Update 9/28, 3:40 pm ET
The role of music in challenging authoritarians has been on vivid display at the ICE detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, this weekend. On Friday, Joselyn Walsh, a technology worker by day, was singing “we’re going to kick out ICE” with an ensemble of protestors at the site in the western suburbs of Chicago.
The video above was posted on Facebook by fellow protestor Curtis Evans, a Marine veteran whose face you likely know from the widely-published Chicago Tribune photo of him carrying a flag through clouds of tear gas at the same location.
On Saturday, Walsh’s guitar was shattered by a projectile fired by ICE agents during the intensifying crackdown on demonstrations at the facility.
Kind of reminds me of Woody Guthrie’s guitar aimed at fascists during World War II!
Original post
Back in April I was thrilled to learn that my dear musical friend Dar Williams had signed on with Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe record label. I’ve been a fan of both of these heart-swelling, community-building bards for decades.
Way back in 1998, I got to write about DiFranco’s efforts to build her music business in ways that also helped rebuild her Buffalo hometown (gift link). Ever since, she has found ways to avoid the corporatism that was - and still is - pervading the music industry.
I became friends with Dar after we both settled in the same town in the Hudson River Valley and crossed paths over and over, both through music-making and the issues we both care about and have worked on in our separate ways - environmental conservation, equal opportunity and justice. I was thrilled to be able to open for her and back her up at a climate event and concert at Ursinus College back in February 2008. (I’m pretty sure we were singing John Prine’s “Paradise” when this photo was taken.)
On the Hummingbird Highway
On September 28, I hosted Dar in a Sunday Sanity song session and conversation celebrating the release of “Hummingbird Highway,” her first Righteous Babe record.
You can also watch and share the webcast on Facebook, LinkedIn, X (no link before showtime) or YouTube:
The album is rich and energizing - the perfect tonic for these times. You can listen via this playlist on YouTube.
Williams has been a guest on Sustain What many times, including with Beth Nielsen Chapman discussing change-making tunes like “Put a Woman in Charge.” Chapman has participated in some of Williams’s songwriting workshops centered on themes in her book How to Write a Song that Matters.
Here was that show:
"Put a Woman in Charge" - a Look at Music's Role Pushing for Progress
Updated post-broadcast - Through much of the pandemic, I ran “Sunday Sanity” shows on Sustain What convening musicians and poets ranging from The Nields to Chuck Leavell (the Rolling Stones keyboardist), from the accordion-playing climatologist Ray Pierrehumbert
I also love Williams’ 2021 release on the upside of incrementalism - on doing something “Today and Every Day” to build a better neighborhood, nation and planet:
Here’s a great line I’ve noted before:
Some say the smallest things don’t count
Then say the big things don’t amount
To any answers either Man there is no break or breather
There’s no time for this smart frustration
I say everyone, everyone’s a power station
And here’s a fun video call to action Williams and I shot back in September 2021:
It feels like a good time to revive that hashtag #todayandeveryday.
Substacker Edgar Allen Poubhkeepsie posted a note of love for this Dar song - The Beauty of the Rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZe16i2RLs0