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Protest  Pioneers
Todays popular music is tomorrows folk music. Music and lyrics have for centuries been
used as a means of making political and social statements, to support minorities, the
downtrodden, unions and so forth.. Its been used for anti-war and anti government
statements and much much more. There have been some outstanding exponents of the art of
musical protest and here are but a few.
 Huddie Ledbetter is said to be the
most widely known of all the blues folk-artists. He was nicknamed Leadbelly, and called
himself the king of all the twelve string guitar players. Huddie may have said this with
tongue in cheek, however one thing is for sure, Leadbelly was one of the most influential
folk artists in North America. He played six and twelve string guitar as well as piano,
harp, accordian and mandolin. It's been recorded that his repertoire was over 500 songs.
He was born near Mooringsport, Louisiana on January 21, 1885. and died December 6, 1949
from a muscular-deteriorating disease. Leadbelly inflenced many artists such as Woody
Guthrie, Pete Seegar, The Weavers, Brownie McGee, Sonny Terry
and many others.
Ultimately Pete
Seeger became equally influential as Leadbelly. He was a musician, singer, songwriter,
folklorist, labor activist, environmentalist, and peace advocate, Seeger was born in
Patterson, New York, son of Charles and Constance Seeger, whose families traced their
ancestry back to the Mayflower.
Seeger graduated to a university and spent two unhappy years at Harvard and then he
left before the final exams in the spring of 1938. He then made his way back to New York,
where he eventually landed a job with the Archives of American Folk Music. Seeger spent
1939 and 1940 seeking out legendary folk-song figures such as the blues singer Leadbelly
and labor militant Aunt Molly Jackson. By 1940 he had become quite an accomplished
musician, thanks in no small part to his enormous self-discipline and Puritanical
rectitude. Alan Lomax once said 1940 could be celebrated as the beginning of modern folk
music, the year when Seeger met Woody Guthrie
at a "Grapes of Wrath" migrant-worker benefit concert.
By 1950 Hays and Seeger, along with Fred Hellerman and Ronnie Gilbert, formed the
Weavers and enjoyed instant success with highly sweetened versions of Goodnight Irene
which topped the charts for many weeks, and other folk tunes. Just as quickly as the
Weavers topped the charts, however, their career was torpedoed by blacklisting,
red-baiting, and numerous cancellations of their performances at the last minute.
Pete Seeger and the Weavers thought their excummunication was hilarious as they
got lots of free publicity and were able to work constantly at schools and colleges.
During the sixties, the FBI targeted and weeded out people like Seeger and Bob Dylan and
blacklisted many of their songs.
Pete Seeger spent a considerable amount of time in the South during the civil rights
marches of the 1960s. It was his variation of an old spiritual, which Seeger called We
Shall Overcome, that became an anthem of the crusade for equality in America. Pete
Seeger has become a highly visible and much beloved figure in American life. He has issued
one hundred records, written and collaborated on numerous radical songbooks, articles, and
manuals on playing the banjo. Fifty years after the Popular Front, Seeger is one of the
last links with the optimistic and expansive culture of the Depression-era.
 Pete
Seeger's good friend Woody
Guthrie was born in the year that Woodrow Wilson was elected President, and
since Charley and Nora Guthrie were strong Democrats they named their son after him:
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, born in Okemah, Oklahoma on July 14, 1912.
Abruptly leaving his California life, Woody travelled to New York City in the late
1930s. In New York he came to meet up with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Leadbelly, Cisco
Houston, and nearly all the people who would be the center of his musical and political
activities for the rest of his life. Ina Wood, a femminist union organizer with whom
Woody and Pete stayed for a while in Oklahoma City, criticized the two for their lack of
women's songs. Women were as fundamental to the labor movement as men, and they deserved
to be represented in and inspired by songs, so Woody wrote Union Maid.
Woody's politics took a turn as the United States came into the Second World War.Woody
and the Almanac Singers wrote dozens of songs about defeating fascism and Hitler. And
since any kind of strike would cripple the war effort, all the old union songs were put on
the shelf for a while. Eventually, Pete Seeger joined the army which left the Almanac
singers stranded.
During the mid-to-late 1950s and into the 1960s a new generation discovered Woody
Guthrie, and some of his songs became very popular. Before being blacklisted, The Weavers
did a recording of So Long, It's Been Good To Know Ya, and it became a nationwide
hit. Some of Woody's old union songs were revived, revamped, and slightly rewritten to
become part of the civil rights and peace movements.
In 1967, after a heroic 15-year struggle with Huntingon's Disease, Woody
died. A year prior to his death he was given the Conservation Service Award by the U.S.
Department of the Interior because of the love for, and kinship with, the land that is
contained in so many of his songs and writings.
The 60s and early 70s were a period in which protest music flourished.Some tunes
were old and and whipped into current mode. Some were enjoyed for their melody and lyrics,
taken at face value. Others carried a message urging rebellion. Rebellion against family,
country, tradition or glorifying the use of drugs. Others painted pictures of war and
death and encouraged draft evasion. Still others carried coded lyrics delivering more
political messages from place to place. All were immersed in the music culture of protest
and all remember it in the context of their involvement. Examples of protest songs from
this period were:
Blowin' In The Wind - Bob
Dylan
Signs - The Five Man Electrical Band
Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag -
Country Joe and the Fish
Eve Of Destruction - Barry
McGuire
War - Edwin Starr
Universal Soldier - Donovan
People Got To Be Free - The
Rascals
Society's Child - Janis Ian
Sky Pilot - Eric Burdan and the
Animals
If I Had A Hammer - Peter, Paul,
and Mary
The Times They Are A Changin' -
Bob Dylan
Where Have All The Flowers Gone -
The Kingston Trio
It's Good News Week - Hedgehoppers
Anonymous
Abraham, Martin and John - Dion
Subterranean Homesick Blues -
Bob Dylan
For What Its Worth - Buffalo
Springfield
.
Talking Union - Pete Seeger
Sixteen Tons - Tennessee Ernie Ford
March for MLK - John Fahey
MTA - Kingston Trio
We Shall Overcome - Joan Baez
Hard Rains a Gonna Fall - Bob Dylan
Universal Soldier - Buffy St. Marie
I Ain't Marchin Anymore - Phil Ochs
Blowin In The Wind - Peter, Paul, and Mary
Don't Think Twice - Bob Dylan
Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
Star Spangled Banner - Jimi Hendrix
Revolution - The Beatles
People Got To Be Free - The Rascals
Let Me Be - The Turtles
Ball of Confusion - The Temptations
Sky Pilot - Eric Burden and The Animals
Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Hands In The Air - Bob Seeger
Oh, Had I A Golden Thread - Pete Seeger
 As you
will note from above, Bob Dylan wrote and sung his fair share of protest songs, he was
born in Duluth Minnesota during 1941 and named Robert Zimmerman. By the
1960s he gained much recognition through his lyrics which captured the feeling of
alienation of many American youths, accompanied by his harsh and insistent delivery. He
built a reputation as a protest poet and songwriter, he was known to be strongly
influenced by Woody Guthrie, amongst others, Dylan exercised a profound effect on the
music scene. His style evolved from folk, to folk-rock to country. Enigmatic and
reclusive, Bob Dylan became an international cult figure.
Social comment and protest songs continue to be composed and performed today by
established artists such as Sting, U2, RAP artists and many new up and coming musicians.
  
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