Eclectic Company: My Musical Polyglot

I was at my sister’s using her fast internet connection, and channel surfing for background noise, when what should I find but Festival!, a 1967 concert documentary about The Newport Folk Festival – two hours of seamless segues of brief performances by famous folk scene names like Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Odetta, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Howlin’ Wolf and Peter, Paul and Mary, and lesser folk music lights like Hobart Smith, the Freedom Singers, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield, Richard and Mimi Fariña, The Osborne Brothers, Almeda Riddle and Theo Bikel, and even briefer definitions of and commentary about folk music. The black + white film edited with commercial breaks to two hours was a revelation and a reminder that I have identifiable roots myself; apart from the music I learned at my mom’s knee (showtunes), from my dad’s 78s (trad jazz), in years and years and years of Hebrew school music classes (religious and holiday songs in Hebrew and English), and while cuddled by my grandmother (lullabyes originally written for the Yiddish theater), my self-selected musical foundation is built up from traditional and sixties-era songs about equality, freedom, and the right road to happiness that made up the folk “movement” (sometimes called the folk “scare”) depicted in Festival!. I recommend all of the above, and if you want to know why Jewish girls fall fast and hard for mournfully dreamy Irish poetsingers, start with Danny O’Flaherty or Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers and work your way backwards to the sean-nós or “old style” unaccompanied Gaelic singers such as Joseph Heaney, who are mostly all dear departeds now.

So I came upon Festival! midway through the film, just as the Georgia Sea Island Singers were appealing to a higher power, but luckily the Ovation channel was playing it back to back to back all day, so I just watched it again. And then while Mike Bloomfield was talking about being a rich Jewish kid who’d had a bang-up Bar Mitzvah, but played the blues because he felt them when Paul Butterfield, another white blues boy, blew harp, I had an epiphany — that’s the American dream, isn’t it? That’s the American quilt of immigrant voices in many languages, pushed through a musical mashup machine, to make what I think of as the quintessential American sounds. And suddenly as if in slo-mo rewind, I realized it was there as it had been all along – my music’s past, present, and future. Having fought their way to the Bronx from Poland and Latvia and other European countries that didn’t want to keep them anyway, my grandparents with their traditional songs of longing for home and freedom, as turned into theatrical scores, and my parents, with their love of American roots musical forms that started out as theatrical scores made up of traditional-seeming and freedom-extolling popular songs, all together now steered me toward my musical birthright, my story of tradition and freedom percolating with the sound of blues harmonicas, jangling electric guitars, tin whistles and songs sung in heavily-accented Irish-English, counter-rhythmic handclaps and booming female bass-voiced Gospel singers, the high nasal harmonies of old time country-turned Bluegrass, and (often) somber a cappella ballads in various languages sung by old and young mystics. So that’s why I keep reaching back for the angry, wise, sweet-and-sour freedom-loving sounds of Nina Simone and Randy Newman and the Persuasions when I’m seeking the musical equivalent of comfort food. Home is where my heart is, where my lullabyes, whatever language or form or musical style they’re played in, never fail to rock me safely to sleep.

You must have noticed I’m a free association kind of gal, so you won’t be surprised to hear that watching Festival! kicked up loads of memories of musicians seen/heard decades ago and have wondered about on random occasions over the years. Buffy Sainte-Marie made me think of Shannon Two Feathers, a Saulteaux from Manitoba, Canada, who sang country songs, illustrated some children’s books, told fantastic stories; his correct assumption that I had no idea what tribulations Native peoples in Canada had suffered (you can read up on Louis Riel and the events of 1885 for yourself, now), and his sweet scorn for my “education” derived entirely from reading the heartbreaking Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. He was a tall, dark and handsome man, almost always the only performer of Native American heritage at the folk festivals where we met in the early 1970s. When I thought of him years later, as I occasionally did, I imagined he was sitting around a fire somewhere, telling stories to kids, grandkids and generations of new fans. Idly googling him this time, I learned that he has died, but couldn’t find enough info to mourn him properly. You can hear songs from his album Dreams That Feed A Gypsy on youtube, and read a joint interview with his wife, Maria Campbell, a former associate professor of literature and Native traditions at the University of Saskatchewan and a celebrated Native author, whose 1973 autobiography, Halfbreed, explores the life of those “étis” who live between the white and Native worlds, outsiders in both cultures.

Which brings me to the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy. During the time of remembrances and prayers that filled the airwaves and public spaces, we were reminded of our national suffering. But it’s important too to acknowledge individual sorrow too, and to understand that not all of us were able to mourn loved ones whose lives were lost when the planes crashed and the towers came down: Listen to emma’s revolution’s “If I Give Your Name (Will They Come After Me?)” (from their one x 1,000,000 = change album). And also be aware that too many of us have been and are still being treated with undeserved suspicion through profiling — read Vance Gilbert about his recent humiliating airplane experience (www.vancegilbert.com and click on the “my recent travel event” link in his vance rants blog). I know these are sensitive issues, with good people holding opposing viewpoints. I'm just hoping that when troubles come, we'll listen to each other, respectfully, and I'm holding out hope for a polyglot world, crooning those songs of tradition and freedom to comfort myself, when the times, like these, are tough.