August | 2013 | longitudes

50 years

Wednesday, August 28 is the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington. The 1963 gathering at the Washington D.C. mall was one of the largest rallies for human rights in history. Most of us associate it with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s stirring “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered (supposedly impromptu) in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It’s perhaps the most celebrated speech in America after Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, memorable not only for its noble precepts, but the oratorical power and grace of its deliverer.

The march was conceived as a rally for jobs, specifically better job opportunities for African Americans. Through the influence of civil rights leaders Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph, both of whom in the 1940s had pressured President Roosevelt to end discrimination in the U.S. military, it evolved into a mass protest for civil rights.

Originally it was conceived of as a march for jobs, but as 1963 progressed, with the Birmingham demonstrations, the assassination of Medgar Evers and the introduction of the Civil Rights Act by President Kennedy, it became clear that it had to be a march for jobs and freedom.

(Rachelle Horowitz, aide to Bayard Rustin, from Smithsonian Magazine article “A Change is Gonna Come”)

Until the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, blacks had been oppressed under the stasis of “Jim Crow” statutory legislation – essentially, legalized bigotry and segregation, mainly in the Southern states. The March on Washington was intended to publicize these injustices nationally. It ultimately drew 250,000 people, both blacks and whites, and included luminaries like singers Marian Anderson, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary; actors Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman, and Ossie Davis; and comedian/activist Dick Gregory.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Although there was a large contingency of police, there was no violence. According to Julian Bond, then communications director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Dr. King’s speech was the centerpiece:

When Dr. King spoke, he commanded the attention of everybody there. His speech, with his slow, slow cadence at first and then picking up speed and going faster and faster… you saw what a magnificent speechmaker he was, and you knew something important was happening.

Andrew Young, aide to King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), recalls that the march helped broaden the civil rights struggle by illuminating exactly why blacks down South were being beaten, hosed, and even murdered: these weren’t rabble-rousers, but non-violent men, women and children trying to gain some dignity and basic human rights:

(News reports) didn’t say they put the dogs on us because (we) were trying to register to vote. That never came through. Or (we) were in places trying to apply for jobs and they ran (us) out with dogs and fire hoses. Everybody had a 90-second view of the movement from the 6 o’clock news. And (the march) gave (us) an opportunity, especially in Martin’s speech, to put it in the context.

After the march, organizers met President Kennedy at the door of the Oval Office where, according to John Lewis, chairman of SNCC and now a 13-term Georgia congressman, “He greeted each one of us, shook each of our hands like a beaming, proud father.”

Over the last 50 years, civil rights have come a long way. Today, minorities and women have unprecedented economic and political clout. But the human rights movement is forever pushing against those who would denigrate and deprive people living on society’s fringes. One can still see it in those 90-second bits on the 6 o’clock news: state constitutions banning same-sex marriage and unions; xenophobic congressmen stonewalling against immigration reform; the Supreme Court striking down sections of the Voting Rights Act; red states engaged in redistricting and devising creative, new, illogical barriers to voting.

But the March on Washington is proof that, when enough oppressed people organize and loudly proclaim “We have our rights!,” society can progress just a little.

(quotations courtesy of Smithsonian Magazine, July issue)

March organizers meeting President John F. Kennedy

Despite all the computations
You could dance to a rock ‘n’ roll station,
And it was alright

(Lou Reed, from the Velvet Underground song “Rock and Roll”)

Last month I inducted five bands into the longitudes Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and promised there would be five more. These, then, will wrap up the Top 10 artists I feel should have already been inducted, but so far been shunned by that other Hall. You know, the one whose museum is in Cleveland but whose VIP induction ceremonies are usually shifted to the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

Sorry about the sarcasm. I should try to keep things upbeat, especially when it comes to music. Anyway, this induction is a time to celebrate! A time to be happy! 🙂 And one of the best things about this ceremony is the total absence of self-congratulatory music biz backslapping, cronyism, and sloppy post-induction onstage “jamming” by bloated, bag-eyed, half-drunk, over-the-hill millionaire rock stars wearing ill-fitting dinner jackets.

Well, I tried.

The next five acts being inducted are… (Paul Shaffer, please leave the building):

New York Dolls: how can longitudes induct a band that made only one great record, and one very good follow-up? Well, the Sex Pistols made only one great record, and there would be no Sex Pistols – and therefore nobody to label the RnRHoF a “piss stain” – had it not been for these proto-punk nasty boys. Led by Mick Jagger look-a-like David Johansen (aka “Buster Poindexter”), the Dolls’ music was often ramshackle, but it was delivered with in-your-face panache. Songs like “Personality Crisis,” “Subway Train,” “Frankenstein,” “Trash,” and “(There’s Gonna Be a) Showdown” are stripped-down rock & roll before the fall, straight out of a Staten Island garage or Bowery basement. Classic New York City hard rock, with exaggerated androgyny just for humorous effect. Iggy and the Stooges made it to the RnRHoF, as well as the cartoonish Alice Cooper, so why not these guys, three of whom are already dead?? I’d ask record exec and RnRHoF guru Ahmet Ertegun, but he’s in rock & roll heaven too.

Todd Rundgren: the “Runt” seems like a 180-degree turn from the Dolls. And like the Moody Blues from last month’s induction, he polarizes opinion: you either love him or hate him. But Rundgren actually produced the Dolls’ classic debut album, as well as successful albums by Badfinger, Patti Smith, XTC, the Tubes, the Band, Hall & Oates, Grand Funk Railroad, Meat Loaf, Psychedelic Furs, and many more. He’s also famous for his groundbreaking work in media technology. But his induction rests on his own solo records, including his masterpiece, Something/Anything?, a double album filled with golden pop nuggets all written and sung by Rundgren and where he played almost all the instruments (long before the artist formerly or presently known or not known as Prince ). Bravely changing direction, Rundgren followed with the kaleidoscopic A Wizard, A True Star. Like many prodigies, Rundgren was erratic, and his philosophic excursions with his band Utopia didn’t help his case with RnRHoF. But he’s one of the pop renaissance men, along with Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, and Stevie Wonder. And even more than the others, he was unafraid to risk failure or ridicule. Songs like “We Gotta Get You a Woman,” “Hello It’s Me,” “I Saw the Light,” “A Dream Lives on Forever,” “Can We Still Be Friends,” “Time Heals,” “Bang the Drum All Day,” and others only scratch the surface of his significant contributions to rock.

Fairport Convention: similar to Love (see first induction), Fairport Convention is unknown to many rock fans. They’re more familiar in England than America, where many hail them as Great Britain’s greatest folk-rock band. Like the Byrds in America, Fairport covered a lot of Bob Dylan songs when they started, but they soon found their own muse, plundering English folklorist Cecil Sharp’s archives to create their own British Isles brand of psychedelic folk-rock. Singer Sandy Denny is regarded as having one of the best voices in rock or folk, sort of a cross between Bonnie Raitt and Judy Collins (her beautiful song “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” was famously covered by Collins). Fairport also included critically respected guitarist-songwriter Richard Thompson. If you haven’t heard this band, I encourage you to check out the albums What We Did on Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, and Liege and Lief, which form the core of their catalog and earn them a spot in longitudes’ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Procol Harum: yet another English progressive rock band. What doesn’t RnRHoF like about these groups? Are they too Caucasian, or European, or musically proficient?? (I’m convinced Genesis was inducted due to their Phil Collins-era pop molasses, not Peter Gabriel’s earlier, more intriguing influence). But even critics of progressive rock are fond of Procol Harum. Their lyricist, Keith Reid, didn’t play an instrument, but wrote clever gothic poems with references to rusted sword scabbards and haunted ships. He had the perfect partners in pianist/arranger Gary Brooker and organist Matthew Fisher. This axis was ably assisted by Hendrix-styled guitarist Robin Trower and thunderous drummer B.J. Wilson. All of them gave Procol a sound like no other group, one that veered between crunching blues and soaring symphonic rock. Last year they were nominated by RnRHoF but missed induction (“Sorry boys, maybe next time”). A slap in the face to a great band that did “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” “Conquistador,” and made some very cool albums. Longitudes hereby corrects the injustice.

King Crimson: here is a British band that wrote long, complex songs with flute, violin, saxophone, and keyboards. And the keyboards included a Mellotron, a modified tape replay keyboard, no less. Oh my God, what heresy! What would Elvis say! Delta bluesman Robert Johnson is rolling in his grave (wherever his grave is located). Despite RnRHoF’s misgivings, longitudes recognizes Crimson’s importance in stretching the boundaries of rock, with their bold explorations into free jazz, classical chamber music, and dissonance. Led by erudite guitarist Robert Fripp, the only permanent member, King Crimson in the beginning included talented vocalist Greg Lake, later one-third of the supergroup, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and multi-instrumentalist and tunesmith Ian MacDonald (who later went for the bread and formed Foreigner). Pete Townshend of the Who called Crimson’s debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, “an uncanny masterpiece.” King Crimson influenced a lot of musicians, from Genesis to Rush to Nirvana. More than just a band, they were a forward-thinking musical aesthetic. But RnRHoF evidently prefers the group Heart. ‘Nuff said.