Friends of Chile Benefit 1974
VARIOUS=E2=80=A8An Evening With Salvador Allende: The Friends Of Chile
Bene=
fit
[no label, 2CD]=E2=80=A8Live at the Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden, New
York City, May 9, 1974. An audience recording.
=E2=80=9CThe cultural invasion is like a leafy tree which prevents us from
seeing our own sun, sky and stars. Therefore in order to be able to
see the sky above our heads, our task is to cut this tree off at the
roots.
=E2=80=9CU.S. imperialism understands very well the magic of communication
through music and persists in filling our young people with all sorts
of commercial tripe. With professional expertise they have taken
certain measures: first, the commercialization of the so-called
=E2=80=98protest music=E2=80=99; second, the creation of
=E2=80=98idols=E2=
=80=99 of protest music who
obey the same rules and suffer from the same constraints as the other
idols of the consumer music industry - they last a little while and
then disappear. Meanwhile they are useful in neutralizing the innate
spirit of rebellion of young people.
=E2=80=9CThe term =E2=80=98protest song=E2=80=99 is no longer valid
because=
it is ambiguous
and has been misused. I prefer the term =E2=80=98revolutionary song=E2=80=
=99.=E2=80=9D
- Victor Jara in 1969 as mentioned in Joan Jara=E2=80=99s book, Victor: An
Unfinished Song, pg 121
The news of the toppling of Salvador Allende=E2=80=99s government was in
newspapers all around the world. It would take three months for news
about the rock concert for Chile to reach $heep City, $inga****e.
Rolling Stone or New Musical Express came by surface mail and there
music fans in Asia learnt about this benefit organised by Phil Ochs,
an American protest singer who knew Victor Jara.
When Allende died in the coup on Sept 11, 1973, Jara and others were
arrested and held captive at a s****ts stadium. Jara died on Sept 12,
after being tortured by his captors. Almost all his master recordings
were destroyed by the Chilean secret police. What remains are copies
smuggled out of the country during the time of General Pinochet=E2=80=99s
rule, and pressed into records and CDs.
The above quote by Victor Jara is prescient. He had seen the damage
the commercialising of protest music would create. When Ochs organised
the benefit for Chile, the original bill for the show was Arlo
Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Dave Van Ronk and others who were considered
second or even third ranked folk singers. There was no star power.
When Bob Dylan heard that few tickets were sold and that the show was
in danger of being cancelled, he lend his considerable weight to the
bill. It drew in the crowd. By this time, Bob Dylan was hardly a
protest singer in the same vein as Victor Jara. According to Clinton
Heylin=E2=80=99s book, Behind The Shades, he was just helping an old
friend=
..
=E2=80=9CUnfortunately Bob Dylan arrived for the show well ahead of time,
a=
nd
passed the hours by drinking wine and chatting with old friends like
Dave Van Ronk, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie.
=E2=80=9CBy the time he took the stage for his brief 15-minute set he was
virtually legless - literally - and the performance remains probably
the most excruciating of all his many guest appearances=E2=80=A6=E2=80=9D
And now for posterity, here is the entire show one evening in New York
City. This audience recording is close to the stage but has its
limitations. It sounds like a mono recording.
The inclusion of Mike Love and Dennis Wilson is surely a joke. The
Beach Boys had no link to civil rights or anti-war protest and
listening to the duo struggle through =E2=80=9CCalifornia Girls=E2=80=9D
le=
aves a dark
reminder of how right Victor Jara was about manufacturing
=E2=80=9Cprotest=
=E2=80=9D
for the young.
These days everything is 2Fake to be 4Real.
- Professor Red
Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (these are high
quality stereo MP3s - sample rate of 192 kibit/s).
Note: Due to the size of some of the files, please be patient when
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encounter problems downloading the files.
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=3D17
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