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The Complete Unknowns
Martin Luther King Jr., Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte Joan Baez was a junior at Palo Alto High School when she first heard Martin Luther King, Jr. speak at a conference for young Quakers. She would go...
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“We’re Not Going Back”
Now that it’s September and the clouds here in San Francisco have cleared, I have some news to share: A new publication – the slim volume pictured above is on a new press – and it was made not only in...
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For MLK Day: Len Chandler’s Shadow Dream – in memory of a singer, a movement...
Len Chandler was a protest singer, movement worker and unsung hero from the Civil Rights Era, a frontline campaigner in the fight for voting rights, racial and economic justice and against wars of...
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Rest In Power, Len Chandler: Shadow Dream Chaser of Rainbows Died on August...
As anyone with their eyes on the prize knows, the 60th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was on August 28, 2023. Among those assembled to help Dr. King push forward...
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Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott-Heron and the road to MLK Day
Today would have been the 94th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a long road to the third Monday of the month when all 50 states will observe a...
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Which side are you on, boys?
The stats are in: 66 songs, 110 writers, four songs performed by women and seven written by them. The woman pictured between Little Richard and Eddie Cochran is Alis Lesley, an obscure pioneer of rock...
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Bloody Sunday: Freedom Highway Revisited
Five songs into their set at Chicago’s New Nazareth Church, the Staple Singers get down to the real, and the reason, they called their gospel meeting on April 9, 1965. “A few days ago freedom marchers...
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San Francisco Names Eighth Poet Laureate: Tongo Eisen-Martin
“My poems are a product of a complete life of resistance,” said Tongo Eisen-Martin when I interviewed him for the San Francisco Examiner in 2018. On Friday, the San Francisco-born movement worker,...
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Freedom Singer Len Chandler and the March on Washington
Today marks the 57th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Among those assembled to help Dr. King push forward his dream of racial harmony and economic justice was Len...
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The Last Holiday: On Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott-Heron and the Dream of an MLK...
Today is the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929. It was a long road to the third Monday in January when all 50 states will observe a federal holiday named...
View ArticleStew and Heidi return with two new albums: Notes Of A Native Song and The...
The year’s end brought not one but two new albums of material by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, known professionally as The Negro Problem. Stew’s the wordman and Rodewald is the melodicist, arranger and...
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Remembering 4 Little Girls + 2 Songs
It was 55 years years ago that the four Birmingham, Alabama girls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, lost their lives during the bombing of the Sixteenth Street...
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Len Chandler: He, too, sang at the March on Washington
photo of Len Chandler at Newport Folk Festival, 1964, by John Rudoff Today marks the 55th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Among those assembled to help Dr. King...
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The Last Holiday: On Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott-Heron and the MLK Observance...
It was a long road to the third Monday in January when all 50 states observe the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the day named in his honor. Largely owed for making the dream of a King holiday a...
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“George Jackson” and Bob Dylan
Against a backdrop of escalating war in Vietnam and social and political mayhem to accompany it at home, by the late ’60s and early ’70s, the conditions were perfect for hard-hitting topical rock and...
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Don’t Call It A Comeback: Frisco 5 Still Hungry
Five days after ending their hunger strike, on Thursday morning the Frisco 5 minus Maria Cristina Gutierrez, returned to the Mission Police Station at the corner of Valencia and 17th Streets in San...
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The King of Love
“Somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to...
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The Last Holiday: Remembering Dr. MLK, Jr.
It was a long road to the third Monday in January when all 50 states observe the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the day named in his honor. Largely owed for making the dream of a King holiday...
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National Poetry Month, Jazz Appreciation Month, and Record Store Day: Go Get...
April is National Poetry Month, Jazz Appreciation Month, and the consumer holiday known as Record Store Day (RSD) is April 18. Gil Scott-Heron is a timeless poet and performer who published poems and...
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The Staple Singers: The Long March on Freedom’s Highway
In April of 1965, just weeks after the historic marches for voting rights across Alabama, the Staple Singers convened at a South Side Chicago church for a service dedicated to the marchers. The...
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