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The Peace Arch Concerts

Current Review, Issue 264 (April 24,2006)
by John Shelton Ivany
Paul Robeson is a name synonymous with equal rights, justice, acting, athletics and, of course, singing. Robeson was a large man, with an even larger voice, who sang to anyone who would listen about the plight of the working class, poverty as well as traditional folk songs. These concerts were the result of Paul Robeson being blacklisted, having his passport illegally revoked and entry to Canada denied because of the McCarthy hearings. Robeson then set up a concert on the back of a flatbed truck, just a few inches from the Canadian border in Blaine, Washington: 40,000 people showed up.

He played many of the tunes that people are already familiar with including, "Ol' Man River," "No More Auction Block" and "Every Time I Feel The Spirit." But, one of his most powerful and lasting songs is "Joe Hill." Joe Hill was a labor organizer who was framed for murder charges and wrongfully executed by the state. The song is a tribute to the man, and a recognition that the work that Hill started is still alive and fought for.

The second concert was given a year later, sponsored by unions like the first time around. The second time, in 1953, estimates say between 20,000 and 40,000 people showed up. Not only were these concerts for music, but they also made a stunning statement of solidarity and unrelenting struggle for justice and freedom. The set list included "Joe Hill" again, but all other tracks were different, including: "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel," "Without Thee" (a Gaelic folksong) and "Chin Chin" (a Chinese folksong). The end of the second concert is concluded with a 12-minute speech by Robeson facing the political and class turmoil in North America at the time. Robeson's legend will live on for many years to come, and this CD will ensure that.

Dirty Linen June-July 1998
More a historical document than a musical recording, Paul Robeson's Peace Arch Concerts cannot be considered apart from their time and place. Robeson possessed an unbelievable array of natural gifts. He was a football All-American, Phi Beta Kappa, lawyer, actor, singer, civil rights activist, labor supporter, and political leader - an amazing string of accomplishments for a former slave's son in the early part of this century. Yet the American government needed only one term to describe Robeson: Communist. In 1950, they revoked his passport, claiming Robeson's "travel abroad would be contrary to the best interests of the United States." A top international concert draw, Robeson was stripped of his dignity and freedom, not to mention his livelihood. The seeds of the first Peace Arch concert were planted when Harvey Murphy, a leader of British Columbia's Mine, Mill and Smelters Workers' Union, invited Robeson to their 1952 convention in Vancouver.

Although Americans didn't need passports to visit Canada, the State Department still denied Robeson entrance. In defiance, Murphy organized a concert in Blaine, Washington's Peace Arch Park. On May 18, 1952, Robeson's supporters drove a flat-bed truck to within a foot of the Canadian border on which Robeson performed for nearly 40,000 delirious, mostly Canadian, fans and unionists. Accompanied only by an upright piano, Robeson's serene, ethereal baritone runs through a collection of timeless folk and labor songs. "Joe Hill," a lament for a miner and union leader gunned down by corporate "copper bosses," is to workers what "Amazing Grace" is to a church congregation. With his operatic power and grace, folk songs such as the Scottish "Loch Lomond" become spirituals in Robeson's hands. His introduction adds considerable meaning to "No More Auction Block," a song of a slave's dreams of freedom. The song "comes from the very depth of the struggle of my people in America," he says. "My father might have sung it....He must have sung it." "Ol' Man River," Robeson's defining number, becomes a song of determination rather than despair.

On the heels of the concert's success, a second Peace Arch concert took place the following year. This time, Robeson added spirituals such as "Go Down Moses," "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel," and "Jacob's Ladder." (Only "Joe Hill" returns from the previous year). He transforms a theme from Beethoven's Ninth into a song of protest and solidarity. On "Thou Silent Autumn Night" he displays his spine-tingling vocal range, while the poignant Gaelic folk song "Without Thee" and the Chinese march "Chin Chin" show his versatility. The highlight of the 1953 show is Robeson's 12-minute concluding speech, which remains a powerful synopsis of his political and social beliefs. Delivered with a preacher's inflection, his words of freedom, peace, and equality presage those of Martin Luther King at least a decade ahead of their time. As his 100th birthday approaches, Paul Robeson's words and music belong in the classroom, as well as the living room. - Mark Greilsamer (San Francisco, CA)

Pitch Weekly - January 1998
By Danny Alexander
If it were hopelessly musically dated, this CD would still be a historical document worth owning. When a Canadian chapter of the Mine, Mill and Smelters' Workers' Union asked the internationally respected (but domestically blacklisted) singer/ actor /orator Paul Robeson to speak at its annual convention in 1952, the American State Department told the outspoken human rights activist that he could not leave the United States. With the sort of creative defiance we might expect today only from, say, Rage Against the Machine, Robeson decided to perform one foot from the border, so that both Canadians and Americans could gather and listen.

This CD offers the first two of four shows performed in that spot, immortalizing a piece of history Cold War America wanted erased. But the album is fascinating musically as well. It is amazing to hear the voice for which "Old Man River" was written deliver the song as a rallying cry for revolutionary struggle, and it is haunting to hear Robeson take on the persona of his father, a former slave and (after liberation) A.M.E. minister, to sing "No More Auction Block." Still, perhaps no aspect of this album is more musically arresting than the sound of Robeson's speaking voice. A product of another time, Robeson articulates each word with the fog-cutting style of an old time radio announcer (particularly in 1952). But he also speaks with artful precision, delivering a 12-minute speech (at the end of the 1953 performance) crafted to emancipate the world - with enough rhetorical fervor that it still just might.

Atlantic Monthly - February 1998 Popular Music and Jazz
By Bob Blumenthal and Charles M. Young
The Woodstock of the McCarthy Era
Although songs are usually lame vehicles for the serious examination of political issues, they do provide inspiration and fortitude when it's time to act. In American history nobody understood this power of music better than Paul Robeson. Next year is the centennial of his birth, and Folk Era is seizing the day by issuing The Peace Arch Concerts, a live recording of Robeson singing one foot from the Canadian border in 1952 and 1953, when the U.S. government had revoked his passport and forbidden him foreign travel. Previously available only to members of the Mine-Mill and Smelters Workers' Union in the early fifties, the concerts have been transferred from the original 78's to compact disc.

The sound quality isn't perfect (Robeson was singing from the back of a pickup truck), but his amazing bass voice cuts through everything. "Ol' Man River" was written for him, after all, and nobody ever sang it better. Convinced of humanity's essential unity, Robeson sang songs from many lands (in twenty different languages) long before "world music" was even a concept. Here he shines most on the spirituals, with their obvious relevance to the nascent civil-rights movement, and on the labor anthem "Joe Hill." The final cut is one of Robeson's few recorded speeches, in which he discussed the FBI's largely successful attempts to destroy his performing career by threatening concert promoters. His defiance is exhilarating, and far more dangerous than anything the punk movement managed to snarl. - C.M.Y.

Music Hound Folk - The Essential Album Guide - Paul Robeson
What To Buy: Robeson performed four concerts at Peace Arch Park, near Blaine, Washington, during the peak of the blacklist. Unable to leave the United States, he performed on a flat-bed truck that was driven as close as possible to the U.S. - Canadian border. The long-overdue CD release of the first two concerts, The Peace Arch Concerts - 4 1/2 stars - (Folk Era, 1998, prod. Ian Shaw), recorded in May 1952 and August 1953, documents the power of his performances. With his thundering, opera-like vocals set to piano accompaniment, Robeson offers a memorable sampling of his vast repertoire that spans Afro-American and Gaelic folk and gospel songs, including "No More Auction Block," "God Down Moses," and "Jacob's Ladder," classical pieces ("Theme from Beethoven's Ninth"), and Chinese marching songs ("Chin Chin"). The most prized tunes one the album are Robeson's distinctive interpretations of his most infulential tunes - "Ol' Man River" and "Joe Hill." A lenghty 12 1/2 minute speech by Robeson concludes the album, which stands as one of the strongest political documents of the twentieth centry. Craig Harris

The Rhythm and the Blues Billboard - January 31, 1998
by Anita Samuels
Naperville, Ill-based Folk Era Records has released a phenomenal combination of the music and speeches of Paul Robeson from 1952 to 1953. "Paul Robeson: The Peace Arch Concerts" offers a closer look at the life of the singer, actor, athlete, lawyer, scholar, and political activist. Ian Shaw's liner notes, which read like a minibiography, offer fascinating details of Robeson's legacy. It is yet another effort to rekindle the interest in and, in some cases, introduce young people to his contributions to music history. Robeson worked with a wide range of artists, including Dizzy Gillespie and Harry Belafonte, and learned to speak, write, and sing in more than 20 languages. In addition to Robeson's signature song, "Ol' Man River," his vocal range is evident in such songs as "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel" and "Drink Only To Me With Thine Eyes."

SF Weekly January 7-13, 1998
by Jeff Kaliss
Robeson's voice and persona emerge with the smoothness and elegance of finished mahogany and the strength of a towering tree trunk.
Baby boomers nurtured on the still-strong flow of American socialism that followed World War II - the so-called Red Diaper Babies - likely retain childhood memories of recordings of the gorgeous bass voice of African-American Paul Robeson, who sang about global peace and solidarity, civil rights, and the dignity of labor. This generation might also recall something of the Cold War repression of leftist activity that plagued their parents and cost Robeson, a champion of civil rights and advocate of befriending the Soviets, his passport and opportunities to tour the States. These difficulties led the singer, an All-American football player, Phi Beta Kappa scholar and one of the 10 top paid concertizers in the world - to accept an invitation in 1952 to sing, accompanied on piano, from a flatbed truck parked in British Columbia, a foot from the Washington state border. The rank and file of the Mine, Mill and Smelters Workers' Union, which hosted this and several annual repeats, were rewarded with many of their favorite labor songs, most memorably "Joe Hill," a beautifully lyrical account of an inspirational posthumous visit from a wrongfully executed miner.

The Peace Arch Concerts preserves the first two of these performances. Between the infectious cheers and the applause of the tens of thousands assembled on either side of the border, there are black spirituals and work songs, international folk songs, and musical pleas for solidarity, like "Song of the Four Rivers" and an anthem that features lyrics set to "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Despite the limitations of the rough tape-recording technology, Robeson's voice and persona emerge with the smoothness and elegance of finished mahogany and the strength of a towering tree trunk. Robeson's voice was an opera quality basso; perhaps his most acclaimed performance was In Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, though he's probably best known for his on-screen rendition of "Ol' Man River" (included here) in Showboat. This song was written specifically for him by Jerome Kern.) His dramatic range and insight likewise bring depth to "No More Auction Block" and "Jacob's ladder."

With the roar of the crowds and the comments of the labor hosts, this album serves equally as historical record and testimony to a fine artist whose hundred birthday will be celebrated this April. Robeson's 12-minute speech that concludes the record is so full of heart and high energy, that it may reawaken a too comfortable generation and their jaded seniors to a source of hope and political consciousness, considered dangerous in a much grimmer time.

Speech at the Peace Arch
August 16, 1953 - Peace Arch Park, Blaine, Washington
" I wish I could go on all day, but I want to just say a few words and "Thank you" again for your very great kindness in coming here today. It means much to us in America - much to the American struggling for peace in the Northwest. Some of the finest people in the world under pressure today, facing jail, facing hostile courts, for the simple fact that they are struggling for peace - struggling for a decent America where all of us who have helped build that land can live in decency and in good will.

As for myself, as I said last year, I remain the same Paul that you have known throughout all these years - the same Paul - but time has made it so that everyone - I included - must fight harder today to preserve the basic liberties guaranteed to us Americans by our Constitution.

If it were not so - if this were not so, I would be with you in Vancouver. I would be traveling all over the Canada that I cherish so deeply. And it might interest you to know that just the other day, the Actors Association in Great Britain - the British Equity Association - actors - I remember years ago I was in London when this group was formed. We had an Actors Equity here in America, and a very progressive one and a very militant one. And I had been playing in the Workers Theater - the Unity Theater - which I helped establish in London. And I know there was quite an argument among the actors. Some of them rather - well "I don't quite know whether we are workers or not and whether we better have a union." And I remember making a speech and saying to them as a visiting artist, but one who was very close to them that: "We who labor in the arts - we who are singers, we who are actors, we who are artists - we must remember that we come from the people. Our strength comes from the people, and we must serve the people and be a part of them."

And just the other day, in America today, it's very difficult to play in the theater or to get a hall to sing in. Whenever I go into a city like St. Louis and to many of the cities, the wrath of all the powers-that-be descends upon one single poor minister who wants to give me his church, or descends upon the people who rent the hall. They are told by all the forces in America - the strongest business forces - ministers are told the banks will no longer honor their mortgages - everything to keep just one person from appearing in a concert in this church or in this hall.

I know what it means. They don't want to hear people speak for peace. Many of the bravest working class leaders are today in prison. And today we fight in America on the eve of this truce - as this truce is concluded in Korea - we fight for the amnesty and the freedom of those leaders to come back and to lead their people.

So I can't act or sing in any sort of decent place - very seldom, in my own country. So the British actors, however - there was a request, and a contract sent to me to play "Othello" in London as soon as I could get there. And they went to the British Equity Actors Association to see if I could get a labor permit. And they said there was no question of the status of Mr. Robeson - that he could come here and play "Othello." But beyond that we would like to see that production and to see him play that role which he played so well in 1930 in England, and at the end of it was a very important phrase: "And we would welcome him to this land." They would welcome me to England to play "Othello."

And at the same time, I received an invitation that - I just couldn't receive an invitation that could mean more. It's from the miners in Wales - the miners in Wales - and Wales, you know, is a part of England where I first understood the struggles of white and Negro together. When I went down into the coal mines - into the Rhondda Valley - went down in the mines with those workers, lived among them - later did a picture, as you know, called "Proud Valley" - and I became so close that in Wales today, as I feel here, they feel me a part of that land. And I have just received an invitation to appear at a Eisteddfod, in October, next October 4th, to be given by the miners and by the workers of Wales, and I hope to be able to get there to do that.

So it's very important that we are gathered here today - that our government can understand that artists - not only myself - there are so many of us - so many scientists, like Dr. Du Bois, one of the greatest Americans who ever lived, proudly a son of the Negro people, but one who has contributed to the advance of all mankind. And the idea that Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois cannot leave this country to attend peace meetings - to attend scientific gatherings - all over the earth. And that goes for so many outstanding American scientists, intellectuals, workers, trade union leaders - so that you must understand this - they will hear about this today. They will hear about our gathering here. This will mean a great deal to see that many of us may be able to travel in the future.

And why do they take my passport away? They have said so in a case. They put it in a brief. They said that no matter what my political beliefs, what my standing among the Negro people of my own land in America, they would have to take my passport away anyhow, because out of my own lips, mind you, from my own lips, for many years, I have been struggling for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa. And that is meddling in the foreign affairs of the United States government. Now that's just too bad, 'cause I'm going to have to continue to meddle.

But I stand and I say to you as you come from our land here in this American continent, I am proud of the America in which I was born. My father was a slave, reared in North Carolina. I have many friends all over the earth, and rightly so. Other Americans can choose their Francos if they want to. Other Americans can choose the refuse of Nazi fascism. They can wander around the earth picking those who would keep mankind in perpetual slavery. I choose to stretch out my hand across the ocean to brave peoples of many lands - across the border to Latin America, to Neruda in Chile, to the brave people of Cuba and Mexico, across the ocean to the lands of Asia. And I stretch my hand to the people of the new China as they build a new life for 500 million people.

As I say, as an American, as Jefferson in his time stretched his hands across to meet the great heroes of the French Revolution of 1789, I stretch my hand across the continent to shake the hands of the brave Soviet people and of the new People's Democracies. That is my right as an American. And I know - I could have sung it today - I could sing so many songs - they sing only the songs of peace there in that land, and I would have liked to have sung a song today, "Peace Will Conquer War," a song composed by Shostakovich, the great Soviet composer.

But I speak as one whose roots are in the soil of my land. I speak as one, as I say, whose fathers and whose mothers toiled in cotton - toiled in tobacco - toiled in indigo - toiled to help create the basic wealth upon which the great land of the United States was built. The great primary wealth came from the blood and from the suffering of my forefathers. And I say, as I have said many times, that I have a right to speak out on their blood - on what they have contributed to that land, and on what I have contributed also, as best I can. But I say right here that because of their struggle, I will go around the world, but I'm telling you now that a good piece of that American earth belongs to me. And it belongs to my children and to my grandchildren - I have two of them, you know, two grandchildren - a boy about 2 1/2 and a little girl about six months - boy, they're sharp!

So there's a lot of America that belongs to me and to my people. And we have struggled too long ever to give it up. My people are determined in America to be, not second-class citizens, to be full citizens - to be first-class citizens, and that is the rock upon which I stand. From that rock, I reach out, as I say, across the world, to my forefathers in Africa, to Canada, all around the world, because I know that there is one humanity, that there is no basic difference of race or color, no basic difference of culture, but that all human beings can live in friendship and in peace. I know it from experience. I have seen the people. I have learned their languages. I sing their songs. And I go about America, or wherever I may go, seeking of simple things. It seems so simple that all people should live in full human dignity and in friendship. But somewhere the enemy has always been around who tries to push back the great mass of the people, in every land - we know that. But I said long ago that I was going to give up my life to spend my day-to-day struggle in down among the masses of the people, not even as any great artist up on top somewhere - but right here in this park, in many of the picket lines, wherever I could be - to help the struggle of the people. And I will never apologize for that. I shall continue to fight, as I see the truth, and I tell you here, I hope to see you next year. Wherever I am in the world, I'll come back, to be here next year. I'll come back.

And I want you to know that I'll continue this year fighting for peace, however difficult it may be. And I want everybody in the range of my voice to hear, official or otherwise, that there is no force on earth that will make me go backward one-thousandth part of one little inch."

-Paul Robeson

The Freedom Train and the Welsh Transatlantic Concert
Album Review
Paul Robeson born April 9, 1998 was a prodigous athlete, fiery orator, and intellectual genius. Paul graduated high school valedictorian, placed in a statewide speaking contest, attended Rutgers University on scholarship, and became the second Black Football All-American. And throughout his life, he stood fighting for equality at the bottom of many political mountains. This ablum presents bookends of Robeson's political activism through art.

In the late summer of 1947, the American Heritage Foundation announced a plan to have the original text of the Declaration of Independence and other historical national documents tour the country on a special red, white, and blue train called The Freedom Train. However, the foundation flatly refused to guarantee that the exhibition would be not be segregated.

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) felt indebted to write a poem on the subject and wanted his good friend Paul Robeson to be the voice behind the plea for equality. Paul agreed and subsequently recorded The Freedom Train, incorporating Hughes' poem into his concerts and speeches.

In 1950, the United States Government revoked Robeson's passport, announcing that "the State Department considers that Paul Robeson's travel abroad would be contrary to the best interests of the United States."

Then in 1957, with the laying of the transatlantic telephone cable, Robeson was able to provide real-time communication with the world outside of the United States. In October of 1957, the Welsh Transatlantic concert was given to an audience in Porthcrawl, Wales. After Robeson spoke and sang the Treorchy Male Voice Choir, a Welsh choir made up of miners, sang for Robeson and finally, not just the choir, but the entire audience sang for him as well. These songs of historical value are presented here, available outside of Wales for the first time. The sound quality is amazing, the choral singing is powerful, and the significance of the event remains undiminished.

It was only a few months after this 1957 concert that Robeson's passport was at last returned and he was able to travel abroad again.

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