HIGH BIAS -- reissues

High Bias refreshed

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Freedom: Songs From the Heart of America
(Columbia/Legacy)
As I write this, it is early morning in the American Midwest. Halfway around the globe, Allied armies advance haltingly on Baghdad. Iraqi families are huddled in shelters as smart bombs rain down upon their cities. Halfway around the globe people are dying to topple Saddam Hussein from power or to remove his weapons of mass destruction or to liberate Iraq or to bring democracy to the Middle East or to safeguard Iraqi oil or a whole host of other, sometimes conflicting, reasons. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" has begun.

Here on the campus of Purdue University, many students are camped out on our Memorial Mall, fasting to protest the war. They huddle in the early spring chill under the shelter of pup tents in the shadow of Purdue's gigantic American flag, originally erected in a burst of patriotism during World War I. Ironically, these "peace campers" have suffered cruel harassment in the name of patriotism. They've been pelted with eggs and rocks. They've been kicked viciously while they sleep. One night they awoke to a noose swaying ominously in a nearby tree. "Iraqi Freedom" and the responses to it raise a lot of questions about the relationship between freedom and patriotism in a time of war. Some in Washington suggest that criticizing the government in a time of national crisis is tantamount to treason. Others respond that fair criticism of an unjust war isn't treason, but a duty in a democracy. Words like "patriotism" and "freedom" are tossed about like handfuls of feathers. But really, we may ask ourselves, what do these words mean?

Recently, PBS premiered Freedom: A History of Us, an eight-hour series based on Joy Hakim's popular series of children's history books that covers the American story from the early republic up to the shocking and awful events of September 11th. At the same time, Columbia/Legacy released a three-CD companion set called Freedom: Songs From the Heart of America, a collection of music from the series as well as what the album's producers call "additional songs inspired by the narrative of the series." According to Hakim, this compilation demonstrates that "We are a singing nation…our musical heritage is found in the voices of ordinary Americans who sing their woes and triumphs and hopes. If you want to understand who we are, listen up. This is US—singing and trumpeting our saga." This assertion might be true if the soundtrack consisted only of music from the PBS series. But in actuality, the supplemental material was harvested—seemingly haphazardly—from Sony's immense archives, resulting in an eclectic, sometimes aesthetically uneven jumble that confuses the average listener. The more conscientious, however, may consider the many conflicting ways that we Americans have understood the nature of freedom over time and how we understand that freedom today in a time of war. Freedom, then, is less a national saga and more of a national debate.

To capture America's musical heritage, Freedom broadly samples the myriad of musical styles that this nation has produced over the centuries. Beginning with the American Revolution (but sadly, including nothing from the days of colonization by various European powers such as England, France or Spain and only one Native American track) and continuing to the present day, this box set offers nearly everything from roots music to country to pop, from gospel and blues to jazz and big band to soul, from campy Broadway to high classical. Freedom also presents an equally dizzying diversity of top-drawer artists: Bob Dylan, Keb' Mo', Peter, Paul and Mary, Kay Kyser, Leadbelly, the Pied Pipers, Simon & Garfunkel, the Harlem Boys Choir, Gene Autry, Paul Robeson, Bruce Springsteen, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Mahalia Jackson, to name only a very few.

While the tracks that these artists offer range from well-known classics to the delightfully offbeat, most tender a take on what it means to be free. In fact, the first track is Nina Simone's "I Wish I Knew How It Feels to Be Free," a jazz-infused version of a not-so-well-known standard that suggests at the get-go that, despite the surfeit of patriotism that Americans seem to possess, we're not always so sure what freedom means. ("I wish I could live like I'm longing to live.") Other artists also present varying understandings of freedom. Willie Nelson's white-spiritual "Amazing Grace," like the Carter Family's "Can the Circle Be Unbroken," recalls that many people have come to these shores in search of religious freedom. Mahalia Jackson's power-gospel "I'm On My Way," on the other hand, also reminds the listener that other Americans, particularly African-Americans, have expressed their yearn for earthly freedom as a longing for "Canaan land." All three tracks are stunningly beautiful versions of old favorites.

Americans have also expressed the belief that freedom is simply the right and ability to wander the national landscape at will, tied to no one, subservient to no master. Gene Autry's "Home On the Range," sung with cowboy sincerity that belies its commercial roots, and "This Land is Your Land," a digital duet where Woody Guthrie transcends time and death to sing with his son, Arlo, both celebrate that simple freedom in a folksy, homespun style. Guthrie's track is also a historically important document. Before "This Land is Your Land" became a staple of elementary school music classes, it was the rallying cry of the Old Left challenging hefty capitalists who tried to grab this nation's resources for themselves.

Americans have also understood freedom to mean economic independence. In the early republic, if a man was economically free (that is, he owned his own land, lived off what he produced and received wages from no one), he was politically free. In fact, voting rights were tied to property ownership to ensure that American men voted from their conscience and not from a sense of obligation. Today, Americans don't disdain working for wages as such, but still uphold an ideal of economic freedom. That may be why this nation clings a little too dearly to the myth of laissez-faire capitalism. Certainly the Boswell Sisters' glitzy, gin-soaked version of "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're In the Money)" captures that ideal. This take on the bubbly 1930s song optimistically declares "Old Man Depression is through."

Yet, while Americans have celebrated their various understandings of freedom, they have also protested in song any encroachment on that freedom. Despite the national love affair with laissez-faire capitalism, many here have also questioned whether the pursuit of profit is in fact a guarantor of freedom or simply a system to make the rich richer and the poor miserable. Lennie Hayton's moving version of the Depression-era "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" makes the Boswell Sisters' perky faith in capitalism look just plain foolish. Both the Almanac Singers' "Union Maid" and Paul Robeson's "Joe Hill" praise unionism's struggle to preserve the freedom of America's workers, while Gene Autry's "The Death of Mother Jones" celebrates an often overlooked, but immensely important union organizer.

Americans have also resisted this nation's seemingly innate racism that has long attempted to quash the freedom of African-Americans and other racial minorities. Freedom offers many songs from various stages of America's struggle against racism. The Boys Choir of Harlem's tight harmonies and gutsy crescendos on "Oh Freedom" recall human yearnings to be free of slavery. Their steady ostinato of "walk children, talk children" makes listeners yearn to put their beliefs on the line in the streets or in the voting booth. 1938's "Strange Fruit" is a haunting classic where Billie Holiday jadedly protests the long-standing Southern tradition of lynching. Count Basie's "Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?" is a little-known selection that tellingly reveals black pride in Robinson's historic shattering of major league baseball's color line. Mahalia Jackson's stirring take on "We Shall Overcome" captures the inspiration and excitement of the civil rights movement. The set also includes American protest against other forms of oppression, other threats to freedom. The Golden Gate Quartet's quirky "Atom and Evil" is a precursor to 1950s doo-wop that, although somewhat tongue-in-cheek, severely questions the value of the A-bomb and predicts that it will ultimately destroy us: "We all fall down and go boom boom-boom boom!"

Each of these artists and many others proffer tracks that not only address what freedom is, but also are incredibly delightful listening. Robeson's deep, sonorous voice, Holliday's weary rasp, the Carters' homespun harmonies, Jackson's soaring high notes and the clever lyrics of "Atom and Evil" are all high points. Surprisingly, however, there is little from the Vietnam era, when secret and illegal CIA programs leveled at anti-war leaders and their sympathizers threatened the freedom of all Americans. Although this set includes Ritchie Havens' thrilling, impromptu "Freedom" (AKA "Motherless Children"), it passes over such emblematic songs like Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers" or Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" in favor of Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon." It is an odd choice that seems to come from Sony's desire to pad the collection with flotsam and jetsam from its huge archives.

Often, although not in the case of "Goodnight Saigon," Sony chose songs less for their musical quality or because they're about freedom and more because they are simply "patriotic," as if to bump up sales of a PBS soundtrack in these post-9/11 days of war. The result is an aesthetically uneven jumble. To be sure, some of these patriotic songs compare with the best of the meditations on freedom. Keb' Mo's treatment of "America the Beautiful" is easy-going and bluesy, suggesting that the beauty of this nation is not only in the diversity of our landscape, but in the diversity of our people. Others seem below par. Duke Ellington's live recording of "The Star Spangled Banner" sounds disturbingly amateurish, while the Goldman Band's take on "Semper Fidelis" sounds like any military band. The latter's inclusion may unwittingly invite reflection on the sometimes strained relationship between a hierarchical military and democratic freedom now that America is at war.

Some selections simply seem jingoist. Compared to other tracks in this collection that both celebrate freedom and protest encroachments upon it, Kate Smith's "God Bless America," dusted off for World War II by Irving Berlin and once again made popular by Congress, sounds stunningly out of place. Her voice soars in a series of outsized gestures (one can almost picture her ample bosom heaving in nationalist rapture), but the effect is stilted and offers little to the debate about the nature of freedom that this box set seems to invite. Even more embarrassing is "Song of the Patriot." A Marty Robbins-Johnny Cash duet released during the Iran Hostage Crisis, with its militaristic drums and endless repetition of "I am a patriot," it seems calculated to cash in on the national burst of xenophobia that darkly colored those days. In terms of style and message, it certainly cannot compare with such Cash classics as "A Boy Named Sue," with its ironic commentary on patriotism's excesses.

Worse yet, "Song of the Patriot" is just not fun to listen to and deserves to remain buried in whatever vault from which it was dredged. Hearing these odd selections in the same set as "Strange Fruit" and "Joe Hill" might seem a confusing mishmash to most listeners, a variety so dizzying that they might be tempted simply to listen to what they like and skip the other stuff. Sometimes the placement of songs can be jarring. Following up Leadbelly's quiet, guitar-accompanied "Bourgeois Blues" with the crashing drums and gongs of the opening to Copland's "Fanfare For the Common Man," is simply cruel to those with headphones.

Yet, taken together on Freedom all these tracks offer the more conscientious listener some insight on the nature of freedom in the past and perhaps for today. For one, it is apparent that Americans share no clear single definition of "freedom." Freedom can be an action ("I'm on my way") or a state of being ("Oh, freedom over me") or a desire ("I wish how it would feel to be free".) It can be material ("We're in the money") or spiritual (an "amazing grace"). Freedom can be a source or rationale for patriotism ("the land of the free and the home of the brave!") or it can be a means to critique prevailing understandings of love of one's country ("This is the home of the brave and the land of the free/I don't wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie.") It is this final understanding of freedom that is the most flexible and durable in the American republic. The history of this nation is full of moments when those who have found their voices stifled have exercised their freedoms of speech and assembly to protest the abuse of power by the American government or by American society. Sometimes their efforts have proved fruitless, for instance, the effort to save the Rosenbergs in 1953. At other times, the results have been spectacular. Perhaps the best example would be the civil rights movement.

Still, those who claim to have this nation's best interests at heart have labeled such exercises of freedom to be "traitorous" or worse yet, mere "complaining." The songs collected and jumbled together on Freedom suggest otherwise. Most are expressions of freedom from so-called outsiders, voices from what once was or still is considered the margins of American society. They call for social, economic and political freedom; the right to be free from the oppressions of insiders, from corrupt or misguided leaders or from what Tocqueville, the nineteenth-century French observer of American culture, called "the tyranny of the majority," the stifling of dissenting voices under the mantle of democratic majority rule. Placed next to patriotic standards from the mainstream, such as "God Bless America," these songs suggest that these outsiders are as equally important (or perhaps more so) for understanding and maintaining freedom in America. It is the voice of the protester, the rebel, the outraged outsider, that greases the wheels of the Republic as it thunders down the track of social, economic and political progress.

The lessons of Freedom, then, can counter the stifling of dissent that the White House, the Republican National Committee and the brutish tyranny of the majority are attempting in this nation with cries of "traitor!" and clumsy knots dangling from trees in the night. Purdue's peace campers, with their voices and their bodies, say no to this war and to the scions of power in Washington that launched it. In a very real way they are American freedom embodied in action. And perhaps, when the time comes for ordinary Iraqis to gratefully accept the gift of "Iraqi freedom" unilaterally foisted upon them by an occupying American administration, they too might draw upon their own traditions of freedom to also speak truth to power. Scott Hoffman [buy it]