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Above: Jack Warshaw

Review: Petersfield Write Angle, September

Jack Warshaw, protest singer/guitarist and guest of Write Angle

The room was full, the audience enthusiastic.

The mood was quickly set as Jack Warshaw, highly versatile and talented guitarist/singer/writer, in checkered shirt, waist coat and ‘working cap’, went from instrument to instrument - American Steel string guitar, fretless and five-string banjos, 12-string guitar and Appalachian auto-harp, and song to song - the theme clearly anti-establishment.
Jack was exiled from the US for his political protests against involvement in the Vietnam war. He told of when he and his son saw the black stones in Washington, with names of the young men killed, his son cried.
Jack, inspired, after meeting a friend of that time, wrote the song, ‘Long Time Gone’: “It’s good to see we both came through the war. Sometimes we shed a tear for those we don’t see any more”.

He’s a true fan of Woodie Guthrie, “Unlike Pete Seeger, he wasn’t the best mate. He drank, smoke and womanised - had lots of kids all over the place but he spoke words that inspired me”; “I hate the song that makes you think you’re not any good… I’m out to fight those kinds of songs with my very last breath”.
Jack covered a lot of ground with his songs - of migrant workers - played on an old banjo, taken from the African banjar - “It has an archaic sound”. He got it from Tom Paley, member of the NYC Ramblers.
He told of John and Alan Lomax - scholars and collectors of songs, who discovered talents including ‘Dink’s Song’ (1904), ‘Fare Thee Well’, a Negro variant of ‘Careless Love’.

Lomax discovered the song on a field trip for Harvard: “I found Dink scrubbing her man’s clothes in the shade of their tent across the Brazos river… in Texas. I was invited to come along and bring my Edison recording machine. The Negroes were trained levee workers from the Mississippi River.

“Dink knew all the songs, but I didn’t find her helpful until I walked a mile to a farm commissary and bought her a pint of gin. As she drank the gin, the sounds from her scrubbing board increased in intensity and in volume. She worked as she talked: ‘That little boy there ain’t got no daddy an’ he ain’t got no name. I comes from Mississippi and we never saw these levee niggers, till us got here’” and ‘If I had wings’, about the poor living along the Mississippi.

Current songs followed, including ‘Junk Food Junkie’, ‘how the government is getting better at looking after our health and keeping us fit’, by providing ‘MacDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Huts. They get rich on profits while we get poor on cuts’. It had everyone laughing and singing along.

He also dealt with the lack of personal freedoms - “To fight the war on terror, they protect you from yourself”. The song, ‘Snoopers’, “Who’s gonna snoop on the guy who snoops on the guy who snoops on you” was a winner!
Then, the ‘The Battle on Sexism’, with the light-hearted ‘Monongahela Sal’, a song about a young woman dumped by her lover, but who gets even with a ‘44’. It mentioned the sad state of the polluted Monongahela, along with other rivers.

Jack’s last song, ‘Troubadour’, was dedicated to his foremost mentor, Pete Seeger, “This is for him, about him… He never had stage presence. He just came out and engaged. If not for Pete,” Jack said, “I wouldn’t be standing here now! ‘Here’s to you, troubadour. Your songs go on forever-more!” From the audience reaction to Jack Warshaw, Write Angle’s troubadour for the evening, it appeared the same applied!

At the open mic, Bruce Parry, aware that Leah and Jake had just returned from the US, played to the lovely sound of the dulcimer, some appropriate songs, ‘Oh Liberty’ ‘Liberty’ and ‘The Flower’. He then read his story about ‘Crossing America’, which started in Arkansas (unimpressed) and ended in New Orleans.

His descriptions and obvious affection for the place were evident. He told about a small town where everyone loved his English accent, (asking him to keep on talking), how there were different church posters hanging around the town - with sayings he’d never seen before in the Bible or in the Southern States he’d travelled through to get there. He found the people so warm, curious and welcoming. He said it was like a ‘Doris Day’ film set!
We feel pretty sure he has every intention of going back!

Michael Usuwana performed ‘Issue Issues Commitment Issues’, and explained how “Taking no risks is the biggest risk of all. You have nothing to lose and nothing to gain”, and ‘You need to follow rivers to see the sea’.
Michael has become a ‘favourite’ and his career, like Dave Allen and Sven Stears, seems to be taking off. He’s been travelling with a musical group to London, Leicester and Luton, - even showing his singing ability with a ‘taster’ of ‘Zero to Zero’. “Take me by the hand. For you to be a hero, you have to be a zero…”
He then did ‘Andrew’: “Your mother carried you for 9 months but I’ll be taking care of you for the rest of your life. If I’m tough, it’s because the world will be tougher…”

Chris Sangster, always the charmer, and now a musician/songwriter as well as poet, sang a song he’d written for Leah’s birthday, ‘The Best is Yet to Come’. Then a lovely poem, ‘I’m not a Daffodil’, ending with ‘Don’t worry - I didn’t understand it either’ (one of those poems that comes from ‘somewhere out there’. Then, a sad song (unusual for Chris) about ‘Goodbye Love’.

Barry Smith, of Chichester’s Open Mic, did ‘Sounding Off’, a witty poem about the codgers at the river, discussing political and ethical issues, and righting the ‘wrongs’ of the world, (taken from letters in The Guardian), while Stella Bahin paid an unexpected but welcome visit to speak of the Havant Lit Festival, of which she’s ‘poet in residence’ this year. She did a poem ‘Meat’, about her dog, Austin Paws’, outside on sunny days, roasting and toasting, coming in, smelling awful to someone who’s omnivorous! Richard Hawtree did a poem, ‘Ballyvourney’ starting with a quotation from Dante… “You were not shaped to live like beasts but to pursue knowledge and virtue”.
This was followed by ‘Hatchment’, and ‘Dolphinesque’, about a door-knocker shaped like a dolphin, which brings elements of the sea to each person who enters. A lovely poem.

It was certainly a varied evening with plenty of interesting song and poetry, both from Write Angle’s guest performer and from the open mic.

The raffle for two free meals at India Gate, Chichester, was won by Chris Sangster (second time winner) and a good time was had by all!

Petersfield Write Angle, www.petersfieldwriteangle.co.uk

Sep 24th, 2014

 

 

 

 

 

   
   

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