As the radical politics of the New Left was being developed, it was already centered in folk music. From the union songs of the Wobblies to the anti-war songs of the Almanac Singers, folk music already characterized progressive politics. Now the young idealists who were creating a movement were also listening to folk music, using it for guidance and inspiration. In this chapter we begin to explore the connection between folk music and radical politics.
What was the connection? In order to examine the symbiotic relationship between the two forms, we go back to September 26, 1963, when Kenneth Keating, then the Republican Senator from New York, took to the floor of the senate and approached the well, clutching his notes close to his chest, an air of anticipation emanating from him. When he had been recognized, he spread his notes on the podium, took a deep breath and revealed that he had recently discovered a new source of creeping, festering communism turned loose on our shores, a new way for the Communists to slowly but ultimately consume our society.1 That new scourge, he said, was folk music, which was subversive to its very roots. Through folk music, he said, the Communists would further their effort to turn workers against their bosses: “No one could possibly imagine the members of the board of directors of General Motors sitting around a conference table composing ditties in honor of defense contracts, while it is not surprising that coal miners should have come up with a protest song, “Sixteen Tons,” crying to Saint Peter not to call them to heaven until they can pay their debt to the company store.2
Keating immediately lost whatever credibility he had with the young by getting his basic facts wrong. Coal miners did not write “Sixteen Tons.” The song was composed by master finger-picking country guitarist Merle Travis, who originally recorded it for Capitol Records. His record failed to make much of a stir but a cover version by the countrypolitan singer and television star, Tennessee Ernie Ford, reached number one on the Billboard charts (and was entered into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2015). While the song has entered the domain of folk music, “Sixteen Tons” is not the traditional folk song Keating thought it to be. Regardless of its origins, the fact was that Keating saw danger in the song. “Sixteen Tons,” he claimed, specifically and unfairly attacked mine owners and by extension all corporate executives. He also said that it portrays workers as little more than slaves and called the song very thinly disguised communist propaganda. And it is not the only subversive song Keating discovered.
He also objected to the folk chestnut, “Darling Corey,” a traditional song long in the public domain about a female maker of illegal whiskey that had recently been made popular by the Kingston Trio and was a favorite of other groups. Originally recorded by Clarence Gil in 1927, it was also done by Buell Kazee the same year. In 1941 the Monroe Brothers issued a record of the song and it made its way into the early repertoires of Burl Ives and Pete Seeger.3 Senator Keating, however, showed no evidence that he was familiar with the history of the song. He was, however, familiar with conservative political stances and saw “Darling Corey”4 as violating them. Keating objected particularly to the verse in which Darling Corey is alerted that the revenue men are coming to destroy her still.
He claims that the song obviously approves of criminal activity on all levels but mainly it attacks the internal revenue system: rather than get her tax stamps and make whiskey legally, Corey will simply move her still and continue to avoid paying taxes on her product. “Darling Corey” says we have to be on guard against the revenuers, while “Copper Kettle,” Keating says, is even more explicit. It tells the story of a family that has been in the business of making illegal whiskey for several generations without paying any sort of whiskey tax since the great Whiskey Rebellion of 1791. To the senator, the danger here is palpable and self-evident. As Keating says: “If enough people get around to singing this at hoot[e]nannies, Americans might get the idea that they don’t have to pay their taxes. After all, the family in question got away without paying them for 171 years. And if the government loses the ability to collect taxes to pay for our defense effort, we would be wide open for a Communist takeover, would we not?”5
No matter how absurd the story sounds, it really happened. Senator Keating really read these words into the Congressional Record. Did he truly believe that all it would take for people to stop paying taxes was hearing a song a few times? Keating made the speech and appears to have believed as much of what he was saying as a politician ever does. Perhaps he overstated the danger deliberately; perhaps there was an element of fun in his statement; but the basic fact is he believed in the communist menace and believed in the power of folk music to spread radical ideas. His ultimate answer to the problem he alone had diagnosed was a full investigation of Communist infiltration of folk music by the House Un-American Activities Committee, an investigation that he called for but that never happened, perhaps because Keating’s fellow senators appear to have been less concerned with this particular source of the red menace than he was. In fact, although it is hard to read tone in a printed typescript, the written text suggests that Minnesota senator and later presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey was openly mocking his fellow senator, encouraging Keating to sing, rather than simply quote, the lyrics. When Keating demurred because he didn’t have a guitar handy, Humphrey enthusiastically volunteers to get him one.
While Keating was never able to get his investigation of folk music, the Republicans did manage to see the danger he spoke of and to investigate nearly every folk singer of note. As we’ve seen, most of the artists of the fifties—Pete Seeger, Lee Hayes, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Oscar Brand, and many others—all suffered at the hands of various congressional committees. (Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Bob Dylan, along with many of their musical contemporaries, all were, at one time or another during the sixties, harassed by federal and state authorities, and the FBI accumulated large files on all of them.)
While the songs Keating quotes are not technically protest songs, he perceives them that way. And that’s what he sees as being so dangerous and communistic in folk music. What we have in this speech, then, is the first indication that the music of the Folk Revival is dangerous. When you consider that during the days of the folk revival, most of these songs were presented to the public by such safe acts as The Brothers Four, The Highwaymen, The Serendipity Singers, and the New Christy Minstrels, the only thing edgy about the versions Americans heard was the performers’ flat-top haircuts.
During this time, however, the folk world was widening as two separate and distinct types of folk music were emerging: the more commercial trios and quartets, who made the music pretty and benign; and the individuals, like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, who wrote their own material and contributed many important protest songs to the mix. Keating was right: the music was dangerous. But to find the danger, you had to go beneath the surface, had to stop watching the performer and look at what was being performed. On top is the show business; below that is the politics.
Consider a song Joan Baez is noted for: “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Originally conceived of during the labor movement of the early twentieth century,6 “We Shall Not Be Moved” was a song of liberation and empowerment. Having outlived its original purpose, it became a sort of secular hymn and moved over into the entertainment side. When the civil rights movement erupted, however, the song became relevant again and regained all of its power.7 It is now recognized as one of the great protest songs, as it shows the importance of standing up to illegitimate authority, of expressing and acting on your beliefs. The power of the song is beneath its surface, accessible to those who need it.
One person’s protest song, though, is another’s entertainment. A case can be made that some of our most famous protest songs don’t belong in that category at all. Consider the Bob Dylan composition “Blowin’ in the Wind.” From the moment the song was introduced, it was seen as the very model of the protest song,8 taking on war, social injustice, slavery and racism, and man’s indifference to his own fate and to everyone else’s. Released just as the crisis in Vietnam was cranking up, the song was made a massive top 40 hit by Peter, Paul and Mary and was quickly covered by nearly everyone who had access to a studio. Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary and, of course, Dylan himself recorded it. Phil Ochs was known to have sung it at rallies. “Blowin’ in the Wind” became the operational definition of the phrase protest song. From the moment he introduced the song, however, Bob Dylan has insisted that it was not a protest song.9 The fact is the song did not attack anything or anyone—and Dylan wrote plenty of songs that did. What it did was ask some profound questions, pointing out that answers were out there and could be found. The song was the perfect example of why Phil Ochs insisted that what he and his cohort were writing were topical songs rather than protest songs. Did the appellation matter? Not really. The song quickly found its way into the culture, where it continues to work its magic.
During the civil rights era, songs were loosely labeled protest songs if they argued against the “separate but equal” status quo—if they provided an alternative to the conventional. Actually, as far as the songs went, it wasn’t always necessary to advocate for integration as long as you argued loudly enough against segregation. Speaking of the protest songs of the early sixties, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “The freedom songs are playing a strong and vital role in our struggle. They give the people new courage and a sense of unity. I think they keep alive a faith, a radiant hope, in the future, particularly in our most trying hours.”10
For our purposes, the protest songs that accompanied the struggle to end slavery mark a good starting point. “No More Auction Block for Me,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” and “Oh Freedom” (a favorite of both Joan Baez and Odetta) widened both the appeal and the reception of the form. Singers and songwriters, such as Phil Ochs, kept the songs coming, putting a more up-to-date and directly political spin on them, which carried them to new audiences. In addition to the Greenwich Village clubs and bars, Ochs and his contemporaries performed at many political events, including anti–Vietnam War and civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events.
Ochs was equally at home singing for anti-war protestors as he was performing for general audiences at Town Hall or Carnegie Hall, two venues he played often due to his huge popularity in New York City. Politically, Ochs described himself as a “left social democrat.”11 He also saw himself as a harmless journalist who worked in the song form. As we’ll see when we dip into his life more, he also viewed himself as a star. His goal was to be big in show business—to be as rich and famous as the recordings he had not yet made could make him. He wanted to be as big as his idol, Elvis Presley, and was convinced that an album of protest songs written and performed by an adequate singer whose guitar playing, according to rock critic Robert Christgau, would not suffer had his hands been webbed12 was going to sell millions of copies.13 When that did not happen, Ochs’ life changed and the powerful songs like “The Power and the Glory,” “Draft Dodger Rag,” “Changes,” “Crucifixion,” “Love Me, I’m a Liberal,” and “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” quit coming.14
As he was forced to watch other artists having major radio hits with topical songs, it hurt him. He felt overlooked, felt that no one would take him seriously. And for a short period of time in the early sixties, protest songs were all over the FM airwaves. Buffy Sainte-Marie’s song “Universal Soldier” was a hit for both herself and later for Donovan. Tom Paxton became famous writing anti-war songs, like “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation,” about the escalation of the war in Vietnam; “Jimmy Newman,” the story of a dying soldier; and “My Son John,” about a soldier who returns from war unable to describe what he’s been through, among others. P.F. Sloan’s famous “Eve of Destruction,” performed strongly and sincerely by Barry McGuire in 1965, became the first protest song to hit number one on the Billboard charts.15
The American civil rights movement went to the churches for inspiration, changing the lyrics of African-America spirituals so that they became political songs. The use of religious music emphasized the peaceful, nonviolent nature of the protests. These songs were also easy to adapt, since they generally followed a call and response format that did not require trained singing voices. They were as their originator, Martin Luther, intended them to be, songs of the people. As he wrote, “Next to the word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our hearts, minds and spirits. A person who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”16 Adaptations of Luther’s hymns, their context changed to fit the needs of the civil rights movement, were carried across the country by the Freedom Riders and their folksinging accomplices.
When the anti-war movement gained its energy, the music turned electric, edgy—like the movement itself in these times. Country Joe and the Fish brought improvised rock to the arena, music that carried the danger of failure with it. The Jefferson Airplane, The Who, even Simon & Garfunkel brought a restless and insecure energy to the music. Peter, Paul and Mary talked about how they could travel with a candidate and possibly sway an election. They tested this theory by traveling with Senator Eugene McCarthy during his 1968 presidential campaign. He didn’t win, of course, but can it be said that Peter, Paul and May weren’t a benefit to his campaign? We had a decade where politics, social change, and music all intersected into one huge mass that forever changed our culture, our politics, and the way we listen to and play music. It was a time that changed us all forever. No wonder Senator Keating was afraid.