Protest Song artists inspire, offer hope
Picture a protest singer. OK, got it? You’re picturing Bob Dylan in 1965 singing “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” aren’t you? The cliched image of the protest singer is a strong one.
“The largest protests of the ’ 60s often featured Joan Baez or Bob Dylan, so I understand why those old images resonate,” poet and performer Regie Gibson said. “But protest music has to be able to find itself in every generation, to resonate through social and technological changes.”
A National Poetry Slam individual champion, Gibson pulls from hip-hop and Shakespeare and echoes the aesthetic traditions of the Beats and Gil Scott-Heron’s jazz poetry in his work. He’s definitely not a guy with a guitar singing ’ 60s folk ballads. But he has no problem with those ballads and is happy to be part of a performance full of them Sunday at the Art of the Protest Song concert at Somerville’s Center for Arts at the Armory.
A benefit for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the concert features Gibson’s poetry and salsa band Clave & Blues along with more traditional singersongwriters. Organizer and performer Tom Smith of the Folk Song Society of Greater Boston thought it was important to give the show a range of artistic voices.
“I’m 68, and when I heard Neil Young’s ‘Ohio’ as a college student, it moved me to action,” Smith said. “But today, protest music doesn’t need to come from the ’60s folk tradition. This concert will call to mind the classics with Sarah Lee Guthrie, who is continuing the tradition of her grandfather Woody Guthrie, and modern-day song poet David Roth. But we also have Regie Gibson and his incredibly powerful and intelligent work, and a band bringing us songs of freedom from Cuba.”
Both Smith and Gibson agree protest music is at its best when it pushes things forward. Whether it is Pete Seeger doing “We Shall Overcome” or Public Enemy blasting out “Fight the Power,” these anthems need to do more than lament the state of the world. They need to add energy and hope to a resistance. Smith hopes to pack the house and raise money for MIRA Coalition with a great show, but he also wants the event to fuel the political work of artists.
“I want to inspire others, young people, to speak their minds about positive change, to speak out through art in meaningful and articulate ways,” Smith said.
When times get dark and problems seem insurmountable, whether they come from war or poverty, climate change or national instability, Gibson believes the power of positive protest matters most.
“There has always been political art, and it seems to pop up when we need it most,” he said. “During these times, the artist must make us look at the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable, but the artist can never leave us with despair. Hope always matters.”