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First of all, let me just say that I have idea why I started thinking about the topic of this post today. None. It’s just something that I occasionally think about. So, I thought I’d share it.
Here goes:
Just when I thought all was lost,
You changed my mind.
You gave me hope,
Not just the old soft-soap.
You showed how we could learn to share in time.
(You and me and Rockefeller)
I’ll keep plugging on.
You’re face will shine through all our tears.
And when we sing another little victory song,
Precious friend, you will be there!
(Sing it in harmony!)
Precious friend, you will be there!
I was about eight or nine years old when I first saw him on stage one Saturday morning in the dead of summer. My mother had bought my brothers and I tickets to attend a series of six afternoon shows at the Woodrow Wilson Junior High School auditorium in Middletown, CT.
I think the shows usually started around ten a.m. and were over with by noon.
Mom would drop us off in front of the school around 9:45 and then pick us up about an hour after the show was over - some time around 1 p.m. (Mom was never punctual, and she didn’t care that she was ALWAYS an hour or more late. We were always the last ones waiting on the school steps when even the policeman had given up and gone home.)
I don’t remember much about most of the shows. One was about a guy in tights named Prince Friendy. Another was about Thomas Alva Edison in which the main character carried a light bulb around with him as sang "I’m Thomas Alva Edison" for pretty much the whole show…get the picture?
But one show was different. It was a concert. A one-man concert.
My mother had second thoughts about letting us see this show because the performer was said to be a Communist, (Remember, this was during the height of The Cold War.) and she was afraid that he would try to brainwash us. In the end, however, she decided to let us go.
When we got inside the auditorium and found our seats, I remember thinking something like, "Wow! An actual Communist is somewhere in this building right now!" I looked around the hall and, sure enough, in the back of theater by the doors, were TWO uniformed policemen! Usually there was only one! They must have doubled the security in case the performer began doing something subversive and needed to be escorted off the stage and down to the local jailhouse!
Then, the lights in the place dimmed, and the entertainer entered the stage. He was carrying a banjo as he walked over to the stool and microphone that were planted center stage.
He began to play, and suddenly, all thoughts of subversion and politics and evil left my mind. His fingers flew over the face of that banjo, and I was completely and instantly mesmerized by his talent.
When the first song was done, he sat down on the stool and began talking to the audience. He had a kindly face and melodic voice even when he was just speaking. I remember thinking that his voice had a friendly and rich quality to it. He was an exquisite story-teller who wove tales of magic and wonder that made the audience grow silent with anticipation and then laugh with pleasure.
He taught us the words to all of the choruses of all the songs that he sang, and then he encouraged us to sing along at the appropriate times.
Mostly, he played songs that I had never heard before, (nor have I ever heard again),but he made such an impression on me that I remember the chorus to one of those obscure ditties. It goes like this:
Way down yonder in the yankety-yank
A bullfrog jumped from bank to bank
Just because he had nothing better to do!
He stubbed his toe and fell in the water.
You could hear him holler for a mile and a quarter
Just because he had nothing better to do!
He sang a few songs at the end of the concert that I knew. One was Where Have All The Flowers Gone. I knew that song because my parents had a recording of it by The Kingston Trio. (I had no idea at the time that this guy on stage actually wrote it.)
He ended the concert by singing us a song that he said was written by a friend of his. The song was This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie.
I knew that song too. And I was surprised that a Communist would sing such a patriotic, American song.
***
About twenty years later, I went to another concert where the same "Communist" was performing on stage with Arlo Guthrie (the son of Woody.) The Communist was an old man now, and I, of course, was older too. At that time, I knew that the performer wasn’t a communist, but a courageous champion of civil rights who traveled around the world, putting his life in danger singing his songs about Truth in lands where The Truth was not welcomed.
He had brought music and hope and love to millions around the world, and I proudly counted myself among his legions of fans.
He and Arlo played for hours, regaling the audience with stories about Woody, and singing a slew of Woody’s songs.
They ended the night by playing Where Have All The Flower Gone and This Land Is Your Land.
About five years after that, I was at a old-time music festival which I attended annually back then in Altamont, New York. The festival was called The Old Songs Music Festival. It was a three-day event that was held on a sprawling fairgrounds. There was one main stage and perhaps ten smaller stages scattered about that were loaded with dulcimer players, banjo players, guitar players, people performing cultural dances, penny whistle players, fiddlers and cloggers. There were also two large dance halls where you could go to learn about clogging or to contra-dance.
There wasn’t an electric instrument in sight.
(I used to bring my dulcimer to that festival and play just for the fun of it along with other festival-goers. We’d all get together at night before turning in to our tents for the evening. It was ALWAYS fun.)
One afternoon, I was sitting in the shade towards the back of the audience listening to music from a string band on the main stage. I happened to look around at one point, and I saw an elderly gentleman sitting on the ground about twenty feet away from me. His back was resting against a tree, and his banjo was laying at his side. He was listening to the music with his head back and his foot tapping to the beat.
My heart leapt as I recognized him instantly. And he must have somehow sensed some cosmic electricity because, as I looked at him, he happened just at that same moment to look over and see me. He smiled, nodded and tipped his cap to me. I smiled and nodded back.
That was the extent of the encounter.
We shared something for just one split second in time, and how appropriate that what we shared was musical!
The Communist, I thought to myself.
My existence had just been acknowledged by the great Pete Seeger!
