#protest singer

[comradeharrison]

Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger performing at the Music Inn in New York City, July 1950. This is believed to be Woody's last public performance before the Huntington's disease began to affect his behavior and ability to play and sing.

[thoughtportal]

[dontdj]

Yo Yo Yo Discogs!

You featured Shuhada' Sadaqat on your front page the day after her death was announced. And the next day you feature Madonna, who once picked a fight with Shuhada', mocking her for her hairstyle? Remember? It was in 1990 or so when she still called herself Sinéad O'Connor (like you choose to call her although you surely checked her Wikipedia page and learned the name she preferred). This was one of her answers to Madonna's statement: "There’s a woman who people look up to as being a woman who campaigns for women’s rights. A woman who, in an abusive way toward me, said that I look like I had a run in with a lawnmower and that I was about as sexy as a Venetian blind. Now there's the woman that America looks up to as being a campaigner for women, slagging off another woman for not being sexy (…)" (O'Connor in Spin Magazine 1991).

On October 16/1992 at Madison Square Garden Shuhada' was booed when coming on stage and this is how she reacted (the booing is hard to hear in this video though).

Let's not forget about courageous Shuhada' - she was a beacon of intellectual integrity in the dark ocean of a fucked up business we naively call "Pop"!

[serendipityrow]

rediscovered this photo of me from last november and realized that it looks so much like this specific image of phil ochs …..

[amandashaped]

“If no one out there understands, start your own revolution and cut out the middleman.” I love Billy, you guys. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the myriad ways in which the American political system (and the western one in general) leaves people behind. It does this everyday, but a particularly harsh light is being shone on every ugly failing right now, as we muddle through this rapidly evolving crisis. It makes me angry. It also fills me with so much appreciation for all the passionate, intelligent, good people who– in lieu of actually running for office, which isn’t for everyone– channel all of their resources to consistently work for progress. No matter what is going on in their own lives. Not just in the middle of a pandemic. In times of safe complacency too. In big ways that directly change policy, and in small indirect ways that simply shape our culture. It’s all about using what you have to offer to champion those who cannot do it on their own. I myself don’t always feel I have enough to offer but I vote, I canvass, I do my best to keep stretching my comfort zone to do more and more. I hope you’re all out there doing the same. Anyway, expect a steady stream of protest singers from me in the coming weeks. You can be active with the activists or sleeping with the sleepers. ✊ 🎸 (Now go wash your hands.)

[vinylspinning]

Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 (1991)

Absurd as it sounds (and was), this unwieldy, 3-CD, 5-LP, 58-song behemoth was the catalyst for my belated appreciation of Dylan’s greatness -- after spending much of my 1980s youth looking at Bob as a washed-up dinosaur who couldn’t sing.

And it wasn’t just me, since that decade’s ill-placed glorification of modernity at all costs -- especially when it came to oppressive production practices -- conspired with Bob’s inconsistent output to muddle his incomparable works of the ‘60s and ‘70s, most of them issued before I was born.

That’s why this expansive collection of demos, live recordings, alternate takes, outtakes, and even mistakes (assembled to celebrate Bob’s three-decade career and to finally “beat the boots,” as they say) were such a revelation to me in the ‘90s: they stripped back all of that unnecessary sonic “interference” and let Dylan’s voice, words, and guitar bewitch me, at last, as they had an entire generation.

It was here that I learned about the young, barely proven protest singer, both modest and savvy enough to demo songs like “When the Ship Comes In” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” for the Witmark Publishing Company, so that other artists could cover them.

I also learned what a talking blues was, via the Carnegie Hall-recorded “Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues” and the knee-slapping-funny “Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues” (I spent a few weekends at Bear Mountain myself, as a kid).

I learned that each of his legendary ‘60s LPs had jaw-dropping outtakes to spare, including his debut’s “He Was a Friend of Mine,” The Freewheelin’’s “Let Me Die in My Footsteps,” The Times They Are A-Changin’’s “Seven Curses,” and Another Side’s “Mama, You Been On My Mind.” 

I learned there were even buried treasures from the ‘70s and ‘80s (though these accounted for barely a third of these tracks, like Planet Waves’ psychedelic “Nobody 'Cept You,” Desire’s country-fried “Golden Loom,” Shot of Love’s plaintive “Angelina,” and, best of all, Infidels’ rambling groove, “Foot of Pride.”

And all this “learning” duly led me back to Bob’s essential discography, through the ‘60s (most of ‘em), ‘70s (some of ‘em) and ‘80s (maybe one of ‘em), proving that even box sets as intimidating as this one could educate and convert listeners who were curious and dedicated enough to invest the time.

Bob Dylan deserves nothing less, don’t you agree?

More Bob Dylan: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Blood on the Tracks, Desire, Infidels.

[charmingpplincardigans]

I stopped today to see myself in subway glass And I was scared of the way I look now I knew the only thought behind my eyes Was please don't believe in me Cus I’m bound to let you down

[comradeharrison]

Jean Ritchie with Woody Guthrie before an appearance on Oscar Brand’s radio show in New York City, 1948. Courtesy George Pickow and Jean Ritchie Collection.