23. Ibid., 282.
24. Political punk organizations, including Punk Voter, are involved in political organizing in areas including voting, the arts, and free speech.
25. Joe Strummer, interview, April 2002.
26. Paul Johnson of Time magazine glowingly described Thatcher as a “champion of free minds and markets” who “helped topple the welfare state and make the world safer for capitalism.” Time, April 13, 1998.
27. Linton Kwesi Johnson is a towering figure in reggae music. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in the Brixton section of London, Johnson invented dub poetry, a type of toasting descended from the DJ stylings of U-Roy and I-Roy. Johnson was also instrumental (with his friend Darcus Howe) in publishing a socialist-oriented London-based newspaper, Race Today, that offered him and like-minded Britons, both black and white, an outlet to discuss the racial issues that were tearing the country apart.
28. Bev Forbes, “Word Warrior,” Searchlight, January 2000.
29. Crass produced politically and musically radical records. They took on the horrors of war, injustice, sexism, racism, media hegemony, and the flaws of the punk movement. In many ways, they embodied the hope and potential of music as an agent of social and political change. They put out their own records and formed an anarchist commune that worked with other artists and labels, for and on the behalf of various political causes.
30. Robert Christgau, “Sense Outa Nonsense,” Village Voice, April 23, 1991.
31. Ibid.
YOU CAN’T HAVE A REVOLUTION WITHOUT SONGS: THE LEGACY OF VÍCTOR JARA AND THE POLITICAL FOLK MUSIC OF CAETANO VELOSO, SILVIO RODRÍGUEZ, AND JOE STRUMMER
1. “You can’t have a revolution without songs” was emblazoned on a banner suspended over Salvadore Allende following his election as president of Chile. It shows the influence that the new song movement [nueva canción] had over the political process in Chile.
2. Strummer met Tymon Dogg when the latter was busking in the London underground. The formed a strong friendship and musical relationship. Dogg taught Strummer to play the ukulele and compose folk music. They collaborated sporadically while Strummer was with the Clash but worked closely when Dogg joined the Mescaleros on Global A Go-Go.
3. Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, released in 1997, was the first full-length solo album from Strummer in ten years. Prior to that he had released Earthquake Weather, not his finest effort, and had done some fine work composing music for films. Notable soundtracks include Walker and Permanent Record. Strummer told me that no one should listen to his new work, which includes two albums proceding Rock Art. “If people were expecting to hear the Clash,” he told me, “do me a favor and don’t buy it unless you are willing to really listen to something new from me.”
4. John Holmstrom, “An Interview with Joey and Johnny Ramone,” Punk, October-November 1977.
5. Steve Wishnia, “Gabba Gabba Hey,” In These Times, May 28, 2001. The Ramones eventually adopted a more progressive stance. While never overtly political, Joey Ramone penned the song “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” after Ronald Reagan visited a German cemetery in 1985 and left a wreath commemorating German war dead, including many SS soldiers.
6. The most obvious example of this was the Sex Pistols’ refrain “no future” on the track “God Save the Queen” from Never Mind the Bullocks. The Clash and Strummer, on the other hand, were employing slogans like “positive change,” “passion is a fashion,” and so on.
7. There are notable exceptions to this including Bad Religion, NOFX, Anti-Flag, RICANSTRUCTION, Renegades of Punk, the 512 Collective, and others.
8. While the Clash enjoyed great audience success for a short time, whether they were financially successful is unclear. They signed a record contract that heavily favored their record company, Epic: ten years, ten albums, $100,000. In addition, in a dispute with their label over the pricing of the three-record album Sandinista!, the Clash forfeited their royalties in exchange for pricing the album as one record to keep it affordable for their listeners.
9. Strummer at one time described Mano Negra’s music as having the same force as that of the Clash. Strummer, interview by Mark Vennard, BBC Online, Winter 2002.
10. Standout Mano Negra records include Puta’s Fever, Patchanka, and Casa Babylon. Manu Chao solo albums include Clandestino and Proxima Estacion: Esperanza.
11. Joe Strummer, interview by Antonino D’Ambrosio, April 2002.
12. Antonino D’Ambrosio, “Soundtrack to Struggle,” Color Lines, Winter 2003–2004. Léo Ferré was a precursor to the spoken word artists of today. The events of May 1968 in France left a mark on Ferré. In early 1969, he released a new album inspired by the agitation of May ’68 with such songs as “Comme une fílle,” “L’été 68,” and “Les Anarchistes.”
13. The history of New Song coincides with political events occurring in Latin America and U.S. influence on Central and South American countries. The United States has often sought to manipulate events in these countries for its own benefit. The artists of New Song use this as a basis for the themes of their songs.
14. The creation of Casa de las Américas was a way of guaranteeing that revolutionary artists who were persecuted and condemned in their own countries would always have a podium to speak from.
15. Joan Jara, An Unfinished Song: The Life of Victor Jara (UK: Tichnor & Fields, n.d.). Reviewed by Tony Saunois in Socialism Today, April 2000.
16. The Popular Unity Party had plans to expand education and supply housing, free medical care, state control of oil refineries, mines, etc., and return land to the people, among other social programs.
17. Jara, Unfinished Song.
18. There are many fine books and other media accounts of the coup d’état but none as powerful as filmmaker Patricio Guzman’s exceptional documentary Battle of Chile. Guzman was forced into exile in France following the coup. In addition, the plan to overthrow Allende was devised by then secretary of state Henry Kissinger and received financial support from the Ford Foundation and various U.S. conglomerates.
19. Thousands of people remain missing to this day, and their families continue to search for them.
20. Many stories indicate that Víctor Jara’s hands and testicles were cut off and his tongue cut out so that he could not perform for his fellow prisoners. But in Victor: An Unfinished Song, Jara’s wife Joan indicates that when she saw him after his death his hands were broken, not severed.
21. From the companion booklet bound with the CD Victor Jara: El Creador.
22. Quote from Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham, and Jon Lusk, eds., The Rough Guide to World Music (Rough Guides, 2006), “The Uncompromising Song” in vol. 2. For more on Gaughan, check out his records, including No More Forever, Handful of Earth, and Redwood Cathedral.
23. “Bard of Freedom: Dick Gaughan speaks with Bill Nevins,” Rootsworld, Summer 1998.
24. Derek Beres, “Caetano Veloso and the Meaning of Exile,” Rattapallax 9 (2007).
25. Much has been made of this perceived rivalry. In his autobiography, Tropical Truth, Veloso emphasizes that any rivalry was overblown and really did not exist at all.
26. Caetano Veloso, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil (New York: Da Capo, 2003), 31.
27. Rogério Duarte was a Bahian intellectual, activist, and teacher whose lasting and profound friendship with Veloso began in 1964.
28. Veloso, Tropical Truth, 61.
29. Veloso modeled this on a similar festival created by Italian artists who found it effective in organizing creative political activity in Italy.
30. Mercedes Sosa is a giant of contemporary music. Strummer described her music as “heroic, possessing the essence of beauty.” Sosa was viewed as a serious threat by the Argentine government, and in 1975 she was arrested during a live performance. Forced to leave Argentina, she remained in exile for three years. Her brilliant works include La Negra, Sino, and Misa Criolla, for which she won a Grammy in 2000.
31. From liner notes to Cuban Clas
sics, vol. 1, The Greatest Hits of Silvio Rodríguez: Canciones Urgentes.
32. Ibid.
33. Veloso, Tropical Truth, 61.
THE WORLD IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR: TWO CREATIVE ACTIVISTS, MICHAEL FRANTI AND TIM ROBBINS, CONTINUE JOE STRUMMER’S LEGACY
1. Michael Franti, interview, April 15, 2004.
2. Mikey Dread’s influence on the Clash and Strummer was extensive and far-reaching. It can be heard on Clash recordings including the antiwar song “The Call Up.” In addition, “Police on My Back” continues the Clash’s impressive reinterpretation of a song first recorded by East London’s The Equals, led by West Indian Eddy Grant. See Carter Van Pelt, “When the Two Sevens Clashed,” in this volume for more on Mikey Dread and the Clash.
3. Tim Robbins, interview, May 5, 2004.
4. L. M. Bogad, Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements (New York: Routledge, 2004).
5. See Antonino D’Ambrosio, “The Playwright vs. the Prime Minister,” The Progressive, April 2004.
6. One of Robbins’s earliest performances was with his father, Gil Robbins, when they performed a folk song, “The Ink Is Black, the Page Is White,” in Greenwich Village.
7. Lorca’s murder at the hand of nationalists took away one of the world’s most gifted dramatists and poets. He was thirty-eight. His work includes Romancero Gitano, The Gypsy Ballads of García Lorca, Poema del Cante Jondo, and Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter and Other Poems. Francisco Franco, who had ordered Lorca killed, ruled Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. Known as “el Caudillo” (“the leader”), he presided over the authoritarian government that had overthrown the Second Spanish Republic.
8. Bob Roberts is a political satire shot as a mockumentary, following a right-wing senatorial candidate played by Robbins who campaigns by singing folk songs that attack his liberal opponent, played by Gore Vidal. Robbins wrote the script and the songs, directed, starred in, and produced Bob Roberts. Dead Man Walking is based on a true story dealing with the debate surrounding capital punishment. Robbins’s longtime partner, Susan Sarandon, won an Oscar for her performance in the film, which includes an excellent performance by Sean Penn.
9. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was named for Augusto César Sandino, a former insurgent leader. It was formed in 1962 to oppose the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in Nicaragua. In 1979 the Sandinistas launched an offensive from Costa Rica and Honduras that toppled Somoza. They nationalized such industries as banking and mining. The United States organized and supported guerrillas known as Contras to overthrow the Sandinista-dominated government.
10. In 1994 Human Rights Watch issued a report on U.S. human rights violations: “The indefinite detention of HIV-positive Haitian asylum-seekers at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a practice discontinued in the summer of 1993 by court order, violated Article 7, which forbids cruel inhuman or degrading treatment, and Article 9, which requires a statutory basis for detention. It also violated Article 10, which forbids inhumane conditions of confinement, and Article 26, which forbids discrimination on the basis of national origin (only Haitians were subject to medical screening and detention based on HIV status; intercepted Cubans, for example, were not medically screened and were transported directly to the United States). The practice of indefinitely detaining all undocumented people, including children, violates Article 9’s prohibition of arbitrary detention.”
11. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media outlet, viciously attacked the play, calling it “anti-American,” “not realistic, devoid of facts.” Lawrence Kaplan of the New Republic wrote in a review titled “Devious Plot” that “Embedded, moreover, is not only dumb. It is poisonous, a production-length conspiracy theory guilty of the very sins it attributes to the ‘cabal’ that it claims to expose.”
12. In 1935, 8 million Americans were out of work and 3 million youths between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four were on relief. On May 6 of that year the government created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) through Executive Order 7034. The Federal Theater Project (FTP) was one of four (later five) arts projects within the WPA; the arts projects were known collectively as Federal Project Number One. The FTP was the federal government’s largest and most ambitious effort to organize and produce theater events.
13. Please see the transcript of the speech given by actor Tim Robbins to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2003, www.commondreams.org/views03/0416-01.htm.
FUTURE LISTENING, WATCHING, READING, AND SEEING
FUTURE LISTENING
7 Seconds. 1984. Crew. Better Youth Organization, 1994, compact disc.*
Amadou & Mariam. 1999. Tje Ni Mousso. Circular Moves, 2000, compact disc.
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. 2010. Who Is This America? Ropeadope, compact disc.
At the Drive-In. 2000. Relationship of Command. Virgin, compact disc.
Bad Brains. 1983. Rock for Light. Caroline Distributions, compact disc.
——. 1986. I Against I. SST Records, compact disc.
Bartók, Béla. Suite for Orchestra No. 1, Sz. 31, BB 39. (Op. 3). Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra. Zoltán Kocsis. Hungaroton Sacd, compact disc, 2010.
Black Flag. 1981. Damaged. SST Records, compact disc.
Black Star. 2002. Black Star. Rawkus Records, compact disc.
Bolden, Buddy. 1997. Buddy Bolden’s Blues. ITM, compact disc.
Bragg, Billy. 1986. Talking with the Taxman About Poetry. Yep Roc Records, 2006, compact disc.
Bragg, Billy, and Wilco. 1998. Mermaid Avenue. Elektra, compact disc.
Buarque, Chico. 1966. “A Banda.” In Chico Total, Motor Music, 1997, compact disc.
Cage, John. 1997. The Seasons. ECM, compact disc.
Cash, Johnny. 1994. American Recordings. American/Sony Music Entertainment, compact disc.
The Clash. 1977. The Clash. Sony Music Entertainment, 2000, compact disc.
———. 1978. Give ’Em Enough Rope. Sony Music Entertainment, 2000, compact disc.
———. 1979. London Calling. Sony Music Entertainment, 2000, compact disc.
———. 1981. Sandinista! Sony Music Entertainment, 2000, compact disc.
———. 1982. Combat Rock. Sony Music Entertainment, 2000, compact disc.
———. 1993. Super Black Market Clash. Sony Music Entertainment, 2000, compact disc.
Colón, Willie. 1969. Cosa Nuestra. Fania, 2000, compact disc.
Copeland, Aaron. 1990. Copeland Conducts Copeland (Appalachian Spring). Columbia symphony, compact disc.
Davis, Miles. 1960. Sketches of Spain. Sony Music Entertainment, 2000, compact disc.
———. 1972. On the Corner. Sony Music Entertainment, 2000, compact disc.
Death. 2009. . . . For the Whole World to See. Drag City, compact disc.
Diddley, Bo. 1958. Bo Diddley. MCA, 1986, compact disc.
DJ Shadow. 1996. Endtroducing. Mo Wax, compact disc.
Ellington, Duke. 1978. Take the A Train. Compose Big Band, compact disc.
Erik B., and Rakim. 1987. Paid in Full. 4th & Broadway, 1996, compact disc.
Freestyle Fellowship. 1993. Inner City Griots. 4th & Broadway, compact disc.
Fugazi. 1990. Repeater. Dischord Records, compact disc.
———. 1991. Steady Diet of Nothing. Dischord Records, compact disc.
Gang of Four. 1979. Entertainment! Rhino, 2005, compact disc.
Ginsberg, Allen. 1983. First Blues. Water Music Records, 2006, compact disc.
Gogol Bordello. 2005. Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike. Side One Dummy, compact disc.
———. 2010. Trans-Continental Hustle, American Recordings, compact
Guerrero, Tommy. 2003. Soul Food Taqueria. Mo’ Wax, compact disc.
Guru. 1993. Jazzmatazz. Virgin Records, compact disc.
———. 1995. Jazzmatazz, Vol. 2. Virgin Records, compact disc.
Guthrie, Woody. 1941. “Buffalo Skinners.” In Struggle: Documentary No. 1. Smithsonian Folkways, 1990, compact
disc.
Hancock, Herbie. 1965. Maiden Voyage. Blue Note, compact disc.
Hayes, Sean. 2010. Run Wolves Run. Sean Hayes Music, compact disc.
Hines, Earl. 1965. Blues in Thirds. Black Lion, 1989, compact disc.
———. 1970. The Quintessential Recording Session. Chiaroscuro, LP (vinyl).
The Jam. 1978. All Mod Cons. Ume Imports, 2004, compact disc.
Jarret, Keith. 1975. The Köln Concert. ECM, 1999, compact disc.
Keita, Salif. Destiny of a Noble Outcast. 1991. New York: Polygram, VHS.
Kidjo, Angélique. 1991. Logozo. Mango, compact disc.
The Kominas. 2008. Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay. The Kominas, compact disc.
Kramer, Wayne. 2002. Return of Citizen Wayne. Dm Records, 2009, compact disc.
Kuti, Fela. 1977. Zombie. MCA, 2001, compact disc.
———. 1981. Black President. EMI Nigeria, compact disc.
Leaders of the New School. 1991. A Future Without a Past. Elektra, compact disc.
Les Nubians. 1998. Princesses Nubiennes. Virgin, compact disc.
Maal, Baaba, and Mansour Seck. 1989. Djam Leelii. Palm Pictures, 1998, compact disc
Makeba, Miriam. 1960. Miriam Makeba. RCA, Vinyl LP.
Massive Attack. 1998. Mezzanine. Virgin, compact disc.
The Mekons. 1989. The Mekons Rock ’n Roll. A&M, compact disc.
Minor Threat. 1984. Out of Step. Dischord Records, 1991, compact disc.
MC5. 1969. Kick Out the Jams. Elektra, 1991, compact disc.
———. 1970. Back in the USA. Rhino, 1992, compact disc.
———. 1971. High Time. Rhino, 1992, compact disc.
Ocote Soul Sounds. 2009. Coconut Rock. Eighteenth Street, compact disc.
Odetta. 1956. Sings Ballads and Blues. Tradition Records, 1996, compact disc.
———. 1960. Ballads for Americans and Other American Ballads. Vanguard, Vinyl LP.
Perry, Lee “Scratch.” 1978. Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Cornbread. VP Records, compact disc.
Poor Righteous Teachers. 1990. Holy Intellect. Profile, compact disc.
Public Enemy. 1987. Yo! Bum Rush the Show. Def Jam, 1995, compact disc.
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