`Right To Rebel' LP Supports Peltier, Remembers George Jackson In Song

The new album "It Is Right to Rebel" by Mat Callahan & Yvonne Moore and friends is out now on vinyl and all major streaming platforms. (matandyvonne.com)

If you're a music fan who liked Mat Callahan and Yvonne Moore's Songs Of Freedom and Working-Class Heroes cds, liked Bob Dylan's early 1970s "George Jackson" song and wishes to see U.S. political prisoner Leonard Peltier released, Mat Callahan and Yvonne Moore's 2022 double LP, It is Right to Rebel, is an LP you'll find interesting to listen to.

As the double LP, consisting of 15 tracks, notes in its liner notes, It is Right to Rebel is intended to be "a battle cry, a wake up call, an invitation to join the struggle of our time, a celebration of rebellion and social movements and a musical thumbs up to all the people that realize that big changes have to be made." So the songs on the LP, all written and composed by Labor Movement singer-songwriter Mat Callahan, deals lyrically "with topics such as the Zapitista uprising in Chiapas, political prisoners" (like Leonard Peltier and the 1971-slain George Jackson)"and environmental issues."

Musically, most of Callahan's new songs included on It is Right to Rebel are "rooted in the folk music tradition with the uniting elements of rhythm, group singing and acoustic music." The lead vocals on each song track are sung by either Mat or Yvonne; and 3 background vocalists are also heard on many of the tracks. In addition, It is Right to Rebel also utilizes 5 musicians to provide the musical background for Mat's new songs.

Lyrics of the initial track, "Free Peltier", calls for Leonard Peltier's release, notes that "more than 40 years have come and gone" and "to fight for Leonard's freedom, is to fight for everyone," tells how he came to be imprisoned, and relates his legal case to how U.S. government has historically treated Native Americans.

The "War Against Forgetting" second track, which has a very melodic and catchy tune that Yvonne Moore sings in a great, spirited way with Mat, further describes how indigenous people were subdued, "cause if no one remembers, no one can forsee" and "their lies are what disarmed us."

The third track, "High John the Conqueror Root", based on an African American slaves' folk tale that kept dream of freedom alive during slavery, features more singing by the 3 background vocalists with Mat of a song that reminded me of some of the tunes on The Band group's late 1960s vinyl albums.

Yvonne joins Mat in another melodic, but slower track 4 tune, "Fire Isn't Fire", which lyrically questions way some folks in capitalist societies still seek to turn everything into a commodity to make a lot of money, although "if the truth were told, what we all are seeking is what can't be bought or sold."

Track 5, a song about George Jackson, "99 Books"--which I think is lyrically better than the "George Jackson" song that Bob Dylan wrote and recorded in early 1970s, because its lyrics include both more details about how George survived intellectually while unjustly imprisoned before he was murdered by San Quentin prison guards in 1971--is sung by Mat and Yvonne to a catchy melody that remined me, somewhat, of Neil Young's "Old Man, Take A Look At My Life" tune. The "99 Books" title refers to number of books that George had in his cell on day he was killed; and a rare audio of George Jackson, himself, speaking can be heard at end of track 5.

"Say Yes", sung by Mat on track 6, uses a soul music-type tune; and its lyrics reflect both need for optimism and a more historically optimistic feeling that "together we'll find a way" by "sayin' if you want peace and justice for all humanity."

With a melodic tune that reminded me, somewhat of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Ohio" song about the 1970s Kent State Massacre and with Dylanesque lyrics--like "Come gather round my friends, let's sing us a song, let's bring us a verse, let's not speak falsely, then so full is the heart, so empty the purse"--track 7's "High Time For A High Time", was one of the songs I most liked on this LP. Yvonne and Mat sing the song together well as a duo.

The jazz-influenced anti-war "Pick Your Poison" track 8 song about the futility of war notes in its lyrics that even if you call it "freedom," when you only "got a choice between arsenic and cyanide" (i.e. U.S. imperialism or right-wing religious fundamentalism), the only actual choice you're getting is to "pick your poison."

In his note to his "Cross My Heart" track 9 song that lyrically satirizes Big Techie capitalism--as Mat, Yvonne and their 3 background vocalists sing an early 1960s-sounding vocal group type of melody--Mat writes: "The Entrepreneur: Made into a hero by the `tomorrow-makers' of Silicon Valley elevated to near sainthood by pundits at the Wall Street Journal, this personage is also a type of pathological liar, who ise behind the mask of sanity, is utterly without conscience or obligation to anything but self-enrichment."

Singing in a way that reminds me, somewhat, of Bev Grant's singing style, Yvonne joins Mat and the vocalist group of friends in an Afro-American rhythm & blues-sounding tune with topical disaster folk song lyrics like "Fire come a-runnin' down the power lines, Burning all directions, fire swallowed Paradise," referring to what happened in California in 2019, in Mat's track 10 song, "Another Message Comin'".

The "Stand and Fight" track 11 song is a song with Bob Marley-like lyrics that declares "to rebel is right" and a late 1960s-type CSNY group melody. Mat wrote this song to mark the Occupy Wall Street Movement. And in his note for the track 12 "Different Worlds" song, Mat indicates that it was written to help "keep spirit of utopia alive in the heart of the oppressed."

The three remaining songs on It is Right to Rebel are "Sellavision", "Sweep the Money Changers From Your Soul" and "The Last Word."

Lyrically, "Sellavision" is about mass media manipulation and includes lyrics like "call it television, lies are all they ever tell." And the "Sweep the Money Changers From Your Soul"--with its "Sweep The Money changers from you soul...You are the savior" and "there is no Elvis can do this for you" lyrics--reminded me, somewhat of John Lennon's early 1970s "God Is A Concept" song.

"The Last Word" song, that reminded me somewhat of the "Blowin' In The Wind" song, with lyrics like "whisper questions for those who are listening," also contains a chorus with a very melodic hook that Yvonne and Mat sing in a call and response-type way.

The Encylopedia of Political Record Labels book author Josh McPhee, of the Just Seeds Collective, produced the cover art that comes in a sleeve of Mat and Yvonne's & friends vocally and musically sophisticated and professionally-sounding It is Right to Rebel album. And the tracks are available to be heard or purchased music sites like Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp and PM Press.

Not My War

Stop Luxury Construction!

Ballad of the "Green Cities" Corporation

`Fare-Free Transit' Protest Folk Song

 

A folk song from 2022 explaining why MBTA should also establish a fare-free public transit system for riders in Boston, Massachusetts in 2022.

lyrics

You can ride all buses free in Kansas City

You can ride all buses free in Olympia

You can ride all buses free in Albuquerque

But in Boston, they still make you pay a fare.

Outbound trolleys were once fare-free inBoston

And for Philly elders, the subway is fare-free

It's fare-free for all riders in Estonia

But in Boston, they still make you pay a fare.

They have a billion dollars to spend

For new fare collection machines

Yet they claim the T can't afford to be fare-free

While paying T managers six-figure salaries.

You can ride all buses free in Lowell

You can ride all buses free in Lawrence

You can ride all buses free in Chapel Hill

But in Boston, they still make you pay a fare.

You can ride all transit free in Luxembourg

And for Miami elders buses are fare-free

Elders ride free in Lebanon, Pennsylvania

But in Boston, they still make you pay a fare.

They have millions of dollars to spend

To pay off "The Big Dig" debt

And they have 30 million dollars to spend

For new stations by BU's campus.

All ride for free in Corvalis, Oregon

And in campus towns like Ann Arbor

And also in Boulder and Denver

But in Boston, they still make you pay a fare.

In France, it's fare-free in Dunkirk

And some transit is fare-free in Baltimore

All elderly ride fare-free in Scotland

But in Boston, they still make you pay a fare.

They have a billion dollars to spend

On new fare collection machines

Yet they claim the T can't afford to be fare-free

While paying T managers six-figure salaries.

You can ride all buses fare-free in Malta

And in Wales it's free for elderly

You can ride all buses free in Hasselt, Belgium

But in Boston, they still make you pay a fare.

Yes, you can ride all buses free in Kansas City

You can ride all buses free in Olympia

You can ride all buses free in Albuquerque

But in Boston, they still make you pay a fare.

Manhattan's `Shadow' Newspaper Revisited: Conclusion

(Having occasionally written and donated some articles to The Shadow during the last three decades--which were occasionally published by the Lower East Side anti-war newspaper--thought 2022 was now a good time to interview by email The Shadow's editor, Chris Flash, about the newspaper's history, Manhattan's "fourth estate" and New York City news coverage in the 21st century. Text of interview originally was posted on Upper West Side Patch's website).

What about the New York Times and The Nation magazine? How is The Shadow's editorial approach different than the editorial approach of the editors and media gatekeepers at publications like the New York Times and The Nation magazine?

CHRIS FLASH [CF]: The NY Times and other state media that pushes state propaganda in order to mold and shape public opinion in advance of a new invasion/occupation of a sovereign nation by the U.S. are clearly working for the state, so we KNOW what to expect from them.

But gatekeeper media, that presents itself as "alternative" or "independent," is far more SINISTER, because they dupe the public into believing that they are reporting on/revealing what state media won't report, while they push the same narrative as state media, marginalizing those who present contradictory evidence or points of view.

Unlike those who portray themselves as "independent" media, The SHADOW is dedicated to expressing the TRUTH, regardless of how hard or unpleasant it may be to believe. We really are NOT afraid to tell it like it is, because, unlike state media and gatekeeper media, we have NO agenda other than to spread awareness.

 A great example would be our exposing the role played by the FBI in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Though sealed by a judge overseeing the trial of blind sheik Rahman, on whom the bombing rap was being pinned, secret tape recordings made by the FBI's plant in Rahman's mosque revealed that the FBI arranged for the bomb to be planted in the WTC basement, where it exploded. When FBI informant Salem demanded to know WHY they "let the bomb go off," his FBI handler said: "You know why we're doing this; we're doing this for A HIGHER GOOD." [That is an EXACT quote.]

A nationally broadcast radio, cable-tv and internet daily news show called Democracy Now!--which has been funded in recent years by the foundation of a former White House Chief of Staff and Press Secretary in the 1960s of then-U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson--claims to have been providing, since 1996, alternative news coverage for Upper West Side anti-war listeners and viewers.

Yet I've heard complaints from some anti-war folks--who questioned the official story of what happened in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001 and who questioned the actual scientific basis for requiring masks to be worn, Big Pharma-produced vaccine injections to be required or New York City's economy to be locked down during the last few years--that Democracy Now! producers have excluded proponents of their alternative points-of-view from appearing in a regular way on the Democracy Now! show.

In what ways do you think The Shadow's philosophy of how "the fourth estate" of journalism and an alternative media group should operate editorially is similar or different to the Democracy Now!'s producers' notion? And how many times have you been invited to appear as a guest on the New York City-based Democracy Now! daily show since 1996?

CF: If true that Democracy Now! has excluded those who offer points of view that confront the lies of state narratives, that is unfortunate. We have a high regard for Democracy Now! journalist (and Young Lords member back in the day) Juan Gonzalez, who was the ONLY person presenting truly investigative reports for the Daily News, which usually pushed him past page 20 in each issue, until he split.

Democracy Now! did present a debate between Dylan Avery, creator of the amazing 9/11 documentary Loose Change and several staffers of Popular Mechanics who LIED through their teeth as they spun tales on how THREE World Trade Center towers collapsed at FREE FALL speed, though only TWO towers were hit by planes, completely ignoring basic physics which made such collapses without controlled demolitions IMPOSSIBLE.

Though we are not accusing Democracy Now! of anything, it should be pointed out that the state sets up and funds "alternative" media in print, on television, cable, online and radio, that provide great reports and coverage that seemingly counter mainstream media that distorts, mis-reports or ignores meaningful news while pushing state propaganda. By doing so, they build credibility so that, when needed by the state, they can be used to support, advance and promote whatever new state propaganda campaign arises.

Loyal readers, viewers and listeners, having put their trust in their favorite "alternative" media, are more likely to believe what they are told by their "indy media" source(s), though they are being LIED to in a more sophisticated manner. A great example of this is NPR, referred to as "National Propaganda Radio," by those who know better.

 It is no secret that certain political groups and certain "alternative" media who appear to be attacking and exposing the uber-wealthy and the corporate state destroying the environment while keeping the population economically enslaved are actually funded by those they appear to be dedicated to opposing.

This is known as "controlled opposition," that ensures that those funded by the one percent will NEVER be effective, that drains and misdirects energy of political neophytes looking to join a righteous cause, while enabling the state to monitor those who join certain groups and engage in certain actions. This has been well-explained by Jim Marrs, in his book Rule By Secrecy.

Truly underground and genuine independent media like The SHADOW are funded and staffed entirely by volunteers. Though they don't have the same range or distribution as state media and state-subsidized "alternative" media, it is THEY who should be supported, as they have not been corrupted or controlled by any group or organization.

If any anti-war readers on the Upper West Side wish to either pick up a copy of The Shadow to read or subscribe to The Shadow, how can they go about doing this?

CF: On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, The SHADOW is available at Word Up Books and at Sisters Books, both on Amsterdam Avenue. We are also available at hip bookstores on the Lower East Side and across the U.S. and by mail for $2.00 at P.O. Box 20298, NY NY 10009. (end of article)

Manhattan's `Shadow' Newspaper Revisited: Part 2

 

(Having occasionally written and donated some articles to The Shadow during the last three decades--which were occasionally published by the Lower East Side anti-war newspaper--thought 2022 was now a good time to interview by email The Shadow's editor, Chris Flash, about the newspaper's history, Manhattan's "fourth estate" and New York City news coverage in the 21st century. Text of interview originally was posted on Upper West Side Patch's website).

In the 1960s and early 1970s in Manhattan, anti-war underground counter-cultural weekly newspapers, like the East Village Other [EVO) and RAT, that were both Lower East Side-based, were also read by many Upper West Side anti-war readers who identified with the counter-culture of the 1960s and early 1970s. How is The Shadow similar or different, in the way it covers New York City, national and world events, and U.S. culture, to how the East Village Other and RAT covered the news and culture in the 1960s and early 1970s?

CHRIS FLASH [CF]:As a result of the false and negative reports by mainstream media about the Tompkins Square Police Riot, that I had personally witnessed, we realized the need to resurrect the underground press, as it had existed and flourished on the Lower East Side from the late-1960s through the mid-1970s. Those papers included The East Village Other, Other Scenes, The Village Voice (not exactly underground, but very relevant), the RAT and Overthrow (originally The Yipster Times, published by our heroes, the YIPPIES).

We decided to model ourselves after the more radical of the underground papers, so we followed the models of the RAT and Overthrow (which stopped publishing about six months before The SHADOW started publishing.) Like The RAT and Overthrow, The SHADOW was determined to present information and news in order to encourage political activism and to appeal to the counterculture in New York City.

In the 1970s in Manhattan, anti-war counter-cultural groups that were based on the Lower East Side--like the Yippies and Zippies--occasionally published and distributed newspapers like The Yipster Times and Overthrow, which published some articles supportive of the Rock Liberation Front and its demos against hip capitalist music industry publications, like Jann Wenner's then-owned Rolling Stone magazine, as well as articles that questioned the Warren Commission's "official story" about what happened in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963. How is The Shadow newspaper similar or different to The Yipster Times and Overthrow, in the kinds of articles it has been publishing since the 1990s?

CF: Like Yipster Times/Overthrow, The SHADOW was NOT dependent on advertisers, so we didn't have to pull punches or water down or pull stories out of fear of losing ad income. Like Overthrow and The RAT, we published controversial reports and many how-to pieces for demonstrators and activists, as well as a Down By Law section featuring items written by movement lawyers.

We had (and still have) dedicated investigative reporters who are more like detectives (which we also have working for us!) when it comes to getting the dirt on corrupt politicians or corporate scum.

In what ways do think The Shadow's approach to journalism during the last 30 years has, historically, been different or similar, to how the Village Voice--which, historically, was owned by Billionaire Rupert Murdoch and Billionaire Leonard Stern at different times--has covered the news and U.S. culture?

CF: Before becoming a commodity to be bought and sold between non-caring billionaires who gave not a damn about its mission nor purpose, the Voice was started by a group of intellectual hip people, including writer Norman Mailer, to provide news that was of interest to their readers.

In their time, at their peak, the Voice was a thick "must read" weekly paper, jam-packed with news and reviews and great writers who provided in-depth exposés, including Wayne Barrett and Jack Newfield. Nat Hentoff wrote great pieces as well.

Once cat litter magnate Leonard Stern got his mitts on the Voice, mass-firings followed. When the Voice lost its great writers, it lost its voice.

The SHADOW's approach to journalism was and is to go for the jugular when exposing government conspiracies, corrupt politicians and kops abusing their authority, presenting eye-witness first person reportage of demonstrations and other events.

The idea of "balanced journalism" was and is irrelevant to us because we don't need to call the NYPD press office for their quote when we SEE riot kops beating people in the park. We report on what we see, what we experience and what we KNOW. We at The SHADOW also refuse to remove ourselves from a story as some "journalists" think they are required to do in order to avoid an appearance of bias.

The SHADOW has always taken a STAND, whether supporting the Lower East Side squatter movement, in which abandoned city-owned buildings were resuscitated by community members who made them habitable at NO cost to the city or to taxpayers, defending the homeless in and around Tompkins Square Park, working with activists to provide them with food and materials and defending them against police raids, or demonstrating against the US invasion of Iraq in 1991, joining demonstrators marching to confront NYC television stations over their distorted coverage of anti-war protests.

We have never been afraid to present investigative journalism with a sharp point of view. Though we are definitely opinionated, everything we report is TRUE and DOCUMENTED. (end of part 2. To be continued)

Manhattan's `Shadow' Newspaper Revisited: Part 1

(Having occasionally written and donated some articles to The Shadow during the last three decades--which were occasionally published by the Lower East Side newspaper--thought 2022 was now a good time to interview by email The Shadow"s editor, Chris Flash, about the newspaper's history, Manhattan's "fourth estate" and New York City news coverage in the 21st century. Text of this interview was also previously posted on the Upper West Side Patch's website).

Why is the Lower East Side newspaper called "The Shadow"?

CHRIS FLASH [CF]: We were discussing the idea of creating an underground newspaper and threw a bunch of names around. I suddenly came up with THE SHADOW, after the 1940s radio show, featuring a detective named Lamont Cranston, who solves crimes and murders in unique ways. Each show was introduced with an eerie voice that said: "Who knows where evil lurks in the hearts of men? The SHADOW knows!"

How long has The Shadow newspaper been around?

CF: We published our first issue in March 1989. We took a five year break in 2008, but have resumed published regularly since 2013. Covidmania forced us to stop for more than two years, but we have just published a new issue (Issue #63, on August 4, 2022).

Why was The Shadow newspaper created? And who was involved, historically, in initially establishing The Shadow newspaper?

CF: The SHADOW came about as a result of the August 6,1988 Police Riot in Tompkins Square, in which kops from all over the city descended on Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in furtherance of a non-existent park curfew. A week earlier, a few kops chased us out of the park with force, hitting people with clubs, announcing that "the park is closed."

Over the following seven days, kops built up their forces inside and outside of the park, with a mobile command center and cops on horses and marching on foot in formation. Quite a spectacle! They were determined to kick our asses if we dared to object to their enforcing their curfew that coming weekend. Like the Viet Cong, we also built up our forces in preparation for the conflict that kops were setting up for us, but, unlike them, we operated in the SHADOWS.

On the night of August 6, all hell broke loose, with kops indiscriminately beating people within range of their clubs, from demonstrators opposing their presence to passersby to workers in nearby restaurants. Among many instances of brutality, I saw kops beat the crap out of an elderly homeless woman on her way into the park to sleep for the night, unaware of what was happening outside the park.

Kops ran into the 7A Café, beating a waitress - when her manager came to her aid, kops dragged the manager out of the café by her hair. Kops on foot chased us up and down Avenue A, west on St. Marx Place and along side streets as mounted kops on horseback running down St. Marx beat people, polo-style.

To thwart identification, riot kops had black elastic bands covering their badge numbers. They even brought in a helicopter, which blew hats off kops' heads - watching them scramble to retrieve their hats, Keystone Kops-style, was hilarious! By 6:00am, kops withdrew, enabling them to claim a "victory" because they had kept us out of the park until the "official" hour at which it opened that day.

On our side, we were able to claim a "victory" as we had REFUSED to back down in the face of police state repression. Immediately, as we retook the park, some raided the nearby Christodora House, a settlement house at Avenue B and Ninth Street that was built in 1929 for poor immigrant arrivals, but which by 1988 had become a luxury condo for the wealthy.

The lobby guard wisely split as a large tree in a planter was dragged from the lobby and thrown onto Avenue B. The call went out to "save the tree!!!!" so it was planted in the park.

In the aftermath of the Tompkins Square Police Riot, mainstream media reports in print and on television were sympathetic to those assaulted by riot kops. Video provided free to local tv stations by a witness to the riot that showed kops brutalizing people with covered badges, was broadcast nightly. Even NYC Mayor Ed Koch called it a "police riot."

However, as the days and weeks passed, the tone in the media shifted. Suddenly it was reported that WE started the riot--that WE had caused all those innocent kops to come from all over the city to our neighborhood to restore order. Suddenly those kops were the "victims!" Police commissioner Ben Ward told the media that we were "White kids from Scarsdale!!" Talk about adding INSULT to injury!

Fortunately, in our scene, we have a large number of politically-minded, aware and active writers, photographers and artists who were equally concerned about the mis-use of police to pave the way for gentrification and to make our neighborhood "investor friendly" and safe for the monied transients whose desire to live here was causing the removal of longtime residents and small businesses and venues that served our community.

I already knew many such creative and politically-active people, but the riot brought even more of us together. We were all committed and PASSIONATE. Having shared that common experience, we were comrades!

From the beginning, the SHADOW has functioned with a core group, but we have had many people join us, some for a short while, others for decades. In order to run effectively, The SHADOW is a combination of a collective that seeks input from everyone and an editorial staff that makes final decisions. (end of part 1. To be continued)

 

Peter, Paul And Mary At Newport 1963 65

Peter, Paul and Mary - Rising of The Moon

Country Joe sings 'I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag'

Talkin' Columbia University Revolt

Arthur Kretchmer's Aug. 5, 1965 `Village Voice' Review of 1965 Newport Folk Festival Revisited

 

In a review of the July 1965 Newport Folk Festival that appeared in the August 5, 1965 issue of the Greenwich Village, NYC-based Village Voice weekly newspaper, titled "Newport: It's All Right, Ma, I'm Only Playin' R & R," Arthur Kretchmer indicated some of the historical reasons Bob Dylan apparently became less popular with some of his early 1960s U.S. folk music fans after 1965:

"Sunday night Bob Dylan was booed for linking rhythm and blues to the paranoid nightmares of his vision...

"Musically, the festival was obtuse and disappointing. Of five official concerts only one (Sunday afternoon) was satisfying, and that was mostly because of the brilliance of Mimi and Dick Farina and some other young singers.

"...Dylan is a man afraid and obsessed. He surrounds himself with people...

"Bob Dylan is out of control. He never had it and never will. Like a mogul he surrounds himself with flunkies who feed him lines and laugh when he repeats them...He is not Guthrie...On the way back from Newport Dylan's `Like a Rolling Stone' was on the radio. (He had been booed for it at Sunday night's concert)..."

Green Left's 2001 Review of `Bob Dylan Behind The Shades' Revisited

 

In a review of Clinton Heylin's Bob Dylan Behind The Shades: The Biography--Take Two book, that was posted on the Green Left website on Jan. 24, 2001, Phil Shannon indicated some of the historical reasons Bob Dylan apparently became less popular within U.S. anti-war left Movement circles during the last four decades of the 20th-century:

"Dylan's fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, signalled the transition to his new apolitical phase...As some left critics saw it, this album of `negative petty-bourgeois introspection' was the first...of Dylan's betrayals--protest abandoned...Other betrayals were to follow in steady succession--folk for rock, rock for country, pretty well everything thrown over for Christian fundamentalism.

"...Dylan's long farewell to the protest genre really gathered pace when he hit the pop cliches of country music in 1968 and 1969, years of dynamic political turmoil centered on the Vietnam War about which Dylan remained silent. The deterioration of Dylan's songs in both quality and social significance became a source of despair to radicalizing youth.

"...Rubin `Hurricane' Carter...sent a copy of his biography to Dylan...Two benefit concerts included in Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue...raised $600,000 [equal to over $3 million in 2022] for the Carter defense campaign. Less than 10 percent of this, however, reached Carter, with over half a million dollars [equal to over $2.7 million in 2022] disappearing into `expenses' to cover limousines, parties and hotel charges. A multi-millionaire, Dylan's lavish lifestyle undercut his practical commitment.

"...In 1978, after a mauling by critics of his recent albums and films, and the breakup of his marriage,...Dylan...became a born-again fundamentalist...Dylan's music hit rock-bottom, barren artistically and politically.

"Dylan is now a shell of his former self, living on his reputation...

"Heylin grossly over-values the later Dylan phases relative to the early '60s Dylan. Heylin regards political commitment in song as passe, an establishment view which dismisses the social context which enabled Dylan to not only become a superstar but to be a force for social change in his early days when his poetic vision and political commitment combined to create a popular and radical art which he never subsequently equalled.

"...The times cry out for more a-changin' but sadly Dylan's is no longer among the voices."

Episode 16 - Rainbow Quest by Pete Seeger: Mimi and Richard Farina

Joe McDonnell - The Wolfe Tones

While The Oceans Heat Up

Abortion Song

Merchants of Death

Dick Gaughan - World Turned Upside Down (BBC 1982)

Phil Ochs - I'm Going to Say It Now (Live at the University of Colorado,...

There's Better Things to Do

Donovan - Universal Soldier (The Big T N T Show - 1966)

Phil Ochs on Let's Sing Out - 27th September 1965 (Remastered)

I Don't Want To Have a War

Richie Havens - Handsome Johnny (Live At The Bitter End) (1967)

Bob Gibson - One More Parade (Live at the Phil Ochs Memorial Concert, 1976)

The Tallest Tree Paul Robeson Part 2

The Tallest Tree Paul Robeson Part 1

Peter, Paul, and Mary: BBC TIP 1965

Barbara Dane - Masters of War - 1967 Bob Dylan Cover

Joan Baez - There But For Fortune (BBC Television Theatre, London - June...

BUFFY SAINTE MARIE Universal Soldier

Joan Baez - With God On Our Side (BBC Television Theatre, London - June ...

"The Creative Person" ft. Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Buffy Sain...