"1913 Massacre" - Woody Guthrie

 

Take a trip with me in 1913,
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I will take you to a place called Italian Hall,
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

I will take you in a door and up a high stairs,
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with the people you see,
And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

You ask about work and you ask about pay,
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know it you're friends with us all,
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.

Well a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet,
To hear all this fun you would not realize,
That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside.

The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door,
One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire, "
A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing.
Keep on with your party, there's no such thing."

A few people rushed and it was only a few,
"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you, "
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down,
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor,
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see,
We carried our children back up to their tree,
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree,
And the children that died there were seventy-three.

The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done."

"The Witmark Demos" by Bob Dylan (1962-64)

One of the best things about not having enough money to buy everything you want is that you often come across that item several years later, and, having forgotten all about it, it’s brand new to you. Everyone else may have heard it; all the critics have expressed their views; but for me it’s like finding treasure. It becomes personal; mine; a secret which has apparently passed by all the others who got there first. That’s how this album affected me.

Released in 2010 by Sony Brothers, this unique collection represents the “demos” recorded by Bob Dylan in the first few years of his life as a recording artist. As a result, the collection contains such unusual items as Dylan doing “The Times they Are a Changing” on piano, rather than guitar, It’s more of a hymn than a protest song. I can hardly imagine him lugging a piano around to all those Civil Rights rallies and having the same effect as he did with his guitar upon the millions who saw and heard him.

Almost all of the selections on this album were released on Mr. Dylan’s first 3 albums for Columbia. And even without much change in the arrangements; indeed some were not changed at all; there is more urgency on these tracks than in their final incarnations. There is also a bit of banter with the engineers as he struggles through some of the numbers which lends more of a “live” effect to the songs, making the whole listening experience even better. This is Dylan; alone playing guitar, piano and harmonica; singing the songs he sings best. If you are lucky, as I was, in missing this collection when it was first released; then you are in for a real treat.

Below is the track listing from the rear cover;

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RIP Annette

Annette Funicello appears at 43 seconds.

William Zantzinger - Rural Aristocrat

This is a photo of William Zantzinger, in handcuffs, being led from The Emerson Hotel in Baltimore, after having bludgeoned Hattie Carroll into a coma, and subsequently her death, for not moving fast enough when serving him. The date was February 8th, 1963.

I was listening to some old Bob Dylan today when I was reminded of his song, "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", which became a rallying cry in the cause of Civil Rights. This is a link to Bob Dylan performing the song sometime in 1964.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTRUe33hC1U&feature=related

The story behind the song is interesting in 2 ways. Let's start on the bus coming back from Washington DC after the "I Have A Dream Speech" on August 28th, 1963. The assault of Ms. Carroll had taken place in February of that year, but was confined mostly to the local papers. Mr. Dylan, riding the bus back to NY, read about the trial and wrote the song in NY at his apartment, later finishing it at Joan Baez' home in Nyack. He recorded it in October and and began to sing it around the country at protest marches. Although never a monster hit, the song is an important one, in that is is based entirely on fact, although Dylan cleverly omits the "t" in Zantzinger, which was helpful when Mr. Zantzinger tried to sue him for slander.

I was totally unfamilar with this story until I moved to Baltimore in 1981.When I first lived there the Emerson Hotel was in it's last days. The place was enormous and had a fine restaurant on the ground floor. A friend of mine worked there as a waitress until she was fired for being underage. But she was the one who first introduced me to the story behind the song. At the time of the actual event, I was only 10 years old and living in Brooklyn. I have no recollection of the story at the time, and never would have dreamt that I would one day not only be a regular visitor to the hotel, but that I would meet one of the kitchen staff who had been on duty the night Hattie Carroll was beaten by William Zantzinger. These are the agreed upon events and the order in which they unfolded;

Mr. Zantzinger, along with his wife, began to drink early on the afternoon of Friday February 8th, 1963, and continued on into the night. He was a nasty drunk, at times verbally and physically abusive, even to his wife. During his druken spree he struck one of the bellhops with his cane and shouted at a waitress, "Hey, niger, bring me a drink." He was so drunk that at one point he collapsed on top of his wife while they were dancing. He then returned to the bar, demanding another drink from Hattie Carroll, the 51 year old black barmaid. She had a family of 11 children and also had heart problems. Addressing him politely she said, "Just a minute, sir." This enraged the drunken Zantzinger. Blacks did not act that way in his native Charles County, and he was not used to waiting for anything.

He began to verbally abuse Ms. Carroll, while at the same time striking her about the head with his cane. She immediately served him the bourbon that he had demanded and then stepped away from the bar, remarking to her co-workers that "that man has done got me ill."

An ambulance was called but it was already too late. Hattie Carroll would die the next day as the result of a stroke brought on by the indignity of being struck by Mr. Zantzinger.

Zantzinger was a "rural aristocrat", meaning that he was the son of an influential local planter, and as such, was treated with kid gloves during both his trial and sentencing. He was even freed after the sentencing so that he could finish harvesting his crops, which were substantial in value when compared to the life of a mother of 11. He subsequently did six months in jail, where he was treated as a celebrity, and additionally was fined $625.

After his sentence he returned to his home, had 3 kids, divorced, married again and moved to another county where he sold real estate until his death sometime in the 1990's. He died never having expressed remorse for his crime.