New Info
by Jeff Ritter, ed. Broadside Revived
At an informal gathering the other day the name of Phil Ochs came up and a former SDS organizer described a great story of his first encounter with both Phil Ochs and illegal drugs in the same sentence! After that we began trying to imagine who the great politically conscious songwriters are of today. I mentioned rap and hip-hop as being on the forefront of political consciousness even though I haven’t listened to it seriously since the days of Grandmaster Flash. But as I have read, hip-hop does reflect on alienation in our society as well as any music ever has. One quite musically astute observer stated that no one put beautiful melodies together with poignant and powerful lyrics as well as Phil Ochs. I kept my mouth shut about Dylan at that point not wanting to defend his voice versus Phil’s. But the conversation became diluted after that and we never got to the crux of the issue: who are the great politically active and conscious songwriters of today? Are they in hiding? On vacation? Hiatus? Or mainstream into the sagging music industry going down with the ship? Go to the Broadside Forum and nominate your favorite, yourself or the most obscure local musician who is trotted out for every rally, potluck and benefit: we don’t know about them, but we’d like to.
Tags: general info