Midwest artist offers eclectic sampling of ‘Americana’

Bill Knight column for Nov. 26, 27 or 28, 2018

The label “Americana” usually refers to music that blends folk, gospel, country, R&B and gospel, but it’s no uniform, soundalike genre. Artists carve out distinctive sounds mixing acoustic and electric, creating an eclectic delight. Edward David Anderson’s record released last month is as wide-ranging as the prairie where he grew up.

The 10-track “Chasing Butterflies” is a masterful musical mashup, sure to be showcased live Thursday (Nov. 29) at Bloomington’s Jazz Upfront nightclub before he heads South for winter tour stops.

Anderson, 46, grew up between DeKalb and Chicago, and wears his Heartland heritage like a seed-corn cap. Formerly with other Midwest groups, Anderson has recorded three efforts with the band Brother Jed, eight with Backyard Tire Fire, and two EPs and two LPs as a soloist. This is his best.

Comparisons are dicey but hearing “Chasing Butterflies” is like dancing or trancing through a music collection.

The bluesy “Bad Tattoos,” for instance, seems like Alison Krause jamming with Cab Calloway with vocals by Duke Tumatoe. The humorous yarn of regret and acceptance could be heard from a church choir or a chain gang. Likewise, the haunting/hopeful “Season Turn” is a virtual sonic sonnet, a philosophical sound that resonates “Norwegian Wood” – with power chords.

“Crosses,” with an uptempo beat to a downbeat topic, has vocals akin to Bono or even James Blunt, and a creative structure that does a sweeping turn to a gripping guitar fadeout comparable to Lynyrd Skynyrd or Marshall Tucker. “Dog Days” is a favorite, partly because of its subject but also due to its playful lyrics and sense of envy at canine love and loyalty, innocence and forgiveness. Rivaling the Bottle Rockets’ “My Dog” for its theme, the upbeat elegy to a pooch comes across like it’s sung by NRBQ’s Terry Adams (only tuneful). And the title song is a rollicking, borderline ballad: melodic and poetic, melancholy yet accepting, with an authoritative bass line and muted pedal steel that conjure collaborations by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, or Lyle Lovett fronting the Sons of the Pioneers’ rendition of “Riders in the Sky.” (Yippie-yi-ay, yippie-yi-o!)

Elsewhere, the storytelling captures listeners, as in “The Ballad of Lemuel Penn,” a mournful ode to a moving memory and cautionary tale of tragedy and evil, with an effective narrative and affecting rhythm. Similarly, “Only in My Dreams” is a plaintive realization of lost love, less a dirge than a matter-of-fact epiphany that fights troubled imagery to find relief from unexpected anxiety. A first-rate guitar and a subtle piano punctuate the vibe.

Recorded at legendary Muscle Shoals, the record’s producer is Grammy Award-winner Jimmy Nutt, who assembled sizzling session musicians who add a fierce foundation to Anderson’s soaring talents. Besides Nutt playing bass, the sidecats are Todd Beene on pedal steel, drummer Jon Davis, Brad Kuhn on keys and violinist Kimi Samson.

Finally, however, “Chasing Butterflies” is wholly Anderson’s own, as shown in a few rootsy cuts as candid and sincere as a perceptive confession. The easygoing “Best Part” has a catchy chorus, plunking banjo and tapping tambourine that get heads nodding and hearts thumping. “Sittin’ Round at Home” is the most country-flavored number here, and the fiddle adds a dash of rural spice, conjuring thoughts of doing a two-step at a barn dance. And the jaunty “Harmony” starts things off with bright vocals, a fine chorus and light keyboard wash alongside a delicate guitar, combining to cook up a slick, sweet-pickin’ treat.

The whole record is a treat, in fact, with many flavors to savor.

Illinois’ 17th District race was a weird one

Bill Knight column for Nov. 22, 23 or 24, 2018

This Thanksgiving week, it’s good to count our blessings, like choices – whether side dishes or political candidates. But to some Republican or Democratic stalwarts, much less Independents, the race for the seat from Illinois’ 17th Congressional District in west-central Illinois, felt like dogs choosing between fleas or ticks.

One-time “Blue Dog” Democrat Cheri Bustos, the 57-year-old Quad Cities incumbent first elected in 2012, has taken more centrist positions than predecessors Lane Evans and Phil Hare. That can’t be attributed to Donald Trump winning the District in 2016 (47.4 percent to 46.7 percent for Hillary Clinton) because Bustos joined the conservative Democrat Blue Dog coalition in 2013.

Bustos, a former reporter and hospital official with family ties to Democratic politicians, early in her tenure tried to “reach across the aisle” in Congress, an admirable effort. But she also rejects progressives like U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

At July’s "Opportunity 2020" convention in Ohio sponsored by the middle-of-the-road Third Way think tank, Bustos said, “If you look throughout the heartland, there’s a silent majority who just wants normalcy, … people that just don’t really like protests and don’t like yelling and screaming.”

(She didn’t mention polite constituents who disagree with moderates too willing to compromise with conservatives.)

“If we run people who are far left in swing districts or districts that might lean a little bit Republican, we’re not going to be successful,” Bustos told Politico, neglecting to mention that majorities of everyday Americans support sensible gun laws and compassionate immigration proposals.

A 2017 survey by Pew Research Center showed that 68 percent back a ban on assault-style weapons, and 65 percent support a ban on high-capacity magazines, and a Pew survey this summer showed that 70 percent of Americans say legal immigration into the United States should be kept as it is or be increased. Other polls confirms such preferences: 76 percent support higher taxes on the wealthy, 70 percent support Medicare for All, and 60 percent support expanded tuition-free college (Reuter-Ipsos); 59 percent support stricter environmental regulation (Pew); 65 percent support progressive criminal justice reform (Public Opinion Strategies); 69 percent oppose overturning Roe v. Wade (Think Progress); and 59 percent support a $15 minimum wage (Justice Democrats).

So, these positions aren’t “far left,” and they wouldn’t by costly (given support for increased revenues from higher taxes on the rich). However, GIVING AMERICANS WHAT THEY WANT could be something opposed by the affluent who contribute to campaigns, thereby threatening some politicians with their jobs.

In fact, Bustos on Nov. 9 announced that she wants a better job: chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which raises money for candidates.

            Former lawmaker Bill Edley – who represented west-central Illinois as a State Representative and supervised Sanders’ 2016 Springfield office – criticized Bustos’ past affiliation with the Blue Dogs as “the exact opposite of a progressive Democrat” and noted her legislative ratings by interest groups.

Indeed, the conservative, business-oriented U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranks Bustos’ cumulative score at 66 percent, the highest of any of Illinois’ 11 Congressional Democrats before the midterm), and ProgressivePunch.org gives her an “F” – 182nd out of 193 Democrats ranked in its scorecard, with a lifetime 51.25 grade.

However, if you were disappointed in Bustos, consider her midterm opponent: Bill Fawell, a 64-year-old real estate broker and writer who ran unopposed in the GOP’s March primary.

“The Republican nominee said the September 11 terrorist attacks were a government-led inside job,” reported Rich Miller of Capitol Fax. Falwell has “also pushed conspiracy theories about the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., being a ‘false flag,’ pushed the ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory, which falsely holds that prominent politicians have trafficked children through the Washington, D.C., restaurant Comet Ping Pong.”

Eventually, State GOP chairman Tim Schneider and other prominent Republicans withdrew support for Fawell. Nevertheless, 68,000 voters cast ballots for Fawell, and this Thanksgiving we pray that they were voting against Bustos, not for Fawell. Or, they could be super-loyal Republicans, like the 57,000 voters who cast ballots for neo-Nazi Art Jones, who also ran unopposed in the GOP primary for the 3rd Congressional District, where he faced against U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski.

Real choices are blessings.

When they exist.

In Red Scare, African-American activist suffered fools, black and white

Bill Knight column for Nov. 19, 20 or 21, 2018

Sixty-seven years ago this month, the NAACP’s Crisis Magazine condemned world-renowned African-American athlete, entertainer and activist Paul Robeson, and a new book rekindles memories of his travails – including a Peoria incident that seems to have started his blacklisting.

That episode involved the area’s Communist-hunting Congressman, too, but such criticism also came from cautious leaders from the labor and black communities, local and national.

The Crisis article (written pseudonymously by Earl Brown of the black newspaper the Amsterdam News, family said) called Robeson a “Kremlin stooge” adding, “Robeson is a tragic figure.”

Others disputed such denunciations.

In the book “No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson,” Jeff Sparrow writes, “Paul Robeson possessed one of the most beautiful voices of the 20th century. He was an acclaimed stage actor. He could sing in more than 20 different languages; he held a law degree; he won prizes for oratory. He was widely acknowledged as the greatest American footballer of his generation. But he was also a political activist who, in the 1930s and 1940s, exerted an influence comparable to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in a later era.”

The campaign to silence him came from rabid, Right-wing Red-baiters, but also timid unions and cautious black groups. Earlier in 1951, NAACP president Walter White in Ebony magazine wrote, “Robeson was a victim of an evangelic acceptance of a new system of society. [Russia. He’s] a bewildered man,” and that December Crisis editor Roy Wilkins blasted Robeson in American Magazine. Black newspapers including the Pittsburgh Courier and Baltimore Afro-American joined the attack, condemning the popular talent and outspoken advocate of equality.

Today, Robeson’s mostly remembered for singing “Ol’ Man River” in “Showboat” on stage and film, but he also starred in “The Emperor Jones,” “Othello,” “The Proud Valley” and eight other memorable movies. Performing concerts in Europe, he appreciated better race relations there and for a time lived in London, befriending James Joyce, Emma Goldman and other artists and activists. During the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War (a proxy foreshadowing of World War II), he became involved, backing the anti-Fascist Loyalists. Thereafter, he was openly supportive of anti-Fascist and Communist causes, though he never became a Communist.

“The artist must take sides,” Robeson explained in 1937. “He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice.”

That choice angered conservatives in the 1950s McCarthy Era, from Washington to Peoria.

There, Robeson was booked to perform in April 1947, but some politicians and military veterans crusaded against it.

“Two days before a scheduled concert in Peoria, Robeson and nearly 1,000 others were cited by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) for ‘supporting the Communist Party and its front organizations’,” wrote Georgia State University researcher Barry Everett Lee.

Despite support from the ACLU, the United Electrical union, and a Ministerial Alliance, opponents of the show included local columnists, a labor council, and a white American Legion post (an all-black Legion post defended Robeson). The radical United Farm Equipment and Metal Workers union (FE) backed the appearance, and Peoria Mayor Carl Triebel initially defended Robeson’s free-speech rights but gave in to the uproar, and the City Council voted to ban the appearance of anyone who espoused “un-American” views.

So, Peoria FE leader Ajay Martin and an 11-person, mixed-race committee hosted an informal appearance at Martin’s home.

“The Peoria affair is a problem bigger than me,” Robeson said then.

Later, anti-Communist hysteria increased nationwide. Joe McCarthy in the U.S. Senate and Peoria-area Congressman Harold Velde in the House held hearings accusing people of being Communists, which led to many people prevented from working. Robeson testified before Velde’s HUAC in 1956 and bristled when asked why he didn’t move to the Soviet Union: “Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you. And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear?

“I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist. I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people,” he said. “I am here because I am opposing the neo-Fascist cause which I see arising in these committees. You are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

Sparrow, with admiration, sees how Robeson in 1940’s film “The Proud Valley” dramatized how prejudice can be broken down by common interests, writing, “In the film, the solidarity of the workplace overcomes the miners’ suspicion about a dark-skinned stranger. ‘Aren’t we all black down that pit?’ asks one of the men.”