The Ash Grove presents: We Shall Overcome: Singing out for Justice

Reply-To: "Ed Pearl" <epearlag@earthlink.net>
From: "Ed Pearl" <epearlag@earthlink.net>
Subject: Profiles, for the Highlander event Oct 23
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 03:57:38 -0700
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Guy & Candie Carawan, Southern California natives, met at the Highlander
Center in Tennessee in 1960 -- each drawn by the Civil Rights Movement. For
more than 40 years they worked as cultural activists and educators
supporting the important work of the school by encouraging and nurturing
regional artists as participants in social change. Throughout the four
decades, Guy also continued to perform and record music himself, locally,
nationally and internationally, building his repertoire largely
around experiences in the southern United States.

In the 1950s Guy was instrumental in the formation of the historic Ash Grove
and performed there opening night and many times over the years, often
bringing traditional musicians from the South with him.

***

Bettie Mae Fikes from Selma, Alabama, is known as one of the great voices of
the Civil Rights Movement. She has performed often with the SNCC Freedom
Singers and as a soloist. Being the descendant from a long line of country
gospel singers and preachers, she brings the power and inspiration of the
times that changed this country.

Living for many years in Los Angeles, she is also in demand nationally and
internationally as a blues artist. She brings the same power, passion and
artistry to the blues as to her freedom repertoire. Her musical goal is to
help people in struggle.

***

Rev. James Lawson is the architect of Nonviolent resistance in America. In
the late 1950s and early 1960s he trained the shock troops of the Civil
Rights Movement in Nonviolent philosophy and strategy and continues to be an
eloquent spokesman and teacher for this powerful method of challenge and
change. During his years in the South, he was an important source of
inspiration and support to Highlander, as well as to the Carawans
personally.

*Reverend Lawson may not be able to attend, due to a previous commitment.
He will be represented by his son Morris, if his schedule cannot change..

***

" Bernie Pearl is one of the great Ambassadors of Blues Music and history."

As producer and artist, every note that arises from Bernie's careful hands
is filled with the mystique, energy, and soulfulness of the blues. His
appearance at the 2009 T-Bone Walker Blues Festival at Music City Texas
Theater in T-Bone's hometown of Linden, Texas, was a highlight of the event.

In addition to being a superb craftsman and inspired guitarist, Bernie Pearl
is also a living touchstone to Blues roots and traditions. He has known and
played with more legendary blues artists than perhaps anyone standing today.
He knows the music, he knows the people deeply, and he knows the entire
world of Blues from its inception to what's happening right this minute.
Through his radio shows, his appearances with his band or solo, and
producing, Bernie Pearl is one of the great Ambassadors of Blues Music and
history."

Russ Wright, Producer

***

The Get Lit Players, teenage wizards with poetry from the sonnets of
Shakespeare to hip-hop are best described by Jimmy Santiago Baca, winner of
the Pushcart Prize, American Book Award, and International Prize for Poetry:

"The Get Lit Players are altering the lives of thousands of young people.
They are tackling the darkness of illiteracy and lighting the way for our
youth."

***

Len Chandler, one of the brightest lights in American topical songwriting,
was among the elite group of writers Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton,
Malvina Reynolds and Len Chandler who developed protest songs against the
war in Vietnam and for the Civil Rights Movement, of which Len was a major
part.

He went to Mississippi in the early 60's and participated in the voting
rights campaigns organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC). He wrote the music for one of Bob Dylan's most powerful early
protest songs, "The Ballad of Emmett Till," about the young Negro teenager
whose murder in 1955 helped spark the civil rights movement that began later
that year when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in
Montgomery, Alabama.

Chandler is a treasured living connection to one of the most important
chapters in modern American history, and speaks and sings with the authority
of someone who was there when it counted-the troubadour of the March from
Selma to Montgomery-the man who set the civil rights movement to music.

--Ross Altman, Ph.D.
FolkWorks Magazine

***

Ross Altman traded his professorship for a life as a political folk singer
and music historian of left movements decades ago. With a PhD in English
Literature, he has written songs on virtually all political topics and, for
the past 25 years, has performed more than 300 gigs a year. Altman has
shared the stage with Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Guy and Candie Carawan, and
Len Chandler. But more than that, he has sung with the very people who
created the music he sings: the disadvantaged and disenfranchised- for the
homeless and homebound, human rights groups and animal rights groups, peace
groups and environmental groups, labor unions and outreach programs, and at
folk festivals and fringe festivals. If there's been a cause that needed a
song, Ross has been on the spot with lyric and tune. Specializing in songs
that comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable, this
"singer-songfighter's" songs always have something to say. Ross is a
recording artist for his own label, Grey Goose Music, columnist for
FolkWorks, president of The Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club, member
of musician's union Local 47 (AFL-CIO), and the Topanga Banjo-Fiddle
Contest's
2010 Music Legend Award Winner.

Hi. The Ash Grove is proud and honored to have been asked by
the Highlander Center and Guy & Candie Carawan to co-produce
this momentous event. The attached 'Profiles' are stunning, providing
a living history of what it took to build this movement and a top-level
range of artistic accomplishment. Don't miss it.

As an aside, sort of, I see that Buddy Collette has died. He was
one of the Ash Grove's earliest performers, bringing many of the
greats of jazz along, into the club. Chico Hamilton, Gerald Wilson,
Billie Higgins, Eric Dolphe and many others played regular Sunday
afternoons, then Monday nights, when 'the guys' were free. He was
a dear friend, a sweet man, and is interviewed in the ongoing AG film
project. The LA Times obit portrays Buddie as the first black musician
in Groucho Marx's eponomous TV show. True enough, but that made
him the first Black musician, ever, playing regularly on television. A
notable omission. His art, humanistic politics and work on civil rights
put him into the pantheon. Presente!
-Ed

Ash Grove 2010 PRESS RELEASE and emailout.
"Contact for more info: 310-391-5794

We Shall Overcome: Singing out for Justice:

A Concert of Celebration and Support for The Highlander Research and
Education Center, Honoring Guy Carawan, a founding member of the We Shall
Overcome Fund, for his 50-plus years of tireless service as a cultural
worker with the Highlander Center.

Presented by Ash Grove Music and The Highlander Center,
and with the leadership and support of Highlander alum Rev. James M.
Lawson, friend and co-worker of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and pastor
Emeritus of Holman Methodist Church.

The Higlander Center since 1932 has tirelessly striven to bring about
justice and equality, through such programs as leadership training,
community & labor organizing, and cultural expression, among many others.

The Highlander Center is where Rosa Parks studied non-violent civil
disobedience just weeks before she took her fateful bus-ride; where Martin
Luther King, Jr., James M. Lawson and thousands of other vital movement
organizers trained, learned, and worked for social justice and equality, and
to that goal Highlander Center continues its work today!

COME CELEBRATE AND SUPPORT THE HIGHLANDER CENTER

WHEN: Saturday, October 23, 2010, 2:30 - 4:30 PM

WHERE: The Home and Garden of Jan Goodman & Jerry Manpearl
939 San Vicente Blvd., Santa Monica. (NW crnr. of Larkin)

FEATURING: Guy and Candie Carawan, Len Chandler, The Get Lit Players,
Bernie Pearl, Betty Mae Fikes of the Freedom Singers, Ross Altman, and
Special Surprise Guests!

In 1961 Guy Carawan, Music Director of the Highlander Center, helped
arrange and spread a gospel and union song into 'We Shall Overcome," which
became the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, and was first sung at
meetings, churches and rallies in the deep South, and now all around the
globe - by people working towards social justice.

The 'We Shall Overcome Fund' receives residual income generated by use
of the song, and is used to fund Black cultural institutions in the southern
states.

The song, its singing - and its meaning - continue to inspire work
towards social justice, as does the historic and unceasingly vibrant
Highlander Center, to which all proceeds from this event go.

General tickets are available for $35, with larger donations
encouraged, to purchase tickets and or make a donation visit:
www.highlandercenter.org or by calling 865-933-3443

Visit the Ash Grove website: www.ashgrovemusic.com

See trailers of the in progress www.ashgrovefilm.com