“Whole World in an Uproar” – Music, Rebellion and Repression – 1955-1972 by Aaron Leonard
This is an excellent look back at the ties between
political upheaval, music and political repression. As we enter another phase of repression similar
or worse than the past – knowledge of how it went 50-60+ years ago might help. Leonard has written 2 prior books on FBI /
police actions against various branches of the Maoist and Marxist left in this
period. This book shows how repression worked
in the music field. If you are a Leftist who thinks culture is irrelevant – this book shows it is not to the ruling
class. Class struggle penetrates every sector of society, especially during
social tumult.
Examples from the book?
Folk singers were brought before the anti-communist HUAC committee and
Pete Seeger jailed and black-listed for not answering questions. Harry Belafonte was forced to say he was not
a Communist. Jazz players put out political albums and songs attacking Jim Crow,
as did folk-blues artists like Josh White and J.B. Lenoir. Early rock and roll and R&B were attacked
by the racist power structure, as it brought together white and black music styles
and also people in a time of Jim Crow, weakening segregation. Dylan was stopped from playing a song about
the raving anti-communists in the John Birch Society on the Ed Sullivan show,
and later garnered an FBI file. A Trotskyist
political artist like Dave Van Ronk earned his own FBI file and was later
pilloried in a Cohen Brothers film. Phil Ochs was banned from the
airways. Sam Cooke also had an FBI file, especially after penning “A Change is Going To Come” and
associating with Malcolm X. The Beatles
were ridiculed in the press and a U.S. musician’s union sought to bar them and
several other British groups like the Kinks from playing in the U.S. Joan Baez sang at Berkley’s Free Speech
Movement – a movement also denounced in the press.
That is the beginning.
All these people and events are now legends, but at the time, like MLK,
they were abhorred by the conservative ruling elite. The ‘counter-culture’ was not just about apolitical
pot smoking and ‘free’ sex, but politically involved with the social struggles
of the time. Leonard believes politics actually dominated the period and he is
certainly right. The book integrates the
upheavals as they happened each year, and how that impacted the music scene. His
perspective of the '50s and ‘60s’ period is not the standard press depiction of dopey Beat'niks' or drugged-out
‘dippy’ hippies,’ the latter best exemplified by middle-class journalists like Joan
Didion in her exposé “Slouching Towards
Bethlehem.”
Music
Entwined With Events
Leonard pokes at folk music purists like Irwin Silber,
first an editor of “Sing Out,” then an
editor of the National Guardian and
later a leader of a post-Maoist left group, Line of March. Silber led the charge against Dylan and anyone
else who wrote something other than protest or folk songs, with invective
against folk-rock. Leonard cites Greil
Marcus as to Dylan being blocked from certain folk clubs in Britain due to the
Communist Party disliking his new musical direction. Leonard contends this purist hostility might
have been one reason he stopped touring, not just the motorcycle accident.
Rock bands in the mid to late ‘60s were the target of
police action across the U.S. Drug busts,
banning political or so-called ‘drug’ songs from the airwaves, blocking venues,
denying visas and shutting down on-going concerts for various flimsy reasons
were the most popular tactics. A police
riot occurred at an Ochs concert in LA, shutting it down; Country Joe and the
Fish were physically attacked by reactionaries in a Chicago hotel lobby during the '68 Convention; Jim
Morrison went to jail in Florida. The Beatles were disliked by the Philippine
Marcos regime, getting roughed up several times during their visit. In the U.S. they were the target of drug
busts, a radio boycott and album burnings after John’s Jesus remark and pickets
by the KKK. No wonder they stopped
touring.
1968 saw the greatest social upheaval since the 1930s in
the U.S., with the assassinations of MLK and Robert Kennedy, nationwide black-led
riots, the My Lai massacre and the Tet offensive, student strikes, the Chicago
Democratic convention police riot. Rebellions
also occurred in Mexico, France, Italy, China, Czechoslovakia, Pakistan, Poland
and elsewhere. During this period not
every music artist was in opposition. For
instance James Brown toured Vietnam with Bob Hope, celebrated black capitalism,
told rioters to ‘go home,’ and later endorsed Nixon. He even regretted his song “Say it Loud - I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
Rock bands like the Grateful Dead and the MC5 regularly
played gratis for movement events. The
folk-comedy duo the Smothers Brothers was canceled due to the subversive
musicians on their show, high-lighted by Pete Seeger’s re-emergence doing the
anti-Vietnam war song “The Big Muddy.” The half-wit, middle class press claimed the
Altamont concert was ‘the end of the ‘60s,’
blaming it on the Rolling Stones – even though conservative San Francisco Mayor
Alito and a dispute over film rights denied permits for two prior locations
that would have allowed more time to prepare.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young did songs about the Chicago 8 trial and
the murders of students at Kent State and others wrote songs about the Attica
rebellion. John Lennon’s role in making
dissent legitimate to a mass audience didn’t hurt.
Nixon’s government retaliated. The drug war started up in high style,
busting musicians constantly. Hard hats
in New York led by a Union bureaucrat Brennan attacked high-school and college anti-war
protesters. He was later appointed as
labor secretary by Nixon. “Okie From Muskogee” became a hit song,
though former jailee Merle Haggard later joked that he’d smoked weed. The FBI ended Mariam Makeba’s career because
of her marriage to Black Panther Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure). And then Nixon began to withdraw from Vietnam…and
made peace with China.
 |
| And a war on musicians |
Conclusion
This is a good book that integrates social struggle,
history and music – showing that culture is not some isolated phenomenon but
directly tied to the economic and political structure of a country, both
reflecting and acting upon it. Leonard includes photo-copies of various FBI
file pages to show you he’s not making this story up. Dissident musicians, writers, film-makers and
painters will always face the hostility of the ‘powers that be.’ In this period the counter-culture was
massive and involved millions, which was its strength. But ultimately it failed
to significantly change the political/economic structure it challenged, nor could it given its diffusion. Capitalism recovered, reformed a bit, repressed
the rest, then morphed into neo-liberalism.
Now neo-liberal ideology and practice is breaking down, creating a
cultural and political opening once again – which can be filled by the Right or
the Left.
At present there is no real ‘counter-culture’ of a
proletarian or dissident nature, as corporatization has swallowed nearly every
art form. Yet culture has become more
democratic below this monied crust, with more musicians, writers, artists,
film-makers, actors and other crafts than ever before in history. This presages
what it would be like for cultural and practical skills under socialism and
communism. In that context more and more
of the population would achieve social stability, work fewer hours, have better
health and education, with guaranteed housing and food and thus be able to
expand their skills and knowledge. But
that outcome is just what the ruling class does not want to happen. The present situation with the rise of
fascist and ultra-right groups is part of a reaction to that possibility.
For prior blog reviews on this subject, please use the blog
search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: "A Threat of the First Magnitude" and "Heavy Radicals" (Both by Leonard);“Summer of Soul” “Let Us Now Praise the
Dead,” “We Have Fed You All A Thousand Years,” “33 Revolutions Per Minutes,” “How
the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin,” “Blues and Blues-rock,” “Music is Power,” “The Music Sell-Outs.”
And I bought it at May Day Books, which has a good music
section!
Red Frog
June 16, 2023
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