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Summary
Summary
When he emerged from the nightclubs of Greenwich Village, Bob Dylan was often identified as a "protest" singer. As early as 1962, however, Dylan was already protesting the label: "I don't write no protest songs," he told his audience on the night he debuted "Blowin' in the Wind." "Protest" music is largely perceived as an unsubtle art form, a topical brand of songwriting that preaches to the converted. But popular music of all types has long given listeners food for thought. Fifty years before Vietnam, before the United States entered World War I, some of the most popular sheet music in the country featured anti-war tunes. The labor movement of the early decades of the century was fueled by its communal "songbook." The Civil Rights movement was soundtracked not just by the gorgeous melodies of "Strange Fruit" and "A Change Is Gonna Come," but hundreds of other gospel-tinged ballads and blues. In Which Side Are You On, author James Sullivan delivers a lively anecdotal history of the progressive movements that have shaped the growth of the United States, and the songs that have accompanied and defined them. Covering one hundred years of social conflict and progress across the twentieth century and into the early years of the twenty-first, this book reveals how protest songs have given voice to the needs and challenges of a nation and asked its citizens to take a stand--asking the question "Which side are you on?"
Author Notes
James Sullivan is the author of five books, with subjects ranging from the comedian George Carlin and the performer James Brown to high school football and a cultural history of blue jeans. He is a longtime contributor to the Boston Globe and a former staff critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, and he has written for Rolling Stone, the Atlantic and many other publications.
Reviews (4)
Booklist Review
Any book that examines twentieth-century U.S. history through protest songs by artists ranging from Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan to Devo is worth a look. Sullivan, journalist and biographer of James Brown and George Carlin, approaches various movements for civil rights, workers' rights, women's rights, gay rights, and others by chapter, respectively. He focuses on selected songs that he lists directly under chapter titles and reinforces in boldface type when the song is discussed a helpful editorial decision that readers will appreciate. Some songs ( We Shall Overcome, with its long and interesting history) will be familiar to readers; others are obscure. Many ( Sixteen Tons, It's Your Thing, and Immigration Man ) are sure to strike readers anew in this book's context. Reading how Aretha Franklin took Otis Redding's Respect to a new level in the cause of women's rights is but one highlight in this carefully researched book. An index would have aided greatly, but given the complexity and breadth of musical influences and genres discussed, Sullivan can be forgiven for the omission.--Joan Curbow Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
ON AUG. 18,1955, the folk singer Pete Seeger was interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) about his affiliation with the American Communist Party, which he had joined a decade and a half earlier, although drifting away from active involvement by the early 1950s. Refusing to answer questions about his political associations, and doing so on First Amendment grounds (rather than taking the Fifth, which would have offered legal immunity), Seeger spent years under the threat of imprisonment for, in essence, singing the wrong songs to the wrong people. His conviction for contempt of Congress was finally voided in appeals court in 1962. Recounting Seeger's experience with HUAC in "Wasn't That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America," Jesse Jarnow observes that both the red-hunting committee members and their victim "shared a common interest and belief in the power of song" - a belief also shared by the author. A journalist, disc jockey and musician, Jarnow has written an engaging account of the rise, fall, resurrection and legacy of the Weavers, the Greenwich Village-based quartet of left-leaning musicians founded near the end of 1948 that included Seeger as well as Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman. Hellerman had been a teenage member of the Young Communist League and Gilbert was the daughter of a Communist activist; Hays was a cranky, independent radical. All shared the belief that music could be put to use, in the words of "If I Had a Hammer," an early Weavers song written by Hays and Seeger, to "sing out danger," warning and love. The group's vocal repertoire, accompanied by Seeger's banjo and Hellerman's guitar, mixed folk, political and commercial influences. Improbably, and to their own surprise, they wound up releasing a string of hit recordings in the darkest days of McCarthyism, including "Goodnight Irene" and "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena," and with "Wimoweh" they had an enduring classic. As a solo performer, and as a member of the left-wing Almanac Singers in the early 1940s, Seeger had performed mostly at political or labor gatherings. But starting in late 1949, the newly formed Weavers began performing nightly at the Village Vanguard nightclub in Greenwich Village, for a weekly payment of $200 split equally among them, plus all the hamburgers they could eat. Wildly popular in the bohemian circles of Lower Manhattan, they acquired a competent professional manager, Harold Leventhal. (Leventhal would go on to manage such folk stars as Joan Baez and Mary Travers, both of whom, like countless others, traced their interest in folk music to Weavers concerts.) Arecord contract, television appearances and a national tour followed. The work-shirted outfits the Weavers wore in the Village Vanguard were replaced by tuxedos for the men, and an evening gown for Gilbert. And, with some qualms, they toned down the overtly political aspects of the act ("On Top of Old Smoky" was a regular feature of their set-list in nightclub appearances; "If I Had a Hammer" soon wasn't). Jarnow employs an engaging, colloquial tone that captures the distinctive personalities and the intertwining voices that made up the Weavers. He describes Lee Hays's "ominous bass parts rumbling as if an underground freedom train had gotten loose in the subway system." On "Wimoweh," Seeger, standing behind the other three singers with his long banjo, let loose "with his most elongated falsetto, a swooping curling ghost of a transmission from someplace far away." Listen to a Weavers performance on YouTtibe - you'll see what Jarnow means. Unfortunately, Jarnow's feel for the Weavers' music is not matched by his grasp of the left-wing political milieu from which they emerged. He suggests that the Communist Party U.S.A. changed its name to the Communist Political Association following World War II (the name change occurred during the war and was reversed before the war ended); he describes the black Communist leader Ben Davis as a "congressman from Harlem, the sole elected Communist in the House of Representatives" (Davis was a city councilman from Harlem, and no open Communist ever served in Congress); and he asserts that there was never a case of Soviet espionage that "bore any connection to the American Communist Party" (something no serious history of the party maintains after three decades of post-Cold War revelations from archives in Moscow and Washington). The Weavers' dizzying early success drew the attention of professional redbaiters, the F.B.I. and eventually HUAC. By the end of 1952, the group was effectively blacklisted. Bookings outside of New York, television appearances and record contracts disappeared. Thinking their moment had passed, the Weavers unraveled. But in 1955, Leventhal organized a reunion concert at Carnegie Hall on Christmas Eve that sold out, and led to the release of a hit album, "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall," plus a wave of bookings on the growing college folk-music circuit. The Silent Generation of the 1950s was beginning to acquire a voice by the end of the decade, and it carried some Weavers-inspired inflections. For a broader consideration of the historical impact of political songwriting and performance, the journalist James Sullivan offers a useful overview in "Which Side Are You On? 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs." The subtitle is misleading, for he includes a number of songs from earlier moments in American protest, including an 18th-century women's rights hymn, 19th-century black freedom songs and a rousing labor anthem that begins "Storm the Fort / Ye Knights of Labor," also from the late 19 th century. Nor does Sullivan restrict himself to overtly political music. His chapter on women's rights songs begins with 18-year-old Lesley Gore, a "prim young lady in heels and a wool skirt," stepping up to a microphone at a teenage music concert in 1964 and defiantly belting out, "You don't own me / I'm not just one of your many toys." Although the song was ostensibly a pop confection of girl-with-bad-boyfriend problems, Sullivan notes, "You Don't Own Me" became an enduring feminist anthem. There's more than one way to sing out danger, warning and the love between your brothers and your sisters. MAURICE ISSERMAN teaches American history at Hamilton College and is the author of, among other books, "If I Had a Hammer: The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left."
Choice Review
Journalist James Sullivan has compiled a fascinating history of protest songs in the US. Though the book's title states that 100 songs are profiled, Sullivan covers hundreds of songs throughout US history. Except for chapter 10, each chapter covers one issue: specifically, nonviolence, workers' rights, civil rights, women, the environment, freedom of speech, gay pride, immigration, and anti-nuclear movements. Chapter 10, "Into the Twenty-First Century," looks at Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. In each chapter, Sullivan offers a detailed discussion of the historical contexts of the topic and the songs that topic generated. The titles of the 100 featured songs are printed in boldface, but they are scattered among scores of songs along with their authors and the performers who dealt with the same themes. Sullivan draws on a wide range of sources--these are listed in the notes and bibliography. The lyrics are sometimes, but not always, provided, and illustrations are few. In the introduction, Sullivan observes that "the 1960s were a heyday of protest against which all future dissenting voices would be measured." But, he adds, "protest music thrives" into the 21st century. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Ronald D. Cohen, emeritus, Indiana University Northwest
Library Journal Review
Treating protest songs thematically, journalist Sullivan (Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin) provides rich context for both well-known and more obscure musical contributions to the American experience, from the Civil War to the present, thus exceeding the boundaries of the subtitle. Moving through a panorama of artists and historical figures, the author traces the origin of the songs and their subsequent usages, with selected quotes from performers and influential people surrounding them. In between, he addresses a host of other songs, distinguishing the main ones through bold-faced print. Each chapter is headed with a relevant photo; the bibliography includes both classic and more recent sources. VERDICT Sullivan's fluid prose and attention to detail serve him admirably in this engaging title, which should awaken nostalgia in those of a certain age and introduce new generations to these musical catalysts for social change.-Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.