Bob Dylan and John Henry Faulk https://plus.google/b/114972365014876681245/114972365014876681245/posts/D3yfaiSfXp9 John Henry Faulks Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Faulk John Henry Faulk (August 21, 1913–April 9, 1990) from Austin, Texas was a storyteller and radio show host. His successful lawsuit against blacklisters of the entertainment industry helped to bring an end to the Hollywood blacklist. ==================== Bob Dylan sat next to John Henry Faulk during the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (NECLC) dinner on 13 December 1963. Dylan was being presented with the groups annual Tom Paine Award for distinguished service in the fight for civil liberties. Bob Dylans speech that night expressed a tumult of emotions, perplexity, a railing against the heavy expectations being placed on him and a rallying cry for youth to take up the banner in contrast to the older people who were forming the government and making all the powerful decisions. His speech upset and confused people. The speech in full (probably typed out later from an audio tape), an eloquent letter in defence of Dylan and of youth itself from Corliss Lamont (who was then Chairman of the ECLC) and finally, a most beautiful and poetic explanation by Dylan himself analyzing and expressing his feelings on the occasion, are reproduced and discussed on this website: corliss-lamont.org/dylan.htm TRANSCRIPT OF BOB DYLANS REMARKS AT THE BILL OF RIGHTS DINNER The Americana Hotel, 13-12-1963 I havent got any guitar, I can talk though. I want to thank you for the Tom Paine award in behalf everybody that went down to Cuba. First of all because theyre all young and its took me a long time to get young and now I consider myself young. And Im proud of it. Im proud that Im young. And I only wish that all you people who are sitting out here today or tonight werent here and I could see all kinds of faces with hair on their head - and everything like that, everything leading to youngness, celebrating the anniversary when we overthrew the House Un-American Activities just yesterday, - Because you people should be at the beach. You should be out there and you should be swimming and you should be just relaxing in the time you have to relax. (Laughter) It is not an old peoples world. It is not an old peoples world. It has nothing to do with old people. Old people when their hair grows out, they should go out. (Laughter) And I look down to see the people that are governing me and making my rules - and they havent got any hair on their head - I get very uptight about it. (Laughter) And they talk about Negroes, and they talk about black and white. And they talk about colors of red and blue and yellow. Man, I just dont see any colors at all when I look out. I dont see any colors at all and if people have taught through the years to look at colors - Ive read history books, Ive never seen one history book that tells how anybody feels. Ive found facts about our history, Ive found out what people know about what goes on but I never found anything about anybody feels about anything happens. Its all just plain facts. And it dont help me one little bit to look back. I wish sometimes I could have come in here in the 1930s like my first idol - used to have an idol, Woody Guthrie, who came in the 1930s (Applause). But it has sure changed in the time Woodys been here and the time Ive been here. Its not that easy any more. People seem to have more fears. I get different presents from people that I play for and they bring presents to me backstage - very weird, weird presents - presents that I couldnt buy. They buy - they bring me presents that - Ive got George Lincoln Rockwells tie clip that somebody robbed for me. (Laughter) I have General Walkers car trunk keys - keys to his trunk that somebody robbed for me. Now these are my presents. I have fallout shelter signs that people robbed for me from Philadelphia and these are the little signs. Theres no black and white, left and right to me anymore; theres only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And Im trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They has got nothing to do with it. Im thinking about the general people and when they get hurt. I want to accept this award, the Tom Paine Award, from the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. I want to accept it in my name but Im not really accepting it in my name and Im not accepting it in any kind of groups name, any Negro group or any other kind of group. There are Negroes - I was on the march on Washington up on the platform and I looked around at all the Negroes there and I didnt see any Negroes that looked like none of my friends. My friends dont wear suits. My friends dont have to wear suits. My friends dont have to wear any kind of thing to prove that theyre respectable Negroes. My friends are my friends, and theyre kind, gentle people if theyre my friends. And Im not going to try to push nothing over. So, I accept this reward - not reward, (Laughter) award in behalf of Phillip Luce who led the group to Cuba which all people should go down to Cuba. I dont see why anybody cant go to Cuba. I dont see whats going to hurt by going any place. I dont know whats going to hurt anybodys eyes to see anything. On the other hand, Phillip is a friend of mine who went to Cuba. Ill stand up and to get uncompromisable about it, which I have to be to be honest, I just got to be, as I got to admit that the man who shot President Kennedy, Lee Oswald, I dont know exactly where —what he thought he was doing, but I got to admit honestly that I too - I saw some of myself in him. I dont think it would have gone - I dont think it could go that far. But I got to stand up and say I saw things that he felt, in me - not to go that far and shoot. (Boos and hisses) You can boo but booings got nothing to do with it. Its a - I just a - Ive got to tell you, man, its Bill of Rights is free speech and I just want to admit that I accept this Tom Paine Award in behalf of James Forman of the Students Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and on behalf of the people who went to Cuba. (Boos and Applause) ==================== Ballad of John Henry Faulk - Phil Ochs Listen to the song here: https://youtube/watch?v=KZf9uYD_5Z8 ==================== Interview with John Henry Faulk Alternative Views TV show, 1985. Watch here: https://youtube/watch?v=49uOfSjZSu4&feature=related ==================== In her memoir A Freewheelin Time, Suze Rotolo recalled the moment when Bob Dylan was stopped from performing Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues on The Ed Sullivan Show on 12 may 1963. This was seven months before the NECLC dinner. She wrote: Bob was furious. He had spent some time with a blacklisted performer, John Henry Faulk, who had recently won a case against CBS and written a book about his ordeal called Fear On Trial. Bob was very interested in the subject of the blacklist and censorship , whose repercussions and absurdities were still apparent in the popularity of groups like the John Birch Society. He called me from the rehearsal studio in a fit. With remnants of McCarthy-era political censorship still in place in 1963, Bob Dylan refused to appear on *The Ed Sullivan Show. That was That. Suze Rotolo, A Freewheelin Time, p. 218 - 219. tinyurl/cgsc5fe Rotolo, Suze. A Freewheelin Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties. New York: Broadway Books, 2008 9780767926874 worldcat.org/title/freewheelin-time-a-memoir-of-greenwich-village-in-the-sixties/oclc/172521648 ==================== Listen to Bob Dylan perform Talkin John Birch Paranoid Blues: grooveshark/#!/s/Talkin+John+Birch+Paranoid+Blues/48zSFf?src=5 Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts 10 May 1963 The Brandeis University Folk Festival bjorner/DSN00340%201963.htm#DSN00475 ==================== Photograph: John Henry Faulk and Bob Dylan, National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (NECLC) dinner, Tom Paine Award, 13 December 1963..
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 23:39:06 +0000
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