Ricky Blue

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RICKY BLUE

Why the Oldies are still Goodies

Recently, I rediscovered an old Peter, Paul, and Mary cassette to enjoy in my van, pretty much the only place I listen to music any more.

They had been a favourite back when I listened to music all the time (before kids). P, P, &M had been put together by Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan's manager, because he wanted a middle-of-the-road group to carry all the newly written folk songs he published into the hit parade.

Grossman exercised such control over them that once, after they had vacationed in Florida and come back with a tan, he made them stay indoors for two weeks to get pasty white again, insisting that they look like real 'beatniks' - the image he wanted (although they never fooled critic Ralph J. Gleason who described them as "two rabbis and a hooker.").

My kids eventually admitted they liked the music (they're not as tone-deaf as I had feared) in spite of the fact that their dad did, too. So I turned the first hit up loud (like folk music is meant to be heard): "If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning / I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land…"

As it finished my daughter said: "Daddy, I think I understand that song. It's about a judge's hammer, isn't it?"

I realized I had never thought of it that way, although I had heard the song thousands of times and sung it hundreds more. I had always imagined the hammer as the carpenter's tool: but could the song have been, all this time, an exhortation to judges to change society with new laws?

Judges who have hammers are indeed building a new world by challenging old customs and religious traditions with their secular decisions (so much so that conservatives now call them 'activist' judges). This was a much more contemporary interpretation and I was impressed, not only by my daughter (who is only 12) but once again by the song.

"It's a hammer of justice; it's a bell of freedom; / it's a song about love between my brothers and my sisters / all over this land."

Songs are written for many reasons but their real power is in the interpretation. This song was written by the legendary Pete Seeger, who had said of his work in Rolling Stone magazine: "Some may find them merely diverting melodies. Others may find them incitements to Red revolution. And who will say if either or both is wrong? Not I."

Thanks to Grossman's vision (and business acumen), the song is now known the world over, even though very few have ever heard Pete Seeger sing it himself.

Because interest in Seeger has been rekindled by a new recording of his songs called We Shall Overcome - The Seeger Sessions, by Bruce Springsteen; this past June, at Idea City in Toronto, I did. Seeger is 87 and still performing. During his set he said his voice isn't what it used to be and asked the audience do the singing. No problem. Everyone knows We Shall Overcome, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, and Turn, Turn, Turn.

George Bowser and I were also performing at that seminar. Meeting Seeger backstage we expressed our admiration for his work and now have his signature on our guitars. I hope some of his genius rubs off on us (I also wish we could find an Albert Grossman).