Under the radar

Several conversations lately about the indie music business have led me to the same conclusion: that the percentage of music being made and sold under the radar of the corporate musiz biz is increasing to the point where hardly anything registers on the radar anymore. Sure, there are hits in different segments of the Balkanized music listening public, and there's American Idol, but all that has little or nothing to do with the realities and even aspirations of the vast majority of today's musicians.

The radar is rising.

Pete Seeger on "We Shall Overcome," 2006

Seeger tells the story of how he, along with Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Zilphia Horton, copyrighted their version of "We Shall Overcome" to prevent it from becoming an "insipid pop song":

"It was my late manager, Harold Leventhal—a very wonderful guy, a close friend—who said, 'Pete, you know if you don’t copyright this, some character out in Hollywood will copyright it, and next thing you know they’ll have a version where it says, "Come on, baby, you and me will overcome tonight." If we want to keep it from being mistreated, you’ve got to copyright it.'

"I said, 'I didn’t write the song. I just arranged the guitar arrangement.' 'That’s good enough,' he said. So Frank, Guy, and also Zilphia Horton, our names are on the copyright. Four white people. At that time we didn’t know the name of Lucille Simmons, who had sung it [when Horton learned it from striking tobacco workers].

We put down that all royalties go the We Shall Overcome Fund. Bernice Reagon, of Sweet Honey in the Rock, is the chairman of that fund, and she and others get together every year down in Tennessee and give out several thousand dollars for black music in the South. [Royalties] come in from all over the world. You know it’s sung in every part of India in the local language.

From an Acoustic Guitar interview published in the February issue, with a transcription of Seeger's 12-string guitar rendition of "We Shall Overcome." See photos taken during the interview here.

Uke attack

There's been some kind of harmonic convergence around ukuleles in my life this week. My brother, who plays with the northern California band RoofTop Four, is a uke fanatic, so the instrument is already well established in my family... But then I was talking the other day with luthier Harry Eibert, builder of the incredible airplane uke and submarine uke (check them out here). And after I performed "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (on guitar), this showed up in my in box: a link to YouTube footage of this spectactular uke rendition by Jake Shimabukuro.

We've come a long way from Tiny Tim, eh?

Musical new year

Pardon the long absence from these pages--too much going on during the holidays. The year kicked off with a feature in the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper (available as a pdf here) about my work as a writer, editor, and musician, in anticipation of a presentation for the Guitar League.

Lots of good music in the air too. I caught a show last night by William Nicholson, an accomplished and versatile guitarist who does fingerstyle instrumentals in the vein of Michael Hedges and Stanley Jordan, plus folk-rock singer-songwriter material. Meanwhile, in my car I've been serenaded by the acoustic swing/cabaret/cowgirl sounds of the Ditty Bops--great stuff, and more on that later.

Happy new year.