1971 `Free John Sinclair' Protest Music Concert Revisited: Parts 2 and 3

 

In late 1971, U.S. protest folk singer-songwriter Phil Ochs performed with some other musicians (such as Stevie Wonder and former Beatles group member John Lennon) at a concert in Michigan that demanded the release of then-U.S. political prisoner John Sinclair, a member of the early 1970's White Panther Party.

1971 `Free John Sinclair' Protest Music Concert Revisited: Parts 1 and 2

 

In late 1971, U.S. protest folk singer-songwriter Phil Ochs performed with some other musicians (such as Stevie Wonder and former Beatles group member John Lennon) at a concert in Michigan that demanded the release of then-U.S. political prisoner John Sinclair, a member of the early 1970's White Panther Party

Did NYC DJ Willie Bryant Play Rhythm & Blues Before Alan Freed?

Before Alan Freed arrived from Cleveland in September 1954 to play Rhythm & Blues on NYC's WINS radio six nights a week, a DJ named Willie Bryant had apparently been featuring Rhythm & Blues on his NYC show since the 1940's. As Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed And The Early Years Of Rock & Roll by John A. Jackson recalled in 1991:

"At an uptown rally in a Harlem YMCA, angry Blacks characterized Freed as an outsider who imitated Blacks...The loudest...complainer was Willie Bryant, a local rhythm & blues disc jockey...Bryant...in 1946 became the first Black deejay to host a national radio music program. On local radio, Bryant teamed up with Ray Carroll, a white man, and the pair hosted their `After-Hours Session,' broadcast on New York's WHOM from 11:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. After featuring R & B on the air since the 1940s, however, Bryant and Carroll `couldn't get arrested, ' while the minute Freed hit town his WINS program took off. To Willie Bryant, Freed's eclipse of the Black deejay was simply another example of the racial discrimination he had experienced throughout his long career..."

In his 2000 book, The Covert War Against Rock, Alex Constantine also observed:

"...John Elroy McCaw....was...instrumental in bringing Alan Freed to New York...After the war, McCaw bought a New York radio station, WINS at Seven Central Park West...By the early 1950s the station pioneered twenty-five minutes of....popular crooners of the day, followed by five muntes of news...`Top 40,'...owes its very existence to McCaw, Alan Freed's boss, the entrepreneurial brains behind `big beat' radio...at ease in the closed chambers of Washington's national security `elite.'...John E. McCaw died in 1969. He sired four sons, including Craig McCaw, who has been as influential in the molding of media..."

`A Time To Stir' Film Wins 2020 De Antonio Award

Protest Folk Magazine is pleased to announce that the winner of its Emile de Antonio Award for the Best Documentary Feature Film released in 2020 is filmmaker Paul Cronin's A Time To Stir historical documentary, about the student protests on the Upper West Side at Columbia University in April and May of 1968.

The 2020 De Antonio Award-winning documentary film can be viewed for free on Vimeo.

Emile de Antonio

 

Revisiting IWW's `Wage Workers, Come Join The Union' protest folk and labor song Lyrics

As the 2007 book, The Big Red Songbook, which Archie Green, David Roediger, Franklin Rosemont and Salvatore Salerno edited, noted, the Industrial Workers of the World [IWW] protest folk and labor song, "Wage Workers, Come Join The Union," was written by an anonymous worker in the early 20th-century.

And the following "Wage Workers, Come Join The Union" lyrics can be sung to the same traditional folk song tune which the melody of "John Brown's Body," "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Solidarity Forever" songs utilize:

"We have seen the reaper toiling in the heat of summer sun,

We have seen his children needy when the harvesting was done.

We have seen a mighty army dying, helpless, one by one,

While their flag went marching on.

(chorus)

Wage workers, come join the union!

Wage workers, come join the union!

Wage workers, come join the union!

Industrial Workers of the World.

O, the army of the wretched, how they swarm the city street--

We have seen them in the midnight, where the Goths and Vandals meet;

We have shuddered in the darkness at the noises of their feet,

But their cause went marching on. (chorus)

But no longer shall the children bend above the whizzing wheel,

We will free the weary women from their bondage under steel;

In the mines and in the forest worn and helpless man shall feel

That his cause is marching on. (chorus)

Then lift your eyes, ye toilers, in the desert hot and drear,

Catch the cool winds from the mountains.

Hark! the river's voice is near;

Soon we'll rest beside the fountain and the dreamland will be here

As we go marching on. (chorus)

 

Revisiting IWW's `The Banner Of Labor" protest folk and labor song lyrics.

Until around 5 years ago, most sports fans in the United States never questioned why "The Star Spangled Banner," rather than a labor song like "Solidarity Forever," was played or sung inside a stadium before a football or baseball game begins. And in 2020, after more people pointed out that the lyrics to "The Star Spangled Banner" were written by someone who had owned some slaves in early 19th-century, Francis Scott Key, some more people in the USA began to question whether it still made sense in 21st-century for "The Star Spangled Banner" to continue to be the U.S. national anthem.

According to the 2007 book, titled The Big Red Songbook, which Archie Green, David Roediger, Franklin Rosemont and Salvatore Salerno edited, it was only in 1931 that "Congress elevated `The Star Spangled Banner' to become the national anthem of the United States; and "The Star Spangled Banner"'s lyrics are sung to the tune of "To Anacreon In Heaven" (whose collectively-written tune has been attributed to a Brit composer named John Stafford Smith). And the same book also noted that in the early 20th-century an "unnamed author" wrote the following lyrics to "The Banner Of Labor" protest folk and labor song, that can be sung to the same "To Anacreon In Heaven" tune to which "The Star Spangled Banner" national anthem lyrics of the USA is sung:

"Oh say, can you hear, coming near and more near
The call now resounding: `Come all ye who labor?'
The Industrial Band, throughout all the land
Bids toilers remember, each toiler's his neighbor.
Come, workers, unite! `tis Humanity's fight;
We call, you come forth in your manhood and might.

Chorus
And the Banner of Labor will surely soon wave
O'er the land that is free, from the master and slave.

The blood and the lives of children and wives
Are ground into dollars for parasites' pleasure;
The children now slave, till they sink in their grave
That robbers may fatten and add to their treasure.
Will you idly sit by, unheeding their cry?
Arise! Be ye men, see, the battle draws nigh. (chorus)

Long, long has the spoil of labor and toil
Been wrung from the workers by parasite classes;
While Poverty, gaunt, Desolation and Want
Have Dwelt in the hovels of earth's toiling masses.
Through bloodshed and tears, our day star appears,
Industrial Union, the wage slave now cheers. (chorus)

  

Revisiting IWW's `Walking On The Grass' protest folk and labor song lyrics

As the 2007 book, The Big Red Songbook, which Archie Green, David Roediger, Franklin Rosemont and Salvatore Salerno edited, noted, the Industrial Workers of the World [IWW] protest folk and labor song "Walking On The Grass," "represents IWW songs with authors unknown," was "probably composed in response to a Missoula, Montana ordinance prohibiting public assembly" in the early 20th-century and "addressed issues raised in free-speech campaigns waged by Wobblies in the Northwest and California." Following are the lyrics to the "Walking On The Grass" song, which can be sung to the traditional tune of "The Wearing Of The Green" Irish rebel protest folk song:

"In this blessed land of freedom where King Mammon wears the crown
There are many ways illegal now to hold the people down
When the dudes of state militia are slow to come in time
The law upholding Pinkertons are gathered from the slime.
There are wisely framed injunctions that you must not leave your job
And a peaceable assemblage is declared to be a mob.
And Congress passed a measure framed by some consummate ass,
So they are clubbing men and women just for walking on the grass.

"In this year of slow starvation, when a fellow looks for work,
The chances are a cop will grab his collar with a jerk;
He will run him in for vagrancy, he is branded as a tramp,
And all the well-to-do will shout: `It serves him right, the scamp!'
So we let the ruling class maintain the dignity of law.
When the court decides against us we are filled with wholesome awe,
But we cannot stand the outrage without a little sauce
When they're clubbing men and women just for walking on the grass.

"The papers said the union men were all but anarchists,
So the job trust promised work for all who wouldn't enlist;
But the next day when the hungry hoard surrounded city hall,
He hedged and said he didn't promise anything at all.
So the powers that be are acting very queer to say the least
They should go and read their Bible and all about Belshazzar's feast,
And when mene tekel at length shall come to pass
They'll stop clubbing men and women just for walking on the grass." 

Revisiting Irish Rebel Folk Singer-Songwriter Dominic Behan's 1965 `Note To Young Singers'

At the beginning of his book Ireland Sings: An Anthology of Modern and Ancient Irish Songs and Ballads, which Essex Music Limited published in 1965, Irish rebel folk singer-songwriter Dominic Behan included the following "Note To Young Singers:"

"Historically, collectors of folk material, like Sharpe, Herd, Ord, Child etc. have made significant contributions to the preservations of folk-lore. But, to imagine--as some people would have us believe at present--that balladry is in itself worth of study in an abstract art sense, is a foolish and undesirable premise. That everything in relation to folk song must be limited to the purely `Ethnic', with no allowance for the day to day changes which are a feature of any society is tantamount to asking us for our signature on a death warrant for folk-lore. Above all, it is asking us to sing with an academic tongue in cheek, and, before we bawl our heads off, we must find out why. It is enough to prevent young people from making their own songs...

"All this emphasis on `Folk knowledge,' `Ethnic approach' etc. is hindering the young singer. It is educating him/her into the phony accent, the idiomatic restrictive, and the world where song is no longer something to have on one's lip, but a kind of mysticism related only to the professorial and ultra academic. Forget the `Folk pundit'. Open your mouth, and, whatever your voice is like, sing! And to hell with the `Ethnicists'. Folk-song is not the special preserve of the few, but the undeniable heritage of the many."

And in the "Notes On Some Song Makers Of The Past," that he included in the same songbook, Dominic Behan also wrote the following:

"In this collection of traditional and contemporary songs the urban may tend to outweigh the rural tradition somewhat. This is because I have deliberately tended to include only songs from the countryside written earlier than the nineteenth century. Poor, wailing songs, and songs of love, inspired chiefly by Thomas Moore's success as a 19th-century court jester, are not for me. If you put your hands up to Heaven in despair at my occlusion of `Maire my Girl' or `My Mary of the Curling Hair', I can only suggest that there are plenty of recordings of this type of song made by the type of lyrical tenor likely to sing them...

"When Tomas Moore was eighteen years of age he was nearly charged alongside Robert Emmett with sedition in 1798. He wrote two pieces--anonymously--for `The Press', a highly revolutionary paper, and his Mother heard about it. She made Tom promise never again to do the likes. He kept his promise; indeed, he went further, he made a point of dedicating his translation of the `Odes of Anacreon' to the Prince of Wales...

"Before [Lord] Byron died, he entrusted his memoirs to Moore for posthumous publication. That Byron had given them to Moore's care as a friend no more worried Tommie than the sanctity of the songs he took from Ireland's folklore and so bowdlerized. At the behest of Lord Byron's relatives he burned the manuscripts in their presence. Emmett had been hanged drawn and quartered and his headless remains dumped, forty-nine years before Moore died peacefully in 1852..."

Revisiting Elie Siegmeister's `Folk Music: The Long View' Essay: An Excerpt

Included in The Joan Baez Songbook, that Ryerson Music Publishers published in 1964, is an essay by Sing Out Sweet Land musical composer Elie Siegmeister, titled "Folk Music: The Long View," in which he wrote the following about the historical origins of the 1960s era of U.S. folk music history:

"...What accounts for this astonishing growth of a new music in the short space of a single generation--or, more accurately, of the rebirth of a centuries-old music just when it was about to die out?

"The answer is not simple, but among other things, in the 1930's and `40's, there were the New Deal and the anti-fascist war--movements that awakened the human instincts of all of us. In a period when millions were deprived, disinherited, and then destroyed, there was a need for an affirmation of things basically human. It was a time when intellectual people felt drawn to a commonality with others whose lives and rights were threatened with extinction...

"The discovery of folk music by a generation of young musicians and composers was more than another fad--it opened up a new meaning for American music as a whole. For now those of us who were just starting out could feel part of a rich tradition; we could feel like new branches on an old tree--and this strengthened us...

"When, therefore, I first met Aunt Molly Jackson, the time was ripe; I was enchanted by her at once. It was after one of those concerts organized by a few indigent musicians calling ourselves The Young Composers Group, at the New School, New York, early in 1933...After the concert, our relatives, who comprised the majority of the audience, came back to congratulate us; but among them was this strange, raggedy woman with a hawk-like face: she came right up to me and said `You think you are writing American music--did you ever hear any real American music?' After trading a few insults, we each became fascinated by the ideas of the other. Result: Aunt Molly asked me if I would care to write down some of the few hundred songs she had `composed,' and I said I would.

"I did...

"Among the strongest folk musicians then beginning to be heard around in village cafes, anti-Nazi and pro-Spanish loyalist meetings were Josh White, Woody Guthrie, The Almanac Singers,...and of course, Leadbelly. After a certain amount of exposure, it was inevitable that a bit of audience appeal crept into the performances of some, but Leadbelly was solid as a rock. He neither could nor would be moved to do anything other than sing his repertory exactly as he always had sung it: deadpan, with a gravelly voice that was beautiful, and a guitar rhythm that shook the walls.

"Gradually the folk music movement spread out...In the post-World War II period there arose the deep need for a human affirmation in a time of anxiety. Without a clear ideal of life, the young people of our time have turned to the universal expression that is folk music.

"The elemental themes represented by the songs in this collection, ranging from old Child Ballads, newer Anglo-American ballads, mountain love songs, country and western tunes, hymns and Spirituals and topical songs of today bring the singer and listener closer to the sources of American music: the spontaneous creation of many generations of the plain people of our country.

"The eagerness of vast numbers of folk music enthusiasts to sing and play these songs is evidence of a reaction against the passivity induced by ready-made entertainment. The very roughness of folk performance speaks as a bulwark against the slickness of pre-fabricated commercial art..."

How `Rolling Stone' Magazine Rolled The Money In Prior To 1990

Although former Rolling Stone writer Hunter Thompson claimed that Rolling Stone magazine "began its slide into conservatism and mediocrity in 1977," by 1989 its then-parent company, Straight Arrow Publishers Inc. "was worth perhaps $250 million [equal to over $533 million in 2020]--over thirty thousand times its value twenty-two years before," according to the 1990-published book, Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History by Robert Draper.

According to the same book, Rolling Stone magazine's founder and then-owner, Jann Wenner, was personally worth over $100 million in 1990 [equal to over $203 million in 2020] and had used his youth market profits from "Rolling Stone Incorporated" to maintain "an ostentatious lifestyle of private jets, country villas and choice social connections to match."

According to Draper's Rolling Stone Magazine book of 1990, at that time Wenner spent about four months out of the year at his three-story country manor in East Hampton, Long Island and employed servants there. Wenner also then owned a five story Manhattan townhouse and a Mercedes limousine which was driven by his chauffeur. In 1985, Wenner also had spent $2.5 million [equal to over $6.1 million in 2020] of his surplus wealth to purchase and own US Magazine, for awhile.

Although much of the music that Rolling Stone magazine has covered and profited from since the late '60s is rooted in African-American rhythm and blues, ironically, its pre-1990 "reluctance to cover Black music" was "infamous" and "not coincidentally, Rolling Stone" had "never employed a single Black writer," prior to 1990, according to Draper's 1990 Rolling Stone Magazine book. 

`Rolling Stone' and `Spin' Magazines' Historic Sexism Revisited

As late as the 1990s, hip capitalist rock music industry establishment publications like Rolling Stone and Spin magazines apparently still operated in an institutionally sexist way, in relation to women music journalists. As music journalist Lucy O'Brien wrote in her 1996-published She-Bop: The Definitive History Of Women In Rock, Pop and Soul book:

"Being a female music journalist has its particular obstacles, too...Like many female journalists, I found that `serious' long articles inevitably went to the male writers, while too often we were kept to writing reviews, short pieces or doing interviews with women artists. Women are not considered heavy-weight enough to comment on the top male acts of the day--be it Public Enemy or Iggy Pop. Women rarely get staff positions with power to commission other writers. In 1994, for instance, the senior editorial team of Rolling Stone consisted of 10 men and two women, while among their contributing editors (including Kurt Loder, Greil Marcus and Robert Palmer) there were three women and 27 men. Spin did marginally better with six female and 27 male writers on the masthead, plus one woman among six top editors..."

Hip Capitalist Establishment's `Rolling Stone' Magazine Revisited: Conclusion

By 1970 the hip capitalist establishment Rolling Stone magazine of Wenner was also being criticized by U.S. women's liberation and radical feminist movement activists and women rock music critics like Ellen Willis for its sexism. As Joe Hagan's 2017 Sticky Fingers book recalled:

"Ellen Willis, a pioneering feminist and the first rock critic at The New Yorker, wrote to Ralph Gleason in 1970 saying she refused to write for Rolling Stone because it was `viciously anti-women.' `RS habitually refers to women as chicks and treats us as chicks; i.e. interchangeable cute fucking machines,' she wrote, adding...that Jann Wenner's bias against revolutionary politics fed the oppression of females: `To me, when a bunch of snotty upper-middle white males start telling me that politics isn't where its at, that is simply an attempt to defend their privileges'..."

And according to the same Sticky Fingers book:

"Around the offices of Rolling Stone, Wenner was known for his jovial sexual harassment. He didn't discriminate between men and women...`He was hitting on every girl and every guy,' said Lynn Hirschberg. `He once grabbed me around the hips and said, `Ten more pounds and you'll be perfect.' This was in front of everybody at a meeting and I wanted to die. It was like this schoolboy crap.'..."

As a long-time member of the Hip Capitalist Establishment since the late 1960s, Rolling Stone magazine's owner and publisher between 1967 and late 2017, Wenner, apparently accumulated over $700 million in personal worth according to the Celebrity Net Worth website, during the 5 decades between 1970 and its sale to Penske Media Inc. in late 2017. And in 2020, the Hip Capitalist Establishment's Rolling Stone magazine website still apparently doesn't encourage most U.S. music fans who still bother to read Rolling Stone magazine to get more into non-commercially-motivated, anti-establishment protest folk music very much during the 21st-century.

For as Rolling Stone magazine's long-time hip capitalist former owner and publisher Jann Wenner said as long ago as 1977:

"I think Rolling Stone is establishment. I think that rock culture...has become establishment in this country, and is the leading cultural establishment in this country right now." (end of article)

Hip Capitalist Establishment's `Rolling Stone' Magazine Revisited: Part 3

As early as the late 1960s, Hip Capitalist Publisher Wenner was already apparently collaborating with record company executives of corporate media conglomerates like CBS, that wished to make a lot of money by exploiting the youth market of rock music fans. As Joe Hagan's 2017 Sticky Fingers book recalled:

"...Rolling Stone's relationship to the `Columbia Rock Machine' had grown increasingly tight, starting with its first advertisement in issue No. 8. Clive Davis, having ascended to president of CBS Records...viewed Wenner as an ally in building a new industry out of rock and roll, and he gave Rolling Stone its first steady advertising contract to keep the newspaper afloat...Davis put Rolling Stone into record stores through Columbia's distribution system, which...accounted for 15 percent of the newspaper's single-copy sales [in the late 1960s]...In addition, Jann Wenner was using Columbia's office in New York as a virtual bureau of Rolling Stone. In a letter to Bob Altshuler, the publicist for Columbia, Wenner thanked him for the `favors, the lunchs (sic), the tickets, and the use of your secretaries and office...'...Wenner...set up camp at Columbia to lay out a promotional ad for...a full-page in The New York Times..." 

So, not surprisingly, when Abbie Hoffman and other Youth International Party/Yippie activists in the late 1960s U.S. antiwar Movement called upon U.S. music fans to protest against the Vietnam War, the System and the U.S. Establishment at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and participate in "Festival of Life" antiwar music concerts in Chicago, hip capitalist publisher Wenner urged Rolling Stone readers to stay away from both the antiwar movement street protests and the planned "Festival of Life" concerts and rallies in Chicago's parks.

In exchange for apparently acting as a marketing and public relations/propaganda tool of the U.S. Establishment's corporate media conglomerates' record company subsidiaries, by 1970 Rolling Stone magazine apparently began receiving additional funds from some of the same record companies whose special corporate interests it promoted. As Joe Hagan noted in his Sticky Fingers book:

"[In 1970] Ralph Gleason...recognized that Wenner was in real [financial] trouble. It was Gleason, Wenner said, who pointed him to the record labels; perhaps they could be convinced to help bail Wenner out of his financial woes. Wenner first approached Jac Holzman of Elektra and explained his situation. `I'd say,...' recounted Wenner,`...I need an advance of money, give me some money, I need money in the bank.'

"...Holzman became a strong financial booster of Rolling Stone, and Wenner put his artists, the Doors and the MC5 on the cover. Along with Clive Davis of CBS, who gave Rolling Stone more than 30,000 [equal to over $202,000 in 2020] in advance advertising and some free business consultation, Holzman agreed to help Wenner by explaining his situation to Steve Ross...who was rolling up the independent record labels under his corporate umbrella...(later renamed Warner Communications). Holzman was about to sell Elektra to Ross for $10 million [equal to over $68.1 million in 2020]...Ross owned Independent News, the magazine distributor...Independent agreed to cut Wenner a check for $100,000 [equal to over $661,000 in 2020]..."

In addition, according to the same book, "Wenner recounted in 1976" that "`then Clive and Jac each advanced me something like $25,000 [equal to over $170,000 in 2020] or $35,000 [equal to over $238,000 in 2020];'" and "Wenner said Gil Friesen of A & M weighed in with another $30,000 [equal to over $202,000 in 2020]. And "by the end of 1970, Wenner had...the financial backing of the American record industry...and...a new investor on the hook, Max Palevsky, chairman of the Xerox Corporation, a multimillionaire prepared to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into Rolling Stone in 1971..." So, not surprisingly, "a story line gelled in the underground press: Jann Wenner was the man who sold out the revolution for dirty record money;" and "The Yipster Times ran a story called `The Day Rolling Stone Sold Out To Xerox'" in the mid-1970s "claiming Xerox paid off Wenner's debts in exchange for opposing antiwar demonstrations." (end of part 3) 

Hip Capitalist Establishment's `Rolling Stone' Magazine Revisited: Part 2

Before becoming a hip capitalist music magazine publisher/owner between the late 1960s and 2018, Jann Wenner--after having worked in 1964 as a campus stringer at the University of California-Berkeley for the then-RCA-owned NBC News establishment radio-tv corporate media news subsidiary--had, ironically, worked for the 1960s antiwar left-wing magazine, Ramparts, that first exposed in 1967 the CIA's covert funding of the National Student Association [NSA] during the 1950s and early 1960s. As Joe Hagan recalled in his 2017 Sticky Fingers book:

"Wenner's fortunes began when Ramparts, a monthly founded by left-wing Catholics...decided to launch a biweekly broadsheet in the fall of 1966 called The Sunday Ramparts...[Ralph] Gleason, a member of Ramparts' editorial board, recommended Wenner as an editor and `rock and roll specialist,' and Wenner...moved...to San Francisco to help put out the first issue in October 1966..."

During that same year of 1966, according to the same book, Wenner also "was classified as 1-A by the Selective Service System making him available for the Vietnam draft;" but according to Sticky Fingers author Hagan, "to help Wenner avoid the war," a "Dr. Martin Hoffman on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley" then "diagnosed him with a `serious personality disorder'" and Dr. Hoffman's "letter to the army draft board...achieved its purpose."

According to the Sticky Fingers book, "in creating Rolling Stone, Wenner borrowed heavily from...The Sunday Ramparts, where Wenner worked until it ceased publication in June 1967." The same 2017 book also observed, however, that, during the Spring of 1967, "Wenner was approached by Chet Helms, who told Wenner he was germinating a hippie music magazine for distribution in record stores" and "Helms came to believe Wenner had slunk away with his idea..." Sticky Fingers author Hagan also noted that Crawdaddy!, not Rolling Stone magazine, was actually "the first American rock-and-roll magazine;" and that Paul Williams, not Wenner, actually "invented in 1966" the first rock-and-roll magazine, which "was named for the club where the Rolling Stones" band "first played."

Much of the initial $2,500 [equal to over $19,500 in 2020] capital that Multi-Millionaire hip capitalist Wenner (whose 21st-century personal wealth was estimated to be $700 million by the Celebrity Net Worth website in recent years) required to launch his Rolling Stone magazine in California in October 1967 apparently came from a Manhattan dentist named Dr. Schindelheim--the father of Wenner's then womanfriend and later wife/ex-wife, Jane Schindelheim. The parents of Jane Schindelheim provided Wenner with $2,000 [equal to over $15,600 in 2020]. As the Sticky Fingers book noted:

"They wrote the check, plus a little extra, and gave Rolling Stone the financial push it needed. The money Dr. Schindelheim earned...also gave...daughter an ownership stake in Rolling Stone...which, in early October 1967, Wenner incorporated...under a name he liked quite a lot: Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc."

According to Sticky Fingers author Joe Hagan, much of the Rolling Stone magazine "thing" that was first published by Wenner on Oct. 18, 1967 had apparently "been begged, borrowed, recycled and stolen. Chet Helm [who died in 2005]...; Ralph Gleason's title...; the newsprint and layout of The Sunday Ramparts...; several stories from the Melody Maker [music magazine of the UK], rewritten by Susan Lydon..." (end of part 2.)  

Hip Capitalist Establishment's `Rolling Stone' Magazine Revisited: Part 1

"I think Rolling Stone is establishment. I think that rock culture...has become establishment in this country, and is the leading cultural establishment in this country right now."

--Rolling Stone Magazine Inc. Owner Jann Wenner in 1977

"...Jann Wenner's oldest and dearest friends--people who worked for him in the 1960s and after--could not help but notice the likeness between Trump and the Jann Wenner they knew. The crude egotism, the neediness, the total devotion to celebrity and power. Wenner and Trump were the same age and had met a couple of times at charity events in Manhattan..."

--page 503 of former Rolling Stone magazine and former Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Hagan's 2017 book, Sticky Fingers

Hip Capitalist Establishment's Rolling Stone Magazine Revisited: Part 1

In 2020 many music fans in the United States are now anti-capitalist, socialist or libertarian anarchist in their politics. Yet between the late 1960s and 2018, a magazine that published many articles about the music that many music fans in the United States listen to each month, Rolling Stone magazine, was mostly owned by a multi-millionaire white hip capitalist member of the U.S. Establishment named Jann Wenner, prior to it being sold to Penske Media Inc. in late 2017.

Not surprisingly, before Wenner became a hip capitalist music magazine publisher in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a member of the U.S. white corporate male hip capitalist media establishment by the end of the 1970s, he apparently was not much of a teenage rebel against the U.S. Establishment in his political beliefs or in the way he lived his life. As Joe Hagan observed in his 2017 book Sticky Fingers:

"Wenner...was...a Kennedy-worshiping preppy whose thwarted ambition to attend Harvard had diverted him to Berkeley...An inveterate social climber...Wenner crashed debutante balls and went on ski weekends to private resorts with rich friends...who knew Kennedys and Hearsts...As a teenager, he attended a boarding school in Los Angeles that housed the offspring of Hollywood royalty, including Liza Minnelli..."

In addition, during the 1950s, the Rolling Stone magazine owner's mother, Sim Wenner, "was involved in the California Democratic Council" and "befriended Democrat Alan Cranston, who later became a senator from California;" and, along with Jann Wenner's father, Baby Formula Inc. owner Ed Wenner, "socialized with...the Roth family, who owned the Matson shipping company," according to the same book. (end of part 1)

`Untold Dylan' Facebook Group: Blocking Posts That Tell How Dylan Obtained His Individual Wealth?

If you're a 21st-century music fan who checks out the "Untold Dylan" discussion group on Facebook, you might notice that most of the daily posts there don't tell readers very much about how Bob Dylan historically obtained more individual wealth than the individual wealth possessed by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, historically, or by the over 90 percent of U.S. and UK music fans who--unlike Bob Dylan in the 21st-century--are, currently, neither billionaires, multi-millionaires or millionaires. 

One reason might be because the "Untold Dylan" blog Brit editor-writer, Tony Attwood (who determines which individuals are allowed to tell what's generally untold--by most Brit and U.S. Establishment media rock music critics in the 21st-century--on the "Untold Dylan" Facebook discussion group page), apparently doesn't want too allow too many posts that tell how Dylan historically obtained his individual wealth to appear on this "Untold Dylan" discussion group page.

Asked by email to indicate for Protest Folk Magazine blog readers whether or not pre-1965 Dylan music fans from U.S. working-class backgrounds are currently being blocked from posting links or text excerpts of historical articles that are critical of Dylan's post-1964 artistic/political/philosophical shift, Mr. Attwood stated the following in a February 22, 2020 email:

"Thank you for your email. I''m very happy to answer.

"The simple answer is that there is no general policy to block any group of people or any individual because of political or social views at all except the need to abide by UK law (the Untold Dylan Facebook group being run from the UK).

"The number of people blocked is quite small--probably around quarter of one percent of those who join are eventually blocked. The vast majority of those are blocked because of offensive or insulting language towards other members of the group or for placing advertisements for their own produces or services. In the latter case when a member writes to me first and asks permission and when I think the item is one that some members are likely to be interested, I have given permission for one advert to be posted but only one. 

"In relation to the issue that you mention, we did have a case recently where a member had posted a series of posts each of which was (and I am generalizing here from a number of posts) putting forward the view that Dylan or Dylan's company acting in his name had stolen or abused or otherwise misused other people's copyright for his own financial gain. (You will appreciate that I am summarizing what were often quite long and complex pieces).

"I did allow these to go through at first, but had a fair number of complaints from other readers to me suggesting that these were repetitive in their general approach, and would be better off posted on the website as an article. In that way the correspondent could lay out his/her case, and comments in support or against could be channeled into that one part of the website. (That is why we have both the website and the Facebook page, to separate out different types of discussion).

"I took the view that having posted a number of the articles all of which were dealing with the allegations of Dylan having stolen copyright and with (as far as I recall) no one or very few people showing any interest in the articles (except in terms of abuse) that moving the theme to the blog away from the Facebook site would benefit everyone. Those who wanted to follow the debate had one place to do it, and those who felt the allegations were false or of no interest did not have to keep reading variants on the same theme on the Facebook page. 

"I wrote twice to the individual concerned once explaining my concerns and once proposing the move to the website, but received no reply, and so when the individual posted again I removed him and the posts from the group. The offer to have an article on the subject on the blog would of course still be there. To be clear there has been only one person involved in this as far as I know, it is not that more than one person has been removed.

"I would add that a guiding point in my running the Facebook and website pages is the name Untold Dylan--the point of "untold" is that we try to look at Dylan from different points of view that have not been covered before. The original posts which challenged Dylan's copyright approach was just that, and so were posted, but subsequent items merely re-iterated generally the same point, and thus were no longer Untold. I don't use that as an absolute measure of what is posted but it does seem to me to be an interesting guiding point when the issue is contentious. 

"Having had no reply from the individual, I did cancel his account. 

"I hope that answers the question--please do come back to me if you have any further thoughts about the Facebook page. I would add I am in the UK and as a result there can be different understandings of what might be a serious accusation of a crime for which the owner of the site could be challenged legally in one country from another--which is of course always a consideration.

"Tony Attwood."

And in a second February 22, 202 email, Mr. Attwood added:

"Sorry I missed one point - the reference to `pre-1965 Dylan music fans from U.S. working-class backgrounds.'.  I would assure you that as a person born before 1965, and from a working class UK background, I would never dream of judging anyone according to their social class, ethnicity, country of origin or anything else."  

`Sing-Out!' Editor Irwin Silber's 1964 `Open Letter To Bob Dylan' Revisited

In November 1964, the then-editor of Sing-Out! magazine, Irwin Silber, wrote and published `An Open Letter To Bob Dylan," in which the historically developing artistic, political and philosophical  shift in Dylan's songwriting was criticized in the following way:

"Dear Bob:

"It seems as though lots of people are thinking and talking about you these days. I read about you in Life and Newsweek and Time and The Saturday Evening Post and Mademoiselle and Cavalier and all such, and I realize that, all of a sudden, you have become a pheenom, a VIP, a celebrity. A lot has happened to you in these past two years, Bob -- a lot more than most of us thought possible.

"I'm writing this letter now because some of what has happened is troubling me. And not me alone. Many other good friends of yours as well.

"I don't have to tell you how we at SING OUT! feel about you -- about your work as a writer and an artist -- or how we feel about you as a person. SING OUT! was among the first to respond to the new ideas, new images, and new sounds that you were creating. By last count, thirteen of your songs had appeared in these pages. Maybe more of Woody's songs were printed here over the years, but, if so, he's the only one. Not that we were doing you any favors, Bob. Far from it. We believed -- and still believe -- that these have been among some of the best new songs to appear in America in more than a decade. "Blowin' in the Wind," "Don't Think Twice," "Hattie Carroll," "Restless Farewell," "Masters of War" -- these have been inspired contributions which have already had a significant impact on American consciousness and style.

"As with anyone who ventures down uncharted paths, you've aroused a growing number of petty critics. Some don't like the way you wear your hair or your clothes. Some don't like the way you sing. Some don't like the fact that you've chosen your name and recast your past. But all of that, in the long run, is trivial. We both know that may of these criticisms are simply cover-ups for embarrassment at hearing songs that speak directly, personally, and urgently about where it's all really at.

"But -- and this is the reason for this letter, Bob -- I think that the times there are a-changing. You seem to be in a different kind of bag now, Bob -- and I'm worried about it. I saw at Newport how you had somehow lost contact with people. It seemed to me that some of the paraphernalia of fame were getting in your way. You travel with an entourage now -- with good buddies who are going to laugh when you need laughing and drink wine with you and insure your privacy -- and never challenge you to face everyone else's reality again.

"I thought (and so did you) of Jimmy Dean when I saw you last -- and I cried a little inside me for that awful potential for self-destruction which lies hidden in all of us and which can emerge so easily and so uninvited.

"I think it begins to show up in your songs, now, Bob. You said you weren't a writer of `protest' songs -- or any other category, for that matter -- but you just wrote songs. Well, okay, call it anything you want. But any songwriter who tries to deal honestly with reality in this world is bound to write `protest' songs. How can he help himself?

"Your new songs seem to be all inner-directed now, inner-probing, self- conscious -- maybe even a little maudlin or a little cruel on occasion. And it's happening on stage, too. You seem to be relating to a handful of cronies behind the scenes now -- rather than to the rest of us out front.

"Now, that's all okay -- if that's the way you want it, Bob. But then you're a different Bob Dylan from the one we knew. The old one never wasted our precious time.

"Perhaps this letter has been long overdue. I think, in a sense, that we are all responsible for what's been happening to you -- and to many other fine young artists. The American Success Machinery chews up geniuses at a rate of one a day and still hungers for more. Unable to produce real art on its own, the Establishment breeds creativity in protest against and nonconformity to the System. And then, through notoriety, fast money, and status, it makes it almost impossible for the artist to function and grow.

"It is a process that must be constantly guarded against and fought.

"Give it some thought, Bob. Believe me when I say that this letter is written out of love and deep concern. I wouldn't be sticking my neck out like this otherwise.

"Irwin Silber"

Broadside Magazine's 1964 Critique of Dylan Revisited

In a 1964 issue of the now-defunct Broadside magazine, U.S. folk music critic Paul Wolfe provided U.S. topical and protest folk music fans with the following interesting historical take on the early days of Bob Dylan's post-1964 artistic direction:

"The Newport Folk Festival of 1964 formed an important milestone in the resurgence of topical music. It brought many of the younger performers into first contact with large segments of the folk music world; it proved that topical music, when delivered with artistry and sincerity, can be heartily appreciated by a wide and diverse audience; it outlined many of the goals toward which the various writers must strive.

"But the Festival’s most significant achievement was specific and twofold: it marked the emergence of Phil Ochs as the most important voice in the movement, simultaneous with the renunciation of topical music by its major prophet, Bob Dylan. It was the latter event that proved most surprising.

"Dylan’s `defection' into higher forms of art was predicted. His preference for free-verse, uninhibited poetry over topical songs has been apparent for quite a while; his dissatisfaction with concert tours and adulating fans is also no secret. But his new songs, as performed at Newport, surprised everyone, leaving the majority of the audience annoyed, some even disgusted, and, in general, scratching its collective head in disbelief. The art that had, in the past, produced towering works of power and importance, had, seemingly, degenerated into confusion and innocuousness. `Your new songs seem to be all inner-directed, inner-probing, and self-conscious,' wrote Irwin Silber, editor of SING OUT!, in an open letter to Dylan. `You seem to be relating to a handful of cronies behind the scenes rather than to the rest of us out front.'

"And this disappointment in his new songs was heightened by their juxtaposition, on the stage of Newport, with the eloquent musical force of Phil Ochs. While Dylan was telling his perennial, anonymous girl friend, `All I really wanna do is, baby, be friends with you,' Ochs was informing the leaders of the government, `I ain’t marchin’ anymore!' While Dylan sang `It Ain’t Me, Babe,' and, in the guise of rejecting a persistent female, told his thousands of worshipers to look elsewhere for someone to walk on water, Ochs took the time to denounce the labor unions for their betrayal of the civil rights movement; in `Links On The Chain'—Ochs’ supreme artistic achievement—and perhaps the most important topical song of the year—he calls upon the `ranks of labor' to ponder their own `struggles of before' and tell, ironically, which side they now are on in the Negro struggle for equality.

"There, the difference between the two performers became manifest; meaning vs. innocuousness, sincerity vs. utter disregard for the tastes of the audience, idealistic principle vs. self-conscious egotism. And even in his attempts at seriousness Dylan was bewildering. `Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,' while underlain by a beautiful poetic idea, must be termed a failure; somehow, a forced monotony of rhymes seemed much more effective in `Only A Pawn In Their Game.' And in his other song, `Chimes of Freedom,' the bewilderment is raised to the highest degree. In this incredible jumble of confused, obscure images piled atop one another, Dylan traces the pursuit for higher forms of freedom, spanning a human lifetime, encompassing all of human life. This probing journey through anguish begins `far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toe' and ends, some eight grueling minutes later, with the chimes of freedom flashing `for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe.' The fallacy inherent in the concept of chimes flashing is annoyingly obvious. It is also obvious that Dylan was too enmeshed in his own ego and seeming adoration of words (no matter how meaningless his combinations of these words renders them) to consider the absurdity of treating a subject of such scope in a song. As Irwin Silber said, the Dylan we once knew, the author of `With God On Our Side' and `Hattie Carroll,' `never wasted our precious time.' `Chimes of Freedom' brings to mind once again the fable of the Emperor’s new clothes; and a short story entitled `Face In The Crowd' by Budd Schulberg (it was made into a noted movie). The protagonist of that story is a hillbilly singer who, through publicity, slick management and an overpowering ego, rises to such heights of stardom and popularity he thinks he can get away with anything on the public. The tragedy is that he cannot, and, in the end, is ruined.

"Does Bob himself give a concrete reason for the emergence of the `new' Dylan? One might be found in the song `My Back Pages' in his latest album Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is an intensely honest, revealing self-portrait, indeed a brutal denunciation of the `old' Dylan. It characterizes the latter as a deceived, impotent `musketeer' whose main stimuli to action were confusion and immaturity, rather than a fiery poetic spirit reacting to the injustice he saw all around him. Thus a seeming disillusionment with both himself and the ideals he fought for looms as a factor.

"Other forces shaping his new posture include his own artistic drives and capabilities (which are indeed considerable) running headlong into the limitations of the musical form. As Phil Ochs said in the 1964 Newport brochure: `I think he’s slowly drifting away from song-writing because he feels limited by the form. More and more of his work will probably come out in poetry and free verse, and I would not be surprised if he stopped singing altogether, considering the over-adulation of his fans and the lack of understanding of audiences that identify with him.' Indeed there are reports not only that he is working on a book of his own poetry but that he plans to start up a poetry magazine (further Dylan artistic endeavors include a motion picture, which Dylan has written, is directing, and stars in himself). These varied artistic projects imply his abandonment of topical song writing; an artist must express himself through the most effective mediums at his command. But they do not explain his new songs; nor, if he is discontented with singing, why he continues to give concerts; or why he is still cutting records. Contradictions have followed Bob Dylan from the time his folk-singing career began. Now, seemingly at the end of it, they have yet to be dissipated.

"The paths of Bob Dylan bear extreme relevance to the course of today’s topical songwriting. For instance, take Phil Ochs. His career is still evolving and expanding, but considering what has happened to Bob, an inevitable question arises concerning Phil: will he follow in the footsteps of his predecessor? Will Phil too eventually be disillusioned, or in some way become discontented, with his personal messages of protest, and abandon them? Only time—of course—can tell. But an analysis of the facts renders this unlikely. The difference between Ochs and Dylan, both as artists and personalities, are striking. Ochs is much more deeply committed to the broadside tradition. To news and politically-oriented songs, most of which are focused on specific events and do not range into the wide scope of human events and variegated problems that characterize so many of Dylan’s most famous works. In addition, Dylan has undergone repeated metamorphosis as a performer; each of his four albums differs radically from the others. This has not been so with Ochs, whose second L-P (by Elektra) plainly will be a continuation of the work foundationed by his first (Ochs’ 2nd L-P is scheduled for release in January 1965). Quite to the contrary, Phil’s basic melody and lyric patterns have remained constant from the very beginning; indeed many of his first songs, notably `William Worthy' and his talking analysis of Cuba and Viet Nam, occupy important positions in his current repertoire. Thus, the constant change of character and outlook, the reluctance to stay in one `bag' of song-writing for an extended period of time, that have engendered Dylan’s renunciation of topical music, are not evidenced in Ochs. Nevertheless, the influences of Dylan have found their way into several of Ochs’ new songs. In `In The Heat Of The Summer' and `The Hills of West Virginia,' Ochs has attempted to subtlety and poetry where before he used power and irony. Thus, those two songs differ artistically from all his previous ones; indeed in the first song, dealing with the recent riots in various Negro ghettos, he goes so far as to abandon rhyme scheme altogether. It is a novel artistic experiment; but, unfortunately, this first attempt at poetry-in-song is unsuccessful. `In The Heat Of The Summer' emerges as little more than an exercise. But in `The Hills Of West Virginia,' some reflections during an automobile trip, Phil’s simple, unpretentious, easy-flowing imagery, encased in what could be his most beautiful melody, weave a sharp and colorful tapestry of observation. It is certainly one of his best songs and proves Ochs doesn’t have to protest to be good. It also proves that one can absorb the good influences of Dylan without being affected by the non-artistic sides of the latter’s enigmatic career.


"Many talented people today are writing topical songs. But, to me, Phil Ochs stands virtually alone in his field; very few writers are very close to him in quality and productivity. This is a happy fact for topical music. However, the cash registers are ringing in his ears more and more; legions of adulating fans and his identity as a `celebrity' grow larger as time goes by. Thus, one final question must be posed in connection with the path of Phil Ochs, hence the path of topical music. Can he overcome the pressures, the lures, the rewards and the egotism attached to being a celebrity? Can he maintain a sincerity of principle despite material prosperity? It is evident that he will continue writing protest songs; the question now is whether he will continue meaning them. For Phil Ochs, on whom the future of topical music rides, `these are the days of decision.'” 
--Paul Wolfe
(Broadside magazine--issue 53/1964)