Women- Social Justice Singers

Buffy Saint Marie's singing career is best known for her songs about peace, native Indian (in Canada the term is First Nations) issues and environment protection. But she has produced some love songs also.

I attended one of her concerts and wrote up my impressions. It was amazing to see an active 71 yr. singer perform on stage. Her voice very strong, clear, sharp and loud. No tremour at this time that we might associate with "older" singers.

http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com/2012...stice-activism/

The first video clip of the song "Universal Soldier", may be ring some memory bells. Maybe. You have to remember the war veterans appreciated her. She was singing for them ....as well as for the cause of peace.

Thanks for sharing your recent blog post and reminding us of Buffy St. Marie and the Universal Soldier song, Orchid.

Somehow it seems to me the US has been in some sort of war or another since I was in high school. When is it ever going to end?

I wondered how many boomers had any personal memory connections to people similar to Buffy during the 1960's-early 1970's.

Maybe we were too young, busy or not interested.

Orchid, I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, a Big 10 university town, and the anti-war protest movement among the students is legendary.

As with other "radicalized" campuses, like Kent State, we had the National Guard troops on campus, and one innocent person died and three others were injured when Sterling Hall, a building which housed a program known as the Army Math research Center was bombed in the summer of 1969.

So peace rallies and performers who advocated for the end of war were a big part of my youth. And I do remember Buffy.

orchid,
I remember hearing Buffy's name but that's all.

I was in nursing school mid to late 60s and into the whole folk scene. I listened to Buffy, and Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan, and Donavan, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and all of the others like Pete Seeger, and Arlo Guthrie. I even learned to play a few of the 'anthems' on the guitar. Anybody remember "Alice's Restaurant", song and movie? Our local community radio station plays the song every Thanksgiving, and it still makes me laugh uncontrollably at Arlo's telling of blind justice and the 8 x 10 glossy pictures. I have seen several of the folkies in concert recently; Arlo is here in Tucson at least once a year for a concert with his kids and grandkids. Saw Joan Baez a couple of years ago - her voice is still pure and clear as it's always been. Good memories!

May be it may sound blasphemous to some folks: but I learned Bob Dylan's anti-war song, "Blowin' in the Wind" when I was a child in school. I would have been 9 yrs. old. So I guess I had some radicalized elementary school teachers.

Better to teach children, a song about peace than about war.

Hi Orchid,

I recall my grade school music teacher teaching us to sing Pete Seeger's "If I Had A Hammer," which by that time had been made famous by Peter Paul and Mary. Of course, Dylan sang it too. It was an anthem of the times.

The lyrics of course, were originally written for the labor movement, but by the 60s were very much taken up by the civil rights movement.

Bob Dylan's songs were a part of high school for me, I especially liked "Don't Think Twice, It's All right," "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," "Lay Lady, Lay," and "The Time's They Are a Changin'"

As for Joan Baez, she was another of my favorites. And then there was a lesser known woman singer of the time, Tracey Nelson.

Anyone else remember her? She is often compered to Janis Joplin, and is probably best known for fronting for Mother Earth.

I haven't heard of her for decades, but she's some sort of distant cousin of mine.

Good memories...

Funny you should mention those old songs. Last week when I was trying to rock my granddaughter to sleep, I tried to think of songs to sing her. I came up with "Blowin' in the Wind" and "If I Had a Hammer." It's funny how all the words came back to me!
PS: Even though I'm not a good singer, she went right to sleep.

I remember the words to most of the songs I memorized as a teenager - but I can't remember what I had for lunch today! LOL