people just can't get used to it, the business end.' "Anyway, he recorded it, and it came out very bad, and it sounded like rock and roll. The 'Ballad of the Sit-In' that Guy wrote sounded like a calypso. He called us back and we re-did it." This situation often occurs between an artist and a producer, but it is more disastrous when in topical songs a singer who is writing essentially to express himself is swamped with "success." Irwin Silber maintains this is essentially what interfered with Bob Dylan's growth as a song writer.s With hundreds of kids wildly following him down the street for autographs, he could no longer remain an observer. Instead he became an idol, to be observed and followed. I think this explains a great deal, but even more cogent is the fact that there seemed to be no real alternative in the directions to which he turned for

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help. If there is nowhere to go, the only place left is one's self, and that is where Bob Dylan and his songs are now. Many of them are good, but not one of them measures up in breadth or beauty of form to his earlier writing. To a lesser degree and with different manifestations, the first glimmerings and responsibilities of success threaten the other topical singers, as well as Broadside itself. Song writers who are constantly traveling on tour to various folk-song night clubs and coffee houses are always in danger of thinking entirely in terms of their profession. They tend to lose contact with the movements and the emotional identification that inspired them to write songs during the years they lived in New York's slums. The danger posed by the isolation brought about by success is recognized by many of the singers. A good number take trips to the South to participate in the movement. Broadside consciously tries to have at least one new song writer in each issue. But this is a problem as deep as the American reality. It cannot be dismissed easily by the topical song movement. The Picture Today

What is remarkable about the topical song movement is that it not only resists harmful tendencies but has actually helped to foster the situation which People's Songs envisioned in its own day. In every city in the country, on every campus, there are boys and girls playing guitars and making up songs that reflect their daily needs, concerns and thoughts. Many of them pattern their music and themselves after song writer-heroes like Bob Dylan, but it is not shallow imitation, for each song writer does sing in terms of himself and thinks of words as they flow through his

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mind. Various groups have started their own song magazines, and it is with these magazines and with the unknown future song writers that the real significance of the topical song movement lies. For long after topical songs cease to be "commodities," young people will still be playing their guitars as they grow older, first singing to their loves of new roses in the night and then to their children of the quiet waters of peace. It is important, I think, that Broadside maintain an open forum, just as I think it is vital that successful topical song writers continue to grow with the freedom movement and to express themselves in song, for their voices, reaching hundreds of thousands, started so many people thinking and singing themselves. The Broadside Hoots which were held monthly at the Village Gate in 1964-1965 are an excellent indication of the grip these songs have on the young audience. Even after waiting over an hour in the rain and cold to be jammed together in a cellar club, the enthusiasm never wanes. Although the quality of song writing varies greatly, the emotional identification with the singers' words on civil rights, Vietnam or a girl that just said "good bye" never wavers. As the issues of peace, unemployment and civil rights become sharper, the songs can become a more integral force in the fight for social progress. For, so far as I can see, no poet, no novelist, no speaker, no academic spokesman, has moved as many young people as has the topical song writer in the North and the freedom singer in the South. The Northern student movement and the topical song movement owe their birth and living roots to the freedom movement. Songs and actions that started in the South almost simultaneously have left a lasting mark on the land. The movement has opened the

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treasure chest of Afro-American culture for millions of Negro Americans and white Americans as well. For the nation as a whole, the movement broke down the cynicism of the 1950's and taught us to express in our own idiom the truth that "there is freedom in the air:·

Suggested Reading and Listening List The helpful readings in history, sociology and in the folk music field are too diffuse, and there are too many recordings available, to make possible a complete bibliography and discography. What is offered below is only the irreducible minimum of reading and listening necessary for a basic knowledge of the song movements, for an understanding of their motivations, and, most important, the actual music they have produced on records. It is hoped that this short study will spark an interest in the writing of many separate works dealing with the subjects listed below, for they each deserve book-length treatment. Two magazines are essential for an understanding of the topical and freedom song movements, Sing Out! (semimonthly, 589 Broadway, New York) and Broadside (monthly, 215 West 98th St., Apt. 4D, New York). Articles listed below are largely from these two magazines. All back issues of Broadside are available from the magazine, and Sing Out! is back-filed in most major college, university and city libraries. Fortunately, there are two song books that present live pictures of the song movements. We Shall Overcome (Oak, 1963) is a powerful collection of songs, commentary and photographs from the freedom movement, compiled by Guy and Candie Carawan. Broadside (Oak, 1964) contains 75 songs photographed from the pages of that magazine. This constitutes an excellent introduction to the subject, since the songs are a general sampling of that magazine, ranging from Bob Dylan's "With God on Your Side" to a song that had just arrived in the mail, Kenneth Harrison's "Talking Crystal City."

Pre-War Songs The only general work on American protest songs per se is John Greenway's American Folksongs of Protest (1953, paperback edition 1960, Perpetua). Unfortunately, this 117

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book is filled with factual errors and was based entirely on second-hand sources-which has lead to inaccurate statements as to how and when songs were used. The book's discussion of Woody Guthrie and Joe Hill is misleading. With all these errors, it presents an excellent bibliography and its content can lead to valuable further investigation on the reader's part. The best general song book is the highly reliable Songs of Work and Freedom, edited by Edith Fowke and Joe Glazer (1960, Roosevelt University Labor Division, 1961, Dolphin Books). The "Little Red Song Book" is still available for fifty cents and is still a good collection of IWW songs. It can be ordered directly from Industrial Workers of the World, 2422 North Halsted, Chicago, Illinois. Broadside, Nos. 7, 8 and 15, contain articles on the Almanacs. The best single collection of Southern songs of a directly topical nature during this period is the New Lost City Ramblers' "Songs of the Great Depression" (Folkways, FH 5264). The only song writing of the Almanacs available on record today are their union songs, "The Original Talking Union with the Almanac Singers" (Folkways, FH 5285).

The Post-War Years Reprints from the People's Songs Bulletin, edited by Irwin Silber (Oak), is a lively collection of the songs and thoughts of writers of topical songs from 1946 to 1949. Sing Out!, numbers from 1950 to 1955, are a good indication of the strong left political connections that folk singers proudly maintained during that period. "Hootenanny Tonight" taped in April 1954 (reissued by Folkways, FN 2511), is the only recording available of the early Hoots. "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall" (Vanguard VRS9010) is the most important single record in the whole folk music "revival" and also had its effect on the topical song movement. Pete Seeger's "Gazette, Volume One" (Folkways FN 2501) contains some of the best topical songs written, including a number of Woody Guthrie's. It was proof positive for many that good songs had been written in the recent past. "Bill McAdoo" (Folkways FA 2448)

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helped spiral this artist to early and fast fame, and was even well received in the Little Sandy Review, a record review magazine normally hostile to topical songs.

Woody Guthrie Woody's influence in the northern song-writing movement eclipses even that of Bob Dylan. His autobiography Bound For Glory (Dolphin) is a classic work of American literature, and is probably the clearest statement of the love of people and how one finds out things by travelingthemes that have captivated the new song writers_ Gordon Friesen has an interesting article on how this book was written, in Broadside, Nos. 9-10. More of Guthrie's writings as well as some of his best songs appear in American Folksong (Disc, 1947, Oak, 1961). A collection of his writings in the Worker, with informative articles by Gordon Friesen, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs, has been published as a reprint of the August 1963 Mainstream, edited by Josh Dunson, and is available from the Guthrie Children Trust Fund, c/o Harold Leventhal, 200 West 57 St., New York City. A three LP set, "Woody Guthrie, Library of Congress Recordings" (Elektra, EKL 271/272) has him singing his own and favorite songs and telling his own story at age 28. He never performed better than in this set, which is essential for any understanding of Guthrie. The best interpreter of Guthrie is his young friend Jack Elliott, and "Jack Elliott sings the songs of Woody Guthrie" (Prestige Folklore 13016) shifted the attention of thousands from Odetta and Bikel to Guthrie. His own "Dust Bowl Ballads" (reissued by Folkways FH 5212) and the "Ballads of Sacco and Vanzetti" (Folkways FH 5485) are fine examples of Guthrie's ability to write what he had personally experienced and felt.

Freedom Songs We Shall Overcome is a great deal more than just words and notes on a page. It is a living witness of the freedom movement and its songs. Louis E. Lomax's The Negro

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Revolt (Signet Paperback) is still the best short analysis of the movement itself. Julius Lester's articles in Broadside, Nos 39 and 42, offer an interesting and provocative analysis of freedom songs in the North and South. In the April-May 1964 Sing Out!, Guy Carawan's "Living Folk Heritage of the Sea Islands" gives an exciting picture of musical rebirth inspired by the freedom movement and the Highlander Folk School. A number of documentaries exist, varying in quality. but the best so far have been the work of Guy Carawan. "Freedom in the Air. a documentary on Albany, Georgia" (SNCC-IOI). produced with Alan Lomax, combining on record the speeches. the frank talking. and the singing which characterized that most important movement. A collection of songs of even quality has yet to be produced. "We Shall Overcome. songs of the freedom riders and the sit-ins" (Folkways, FH 5591) is a good indication of the very early singing of the first freedom singing groups. "The Freedom Singers Sing of Freedom Now" (Mercury. Mg 20924). despite the over-slick singing that mars the record, is the only one taped at a SNCC conference. and John Lewis' speech and Matthew Jones' comments place the songs in context.

Topical Songs As yet there are no full-length studies of the topical song movement. but the Broadside book is a reliable source work. Two outstanding song books that contain a wide variety of the singers' songs are Songs of Phil Ochs (Appleseed Music. 1964) and Little Boxes and other handmade songs by Malvina Reynolds (Oak 1964). Broadside is filled with numerous articles on various singers. but the most interesting is Bob Dylan's own statement about the conflicts of success in No. 38. Gordon Friesen's "Something New Has Been Added," in the October-November 1963 Sing Out!, is the best general article on the new singers. There are three outstanding recorded collections of topical songs. The first two, "Broadside, Vol. One" (BR

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3(1) and "The Broadside Singers" (BR 303), contain a variety of singers performing many different songs from the pages of the magazine. The third is a brilliant record by the finest folk singer in the United States. It is Pete Seeger's "We Shall Overcome" (Columbia CL 2101) which includes both the freedom songs from the South and the Northern topical songs. Bob Dylan's best record is "Freewheelin'" (Columbia CL 1986), but a song that many think is his best, "Hattie Carroll," appears on "The Times They Are A-Changing" (Columbia CL 2105). Phil Ochs' "All the News that's Fit to Sing" (Elektra EKL-269) reveals the moving character of his work, which, at times, is not evident on paper. "Mark Spoelstra recorded at Club 47" (Folkways FG 3572) is one of the best records generally available and contains a number of his important songs. Generally uneven, but containing some of the most beautiful moments of topical singing, are Tom Paxton's "Ramblin' Boy" (Elektra EKL-277) and "As Long as Grass Shall Grow, Peter La Farge Sings of the American Indian" (Folkways FN 2532).

Other Sources of Topical Songs The most prolific source of social material in this country is the blues. An excellent study is The Meaning of the Blues by Paul Oliver (Collier, 1963). The strength of this idiom when applied to one topic can be heard on "Can't Keep from Crying, Topical Blues on the Death of President Kennedy" (Testament S-Ol). The British song revival, which has continued to grow, is well represented by its leading song-writing pair, the Scot Ewan MacColl and the American Peggy Seeger in Songbook (Oak, 1965). Their singing is in general excellent and it is especially effective in their own songs, as Folkways "The New Briton Gazette, Volume One" (FW 5732) testifies. The long tradition of working-class songs that did not die with the 1930's can be heard on an excellent release by Elektra of a British company's recording, "The Iron Muse, a panorama of British industrial folk music" (EKL-279).

Reference Notes Chapter One 1. "The Workers of the World are Now Awaking," by Richard Brazier, as reprinted in IWW Songs, 25th edition, December 1933, p. 27. Used by permission. 2. Korson, George, Coal Dust on the Fiddle, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1943, pp. 447-448. Unfortunately, most of Korson's fine work has this condescending attitude. 3. Pete Seeger, Reprints from People's Songs Bulletin, Foreword, New York, Oak Publications, 1961, p. 3. 4. The People's Song Book, edited by Waldemar Hille, New York, People's Artists, 1956, 1948, first printing. 5. Lift Every Voice, edited by Irwin Silber, New York, People's Artists, 1953. 6. "Bury Me in my Overalls," words and music by Malvina Reynolds, Copyright © 1956 by Northern Music Corporation. This arrangement Copyright © 1964 by Northern Music Corporation, 445 Park Ave., New York. All rights reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by permission of Copyright owner.

Chapter Two 1. "Farm Land Blues" sung by Tom Ashley of the Caro· lina Tar Heels, Victor 23611 A, reissued on "Anthology of American Folk Music," Side 2, Band 6, Folkways FA 2951. 2. "Songs of the Great Depression," sung by the New Lost City Ramblers, Folkways, FH 5264. 3. From an interview with Sis Cunningham by the author, August 20,1964. 4. Reprints from People's Songs Bulletin, op. cit., p. 40. 5. Songs for Southern Workers, prepared by Don West, State Executive Board, Kentucky Workers Alliance, May 1937, Lexington. 123

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6. Anne Braden, "Highlander Folk School, The End of the Beginning," Sing Out!, February-March 1962, pp. 31-32. 7. Registers Number 6, Zilphia Horton Folk Music Collection, Manuscript Section, Archives Division, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee, 1964. 8. Labor Songs, compiled and edited by Zilphia Horton, Textile Workers Union of America, New York, 1939.

Chapter Three 1. Interview with Julius Lester by the author, August 21, 1964. Mr. Lester was an active observer of the sit-in movement at Nashville while in his senior year at Fisk in 1960. 2. "You'd Better Leave Segregation Alone," new words by James Bevel and Bernard LaFayette, We Shall Overcome, Oak, New York, 1963, p. 26. 3. "Moving On," new words by J. Bevel and B. LaFayette, ibid., p. 36. 4. "They Go Wild Over Me," words by Candie Anderson, ibid., pp. 16-17. 5. For a detailed account of Miss Clark's amazing life and participation in the movement, read her autobiography, Echo In My Soul, Dutton, 1962. 6. Notes by Guy Carawan given to author, December 1, 1964. 7. Interview with Guy Carawan by author, December I, 1964.

Chapter Four 1. "Hard Traveling," by Woody Guthrie, from People's Song Book, People's Artists, 1948, p. 127; used by permission.

Chapter Five 1. From Gordon Friesen to the author, August 13, 1964. 2. "Hootenanny Tonight;' People's Artists, HLP 201.

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3. "Weavers at Carnegie Hall," Vanguard VRS 9010. 4. "American Favorite Ballads," Volume One, Pete Seeger, Folkways FA 2320. 5. Interview with Irwin Silber by author, September 11, 1964. 6. "Hold the Line," new words anonymous, reprinted with permission from the Bosses Song Book, New York, 1959,

p.lO. 7. Interview with Sis Cunningham by author, August 20, 1964.

Chapter Six 1. Interview with Cordell Reagon by author, October 20, 1964. 2. Interview with Bernice Reagon by author, November 2, 1964. 3. "Over My Head," adaptation of traditional song by the Albany Movement, We Shall Overcome, op. cit., p. 75. 4. Letter from Bernice Reagon to author, October 20, 1964. 5. Interview with Cordell Reagon by author, October 20, 1964. 6. "Back of the Bus," adaptation of traditional song by members of SNCC, We Shall Overcome, op. cit., p. 50. 7. From the singing of an unidentified SNCC field secretary at the Atlanta "Sing for Freedom," May 7-10, 1964. 8. From "Mississippi Caravan of Music," by Bob Cohen, Broadside, No. 51. 9. Originated by Sam Block, from Broadside, No. 50. 10. "We Are Soldiers," adaptation of traditional song by members of SNCC, We Shall Overcome, op. cit., pp. 12-13. II. Interview with Matthew Jones by Julius Lester, October 16, 1964. 12. "Ballad of the KKK," new words by Chuck Neblett, from the singing of Matthew Jones, interview previously cited. 13. "Nothing But A Soldier," words and music by Charles

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Sherrod, © 1964 by author, used by pennission. Broadside, No. 46. 14. "Dead and Gone," words and music by Julius Lester, © 1964 by author, used by permission, Broadside, No. 51. 15. "See How the Rain Falls;' words and music by Julius Lester, © 1964 by author, used by pennission.

Chapter Seven 1. "Broadside Ballads, Volume One;' Broadside Records, BR 301. 2. "Bob Dylan," Columbia, CL 1779. 3. "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan;' Columbia, CL 1986.

Chapter Eight 1. Poets of Today, A New American Anthology, edited by Walter Lowenfels, New York, International Publishers, 1964, pp. 41-44. 2. "Another Side of Bob Dylan," Columbia CL 2193. 3. Interview with Phil Ochs by author, August 19, 1965. 4. "Talking Cuban Crisis," words by Phil Ochs, © Fall River Music Co., 1963; used by pennission. Broadside, No. 21. 5. "Links on the Chain," words and music by Phil Ochs, © Appleseed Music 1964; used by pennission. Broadside, No. 46. 6. "Job of Work," words and music by Tom Paxton, © Deep Fork Music 1964; used by pennission. 7. "Standing on the Edge of Town," words and music by Tom Paxton, © Deep Fork Music 1964; used by permission. S. "Bound for the Mountains and the Sea," words and music by Tom Paxton, © Cherry Lane Music, 1963; used by pennission. 9. "Just a Hand to Hold," words and music by Mark Spoelstra, © 1964, Nina Music, Division of Dyna Corporation; used by pennission. Broadside, No. 49.

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lO. Interview with Pat Sky by l!.uthor, September 11, 1964. "Leave Us Alone" appears in Broadside, No. 37. 11. "Which Side Are You On," new words by Len Chandler, © 1964 by author; used by permission. 12. "Are You Walking There For Me," words and music by Malvina Reynolds, © Schroder Music Co.; used by permission. Broadside, No. 48.

Chapter Nine 1. Portions of the quotations and the report appeared in "Slave Songs at the Sing for Freedom," by Josh Dunson, Broadside, No. 46. 2. Interview with Tom Paxton by author, September 11, 1964.

Chapter Ten 1. Interview with Barbara Dane by author, September ll,

1964. 2. Interview with Bernice Reagon by author, November 2, 1964. 3. Interview with Irwin Silber by author, September 11, 1964.