Legendary Pete Seeger, father of folk music renaissance, dies at age 94

[caption id="attachment_22572" align="alignleft" width="210"] Pete Seeger[/caption]

Carol Forsloff---He was a rebel with a cause.  His cause was human justice; and he made his declarations about it at a time when America was in the throes of anti-Communist hysteria, culminating in the McCarthy hearings.  Pete Seeger held firm to his principles, even at a time when his music was blackballed by many, maintaining the rights of the underprivileged, the culturally and racially different and the working man.

Seeger's advocacy for humanitarian issues used the vehicle of music, something that often transcended the boundaries of political and cultural differences.  Despite the controversies that had occurred about his political views, most especially in the 1950's, Seeger, the folk singer, heralded the folk music renaissance that swept the country.  Everyone was singing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and other anthems penned by Seeger, while the hippies paraded with guitars and flowers, joining in the music craze on almost every street corner in America.

Seeger died on Monday, January 27, at the age of 94.  His was a rich and event-filled life, although in the decades past the folk music era, few people remembered his was the creative force that launched the music of many.  Bob Dylan followed in Seeger's path, he too singing the famous songs about flowers and war and poverty and the common man's troubles.  But for Dylan, according to his friend and former lover Joan Baez, it was the music, not the mission, that guided his work.  For Seeger it was the mission.

News commentators on the Today Show brushed by lightly the announcement of Seeger's death, focusing instead on the weather conditions of cold and frost now sweeping much of the country and the upcoming Sochi Olympics where the skiing star, Lindsey Vonn, was interviewed about her withdrawal from the famous sporting event due to knee injuries.  She will instead be assisting other sports broadcasters in reporting the news of the games.  The death of Seeger was offered as a brief anecdote to the introduction of the news.  At another time and place, it would have been front page on every newspaper, with his famous photos holding a banjo in one hand, with his head tilted to sing.

Another time and another place far away in another era, where folk music no longer is the rage and instead, among the core of few relative to other music genres, the folk music is called roots.  And most of the time it is Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Everly Brothers, Peter, Paul and Mary and others who are associated with the folk music of the 1960's.  The parenting of Pete is submerged, as the younger heirs of his music, now aging or gone, are remembered still.

This journalist never met the man but knew many of his friends in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Seeger's music was performed in coffee shops and homes years after the rest of the country turned to rock and roll instead.  Vivian Richman, whose own music is in the Smithsonian, learned much about folk music from Seeger, a personal friend, then became one of those who helped carry the message and music of her friend.  When she died in the late 1980's, it was Seeger's large bouquet in remembrance of his friend that folks remembered at her funeral and in the years since.  For Seeger was known as a man who cared about others, not just in the crowds but in those small groups and with individuals who knew him best, as Richman often said about the man she considered a dear friend, mentor and music guide as well.

But it was Pete Seeger's call to action on injustice that he related in song that is the root of folk music, the very heart and soul of the 20th century's movement toward civil rights and to humanitarian causes.  Like Seeger, however, the call to arms in music is no longer one heard much, while issues Seeger sang about are replaced by partisan politics and the Me-First money men whose voices ring the loudest.  Yet history will remember him, even as modern musicians may not know that Seeger's music served as a model for many and will in years to come.

 

Musicians worried about copyright laws as YouTube accounts deleted

[caption id="attachment_15218" align="alignleft" width="300"] Bob Dylan and Joan Baez both writers and performers with copyrighted songs[/caption]

Carol Forsloff - The Today Show hosts recently interviewed the new YouTube video sensation, Noah Guthrie, doing what is commonly called a "cover" song of LMFAO's"Sexy and I Know It,"  with the assumption that copyright infringement is not an issue.   The problem, however, is that cover songs do violate the copyright laws much of the time and create ambiguity for many performers.

The problem of cover songs and what is copyrighted and what is not is presently creating a stir in the music industry in some circles, as more and more people with high numbers of views are receiving notices of copyright infringement.  In some cases, entire YouTube accounts of some of the more popular musicians have been deleted.  This means millions of songs by fledgling musicians and folks waiting to be discovered for their music prowess are at risk.  It further means that risk for a young musician awaiting that big chance, as occurred with Noah Guthrie's "I'm Sexy and I Know It" getting more than 2.5 million views on YouTube and ending up as a guest on the Today Show.

The publication Wired looks into the matter of copyright infringement and the subject of cover songs in its online article that refers to the issue as one that is entangled by a number of complexities and misunderstandings.   Wired relates information about the agreement made by YouTube and various music publishers that the copyright owners receive a portion of advertising revenue on accounts where cover songs are performed.  The problem is, however, that the agreement doesn't cover all publishers, only those who signed the agreement; and it is very difficult, if not impossible, for the typical musician to determine which publishers have made an agreement and which ones have not.   Some musicians believe that just because they are making no money, they are immune from copyright problems, however the law encompasses use of music that belongs to someone else regardless of whether money is earned or not.

Copyright laws do provide exceptions to the use of copyrighted material.  Certain types of educational activities or use by a journalist can be done, so long as the use is partial content or when it is clearly demonstrated that the music in its entirety is essential to the understanding of a given concept.  Still that too is iffy, as folks grapple with the complexities of copyright issues.

What about religious music?  It turns out that religious groups have no inherent protection but can purchase an agreement allowing the use of copyrighted music in the actual worship service.  It does not, however, cover any special use by groups, including choirs, as one researcher on the topic has found.

It's also risky to take advice from the miscellaneous posts about copyright,  such as one on eHow that discusses how to do cover songs legally.  Performing  cover songs during live sets, a writer maintains, is representative of Fair Use under the law.  But the law does not make that assumption and requires permission and the payment of a fee for any public performance, live or mechanical.

While musicians wrangle over music they can or cannot perform, and under what circumstances, those who write songs believe they too have a voice, which is why the copyright laws went into effect and were extended by Sonny Bono's efforts to extend the period of time when material could be covered by copyright.  Right now music performed between 1923 and 1978 will not begin to enter the copyright-free status until 2019.

This is what one attorney maintains musicians need to know about cover songs and the matter of copyrights:   lCover songs reflect the limited exclusivity provided by copyright. The original copyright owner has an exclusive right to publish or release the first sound recording of a song. After that, all other performers have the right to cut their own version of the song."   These, the attorney remarks, are called mechanical rights and "under the law, the compulsory fee is paid through the Copyright Office to the copyright owners of the composition. Presently, the rates are the higher of 9.1 cents per song or 1.75 cents per minute of playing time.

Adam Rafferty is a man with a mission on music, as a performer and someone who has examined for himself some of the problems encountered by musicians in relationship to copyright laws.   He wails about his own situation, where he has done cover songs himself and worries about the future of these videos.  He points to the problems that have occurred with many people on YouTube, as the enforcement of copyright laws continues to heighten, as they have had to delete popular accounts.    His advice:  open up a non-infringing account to protect original work and copyright-free material if the account is at risk because of cover songs.  His underlying statement, however, is for the musician to perform his/her own material, therefore avoiding copyright problems in the first place. Added to this is a vast database of copyright-free material written before 1923, which is the date used by the copyright laws as the cutoff for writers and producers to make claims.

The many lives and traditions of Bob Dylan who remains forever young

[caption id="attachment_15218" align="alignleft" width="300"] Bob Dylan and Joan Baez[/caption]

When some folks think of Bob Dylan, they think of protest music, of Joan Baez,  and his early romances; but his is the music that will endure, like Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and even Stephen Foster.  That's because he wrote of the human experience, both good and bad, and in ways that will endure.  That includes one of his most beautiful songs, "Forever Young."

Dylan was known as a songwriter as well as a performer.  His songs were performed by many folk musicians of the day, often publicly, as these were the days before the copyright issues came into prominence.  He appeared at a time when music infused the social conscience of the nation, when singers presented music with a multitude of verses in the story form of old.  Dylan was that type of writer and that type of entertainer.

When Dylan crossed over into the world of the electrified instruments, the folk music world was shaken.  When he moved into the born-again world of Christians, folks wondered what had happened to the long-haired protestor and vagabond king.  When Joan Baez sang of her great love, in somewhat hidden ways, in words of her own creation, those who had followed both of these great musicians knew she wrote and sang of Bob Dylan.  She too remains active in both live concerts and recording, at age 71 just a few months older than her old friend Dylan.

I heard him sing on a sunny day in Hawaii.  He and I are of the same age, both of us born in 1941,  the same kind of folks who move through life and all its changes.  He is now an old man too, but his life will continue on with its great music in ways many of us will long remember.  Perhaps he will become part of the greatest of our musicians in the mind of others, as Woody Guthrie's music has passed through decades and continues to be "This Land is My Land" in its message to the people he wrote for and about.

Dylan continues to write and record music,  although he as he is moved from boy wonder to a music sage, he has lost much of his audience as time has moved along.    He continues to stay on the circuit, and as one concert site declares:  "The Never Ending Tour is the popular name for Bob Dylan's endless touring schedule since June 7, 1988."

For those of us who remember, and those who discover him now, Dylan is, and will always be, as he wrote himself, "Forever Young."  The song is done here by this old folksinger,  just as it was done by others, in its entirety because the message must remain whole,  as a journalistic presentation, to honor the man and his music.  The whole of the message asks us again to remember our youth and the hopes we had for every tomorrow  and to remind people that Dylan is a national treasure for what he has brought to us with his music and what will likely become part of his legend long after he has gone.

The times they are a-changin remembered on 9/11

Carol Forsloff -It was a different time, but a time that keeps going, those days when people worried about what might happen next, as Dylan's anthem described a turbulent period, just as music has done during events like war and targeted attacks.  

 


"The Times They Are A-Changin' "shared a message, through words and music assembled in Bob Dylan's presentation of America in protest and war.  It was used as a theme for "The Watchmen" trailer and is sometimes played during overviews of protest in America.  But the message is forgotten at the same time, because it is a summary of something that is within man's history, endogenous within it, of a condition that never seems to end.

It was the 1960's.  Dylan was the folk song hero of masses of young people, with his dark scowl, lanky frame and sombre clothing.  Jeans had not yet become fashion for the every folk,  so Dylan's attire spoke of defiance of traditions.  His image and his song spoke of changing ways, changing attitudes and a brave new world ahead.

The unexpected in the 1960's had come in torrents that kept folks wondering always about tomorrow.  Tomorrow would come and bring some other event that would bring media response that the country had been changed in some significant way.  But the country kept marching on past the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, integration and the violence that came with it, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the Vietnamese War, the Watergate break-in during the Nixon Presidency and the resulting impeachment proceedings and more. 

Again, as commentators tell us, the times they are a-changin.'  They point to 9/11 as having changed the country.    They tell it was a watershed event that brought disbelief, shock and awe, bringing us out of complacency and a simpler time.  The song by Dylan faded in the dust and flames of burning buildings as people watched the World Trade Towers bend and break, explode and fall. 

Dylan's song speaks of the times they are a changin' but its message remains a narrative of man's condition of change and survival through and past them.  It's message is remembered on 9/11, a  day of remembrance and reflection.