The Hollywood Ten (1950)

Does Commercially-Motivated Pop Music Divert Working-Class Musicians and Music Fans from Class Struggle?

In their 2011 book, titled Playing For Change: Music and Musicians in the Service of Social Movements, Rob Rosenthal and Richard Flacks wrote the following:

"Music may work against the interests of a movement in the first place simply because most movements seek alternatives to prevailing values and arrangements, while much of culture--popular culture in particular--tends to reflect and perpetuate the values of the existing order, values that are typically indifferent at best and hostile at worst to the vision of the movement...The values expressed in much of the...music and scene of the 1960s and 1970s...encouraged a worldview that militated against collective movement activity. The charity megaevents of the 1980s were criticized...for embodying an ethnocentric worldview...that reinforced the First World dominance of other nations...

"...The idealization of the car, a central aspect of rock...through Bruce Springsteen and down to the present, reaffirms...love of auto culture, making environmentalists' challenge to that culture more difficult...Much of the popular culture...doesn't hold out the promise of resisting or overthrowing the dominant culture...Much of pop culture asserts that political and social questions are irrelevant...Music...can easily be a diversion from political and movement activity rather than an aid...

"Adorno feared that...popular art was diversionary `social cement' when created...as a commodity, including music that declared itself to be socially significant...Frank speaks specifically of the `commodification of dissent'...Politics as fashion replaces politics with content...The movement...will begin to reflect the values and direction of the `posers' (as they are often called)...rather than those most dedicated to the social and political changes sought by the movement...

"...Some activists fear that music...can become a replacement for necessary political activity...Music may substitute for actual experiences that might...lead to involvement with a movement..

"...To the degree that any individual--whether music hero, religious figure, or political leader--comes to represent...the movement, some democratic qualities of the movement are diminished, as collective power and responsibility are ceded to individual power and control...

"...Rolling Stone gleefully informed its advertisers that a majority of the subscribers to the magazine...had voted for Ronald Reagan for president in the 1984 election..." 

U.S. Music Industry Tried To Stop Production Of Paredon Records' `Palestine Lives!' Album

 

In the 1970's, some executives of the commercially-motivated U.S. corporate music industry apparently attempted to stop the production and distribution of the Paredon Records label's vinyl album Palestine Lives!. As [the now-deceased] former Sing-Out! magazine editor and Paredon Records co-founder Irwin Silber recalled in a 1991 interview:

"...We really came under incredible attack... The music industry, especially in New York, is very heavily...pro-Israel. So, when word got around that we were doing this record, a campaign began to try to stop it. Literally to stop it.

"And the important figures in the music industry called our various suppliers, the people who made the masters, the plates, the pressing: `Listen!  We’re going to withdraw a whole lot of business from you if you cooperate with these people in putting out this record.'

"There really was such a campaign. And I don’t remember exactly how we solved it. But I know, in a couple of cases, we had to go to some outfits other than our usual supply...

"...It really was an insight into the depth of the emotions stirred by the Palestinian question...I mean I knew it. I mean I’m Jewish and you know I know...the community. But it really got brought home. Really got brought home. And it was, in a way, a provocation to the music industry, because of its particular character.

"But I have always felt that the Palestinian issue is sort of one these cutting edge issues, which it’s sort of like crucial litmus test. Because there’s nothing to be gained by supporting the Palestinians. Career-wise or anything else. Just nothing at all...to stick your neck out and get down in the line with them in the United States."

U.S. corporate music industry tried to stop production of this album in 1970's

And in a 1991 interview, 20th-century and 21st-century U.S. jazz, blues and folk singer and Paredon Records co-founder Barbara Dane also observed that "somebody made a deliberate campaign calling all of our suppliers and the pressing plant and everybody," in an attempt to stop production and distribution of the Paredon Records label's Palestine Lives! vinyl album.'

Paredon Records Co-Founders Irwin Silber and Barbara Dane

 

 

Newport Folk Festival's Exclusion Of Barbara Dane Revisited

 

U.S. Jazz, Blues and Folk Singer Barbara Dane in 1960 (wikicommons)

In a 1991 interview, 20th-century and 21st-century U.S. jazz, blues and folk singer Barbara Dane recalled how some commercially-oriented U.S. folk music festival producers--like then-Newport Folk Festival Producer George Wein--apparently failed to invite her to perform at most commercially-oriented U.S. folk music festivals during the 1960's; and during the 11 years that she devoted to recording other protest folk singers or singer-songwriters on non-commercially-oriented Paredon Records' vinyl albums.

"I was never invited back to Newport except once....I’ll give you some documentation about that because it’s kind of interesting.

"But it basically was I went to the festival because I loved the music and I loved the people who perform it.,,So I went several times and just soaked everything up and reconnected with a lot of old friends and all that. But I--outside of being asked to get up and jam on somebody’s set--was never invited back there to sing.

"...I got an invitation one day via Bernice Reagon to be on a workshop...She’d sort of taken note that the festival was getting further and further from its glory days, when everyone stands on the stage and sings `We Shall Overcome.' And now we’re, you know, two three years down the line and...it’s all sort of a sham.

"And so she decided to propose a political song workshop. And it was going to be a one hour workshop, out on the edge of the...You know, in the tent during the day. Not on the main stage and all that kind of stuff.

"But anyway I got a letter inviting me to be on that. And I decided to turn that down because I decided that it was a mockery of the whole deal...I decided that this was made to marginalize...to a one hour workshop....I mean we’re talking...mid-Sixties, later Sixties. And they were going to marginalize it out to that...

"Boil it all down and have a little token thing. And then they can sit back and say `well we did it. Now we did our thing. We had political singers here.' I decided I wasn’t going to be a party to that.

"So I made a big todo about it. I wrote a big long letter explaining why I wasn’t going to do it and sent it to the board. Which then included quite a lot of people in the folk music field. And kinda quite a lot of key people. And then I also sent it to the Village Voice and they printed it.

"And as a result I was never, for twenty years or more--well let’s say dating from the first festival--which was what ’59, the first Newport festival? I was never invited to sing on a major folk song festival. Zero. You know.

"So I began to realize that this was happening. These things sneak up on you. Like this is not blacklisting in the sense of the McCarthy black list. This is, that’s that only term I can think of, is marginalization. You know, you’re just sort of pushed further out..."

Paul Robeson's December 1952 Letter Revisited

In a December 1952 letter, U.S. protest folk singer and civil rights/anti-war movement activist Paul Robeson wrote the following:

"...For the past several years a vicious effort has been made to destroy my career. Hall-owners, sponsors and even audiences have been intimidated. Recently, in Chicago, 15,000 persons who wanted to attend one of my concerts had to assemble in a park because the hall-owner had been threatened.

"The outrageous denial of my passport bars me from accepting contracts to appear in England, France, China and many other lands.

"Although I have recorded for nearly every major recording company and sold millions of records both here and abroad, these companies refuse to produce any new recordings for me.

"What is the meaning of this? It is an attempt to gag artistic expression, to dictate whom the people shall hear and what they shall hear. It is an attempt to suppress not only one, but every artist, Negro and white, whose heart and talent are enlisted in the fight for peace and democracy..."