Joe's Pub plays host on Saturday, March 1st, 2003 to a unique event celebrating the protest-song tradition through performances of repertoire drawn from the definitive sourcebook, The Vietnam Songbook. The evening will feature musical performances by artists who've experienced the '60's anti-War movement including legendary protest singer/blues singer Barbara Dane, and Tuli Kupferberg (Fugs), activist singer/songwriter Bev Grant, along with noted Vietnam Vet/musicians Watermelon Slim, Joe Bangert and younger musicians such as Thurston Moore, Jenni Muldaur, Barry Reynolds, Jim O'Rourke, Stephan Smith, Dean Wareham. David Licht, Lenny Kaye and Curtis Eller. They will all be rendering material drawn from The Vietnam Songbook and other examples of anti-war songs from that time. The performers involved are keenly aware and intend to highlight parallels between being "waist deep in the big muddy" (to quote a Pete Seeger song) of the war in Vietnam and the current beating of war drums. "Revolution is a continuous and dynamic process if it exists at all" said Bill Homans, aka Watermelon Slim, Vietnam Vet whose anti-war songs from 1973 will be featured at the show.
The Vietnam Songbook was compiled and originally published in 1969 (it's currently sadly out of print) by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber. It was an incredible, comprehensive collection of more than 100 protest songs concerning the Vietnam War featuring songs that'd been written or performed by important artists such as Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Nina Simone, Ewan MaColl, Tuli Kupferberg, Barbara Dane, Richard Farina, Joe McDonald, Matt Jones, Tom Paxton, Thom Parrott, Peggy Seeger, as well as by American Vietnam Veterans, Vietnamese citizens and many others from around the world voicing vehement opposition to this War.
The musical program "Songs of Protest: The Vietnam Songbook" is being organized and produced by NYC musician/producer/promoters Don Fleming and Kim Rancourt. The event will remind the American public of the power of song to express dissent against particular national and international government policy and outrage over wartime atrocities and injustice. This presentation is also intended as a call to contemporary musical performers to take an active role in this important tradition. As part of the documentation of the show, Fleming and Rancourt are recording oral histories from Dane and several other performers and Vietnam veterans. These recordings are being done with the support of the Alan Lomax Archive will become part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution to which Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber already had donated the catalogue of their record label, Paredon, and related archives in 1991.
"As far as I am concerned, the reason for doing this is directly tied to the imminent threat of a brand new war which promises to be far more devastating even than Vietnam" said Ms. Dane. "We need to seize this moment to call attention to the madness of American aggression anywhere on the globe. We owe it to some 2-4 million Southeast Asians and 60,000 Americans who died in the Vietnam War. We also need to make the country aware of the few million guys, now in their 50s, whose lives were wrecked by the war. Look under any bridge or in any lighted doorway at night, near the steam vents in winter and the parks in summer, and you will find them."
Showtimes at 7:00 and 9:30
Tickets Available at the Box Office,
Joe's Pub at The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street (at Astor Place)
New York, New York