Get Up Stand Up: the history of pop and politics

The Get Up Stand Up series consists of six one hour documentaries detailing the history of popular music and its relationship to politics, social justice and the environment. The series looks predominantly at the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, and the music composed and performed to illustrate and comment on profound social events.

Aired on Australia’s ABC in April/May 2005, the first documentary, We Shall Overcome focuses on music as it relates to the American Union movement, Apartheid and Civil Rights.

The introduction to this program sees the likes of Bono, Graham Nash from Crosby, Stills and Nash, Ed Sanders from the Fugs, Patti Smith, Michael Franti and others discussing the power of music and its ability to communicate messages and speak on events in society. Changing even just one person is considered to be an achievement, and it is recognised that the ability to make social changes is always present but needs a concerted effort and a conducive environment in order to be realised.

In discussing the events in the early 1900s with respect to the Union movement in the United States reference is made to artists such as Joe Hill who composed tracks such as Workers of the World, Union Scab, Rebel Girl, The Preacher and the Slave and There’s Power in a Union. Hill recognised that many people could not read or write at that time and considered music the best way to get messages across. As technology for recording was not developed or widespread, the music was performed live and passed on by word of mouth to inform, educate and empower the workers.

Joe Hill is considered to be the father of modern protest music, influencing the likes of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. He was eventually executed on a murder charge that many considered trumped up and designed to get him out of the way.

Other songs leading on from this era include Which Side Are You On which again refers to the Union movement and early civil rights songs such as Hard for a Blackman by Oscar Brand and Free and Equal Blues by Josh White.

Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and later Bob Dylan embraced the folk tradition and to many are seen as the real drivers of political music in the United States. Woody Guthrie’s, This Land is Yours and Ranger’s Command, Pete Seeger’s, If I Had a Hammer and Midnight Special all reflected the events taking place in society at that time.

Other instances of political censorship include the banning of The Weavers, who sang Marching to Pretoria, from public performances until 1955. The persecution of socialist thinkers at that time is reflected in the Peter Paul and Mary song, Have You Been To Jail For Justice.

The documentary also takes a detailed look at the music and events that took place with regard to the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King are the focus from a historical perspective with songs such as Pete Seeger’s adaptation of the 19^th century negro gospel number We Shall Overcome and the Freedom Singer’s song, Freedom, demonstrating the use of music to reflect on current events.

The documentary also pays homage to Bob Dylan with songs such as Subterranean Homesick Blues, Mr Tambourine Man, Blowing in the Wind and Times they are a Changing all considered to be among his best political music at that time.

Johnny Cash is also mentioned, in particular his Bitter Tears album and the song Rusty Cage which refers to the treatment of native American Indians.

The documentary also considers events which have, and continue to take place in China with respect to human rights in Tibet and consideration is given to the Miller Rapper Fund set up by the Beastie Boys. Adam Yauch comments that music and concerts are one means of communicating a message and inspiring others to act. He considers grass roots political action such as letter writing, demonstrations and boycotts as the natural flow on effect from political music and the combination of the two which produces social change.

In the final part of this documentary Apartheid is considered with songs such as Peter Gabriel’s BIKO, Simple Mind’s Mandela Day, UB40’s Sing Our Own Song, Sade’s Why Cant We Live Together and the Artists United Against Apartheid’s Aint Going to Play Sun City and the Free Nelson Mandela song, all illustrative of the power of music to comment on and help change society.

As the opening documentary to this series I found this program to be incredibly detailed and informative. If you have the chance to see it I highly recommend it.

More Information

PBS <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/getupstandup/about.html>

National Library of Australia <http://nla.gov.au/anbd.bib-an42200446>

Music Remix Sites and Electronic Music

Music remixing is something that I would really love to have more time for. I came across this interview with Divya Bhat of Jamglue on the Creative Commons blog recently and thought to make a post on this remixing site and some others that are around.

JamGlue, launched in December 2006. In establishing an online community inspired to create and share music, the site provides tools for remixing within a browser and a vast library of tracks to work with.

CCMixter is another music mashup site, developed by Creative Commons. It also offers easy to use tools for uploading and remixing music. A preliminary study has been conducted into the use and reuse of material on CC Mixter: Giorgos Cheliotis, Remix Culture: Creative Reuse and the Licensing of Digital Media in Online Communities (10 January 2008) <http://pml.wikidot.com/local--files/working-papers/Remix_Culture_Web_Version.pdf> at 31 March 2008. At the time the data was collected there were just under 8,000 full tracks uploaded to the site.

Splice is another excellent website for remixing music. Beta released in 2006, it now hosts 43336 users, 33825 remixable songs and 30670 free sounds.

All of these sites use creative commons licenses to enable users to mix and remix tracks freely without the need to pay the large amounts of money most major labels would demand for the right to use small amounts of music. The sites also have a social side to them with regular contests, discussion forms and other ways for artists to get together and collaborate.

And... if that is not enough to get you motivated you should read the tutorial on the history of electronic music on techno.org – Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music v2.5 (*** Language and Rudeness Warning ***) Despite the colourful language and tone, this provides an excellent history of the development of electronic instruments.

Links/Articles:

http://www.jamglue.com/

http://www/ccmixter.org

http://www.splicemusic.com/

http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/

Creative Commons, Featured Commoners: Jamglue (2 November 2007) < <http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7760> at 31 March 2008

Wikipedia, CCMixter (December 2007) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CcMixter> at 31 March 2008

Giorgos Cheliotis, Remix Culture: Creative Reuse and the Licensing of Digital Media in Online Communities (10 January 2008) <http://pml.wikidot.com/local--files/working-papers/Remix_Culture_Web_Version.pdf> at 31 March 2008

Indulging in Culture 2

The third film I have watched this week is called The Soul of a Man. This was a film by Wim Wenders and also part of the Martin Scorsese Blues Film Collection. The Soul of a Man focuses on the lives of Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J.B. Lenoir.

I found the story of Skip James fascinating. Having gained the name Skip for being something of a Nomad, he won a talent competition for which the prize was a recording contract. He recorded 26 tracks in two days in 1931 and instead of electing to take a cash payment for his recording, signed a contract for a percentage of the sales. However the depression set in and radio emerged and the market for recorded music in the United States collapsed meaning that he never saw a cent from the sales of his records. He decided that he was unable to continue to be a musician and became a Baptist Minister (as his father had been) and essentially disappeared from the music industry altogether. In 1964 he was discovered in a hospital and came to perform at the Newport Folk Festival in front of 18,000 people. He was suffering from cancer and in 1968 Cream covered one of his songs which gave him the money to have an operation which extended his life by a few more years. In these later years he recorded and performed music again becoming a legend of the genre.

To me this story highlights (again) the need to provide artists with an industry in which they can secure a reasonable and reliable income. At the time of winning the talent competition Skip James was considered one of the best blues guitar and piano players around with a unique sound, lyrical and performance style. Yet the economic conditions of the time were unable to provide him with the means to support his art - one can only imagine the contribution he could have made over the three decades in between. In considering the current state of the industry we should reflect on the loss to society if we continue down the path of creating an environment where the best musicians are unable to succeed. Instead of rewarding talent and quality, the business model of the labels centres on commercial success. Those most able to reflect on society and to produce artistic and social progress are faced with an environment where they must not only compete against all other culture but must compete for a random and unreliable reward. This does not seem to me to be the incentive we need to ensure these artists continue to create.

I was interested to learn that at the time of the first recording of Skip James that the recording studio was housed in an old chair factory. As the commentator pointed out, gramophones were made by furniture companies at the time so it made sense that the recordings took place near by. Since this time of course there has been incredible convergence with many of the record labels later merging with equipment manufacturers. In the digital age however there has been some divergence again, with many of the modern device manufacturers being separate from the labels altogether. The introduction of digital distribution, particularly file sharing, also highlights the further separation of labels from the wider aspects of the music industry. Arguably this has been a significant part of their downfall. Many have reflected on what could have occurred had the labels sought to buy or even license the original Napster. The labels did attempt their own digital distribution (PressPlay) but this failed to capture the interests of consumers. It is only in recent weeks that it appears that they may be looking to enter this side of the industry again.

Another very interesting aspect to this film for me was the life of J.B. Lenoir. His story reflected the next generation of blues artists after Skip James. Lenoir was a fantastic guitar player and singer who unfortunately died following a car accident in the mid 1960s, just after he had begun writing political music. Until I saw this movie I personally tended to associate blues music with issues such as love/relationship problems and with slavery. Having heard some of the music of J.B. Lenoir, particularly the Vietnam Blues, I have been reminded that political music of any persuasion is possible in any genre. He wrote about civil rights issues, the treatment of women as well as wider political issues.

The term ‘political music’ is not something that can be defined accurately and am always aware of the artificial separation I make between this and emotive and dance music. Of course political music can make you dance, it can also make you feel emotions. These categories are useful but not absolute. Some music is purely about love; some music is purely designed to make you dance; some music is clearly designed to make you think; some music has another purpose altogether and some music crosses these lines and has a range of qualities. When it comes to studying political music/technology/law, I see a scale of sorts with some music being more closely aligned with music that makes you think and when I speak of creating an environment where this music can thrive, again I think of a scale of the regulatory factors more likely to enable this.

Indulging in Culture

Unfortunately I was unable to go to the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival in Byron Bay over Easter this year, so instead I have been viewing some DVDs.

The first of these was The Festival Express which is a rockumentary made of a festival held in Canada in 1970. A number of artists including Janis Joplin, the Buddy Guy Blues Band and Grateful Dead played in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary, travelling between the concerts together on a chartered train.

In addition to some excellent performances, this film discussed the way that the public had come to expect music concerts such as these to be free following Woodstock. For these concerts the ticket price was $16.00 per person causing concern to some members of the public. In Toronto there was a demonstration outside the venue leading to conflict between the public and the police. The artists ended up setting up a separate, free, concert at a park down the road in an attempt to quell the unrest. In Calgary the promoter punched out the Mayor after he insisted that the concert be made available to the public for free. Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead commented:

The truth is, it can’t be free completely. Someone has to pay for something to make it happen. Even if you don’t pay money for tickets,.... you still gotta rent a truck, you gotta rent a generator; somebody’s got to pay for it.

This presented some interesting parallels to today’s environment of uncompensated file sharing. Whilst it is true that the distribution and to some extent the production costs of music have been reduced by digital technologies. Nonetheless there remains a need for artists to recoup (and make a reasonable profit) from their creations.

I read this article today from The Register and without commenting on the accuracy or sentiments expressed, note that there continues to be conflict regarding the concept of ownership of music and culture as a form of property. The record labels (and perhaps some artists), do not consider music to be public property; and at the same time some members of the public refuse to acknowledge that artists have any property entitlements to their creations. For me and others supporting a collective licensing regime, these are absolute positions. I consider there to be co-exisitng and competing property rights for both artists and the public to music. Indeed the conflict over file sharing is simply the modern articulation of an ongoing debate as to the extent and emphasis the law should place on these rights.

The second film I watched was Feel Like Going Home, a 2003 Martin Scorsese Production and part of the Blues Film Collection. This was an excellent film with artist Corey Harris exploring the history of blues in the United States and the links between these artists and African culture. In particular the comparison was made between the drumming and fife styles of blues musicians and similar patterns in Africa, despite the fact that possession of a drum by an African American was an offense punishable by death up until the civil war.

In African culture there are special musical story tellers and an inseparable connection between music and history. These artists are known as griots and Corey comments that while the country itself is relatively poor, the people are 'kings' because of the richness of their culture.

A particularly inspiring interview is presented between Corey and Salif Keita in Bamako, Mali. Salif states:

Everybody in Africa, especially in West Africa, we’re born inside music. You start singing the day you are born. You understand? And growing up like this, inside it, so it’s inside you. And you live with it.

In the later part of the film Corey visits the Sankore Mosque and Library built in the 15^th Century and talks with an artist called Toumani Diabate. Toumani comes from 71 generations of Kora players with the skills being passed from father to son over the years. Corey recounts how he was told that when one of them dies “it is like a whole library is burned up.”

Another aspect of the film considers the life of the American musicologist Alan Lomax who travelled the world in the 20^th Century recording and preserving the music of different cultures for future generations. In discussing the importance of his work and his appreciation of music, it is suggested that he “came to realise that it was as essential as human speech and just as precious.” Lomax is also quoted in reference to the progress of music and society in his lifetime, saying:

When the whole world is bored with automated mass distributed video music, our descendants will despise us for having thrown away the best of our culture.

Whilst I very much value the work of Alan Lomax (he died in 2002) I haven’t been able to accept this statement in its entirety. Prior to the introduction of digital technologies and the ability for remixing and reusing culture on a mass scale, perhaps it may have been possible to suggest that at the end of video music there would be an inevitable sense that the past had been lost. Today, however, I increasingly see the opportunity to relive this culture over and over again in differing forms.

Just as the West African musicians have passed down musical techniques and songs to their descendants, modern society now has more opportunity than ever before to preserve culture. In the course of continually building on and communicating culture over digital networks there will inevitably be changes and adaptations but there never need be loss. The ‘originals’ can survive and just as we can trace the lineage of people we will be able to trace the lineage of culture in a way that we are only beginning to understand. For me video music reflects the evolution of society from the industrial to the digital age. From here I see the prospects for culture to be enormous - provided we allow them to be realised.

Copyright law remains the single most obvious and destructive impediment to allowing these cultural conversations to take place in the future. By focusing on controlling creativity rather than rewarding it, our society is prevented from being kings and prevented from enjoying and even producing the richness of our culture. Imagining the impact copyright law would have on the culture of West Africans highlights to me what it is we are prevented from realising at the moment. In being exposed to how music is treated within their culture I have become acutely aware of what we might be missing.

(I have one more film to watch this week on Blues music so hopefully there will be a part two to this post).

Other Links:

Columbia University: Music and Dance of Africa http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/africa/cuvl/music.html

Joanna Lott, Keepers of History (May 2002) <http://www.rps.psu.edu/0205/keepers.html> at 26 March 2006

History Lessons

I have been trying to develop a table detailing, by column, the major developments of music styles, technology, legislation in the USA, legislation in AU and important cases. But it seems that I have opened a can of worms - every source I refer to has some different dates and different events to consider so its taking me a lot longer than I thought it would and it may be a little while yet before I can share it with you.

As part of this adventure, toady I have visited a website which has a nice little time line detailing the emergence of rock and roll. Another interesting article from today notes that it is ten years this month since the first mp3 player was launched.

I'm thinking that this project will never actually be complete as music/technology/law will continue to develop, so maybe I will publish it as a series of ever improving drafts. Hopefully I can share what I have started with soon.

The Impact of Commercialism on Protest Music

The second article in the text, The Resisting Muse: Popular Music and Social Protest, The Decline and Rebirth of Folk-Protest Music by Jerry Rodnitsky, considers the history of social protest music and how its popularity has varied over time.

As was noted in the previous post, protest music came into its own in the 1960s during a time when there was significant debate regarding issues such as civil rights and the Vietnam War. Following the end of the Vietnam War, feminism became a central driver of music in this field. However a change in music styles, illustrated by Bob Dylan’s move away from acoustic folk music to electric popular music, saw the decrease in importance of lyrical content and a rise in the importance of sound, style and theatrics. At this time, arguably punk took the place of folk music as the more widely heard vehicle for protest music.

Folk music become the vehicle for social protest almost as a middle ground to complexity of jazz and the over simplicity of rock music in the 1950s. Changing social circumstances whilst contributing to the rise of protest music, also played a part in its demise. Rodnitsky states that in contrast to rock at that time: ...folk songs were usually filled with meaning and integrity ... However, after 1975 there were few well-defined, mass social movements to tie them to.

With less centralised issues came less cohesive support which led to a gradual tendency to focus less on collective values and more on individuality. Rodnitsky notes that Dlyan’s move away from acoustic folk music in early 1965 was an important turning point but I would argue that the commercialism of the music industry and society as a whole occurred over a period of ten years or more, as a dialectical process, with each influencing the other in small increments. Eventually the tide of social responsibility and protest music went out with the incoming tide producing a series of forms of popular music, all with far less emphasis on content.

It was not until U2 in the 1980s that popular music was seen to embrace the protest qualities in a way that paralleled the height of folk music in the 1960s. Rodnitsky notes the No Nukes, Live Aid and Farm Aid concerts illustrated further isolated incidents of music’s association with politics. More recently similar concerts supporting victims of the Sunami could be seen within this category. However by and large protest music has been forced to the fringes - punk, rap, hip hop and satirical songs all frequently have protest qualities but are limited in effectiveness given the prevalence of other forms of music more specifically directed at entertainment. Some contemporary popular music can be seen to have protest qualities but until recent times, and still to a large extent, this has been strictly controlled within the confines of commercialism.

With globalisation there should arguably be greater opportunity for protest music to develop and succeed. There are both national and international issues that can be addressed as well as the opportunity to attract audiences on these scales - the Bush Administration in the United States, the Iraq, Middle East, Afganistan and other wars, and environmental issues such as global warming, are all areas capable of commentary on a global scale. This is in addition to issues that have been relevant over time including civil rights and poverty. Yet one could well question whether there has been the opportunity for substantial contributions by artists in these areas. Of course there are examples but the level of public awareness and support has not come close to that of the 1960s.

I think the important point of this article is one of context. Protest music is heavily dependent on context. The trick is to find the environment that allows protest music to best serve its purpose. Lawrence Lessig contends that the regulation of cyberspace turns on factors such as law, economics, architecture and social norms. Each of these are equally relevant to protest music as they are to any other element of cyberspace. In acknowledging that this is indeed the new home of protest music, our attention should be drawn to examining this context.

I sometimes think that if I were given the task of setting up a new popular music industry from scratch that I would use protest music as the template or starting point for every decision. I think that dance and emotive music would survive in any situation – these forms have a social use that is universal across cultures and time periods – but protest music should be treated as a threatened species. If the music industry could sit back for a minute and consider the ability to communicate and to contribute to the world as its most important asset (rather than money) I think we would see some major changes to the way the digital music environment is regulated and in turn some major changes to the prevalence and effectiveness of protest music.

The question I ask is: how do we make sure that protest music not only survives but excels in this environment? How do we bring the tide back in?