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After a recent performance, a member of the audience came up to tell me that he'd enjoyed my playing. "I always think," he said, as if he were being original, "that the violin is the instrument that most closely resembles the human voice." Outwardly I nodded assent and smiled; inwardly I groaned. If you happen to be a violinist, then you'll be only too familiar with this particular cliché.
Seventy-five years ago folk singer Woody Guthrie penned the initial lyrics to “This Land Is Your Land,” considered by many to be the alternative national anthem. Sung in elementary schools, children’s summer camps, around campfires, at rallies, and during concert encores, “This Land Is Your Land” is the archetypal sing-along song, familiar to generations of Americans. But what most do not know is that Guthrie, the “Oklahoma Cowboy,” actually wrote the song in New York and that its production and dissemination were shaped by the city’s cultural institutions.
In addition to writing and illustrating, my soul also loves to sing!
I recently acquired an old (100+ year old) building in Covington, TX that I'm using for all my artistic passions. One part of it is my studio away from home. It's very, very quiet here. very condusive to work. The other part of the building is for music (kind of music -- old style, traditional music) and puppets.
Here are a few pictures of the birdhouse, and if you want to know more, visit the birdhouse blog. If you're in Texas and play old-time music, come on out!
I was a college kid on a cold Connecticut night in 1964 when I first heard Mary’s angelic alto. On that night in New Haven and on so many nights over the next five decades, in so many places all over the world, Peter, Paul, and Mary’s music asked more of us than to simply sing along. “The hammer of justice” and “the bell of freedom”! These are more than just lyrics; they were then, and they remain, a call to conscience, and as Peter especially has always reminded me, when something pulls at your conscience, you need to act.
As Peter, Paul and Mary journeyed from coffee houses and campuses to the Billboard Top 40, there could be no doubt that we were all living in turbulent times. But in their harmonies was a magic and message more powerful than a decade of discord and exhilaration.
That is why, after all these years, we return to the music. That is why when we turn the pages of this incredible book, we are questioned, liberated, and challenged once again.
I know my experience with Peter, Paul and Mary is one that I shared with so
many in those years of challenge and transformation. Their music became an anchor: “Blowin’ in the Wind” as the war in Vietnam escalated. “Leavin’ on a jet Plane” as I left to join the war. “Puff the Magic Dragon” as I patrolled the Mekong Delta. Their songs became the soundtrack of my life and of a generation.
They changed the cultural fabric of this nation forever. Peter, Paul and Mary brought folk music from the shadows of the blacklist McCarthy era to the living rooms and radio stations of every town in America. They gave the world its first listen to young songwriting talents from Bob Dylan to John Denver, Gordon Lightfoot to Laura Nyro.
And though their music might stop and the band would break up for years, they never stopped marching. They marched for peace, for racial justice, for workers rights. They marched against gun violence, homelessness and world hunger. They marched for clean air and clean water, against apartheid and nuclear proliferation.
Through both their songs and their struggle, they helped propel our nation on its greatest journey, on the march towards greater equality. With their passion and persistence, Peter, Paul and Mary helped widen the circle of our democracy.
It was at Dr. King’s March on Washington, that Peter, Paul and Mary first
performed “Blowin’ in the Wind.” On that day and for decades thereafter, they made it clear that it was up to all of us to reach for the answer by reaching out to one another and to the world. Their message was not defined by protest but by taking responsibility—taking the risks that peace, the most powerful answer of all, always requires.
After the 1960s, those risks left many of us with wounds and battle scars, physical and spiritual, real and metaphorical. We saw too many of our heroes and friends—our flowers—gone to graveyards far too soon. In the years to come, their music helped us to heal.
It was in 1971, at one of the many marches in Washington that Peter, Paul and Mary helped to lead, when I first met Mary. She once told me she was always guided by advice she got from her mother: “Be careful of compromise,” she said. “There’s a very thin line between compromise and accomplice.” She wasn’t just speaking about music or even politics. It was a worldview, a philosophy of life—and it is within these pages and in the spirit that Peter and Noel (Paul) continue to share with audiences around the world, Mary’s spirit endures.
But this book is not a tribute to any “time that was,” or even to three incredible people who changed music and our lives forever. Instead, it is a testament to what they achieved with their audience, both as musicians and as individuals, as artists and as activists, as Americans and as citizens of the world.
It is also a testament to what’s left undone. The questions that Peter, Paul
and Mary posed more than fifty years ago at the March on Washington—how many roads, how many years will it take?—these are still our questions and we still have a responsibility to answer.
That is why the power of Peter, Paul and Mary’s music and their work in the world is enduring. That is why it remains an inspiration for the work to come, for our work together, and for all we hope to leave behind.
One of my favorite Peter, Paul and Mary songs has always been “Sweet Survivor.” I was moved when Mary sang it for me on my 50th Birthday, and then when Peter sang it for me on a cold bus in Iowa in 2003. Its words still speak to the future, not the past:
“Carry on my sweet survivor, carry on my lonely friend
Don’t give up on the dream, and don’t let it end.
Carry on my sweet survivor, you’ve carried it so long.
So may it come again, carry on, carry on, carry on.”
And so as we read this book—and remember the music—we do it with much more than nostalgia: we do it because Peter, Paul and Mary remind us still to carry on.
0 Comments on John F. Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, Pens the Intro to "Peter, Paul and Mary: Fifty Years in Music and Life" as of 10/3/2014 6:03:00 PM
This round, each Teaching Author (so far Carmela and Mary Ann) will be sharing one of our favorite posts by blogmate JoAnn Early Macken, now on our Blog Advisory Board (or BAB). Just kidding. We don't actually have a BAB, although maybe we should. We're saying goodbye to JoAnn who is so busy teaching, writing and running Wisconsin's SCBWI chapter, she can scarcely breathe.
JoAnn's poetry and photos sing. Though we had hoped to talk about different posts from JoAnn's tenure, I was so struck by her poetry in the same post Mary Ann chose, I have to share JoAnn's photo and poem, "Landscape with Dog Nose":
Landscape with Dog Nose by JoAnn Early Macken
I wanted to capture the crisp horizon,
gradations of shades,
mountainous clouds,
but she insisted on
stepping into the shot.
Well, why not?
She’s always part of the picture. photo and poem (c) 2012 JoAnn Early Macken, all rights reserved
I'll miss blogmate JoAnn's unique view of the natural world, her kindness, her beautific smile, her poetry...and so much more.
Good morning, April. Thanks for sharing JoAnn's poem. My dog is also my constant companion, always in the picture. It's great to see the photo that inspired the poem, too!
I've collected goodbye poems for a long time, and your post just adds to my pile. I'm sorry that your group is saying goodbye to a friend and colleague. It seems it's never easy. I enjoyed the songs too and the way you were trying to find just the right one, just as we do when writing. Thank you for your lovely post of goodbyes!
Oh,sad to hear I won't be finding JoAnn here anymore. Thanks for this great send-off, April. You are a first rate troubador! Love your Fiji poem and JoAnn's Dog Nose poem :).
Thank you all for your good wishes. April, thanks for the Woody Guthrie song and your Fiji vacation poem--I loved hearing the laughter in them both. I will gladly serve on the Blog Advisory Board! xox, JA
Disney has debuted a new social media initiative called Disney Reads (spanning Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We love that they’re posting sweepstakes, contests, quizzes, and other exclusive content, but we’re a little perplexed at... Read the rest of this post
I thought it might be fun to do a posting about the music I enjoy listening to. I like a broad range of styles, but my young adult daughter has introduced me to a style we used to call Folk. It goes by several names, Indie or . Anyway, here are some fun videos I found. Maybe you'll find someone new here you'd enjoy listening to. Continue reading →
Did you know that March is Music in the Schools Month? Well, it is! In fact, today'sTeachingAuthorspoemis actually a song written by our guest singer/songwriter who brings music to schools all over the country. x Hmmm...music in the schools...I remember Mrs. Priday, an older, potato-shaped woman with orange-ish hair, who played piano and joyfully taught us to sing at Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica, CA. And Richard Wagner, the Leonard Bernstein of Santa Monica schools, who lit a fire inside us when he turned on the William Tell Overture and let us put our heads down on our desks to listen.
And Sherman Plepler gave me private violin lessons once a week (during the school day!) in the musty basement of Franklin School.
Ahhh...the golden age of music in the schools. But, hark! You can still find fabulous teachers using music in these days of school budget guillotines.
BJØRG MYRVOLD, former lead singer for the Norwegian Death Metal band Napalm Pestilence, has decide to try his hand at folk singing since his girlfriend, Dagmar, told him to get his act together or she would kick him out. His song list has been toned down and now includes hits such as, “I Had a Rooster and Bit Its Head Off” and “Mamma Don’t Allow No Necrophilia’s.” Dagmar is quoted as saying, “Old MacDonald Had an Aneurism,” is not exactly what I had in mind, but at least the makeup is gone and those idiot band mates aren’t freeloading from my fridge anymore.”
Molly Beer has taught literature and writing at the Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ecuador, and the University of New Mexico. She wrote Singing Out: An Oral History of America’s Folk Music Revivals, with David King Dunaway, a Professor of English at the University of New Mexico. Singing Out is culled from more than 150 interviews and the story it tells spans seven decades and cuts across a wide swath of generations and perspectives, shedding light on the musical, political, and social aspects of the folk revival movement. In the original article below Beer looks at the experience of writing a book with another author.
“Apathetic,” he scoffs.
“Naïve and romantic,” I counter defensively.
“These songs are so self-absorbed!”
“Those songs were so self-righteous!”
This is Pete Seeger-biographer David Dunaway and I debating the evolution of American folk music from our distinct generational perspectives, and we aren’t, technically, arguing. Beyond the pot-shots, we are engaging in academic discourse born out of the ever-shifting debate over purity, authenticity, and activism in folk music.
David presents the case that young people today are tuned-out technophiles singing only in the “key of me.” I rebut that the old peace-and-love folkies have gone soft, waxing nostalgic while Dylan croons from high-end speakers in their safe, shiny Volvos. We’re speaking indirectly of banjo-picking coalminers in Appalachia and guitar-toting folkstars in Greenwich Village, and we’re comparing it all to 2010: Why is no one playing anti-war songs about Iraq on the autoharp? Why is no one playing the autoharp? David and I have vying theories.
History written from a single, mysteriously objective, even omniscient vantage point is history, all but obsolete. Even personal history with its explicit, personified point-of-view can suffer from a shortage of counterpoints (David, for example, would write a very different story here). This is the argument for writing a history in many voices, for oral history, and for the braiding of accounts and interpretations into a multi-faceted, contradiction-ridden narrative.
In Singing Out, David and I took this multi-voice theory one step further: we co-wrote the book—a man and a woman, a child of the folk boom and a child of, well, Madonna and Nirvana, I suppose.
Out of these dichotomies we crafted a narrative voice—a “glue” as we called it—for all the shards of stories and rants and explications that David has been collecting since before I was born and which I spliced and arranged into one, albeit schizophrenic narrative.
“There is no budding Pete Seeger on the horizon,” David remarks, pensively stroking his goatee. “Young people just aren’t writing protest music. I mean Ani DiFranco is in her 40s!”
Great song. Keep up the great artwork. on another note here's a great music movie with music by Draft Punk. It is an epic movie. Interstella 5555 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9fJQIrlAm8
I've been obsessing over this music all day. I was told about one band on Facebook by Mark Hill; Dark,Dark, Dark. Mark directed me to AllMusic and I just loved them and kept looking for associated bands. There all these bands emerging in the U.S. in the last few years doing this multi-instrumental, Americana, bluegrass, indy stuff and it's all amazing.The term I've heard used to describe this music is Hobo Revival...Last FM describes Hurray For The Riff Raff as
"......currently a 4 piece folk band out of New Orleans, Louisiana. Alynda Lee leads the band with her deep, aching voice, which seems unparalleled yet reminds us of Nona Marie Invie of Dark Dark Dark, and all-star banjo skills. Walt McClements plays accordion, fiddle & toy piano, Aubrey Freeman plays double bass, and Shae Freeman plays the saw, autoharp & vocals."
This music is a perfect soundtrack for Harry and Silvio; all whimsy and creaking and darkness and fun.
1 Comments on Hurray For The Riff Raff!!, last added: 10/10/2009
You might like Saint Seneca, I don't know if they're exactly the hobo revival genre but they are fun to listen to also. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6ZP8WuYtog
Meanwhile, did you see how Charlesbridge and Bob Dylan have a lot in common in the previous post below? Uncanny. Bob is also of Russian descent, which makes The Magic Babushka even more Dylanesque. Plus it's an Easter story, which Bob mentions in "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" on Highway 61 Revisited.
Here's a picture I did in my Moleskine sketchbook of one of my favorite singer songwriters, Elizabeth Cotten. She has a wonderful sensitive and lively way of playing. She's most famous for her song Freight Train.
2 Comments on Elizabeth Cotten, last added: 9/25/2009
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What a beautiful tribute indeed. Love the songs, poetry and photos. Best of luck JoAnn!
Good morning, April. Thanks for sharing JoAnn's poem. My dog is also my constant companion, always in the picture. It's great to see the photo that inspired the poem, too!
I've collected goodbye poems for a long time, and your post just adds to my pile. I'm sorry that your group is saying goodbye to a friend and colleague. It seems it's never easy. I enjoyed the songs too and the way you were trying to find just the right one, just as we do when writing. Thank you for your lovely post of goodbyes!
Oh,sad to hear I won't be finding JoAnn here anymore. Thanks for this great send-off, April. You are a first rate troubador! Love your Fiji poem and JoAnn's Dog Nose poem :).
>>Blog Advisory Board (or BAB)<<
What a fun idea, April. Maybe we SHOULD have one!
Best of luck to JoAnn. I'll miss her here. Thanks for the goodbye songs, April, and I love your Figi poem.
Thank you all for your good wishes. April, thanks for the Woody Guthrie song and your Fiji vacation poem--I loved hearing the laughter in them both. I will gladly serve on the Blog Advisory Board!
xox,
JA