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Harvard University Department of M usic MUSICnewsletter Vol. 19, No. 1 Winter 2019 Fifty Years of Protest: Peter Coyote on Activism, Counterculture and the 60s Harvard University The sounds of speech, preaching, marches, confrontation, music, Department of Music and song reverberated through the iconic year of 1968. On its 50th an- 3 Oxford Street niversary, three powerful voices come together for a discussion of acting, Cambridge, MA 02138 speaking, and singing out: film star Peter Coyote, founding member of 617-495-2791 the Diggers and director of the guerrilla theater San Francisco Mime Troupe; Rev. Stephen A. Green, one of the nation’s youngest leading music.fas.harvard.edu human and civil rights activists, and Andrea Bohlman (PhD ’13), a musicologist whose research centers on the political stakes of music mak- ing in the 20th and 21st centuries. Coyote also visited Prof. Kate van INSIDE Orden’s “California in the 60s” class. 3 Faculty News olitical protest now competes with “Minstrel Show,” where the players performed “Pnews, gossip, and blogs; it has no in blackface. 3 Yvette Janine Jackson Appointed more impact than a flash mob. Social media has “The Minstrel Show was an assault on 4 Harvard Center Shanghai robbed the theater of protest of its power.” embedded racism. Because minstrelsy was so Peter Coyote—actor, activist, Buddhist racist, we co-opted it. The performance started 5 Alumni News priest, and co-founder of the San Francisco Mime as a regular minstrel show, then, a few minutes 7 Upcoming Events Troupe and the San Francisco Diggers—spoke in, the minstrels took over the show and did 7 Richard Smallwood & Gospel to faculty, students, and the public as part of a black history through the lens of Malcom X. It “Sounds of Protest” panel, convened as part of was the most dangerous show I’ve been in. It was 8 Graduate Student News “Culture of Protest,” a year-long project focused on the best instrument for the time.” 9 Music & Earthquakes looking at protest through time and across genres The Mime Troupe, Coyote recounts, were and borders. the darlings of San Francisco; the press loved 10 Library News “Protest has become more shrill,” Coyote them. 11 Undergraduate News said. “Current protests are bad theater.” “It became too easy. We wanted to do Coyote contextualized current movements 11 Interview: Caroline Murphy more. We wanted to imagine a world we actu- within the history of 1960s activism. Some, such as ally wanted to live in and make it real.” 12 HRCM on GBH “Me Too,” “Black Lives Matter,” or “#never again” The Diggers grew out of the Mime are great, Coyote believes, but he warned the audi- Troupe. They organized free concerts and art ence to steer clear of the mistakes made by earlier exhibits, provided free medical care, rides, and activist campaigns. temporary housing to the thousands of runaways “Part of the failure of the counterculture of the 60s was that it had a blind side. By hewing to counterculture in dress, acts, sex, and drugs, we marginalized ourselves. There were lots of people we could have had common cause with, but they didn’t want to live like we did. If we insist on cling- ing to one style, say, liberal/black/gay, we’ll margin- Department Chair alize ourselves. A fixed definition will always fail Suzannah Clark us.” Director of Administration During van Orden’s class, Coyote took ques- Nancy Shafman tions from students who were curious about his Newsletter Editor work the Mime Troupe, especially the controversial Lesley Bannatyne [email protected] continued Coyote, continued from p. 1 Got To Get Down To It: David Crosby The legendary folk-rock musician David Crosby, who at 77 has produced four albums in the last four years including Sky Trails (2017), spent time talking with students and audiences during a three- day visit to Harvard as a Blodgett Distin- guished Artist. Based on conversations between students and faculty, there’s a lot we now Photo: Diggers Archives. Diggers Photo: know. and tourists who flooded into the Haight-Ash- His influences, for one. For ar- bury neighborhood of San Francisco in the late ranging? Randy Newman, Dylan, James 1960s. Taylor, Paul McCartney. Acoustic guitar? “We had two rules: we’d be anonymous, Michael Hedges. Tunings? Bill Evans. His and we’d live without money.” choice for two best singers in the world? The group operated a massive soup kitch- Stevie Wonder and Mike Macdonald. Fa- en that fed 600 people a day for free; the food vorite Beatle? George. Early influences? scrounged or begged from local merchants. The classical music his parents listened David Crosby talks with students about songwriting, “Our only requirement was that they to—and the Weavers, Odetta, Josh White, activism, and CSNY. step through a 6x6-foot ‘Free Frame of Refer- Kingston Trio, Everly Brothers. Regret? it is. You reveal stuff to yourself all the time.” Does your activism ever get in the way The single most important issue, Coyote He would have loved to perform with Weather Report. Best living singer/song- of your music? says, “is to get full federal funding for writer in the world? Joni. “Our job as musicians is not to inform elections so that there is no need for lob- Crosby keeps five guitars tuned dif- you. It’s to take you on little emotional voy- byists to try to influence votes.” ferently and goes from tuning to tuning ages. Neil’s [Young] not a great singer, but he each night after dinner, writing music. takes you along with him. Music itself is a ence’ and bring a bowl and spoon. We had a free These days he plays with his Lighthouse lifting force, makes things better. And today, store, too, with bikes, radios, clothes. The idea Band, made up of new collaborators: the now, we’re in trouble. All the more reason to was, we’ll give you the stuff—now what do you guitarist of Snarky Puppy, Michael League, use the most powerful tools and ideas and if want to do with your life?” and singer-songwriters Becca Stevens and you can do it in a song, go do it, we need it. Coyote is proud of the mixed legacy of Michelle Willis. We need a fight song, need an ‘Ohio,’ a ‘We the counterculture. “They’re what I wish I was,” he says. Shall Overcome.’” “We lost battles—we didn’t end racism or “I started out writing by myself, and at What makes a song good? neoliberalism. The counterculture helped elect first I didn’t write anything down. There “Really good words. It makes you feel Nixon. But we won the culture battle. We now are no copies of ‘Wooden Ships,’ ‘Guen- something, it whispers in your ear. You don’t have alternative medicine, spirituality, organic eviere,’ ‘Almost Cut My Hair.’ Now I write want to be digging weeds, you want to be a food.” with other people, because other people surgeon.” His advice for the younger generation of have ideas you don’t. But I’m spoiled. I’ve What do you do for writer’s block? activists coming up: look back at civil rights. had great collaborators.” “Writers’ block is sometimes laziness. “African Americans never raised their He did have advice for some of Har- Or sometimes it’s complaining because God voices; they sang, they controlled the theater of vard’s singer-songwriters. didn’t drop a song in your lap and you have events.” “You need to put in the hours to get to work harder. It might be a made-up thing.” Also: “Protest is theater. The more you good. You don’t have to go to school but Will CSNY get back together? work non-verbally the less chance you’ll be co- it’s better if you do. I wish I did. I never “At the latter stages of someone’s career opted by the opposition. Don’t indulge anger. learned to write music. It’s important to people do a lot of dumb things. They do a Get strategic and channel your anger into a long know how. You can write something down Christmas album. I haven’t made a Christmas chess game to win back power. There is a big, and a guy sitting on the banks of the Nile album. They do a reunion tour; they need the broad mass of people with us, so we can’t mar- can play it. That’s magic.” money. When you’re first together you have ginalize ourselves. How it plays in the Midwest What inspires you? asks a student. a crush on each other, but 40 years later, it’s and on the farms is important.” “I wish I knew what inspiration was turn up the smoke machine and play your – I could say look, under that rock, there hits. But yes, I’d probably do it. It’s all down to Neil; it’s his call. He’s the biggest star.” 2 Faculty News Lecture at the University of Southampton, and Yvette Janine Jackson Appointed to Music Department Faculty spoke at the SMT meeting in San Antonio. Re- creative practice and research while in- hding’s article “Consonance and Dissonance” ap- vestigating how darkness, spatial audio, peared in the Oxford Music Handbooks Online and interactivity affect the audience’s series, and “Der Klang als historische Dimension engagement with narrative in electro- der Musiktheorie” in Klang als Geschichtsmedium. acoustic music listening experiences. Rehding finished his term as chair of the SMT Her radio opera Invisible People (2013), publication awards committee.

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