Musicians Are Feeling The Bern

I can't believe people were asking me if I went to the big Bernie-Public Enemy event at the L.A. Colliseum ever the weekend. Me? In a 17,000 people arena? In the middle of the coronavirus. I don't even like going to a restaurant anymore. That said-- and watch the video up top-- L.A. Times pop music reporter Randy Lewis wrote about Bernie's immense support from musicians of all stripes. It wasn't a review of the Public Enemy concert though. "Two days ahead of California’s Democratic presidential primary," wrote Lewis, "the 78-year-old Sanders, after taking the stage to the thump of John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band’s “Power to the People,” introduced Chuck D as someone “who has spoken truth to power for decades.” After his brief speech, Chuck and his four-man crew performed a 30-minute set featuring bits and pieces of such classic hip-hop agit-prop as 'Bring the Noise,' 'Black Steel in the Age of Chaos' and, fittingly, Fight the Power.

Among musicians, Chuck D is far from alone for his full-throated support of the Democratic-Socialist-turned-Democratic-frontrunner. The Vermont senator has drawn endorsements from a wide range of Gen X and millennial rock musicians— from Vampire Weekend, the Strokes and Portugal the Man to Jack White, Best Coast and Bon Iver. Many are not only supporting Sanders by word but also performing at fundraisers or other rallies: Vampire Weekend and Bon Iver played Sanders events in Iowa in January; the Strokes performed for him in New Hampshire, and neo-soul group Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats are playing to boost Sanders’ efforts in Minnesota on Monday on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries.

Sanders is “the only non-corporate candidate, so by default, he’s the only person who you can trust what he’s saying,” the Strokes’ frontman Julian Casablancas told Rolling Stone. “Whatever energy an announcement can give, [we wanted] to get that attention to Bernie. That’s way more important. We would probably do anything he asked.”

Sonic Youth singer and bassist Kim Gordon has participated in politically and socially oriented rallies in years past, but this election has come out in public support for Sanders. Taking Sanders’ grassroots campaign ethic to heart, she invited her more than 300,000 Instagram followers to join her in canvassing precincts door-to-door last month in the San Fernando Valley.

“I feel like it’s kind of the bleakest moment or maybe the most hopeful moment right now,” she told The Times. “Or it could be both. Bernie is such an inspirational figure. He’s been saying the same thing for years, and he’s the only candidate who has grown the Democratic party, who has done outreach to the Latino community, to people who’ve never been approached, as well as to black communities. He really helped create this movement that’s bigger than any candidate.”

In addition to winning support in the rock community, Sanders also has won over a number of hip-hop artists, among them Cardi B., Lizzo, Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike, Anderson .Paak, Lil Yachty and rapper T.I., as well as pop stars including Miley Cyrus, Zedd and Ariana Grande.

Some musicians have lined up behind other candidates: Cher and singer/actress Rita Wilson-- and her husband, Tom Hanks-- are stumping for former Vice President Joe Biden, while John Legend, Melissa Etheridge, Rosanne Cash and Aimee Mann are backing Sen. Elizabeth Warren. John Mellencamp [LOL] is supporting former New York mayor and media mogul Michael Bloomberg.

All these endorsements beg the question in 2020: What does such support mean in the age of social media? Unlike in decades past, when rock and pop stars’ support was considered essential to amplifying candidates’ public profiles or policy positions-- it was virtually a rite of passage in recent decades when Bruce Springsteen would perform in support of Democratic presidential frontrunners-- today politicians can reach out directly voters through Twitter, Instagram and Facebook posts and advertisements. Voters themselves also voluminously broadcast their own preferences to their own followers, whether those number in the dozens or in the millions.

For Cash, an outspoken activist for most of her life and the daughter of country music icon Johnny Cash, a tweet announcing her support for Warren wasn’t posted with any expectation it would suddenly push the 70-year-old former schoolteacher to the front of the Democratic pack.

“People are pretty entrenched these days, there’s not much dialogue,” Cash said. “I don’t know what impact I’ll have. If I make any waves, it’s a tiny ripple. What’s important to me is to participate in the process.”

“For any given celebrity or artist, I think their political impact is diluted because of the online ecosystem we have now,” said Nate Sloan, professor of musicology at USC. “I think the exception to that is endorsements by artists that are unexpected in some way.

“One would be rapper Killer Mike, who has been a really strong supporter of Bernie Sanders’ campaign. His endorsement has been particularly surprising-- an African American inner-city rapper endorsing a left-wing Jewish socialist from Vermont. It reaches communities Sanders might not otherwise reach.”

At the same time, Sloan cited another artist who has more in common with Sanders-- 74-year-old rock star Neil Young, who last month took his oath of U.S. citizenship so he can vote in the November election and soon thereafter posted a scathing attack on President Donald Trump, laying out his concerns about climate change, his animosity toward Trump and his support for Bernie Sanders.





“We’ve seen examples where certain artists making public statements about politics backfired,” USC’s Sloan said. “Lady Gaga was actually used by Trump in 2016 for her support of a Democratic candidate, and that became a rallying cry for how many people didn’t like her.

“Neil Young has a fan base that’s somewhat older, probably white, probably male-- a lot of people who would be voting for Trump,” said Sloan. “Perhaps his letter may have more impact than one coming from Lady Gaga.”

[I have to jump in here and wonder aloud if Mr. Sloan has been to Neil Young concerts. Neil's fan-- and I was the president of his record company-- are not, by and large, Trump voters.]

What Gaga has that Young, Cash or other veteran musicians don’t, though, is millions of social media followers. Young has more than 450,000 Twitter followers, Cash has just under 120,000.

Gaga, by contrast, has 81 million, Taylor Swift has nearly 86 million, and 2016 Hillary Clinton advocate Katy Perry has more than 108 million, translating into massively greater potential reach for whatever issues or candidates they decide to support.

Swift notably ended her historically apolitical public profile during the 2018 Congressional midterm elections, endorsing Democratic Tennessee senatorial candidate Phil Bredesen and House of Representative candidate Jim Cooper [two conservatives].

Cooper won his race [just as he always does, a right-wing Democrat in a totally blue D+7 district where the Republicans don't even bother running a serious candidate], while Republican Marsha Blackburn ultimately narrowly defeated Bredesen. Swift’s message urging her 120 million Instagram followers to vote, however, was followed by a wave of more than 434,000 new registrations-- with nearly two-thirds from people under 30-- in the first five days after her post went up, according to Vote.org.

For all the political and cultural divisiveness many have complained about in recent years, some say they’ve found a measure of comfort in actively engaging with politics ahead of the November election.

L.A. singer-songwriter Julia Holter was one of a handful of local indie musicians who performed on Feb. 24 at an unofficial fundraiser for Sanders at the Lodge Room in Highland Park. “It was a very warm feeling at the show-- just people there for a cause and not taking themselves seriously, no divas,” she said. Filled to capacity, the event ended up raising $10,000 for the Sanders campaign.

“In today’s climate,” Holter said, “it’s important for people to feel something positive.”

Other musicians who have endorsed Bernie include Norah Jones, Sacred Reich, Jackson Browne, Béla Fleck, The Wonder Years, Ani DiFranco, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Michael Stipe, Pussy Riot, Devendra Banhart, Jello Biafra, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Billy Bragg, Jack White, Jason Mraz, Belinda Carlisle, Harry Belafonte...

Music When I Was A Kid

In terms of music, I was one very lucky teenager. If I liked a musician or a band, I would book them to play my college, Stony Brook. I was chair of the Student Activities Board and much of the music we brought to the school was fairly unknown but on the verge-- like Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, the Four Tops (they were already famous), Big Brother, Grateful Dead, Otis Redding, the Blue Oyster Cult (the Soft White Underbelly then), Ravi Shankar, Joni Mitchell, Smokey Robinson, The Band... Bands were so inexpensive to book back then and I had what appeared to me to be an unlimited budget. $400 for the Doors, $1,500 to $3,500 for bands from England, $50 for a random folk singer who had nothing better to do that night.

Me then-- 1965 on the left, 1969 on the right, after 4 years of drugs

Besides the ones who became famous there were lots of others that never became really broke through but who I thought were fantastic and worthwhile. Some I booked as opening acts-- like two kids I met at a Velvet Underground performance in Manhattan, Tim Buckley (for the Doors) and Jackson Browne (for Judy Collins)-- and others I booked to play informal pop-up concerts in the dorm lounges, like The Fugs and Tom Rush.




I spent a lot of time listening to bands in New York and asking them to play my school, an hour away. It's how I met Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, neither at all really known at the time, as well as Eric Anderson, Tim Hardin and Richie Havens, dozens more. And I'd get everyone out to Stony Brook. Some of the students loved what I was doing and some hated it and hated me for it. Most of the kids were too busy studying to notice.





I met John Hammond at the Cafe Au Go Go and talked him into coming back to Stony Brook and play (for $50). When I was driving him down the Long Island Expressway, his fingers were so steady that he found stations on my car radio that I never knew existed. I had seen him when Jimi Hendrix's band (Jimmy James and the Blue Flames) was his backup band. This is the album he released while I was a freshman:





The bands that were always playing at the Cafe Au Go Go all played Stony Brook-- Paul Butterfield, the Blues Project-- and any band that came to the East Coast I'd co-book with Howard Solomon, the guy who ran the place, like the Youngbloods and Love. And you know what made me think of spending tonight on music? Sandy Bull. I was just in Thailand last week and Sandy Bull's music popped into my head while I was meditating in a Vietnamese temple. The music that was playing just brought Sandy Bull up. Give him a listen. He never got real famous but he was an inspiration for me:





One more thing. I was on acid one time and someone turned me onto an album, The Classical Music of Pakistan by Salamat and Nazikot Ali (usually called the Ali Brothers). I wanted to book them to play so bad. I would listen to that album whenever I got high (basically everyday). But I could never find a way to get in touch with them. I played the album for the Jefferson Airplane when they stayed at my house before a concert. The next album had a song clearly influenced by the Ali Brothers. In 1969 I bought a VW van in Germany and drove to Pakistan to find them. When I got to their small rural village in the mountains I found out they were playing in India. Bummer! A few years later I was working in the restaurant at the Kosmos, the meditation center in Amsterdam. I had just finished washing up and was dead tired and couldn't wait to get home and go to sleep. A friend came down and said, "There's this great band playing upstairs you have to see." I whined about how tired I was and he said I should go to sleep on the floor while listening to them. I didn't have the strength to resist and he dragged me upstairs. It was the Ali Brothers. It was magic.

Voters-- and Neighbors-- Of The Future? What Will Influence Them-- Besides US3R?

Have you heard any of US3R's music? He describes himself as a solo indie pop / electronic artist based in Seattle and he began this project in early 2018. Raised by a family of musicians, he spent his childhood in Palm Springs. "I write songs," he told his fans, "that I feel are a commentary on modern life, society, social media, and relationships." The music is socially conscious grungy electro-pop.

"This year," he wrote," I've been recording an album called Influence. It is a commentary about influencer culture, our desperate desire to be loved and famous in the era of social media. It is also about the breakdown of intimacy due to technology. It was 10 tracks, and I had considered it done. Then, while I was on an airplane home, and I began listening to Norman Fucking Rockwell by Lana Del Rey for the first time. After I heard that song, I was stunned by the honesty of her lyrics, and immediately was inspired to write a song that felt extremely honest. I wrote "Millennial Blues" right then in its entirety. That next week, I finished the track in the studio. It fit the theme of Influence perfectly, and it became the 11th track. The theme was so central to the album, it became the main single for the album."





The album came out on DeepWater Records on December 15. He lists his own musical influencers as Big Data, Pharell, Daft Punk, Bon Iver, Glass Animals and Prince. Want to follow him on Twitter? I noticed him making fun of Devin Nunes the other day. I see he has some tour dates booked in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco coming up early next year. I hope he's doing some shows in Southern California too. He'd be so perfect for a gig in Riverside for Liam O'Mara's campaign. I wonder if he does that kind of thing.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

I will assume that former Civil Rights activist now U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-GA) started this ball rolling but there's no reason why we can't keep it rolling. I like Bobby Rush's suggestion of The Four Treasons. It's a natural. But the public has been coming up with a lot of good band names for the four horses asses of the apocalypse shown in the picture. With apologies to some of the real bands that these names recall, here are some of my other favorite band names for this group so far. Reader additions to the list are welcome. Have at it. Give it your best/worst.

1. The Ukraine Clown Posse

2. 'N CLINK

3. The Well Below Average White Band

4. The Unraveling Wilburys

5. The Cheatles

6. Bare Naked Grifters

7. Three Men And A Baby

8. The Tragically Uncool

9. The Hateful Dead

10. Boys To Men To Traitors

11. They Might Be Fascists

12. DJT & The Fresh Pences

13. 4 Stooges

14. Putin's Puppets

And, with extra apologies to Poison:

Why Do Young People Have Such Contempt For The Republican Party? That's Easy

Last month Paul Ryan's corporately funded, sleazy SuperPAC ran thousands of dollars of really nasty radio ads beating up on progressive Democrat Kara Eastman for having been in a punk band, Pieces of Fuck, when she was in college. Ryan's PAC is desperate to save the Omaha congressional seat-- which is quickly slipping from their grasp-- for failed Trump rubber-step Don Bacon. That's why they've dug up something inocuous from when Kara was in school. What clowns they are-- and they pulled they same sort of silliness on Beto O'Rourke yesterday, in both cases to get voters' minds off the issues that contrast Kara with Bacon and Beto with Cruz.



Today, Philip Trapp, at Alternative Press, wrote about the GOP's rock'n'roll problem. The Texas Republican Party must have thought they were helping their pathetic U.S. Senate candidate-- and former mime-- Ted Cruz, by "tweeting photos of O’Rourke skating, rocking and just generally appearing relatable (as opposed to being a two-faced morality robot) in what seems a misguided effort to discredit the congressman and save Cruz’s [rapidly shrinking] lead."

Failed mime failed U.S. senator, Ted Cruz

Conservatives from both parties have always feared young people and feared and hated everything to do with young people. I remember spending too much time fighting with right-wing asshole Joe Lieberman when he started attacking one of the artists on my label, Ice-T. But it's usually Republicans who are the culprits. Now, they seem to believe that Beto can't be a senator from Texas because he was in a popular El Paso emo band, Foss, that started when he was in high school. One of his bandmates, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, became famous as the lead single for Mars Volta and At The Drive-In. Beto will be even more famous when Texans send him to the U.S. Senate. Here he is, more recently, playing with Texas music icon, Willy Nelson. Anything you want to say about that, Ted Cruz?

And it's not like Beto is the first politician-- or even first member of Congress-- to have been in a band. Probably the only nice thing that anyone can say about Dana Rohrabacher (R-Moscow) is that he was too. And when I asked someone in Palm Springs, some years ago, why they elected a goof ball like Republican Sonny Bono to the House, he said it was because everyone hoped Cher would show up in town sometimes. She didn't.



A few years ago, Blue America backed John Hall for Congress in upstate New York-- and he won. The fact that he had been a member of the band Orleans didn't play much of a part in the race but, if anything, it helped him with name recognition running against an entrenched Republican incumbent. People still love his song, "Still the One," which music-hating conservative Joe Lieberman tried appropriating as a campaign song, forcing Hall to serve him with a cease and desist order. It's still being payed on the radio today-- over 4 decades later. It had a positive impact on people's lives, more than you can say for most politicians.



I'm pretty sure Orrin Hatch was in a band too. He's definitely a serious songwriter. Here he was (below) at a recording session for one of his hit songs, "Eight Days of Hanukkah." It looks like he's trying to be the producer. Maybe he was. He definitely was eager to show everyone he was wearing a mezuzah, at least for the session.



Not my cup of tea but I'll give equal time to another well-known senator who served with Hatch, John Kerry whose 1960 high school band, The Electras has songs all over YouTube. Kerry was the bass player. Give it up or "Guitar Boogie Shuffle":



Back to Utah for a minute-- former governor (and serial presidential hopeful) Jon Huntsman dropped out of high school in the 1970s to join a Salt Lake City band called Wizard. He sported a mullet and played keyboards while they did covers of REO Speedwagon and Led Zeppelin.

In 1978, Senate majority whip Robert Byrd released an album called Mountain Fiddler with covers of folksy West Virginia standards like "Rye Whiskey" and "Cripple Creek." Like Beto and Kara, he was proud of his musical roots regardless of what assholes like Ted Cruz have to say. Here he was on TV-- fiddlin' and singing while he was already Senate Majority Whip. Audience loved it too!



Republican senators Connie Mack (FL), Larry Craig (ID, later caught trying to blow an undercover policeman in a public toilet), John Ashcroft (MO), Jim Jeffords (VT) and Trent Lott (MS) were in a barber-shop quartet, more of a Republican thing than a rock band. They released an album, Let Freedom Sing in 1998. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) is always trying to jam with anyone and he was in a band called Capitol Offense, a band that mostly covered Boston songs, until Tom Scholz had him served with a cease and desist order for fucking up "More Than a Feeling" so badly. A video of them playing "Mustang Sally" can still be found on YouTube. Unfortunately, neither Mack Rice nor Wilson Pickett ever made them stop performing it.



Florida congressman-- now MSNBC host-- Joe Scarborough fronts-- to this day-- an eponymous nine-piece band, Scarborough, mostly performing covers of Prince and Eagles tunes.

I can't remember, but did the Texas GOP complain when Kinky Friedman ran for governor of their state? He sucked up 13% of the vote too. Others elected to office include Jon Fishman (Phish) who was elected a selectman (like city council member) in Lincolnville, Maine; Martha Reeves-- from Martha and the Vandellas-- who was elected to serve a term on the Detroit City Council; and Jerry Butler, the longest-serving Board Commissioner for Cook County, Illinois.




And still threatening to run for something or other every now and then are three somewhat crazy Republican crackpots, Ted Nugent, Kanye West and Kid Rock. Look, in the course of writing this, I was listening to a lot of songs and when I heard this song just below I literally could.not.keep.myself. from jumping up and dancing my ass off as if I was back at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater waiting to give Maxine Brown a kiss backstage.



One last thing-- this tweet by Dayna Steele, east Texas congressional candidate, absolutely owning the Republican Party of Texas:

UPDATE: Kara

Kara Eastman's Communications Director got me this statement, which is worth reading: "The Congressional Leadership Fund was quick to villanize Kara's membership in her college's performance art band, Pieces of Fuck. In high school, she was in a singing group called the All Americans (but you don't see the CLF talking about that band name). We find it ironic that the opposition would want to attack Kara, and Beto, for doing something many American teens do - join a band, sing songs about issues that matter to them, and express themselves through music. Congress would be a better place with more musicians, and while we were joking about a College Band Congressional Caucus, Kara is looking forward to working with politicians like Beto who lead with heart-- and music."

If you like music and free expression, you can contribute to Kara's campaign here.

Take Back The Power

If I was still working at Reprise in 2011 I would have tried to sign The Interrupters. The 3 Bivona brothers were in a band, Telecasters, opening for Sugar Ray when they met singer Aimee Allen (now Aimee Interruptor). My friend David Kahne, head of A&R at Reprise, had produced Sugar Ray's big album, so it probably wouldn't have been hard to do. "Take Back the Power," that song up top reminds me of Green Day, Rancid, The Specials, The Clash and Joan Jett. But Epitaph signed them through Hellcat and released their first album exactly 4 years ago and "Take Back the Power" was the first single. You might have heard it on a T-Mobile ad or on that Showtime comedy Shameless. No? How about Michael Moore's film, Where To Invade Next?



The Interrupters' live dates before the election are at in Denver (Sept 22), Austin (Sept 23), Auburn--between Seattle and Tacoma (Sept 29), Boise (Sept 3-) and then San Diego (Oct 20) before heading off the the U.K.

So what about the band's politics? Aimee was a Ron Paul supporter and recorded a campaign song for him-- anti-war, anti-Patriot Act, anti-police state... the better end of libertarianism. She performed at some of his campaign events. If "Liberty" is any indication, the band definitely is in the libertarian camp. She's been interviewed by Alex Jones at least 4 or 5 times but all of the InfoWars stuff has been removed from YouTube. These are the lyrics to "Take Back The Power":

What's your plan for tomorrow
Are you a leader or will you follow
Are you a fighter or will you cower
It's our time to take back the power

Whatcha gonna do
When they show up in black suits
On your street in army boots
And they're there to silence you
Whatcha gonna say
When they strip your rights away
And the taxman makes you pay
For every bead of sweat you bled today

We don't need to run and hide
We won't be pushed off to the side

What's your plan for tomorrow
Are you a leader or will you follow
Are you a fighter or will you cower
It's our time to take back the power

Who you gonna trust
When the judge is so unjust
And the jury must discuss
Said you don't look like one of us
Where you gonna turn
Now the court has been adjourned
And the lessons that you learned
Are not as many as the bridges burned

We don't need to run and hide
We won't be pushed off to the side

What's your plan for tomorrow
Are you a leader or will you follow
Are you a fighter or will you cower
It's our time to take back the power

Guitarist Kevin Bivona, is very much aware of how much the band has been accused of harboring right-wing sentiments. In 2014 he wrote that they "DON’T identify ourselves as libertarians or Tea Party. In fact, we don’t identify ourselves as anything, as we believe putting people in boxes is divisive... Aimee is one of the most politically open-minded and evolving people I’ve ever met and she NEVER judges or puts people down based on their political beliefs. She is on a constant quest for knowledge and if you ask her about her politics today, they will most definitely be different than yesterday (let alone 2008)...As a band, the 4 of us think different politically and like to debate issues... We are most definitely NOT a ‘right wing’ band… but if we were, I would hope we would get the same shot as everyone else. That’s the great thing about America right? Freedom of choice and diversity, whether it be politics, religion, music.. pretty much anything."

The new album, their third, Fight The Good Fight, came out 3 months ago with "She's Kerosene" as the lead single. Enjoy:

Otis Redding Died Yesterday, 50 Years Ago, Age 26... 26--Hard To Believe

I took my job as chairman of the Student Activities Board at my college, Stony Brook, very seriously. I did all I could to offer the students the best concert and lecture series anywhere in America. We had historic concerts by Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, the Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Pink Floyd, Joni Mitchell, Ravi Shankar, Smokey Robinson, The Byrds, Tim Buckley, Big Brother, The Dead, The Temptations and in 1967-- in between the release of King & Queen with Carla Thomas and his tragic death, at 26 years old, in a plane crash in bad weather-- Otis Redding. That tragic plane crash was on December 10 50 years and one day ago.

Sunday morning Jonathan Gould commemorated the day with a brief retrospective and memorial for the New Yorker. Gould wrote that Redding was "the most charismatic and beloved soul singer of his generation, the male counterpart to Aretha Franklin, whom he had recently endowed with the hit song Respect. In the preceding year, on the strength of his triumphant tours of Britain, France, and Scandinavia, his appearances at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, and his domineering performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, Redding had pushed beyond the commercial constraints of the so-called 'Chitlin’ Circuit' of ghetto theatres and Southern night clubs. He was determined to become the first African-American artist to connect with the burgeoning audience for album rock that had transformed the world of popular music since the arrival of the Beatles in America, in 1964." The concert at Stony Brook was part of that determination-- his and mine.

Redding’s success with this new, ostensibly hip, predominantly white audience had brought him to a turning point in his career. Thrilled with the results of a throat surgery that left his voice stronger and suppler than ever before, he resolved to scale back his relentless schedule of live performances in order to place a greater emphasis on recording, songwriting, and production. In the weeks before his death, he had written and recorded a spate of ambitious new songs. One of these, the contemplative ballad (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay, became his self-written epitaph when it was released as a single, in January of 1968. A sombre overture to the year of the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy, and the election of Richard Nixon as President, the song went on to become the first posthumous No. 1 record in the history of the Billboard charts, selling more than two million copies and earning Redding the unequivocal “crossover” hit he had sought since his début on the Memphis-based label Stax, in 1962. To this day, according to the performance-rights organization BMI, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” remains one of the most frequently played (and streamed) recordings in the annals of American music.

In an age of pop culture replete with African-American superstars like Michael Jackson, Prince, Usher, Bruno Mars, Kanye West, and Jay-Z, it is hard for modern audiences to appreciate how revolutionary the self-presentations of soul singers like Otis Redding were when they first came on the scene. Prior to the mid-fifties, it had simply been taboo for a black man to perform in an overtly sexualized manner in front of a white audience in America. (Female black entertainers, by contrast, had been all but required to do so.) In the South, especially, the social psychology of the Jim Crow regime was founded on a paranoid fantasy of interracial rape that was institutionalized by the press and popular culture in the malignant stereotype of the “black brute,” which explicitly sexualized the threat posed by black men to white women and white supremacy. Born in Georgia in 1941, the same year as Emmett Till, Otis Redding grew up in a world where any “suggestive” behavior by a black male in the presence of whites was potentially suicidal.



In 2007, forty years on, a panel of artists, critics, and music-business professionals assembled by Rolling Stone ranked Otis Redding eighth on a list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time.” This placed him in a constellation of talent that included his contemporaries Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and James Brown, who together represented the greatest generation of church-bred African-American singers in the history of popular music. What distinguished Redding in this august company was the heartbreaking brevity of his career. In his five short years as a professional entertainer, his incomparable voice and vocal persona established him as soul music’s foremost apostle of devotion, a singer who implored his listeners to “try a little tenderness” with a ferocity that defied the meaning of the word. His singular combination of strength and sensitivity, dignity and self-discipline, made him the musical embodiment of the “soul force” that Martin Luther King, Jr., extolled in his epic “I Have a Dream” speech as the African-American counterweight to generations of racist oppression. In the way he looked and the way he sang and the way he led his tragically unfinished life, this princely son of Georgia sharecroppers was a one-man repudiation of the depraved doctrine of “white supremacy,” whose dark vestiges still contaminate our world.

Jim Morrison, Jim Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding were all kids when they died, each soon after I had gotten to know them, fell in love with their music and eagerly shared it with my fellow students. I buried the horror-- of that, of the assassinations, of the brutal war against Vietnam-- in drugs and then left the country for over 6 years to try to discover who I was and why this was all going on around me. I'm still working on it. But I sure do hope Otis and the rest are singing for Jesus in Heaven today.

Monday Night Music-- What Do People Like Best In Different Places?

OK, so the best selling musical act from Kansas is the band Kansas. How hard would that have been to guess? Or Phish in Vermont? Or that it's Chicago in Illinois (remember them)? And native daughter Madonna in Michigan-- at least it wasn't Nugent or Kid Rock-- and, sadly, the Eagles in California and Prince in Minnesota and Michael Jackson in Indiana. And Mississippi? Well, Elvis of course. How cool is Hawaii, though? Bruno Mars! And Nevada? No, not Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra or even Celine Dionne-- The Killers!

What about total squaresville? Maybe Florida is being punished because of its affinity top the Backstreet Boys. I never heard the Mannheim Steamroller until just now, but that's the top band in Nebraska. I'm never going there-- never.



Iowans like Andy Williams and Idahoans dig that secret Paul Revere and the Raiders neo-Nazi backward masking messaging. And-- wow!-- Hootie and the Blowfish are still top dog in South Carolina. In Washington state, it's always time for Kenny G. Between NY, NJ, Connecticut and Pennsylvania who's worst, respectively, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Michael Bolton or Taylor Swift. No comment on Ohio. And in the state where they just elected Dick Cheney's crackpot daughter to Congress... Spencer Bohren.

I remember, when I worked at Sire and Texas was ground zero for breaking Book of Love, Erasure and Depeche Mode.



They sure flipped blue to red! The big enchilada down in the Lone Star State is now George Strait. Ever hear Portugal, the Man? That's what Sarah Palin rocks out to when she's buzzing around the house on meth.



But the biggest winner of all-- and the most shocking for me-- is North Dakota's choice. No comment on the musical worthiness, but Wiz Khalifa's video, the one just below has over 3 BILLION views on YouTube. 3 BILLION! The biggest Beatles song is Don't Let Me Down and it only has 88,392,026 YouTube views. They'll never get to 3 billion!



Any better in England? Well there's a map like the one above for every borough in London and who the biggest selling musical act is:

It seems more relatable, at least for me. And, like in the U.S. it seems to be mostly driven by who comes from the places:

Ronnie Wood – Hillingdon
Elton John – Harrow
George Michael – Barnet
Amy Winehouse – Enfield
Iron Maiden – Formed by Steve Harris in Waltham Forest, where Harris was born
Dire Straits – Formed in Lewisham
Led Zeppelin – Formed in Bexley where John Paul Jones was born
Coldplay – Formed at UCL in Islington
David Bowie – Lambeth
Jools Holland – Greenwich
Rod Stewart – Camden
Billy Bragg – Barking and Dagenham
Kathy Kirby – Redbridge
Ian Drury – Raised in Havering
Professor Green – Hackney
Dizzee Rascal – Tower Hamlets
Jay Sean – Brent
Dusty Springfield – Raised in Ealing
The Kinks – Formed in Haringey
Linda Lewis – Newham
Billy Idol – Raised in Bromley

New Film Rumble Reclaims Indigenous Roots of American Music

-by Denise Sullivan

Forget everything you think you know or have been told about the birth of the blues and the histories of jazz and rock 'n' roll: Rumble-- The Indians Who Rocked The World has a different story to tell and by the sound of it, much of what's been handed down to us about North American music and its origins has been wrong.

The sound of the American South-- the rush of its waters, the song of the bird, the crack of thunder and the rain that follows-- informs the sound of Native American music, the root of all other American forms. Take the story of the Mississippi Delta's Charley Patton, widely acknowledged to be the father of the country blues. An existing photograph of him reveals he is likely a man of mixed race origins, though without clear proof, historians have remained perplexed and inconclusive in their findings. Rumble reveals through interviews, research, and recordings, that Patton's blood ties are to the Chocktaw nation and moreover, his connection to Native American music contributed to the rhythmic and vocal patterns of what we know as country blues. In the film, musician Pura Fé (Tuscarora) a/b's his technique with a turntable and her voice: “That's Indian music with a guitar,” she says. Calling on a kind of pre-blues origin of his sound, the assembled scholars and musicians, including modern day bluesmen Corey Harris and Alvin Youngblood Hart, go into deeper explanation of Patton's relationship to Dockery Plantation, the setting where he developed a showstopping style living among Black, Choctaw, and European farmworkers. He went on to pass on what he knew to other area musicians like Son House and visiting players like the young Roebuck Staples and Chester Burnette (who of course became Howlin' Wolf). So why is Patton's history generally painted so sketchily in the history books?

Pura Fé

Insufficient investigation into Native America's contribution to popular music is of course by design. Following the US government's attempts to eradicate the tribes and erase all vestiges of its culture, particularly following the slaughter at Wounded Knee, embracing and promoting Native ways became a dangerous pursuit. And yet, despite the genocide, Native musicians continued to innovate with sound.

Link Wray (Shawnee), with his heavy touch on the guitar strings, as on his signture song “Rumble,” became the inventor of rock's power chord. Iggy Pop, Slash, the Band's Robbie Robertson, MC5's Wayne Kramer, bluesman Taj Mahal, and Little Steven Van Zandt, all testify to the startling, life-changing power of Wray's sound. Pete Townshend and Jimmy Page owe their electric styles to him.

Monk Boudreaux and Cyril Neville unravel how Indian music came to New Orleans where indigineous people of the US and the indigenous people of Africa met and stirred it up. Poet Joy Harjo (Muscogee) explains how blues, rock, and jazz are tied up in these origins.Historian Erich Jarvis puts together how the slave trade resulted in African-Americans and Native people living in close proximities and why many Southern Indians lived their lives masked as Black. The lineage is matrilineal, usually a great grandmother on the mother's side, though none of this information is generally incorporated into our understanding of the origins of American music. Rumble lays down all of the prequel and more in the first 20 minutes of the film, and then it goes deeper:

Mildred Bailey, the first woman with her own radio show and to perform in front of a swing band was born on the Couer d'Alene reservation in Idaho; she was a profound influence on Tony Bennett and also informed the melodic styles of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. The details are best left to be revealed by the excellent use of original recordings, film stock, and interviews collected by filmmakers Cathernine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana who left no Indian unsung in their effort to make their definitive documentary about Native Americans and popular music.

The film's producer, hard funk and rock guitarist, Stevie Salas (Apache), introduces Jimi Hendrix's story into the mix. Hendrix's ties to his grandmother's Cherokee ancestry extended not only in the way he looked and to his style, but in the touch with which he played (“I Hear My Train A'Comin'”). His sister Janie recalls Jimi's pride at his mixed cultural heritage (and the way his interpretation of The Star Spangled Banner nearly 50 years ago at Woodstock was a reflection of that pride). Derek Trucks calls Hendrix a national superhero for the power his multi-ethnicity brought him-- and in turn to his listeners. Trucks words serve as a critical reminder that a society's multiethnic pride is in fact its strength.

Buffy Sainte-Marie (Cree) and John Trudell (Santee Sioux) address the government's continued interference with their art and activism; Robbie Robertson recalls his journey from a partime reservation Indian to full tilt teenage rocker who toured the world with Bob Dylan. With the Band, Robertson forged a timeless vision of American electric music. Names lesser-known to casual listeners, from folksinger Peter LaFarge, Redbone's Pat Vegas, metal drummer Randy Castillo, and Jesse Ed Davis also get their due.

It was Taj Mahal who brought the guitarist best known to friends and fans as Jesse Ed into his band, and the Rolling Stones who brought the band to Europe, introducing Jesse Ed to the rock aristocracy for whom he became the sideman of choice. Davis is perhaps best known for his solo in Jackson Browne's hit, “Doctor My Eyes;" he later collaborated with Trudell on the acclaimed Graffitti Man, a groundbreaker in spoken-word recording in the '90s. A moving sequence pairs Salas and Trudell (who passed away in 2015 after the film's making) on a trip to New Mexico in memory of drummer Castillo, who died in 2002: It is in fact Castillo's story that underscores why the imprint Native Americans have left on popular music is singular: It is of the earth.

After viewing Rumble, it's unlikely you'll hear, sing, or play music the same way: Now we know not only was the land and air we breathe stolen, but the music we claim as our own was Native American too.





Denise Sullivan is the author of Keep On Pushing: Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop and an occasional contributor to DWT! on arts, culture, and gentrification issues.

Forget Neil's Ambivalence To Trump Using "Rockin' In The Free World;" Loudon Wainwright's "I Had A Dream" Is A Potential Nightmare

-by Denise Sullivan

Shaking my head as usual at the headlines and poor excuses for news, Wednesday's trumped-up report that Bernie Sanders booster Neil Young "excused" Donald Trump for using "Rockin' In The Free World" turned out to be a non-starter and almost as out of context as the right appropriating rock 'n' roll for their own diabolical purposes. If you remember last year around this time, non-voting Canadian but Californian Young asked that Trump not use the song during his campaign, and that was the end of that. Young, to his credit, joined the long line of rock 'n' roll heroes from Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, and John Mellencamp who just said no to their music being misappropriated by the real forces of evil. We have indeed been over this territory a few times before and there was no news here.

By Thursday however, there was music to our ears in the form of a new single by advanced topical songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. Same generation as the aforementioned musicians raised on rock 'n' roll, though instead of spending time and resources fending off the advances of the GOP, Wainwright's stayed busy amassing a whole catalog of work that at times has specialized in sticking it to both sides of the two-party circus and how. Skewering the likes of Jesse Helms, Newt, the Clintons and more, this week Wainwright sings, "I Had A Dream," which happens to be about the ultimate nightmare. You can hear it here and download it on iTunes. Here's a live version he did at Portland's Alberta Rose Theater on March 30:



A righteous pundit, Wainwright has been pursuing music since the late sixties, debuting with a self-titled album in 1970. Aside from his honest and deeply felt songs on relationships and life circumstances, he's long written satirical work, a style he calls "musical journalism" and is best demonstrated at album length on 1999's Social Studies (he gives it to O.J. Simpson, Tonya Harding, and Helms). For awhile he was the in-house songsmith for Nightline and is occasionally commissioned songs for NPR. Ol' Loudo, as he sometimes calls himself, originally hails from Helms territory; dad Loudon Wainwright Jr., was a columnist for Life magazine, while the name Loudon comes from A. Loudon Snowdon, a 19th Century politico who was Loudon III's great-grandfather. Wainwright is also father to musical children Rufus and Martha Wainwright (their mother was folksinger Kate McGarrigle), and Lucy Wainwright Roche, whose mother is Suzzy Roche of the Roches. Wainwright's also pursued acting through the decades and his film and television credits, often comedic, are mighty, from M.A.S.H to Judd Apatow's Knocked Up.

Wainwright's 23rd studio album, Haven't Got The Blues Yet, was produced by longtime collaborator David Mansfield, and released in 2014, though some still remember him best from the novelty, "Dead Skunk (In The Middle of the Road)," a Top 40 hit in 1972. Interestingly, that was the same year rock 'n' roll legend Chuck Berry had a number one record with "My Ding-A-Ling." And it was of course the year of Richard Nixon began his ill-fated second term. You might say it's a coincidence that Wainwright nailed the exact moment in time where the listening public lost all discernment, the world went to hell in a hand basket, and the door was opened for us to march toward the time when a buffoon might win the presidency. But I'm not foolish enough to make that claim. I'm simply suggesting it.




Denise Sullivan writes about music and gentrification issues from San Francisco for DWT. Her most recent book is Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop.

One Of America's Greatest Jazz Pianists, Marcus Roberts, Feels The Bern

Marcus Roberts is a jazz pianist and composer. And he's blind. He is self-taught but went to the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, where Ray Charles also studied (much earlier). Wynton Marsalis, with whom he toured, called him the "greatest American musician most people have never heard of." Ryan Lizza, writing for the New Yorker this week, broke the news that Roberts, who is also an eloquent teacher, has written songs about four of the presidential candidates, in an effort to show that art has a place in politics. He's releasing an EP, Race for the White House featuring one song each about Bernie ("Feel the Bern," which you can listen to above), Hillary ("It's My Turn"), Herr Trumpf ("Making America Great Again-- All By Myself") and Dr. Ben ("I Did Chop Down That Cherry Tree").

"Feel the Bern," according to Roberts, is meant to "show the different components of Bernie Sanders’s personality. When the piano does it, it’s laid-back and it’s kind of cool and dignified. When the tenor plays it, it starts to get a little more rambunctious. You know, maybe that’s when he tells Hillary, 'I don’t really give a damn about hearing about your e-mails anymore.' It becomes kind of aggressive, and there’s a lot of fire, like, we’re going to get to this. I think that’s why Sanders appeals to young people."

“It’s My Turn” is slower and mellower than “Feel the Bern,” and it attempts to describe the many phases of Clinton’s long career in politics. “We know that she’s undergone a whole lot of changes,” Roberts said. A Clinton supporter, he was originally going to call the song “I Guess I’m Just Overqualified,” but he decided to keep the music as nonpartisan as possible. “People have been messing with the lady for twenty-five years about this and that, so I decided we’ve definitely got to have some changes,” he said, noting that, of the four songs, it is the most complicated and nuanced, just like her campaign. “We start in D-flat minor, but we change to G-flat and then to B-flat, and we change the meter and the tempo.”

Roberts said that he wrote the songs fast, attempting to capture the candidates based on what was happening in debates and on the campaign trail at the time. “I was focussed on something that was literally occurring even as I was writing it,” he said. “I’m listening to Ben Carson on TV, and he’s talking slow. I’m thinking, well, the piece for him can’t be up-tempo.” The Carson song was written at the stage in the campaign when Trump, feeling threatened by Carson’s candidacy, had attacked Carson for some bizarre anecdotes from his opponent’s memoir.

“Carson’s telling people he did all this lawless stuff as a kid,” Roberts said. “I’m like, how can I capture that?” Jason Marsalis’s initial drumming on the song didn’t sound quite right to Roberts. “I said, ‘No, man, I need it to sound like it’s a hammer hitting something, O.K.? I need it to sound like he might be beating up one of his friends at school. It needs to sound that way.’ ” They accomplished the musical equivalent of Carson’s hammer attack with a three-beat rim shot.

Trump’s was the easiest personality to capture. “It was clear that it needed to be bold and up-front and egotistical,” Roberts said. He told Marsalis to whistle as if he were Trump surveying his vast real-estate empire from up high. “You’re rich, you’ve got pretty much everything anybody could want, and you’re just chilling,” Roberts said. A trumpet cuts in on the whistling, to show Trump’s more aggressive and cocksure side. “He interrupts himself,” Roberts explained, “almost to say, ‘I’m going to get all this great stuff done, I don’t need any help, I know what I need to do, just get out of my way and let me do it.’ It almost has a Batman-superhero vibe to it.”

Paul Kantner-- On To The Next Gig

Paul Kanter and Grace Slick and their daughter, China

I didn't know we had computers back then and I'm sure Mitchel Cohen has the date wrong as well, but this was waiting in my inbox yesterday when I woke up:

Yet more awful news. The Airplane was my favorite rock band. My first date-- a "computer date" at Stony Brook when I was 17-- was to see the Airplane live in the Stony Brook gym in 1966. (Don't ask about the brilliant computer match-up).

It was actually 1967. How do I know? I was the chairman of the Student Activities Board at Stony Brook and I booked the show. It was February 18, 1967-- 2 days before my 19th birthday. Sandy Pearlman had originally turned me on to the band's pre-Grace Slick first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, which featured Signe Anderson. [UPDATE: Signe died the same day as Paul.] Many of the San Francisco bands were doing "Let's Get Together," which had first been released in 1964 by the Kingston Trio, then by the We Five in 1965 and then by the Airplane in 1966. The following year, The Youngbloods had a big hit with it. Here's the Airplane's version, sung by Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin.



It was one of the songs I listened to a lot in my freshman year at college and on one of my trips to San Francisco to pick up marijuana I met concert promoter and Airplane manager Bill Graham who started sending me live tapes of the San Francisco bands I could play on my WUSB overnight radio show. I was hanging out in Manhattan a lot, at the Cafe Au Go Go, and I made a deal with Howard Solomon, the owner, that we would book cool bands together. I would get a Friday or Saturday night for Stony Brook and he would have the rest of the week. That's how I wound up with the Airplane on their first trip to the East Coast, a week or so after the release of their groundbreaking second album, Surrealistic Pillow. "Somebody to Love" and then "White Rabbit" where huge counterculture hits but the song I liked most was one of the songs Paul wrote with Marty Balin, "Today."



Paul had really started the band and he was the most outgoing of the members when I met them. I had been kicked off campus and out of the dorms for selling drugs and lived down Nichols Road in a suburban track development, Strathmore, where I was renting a room in a split level house with 5 or 6 girls who took care of me. The Airplane bus parked in front and they all crashed on the floor and I turned them on to my favorite album, the Classical Music of Pakistan by qawwali singers Salamat and Nazakat Ali. This was the song, influences from which showed up a few years later on another album. A lot of pot was smoked and after the concert, I went with Paul and Marty, Bill Graham and Sandy Pearlman to Ratner's Deli on Second Avenue in the East Village for some food. Timothy Leary had given me a tab of acid when he spoke at the school a couple months earlier-- cool speakers series, huh?-- and I had saved it and taken it that night-- my first acid trip. Maybe that's why I wound up bonding with Paul so strongly. I had hired the Daily Flash, a Seattle band that was playing in my friend Brad Pierce's club, Ondine's, under the 59th Street Bridge, to open the show. They were ok. The Airplane, though, was great that night so it didn't matter. The show was in the gym and it was free for students and, I think, $5.00 to non-students. Good crowd but not sold out. Other than a private RCA promotional show at Webster Hall in Manhattan a month earlier, it was the Airplane's first East Coast gig.

Many years later-- after a trek to Pakistan to meet Salamat and Nazakat (who weren't in the village in the mountains near Lahore when I got there) and a few years living in Europe-- I moved to San Francisco and renewed my friendship with Paul. He was one of the few guys from the psychedelic scene, passé by then, who understood and enjoyed the deep connection to the new punk rock scene that was starting up in the late 70's. Paul became a Mabuhay Gardens regular. He taught me how to make myself invisible and blend into a crowd. It was great for not attracting unwanted attention from fans and for getting into places for free.

Years later, another one of the Airplane guys, bassist Jack Cassidy, started a punk band, SVT, and I put his record out on my label. I never had any business dealings with Paul, just a strong bond, a lot of respect and admiration and a warm friendship. Paul had a heart attack early in the week and died Thursday from organ failure caused by septic shock. He was 74. He had three children, China, Gareth and Alexander and a couple of grandchildren.

Long Hard Slog Ahead For Bernie After Iowa And New Hampshire

This morning, Morning Consult, published the results of some head-to-head match-ups that included Bloomberg. Bernie comes out on top in every scenario. And he does better against the two billionaires than Hillary does.

• Bernie- 35%
• Herr Trumpf- 34%
• Bloomberg- 12%
• undecided- 19%

Bernie does even better if the GOP throws the Texas extremist Ted Cruz the nomination instead of Herr:

• Bernie- 36%
• Cruz- 28%
• Bloomberg- 11%
• undecided- 25%

Ditto for the other right-wing junior senator, Marco Rubio:

• Bernie- 36%
• Rubio- 29%
• Bloomberg- 10%
• undecided- 25%

And when they polled Clinton in the mix, Trumpf lead with 37% to her 36% and Bloomberg's 13%. It's too risky for Democrats to nominate her. The general public just doesn't trust her or like her and won't even back her against a monstrosity like Trumpf. Please consider contributing to Bernie's campaign here.

Earlier today we looked at the latest polling in Republicanville, which shows Trumpf consolidating his lead to the point where he is basically unstoppable. He will be the GOP nominee. Across the aisle, its an entirely different kind of race. Hillary's inevitability has evaporated, although she is still the frontrunner and Bernie has to win both Iowa and New Hampshire to be able to make a case in the other states.

Iowa is unpredictable and confusing; caucuses are tough to accurately poll to begin with. Some polls show Bernie pulling way ahead, others show Hillary maintaining her lead, but the most reasonable assessment is "too close to call." The brand new CBS/YouGov poll of Iowa Dems has Bernie leading 47-46%. Iowa Dems like both candidates' health care and jobs policies about equally, massively prefer Bernie on Wall Street reform and taxes, massively prefer Hillary on terrorism and gun policy. When asked if the two candidates understands the voter and people like him or her, 85% said Bernie does, while only 65% think Hillary does. Iowa Dems also say Hillary will do what big donors want as opposed to what regular people want by a 57-43% margin. They've been close enough attention to say that Bernie would do what regular people want as opposed to big donors by a 91% to 9% margin.

The CBS/YouGov poll finds Bernie prohibitively ahead in New Hampshire, beating Hillary 57-38%. 95% of the Dems there feel Bernie understands then, while only 60% think the same of Hillary. And 61% of them understand that she will cater to her big donors while 97% of New Hampshire Dems say Bernie will do what regular people want. (Also worth noting that 96% of New Hampshire voters say that Iowa's results do not matter at all to New Hampshire voters.)

Coming out of New Hampshire with a win, perhaps a big one-- and with a respectable showing or a win in Iowa-- can Bernie make the kind of headway he needs in South Carolina? On Face The Nation yesterday he said he can. "Let me just say that the poll in South Carolina was 60 to 38. If that's the case, it is showing us making huge, huge gains. And I feel confident that if we can win here in Iowa, if we can win in New Hampshire and those are going to be tough races, I think we stand an excellent chance to win in South Carolina and in Nevada. But if you look at the polling recently, and I can tell you because I have been to South Carolina, we have a lot of momentum on the ground. I think we're picking up more and more African-American support. Frankly, I think we can win there."

So let's look at the new numbers from South Carolina. Since November Hillary has sunk from 72% to 60%, while Bernie has climbed from 25% to 38%. White Democrats have been deserting Hillary faster and Bernie now leads among that group with 60%. His growth among black voters is slower but has risen from 7% in November to 22% today. But even in South Carolina, more Democratic voters (77%) feel that Bernie understands them than feel the same way about Hillary (69%) and Democratic voters there see her as more of a shill to her campaign donors (49%) while understanding that Bernie will do what regular people want (78%). A plurality of South Carolina voters (33%) say that electability is important enough to them to change their support. In other words, if Bernie wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina is going to get a lot closer real fast.

Another crack in the firewall: South Carolina state Rep Justin Bamberg, the attorney for the family of Walter Scott, who was fatally shot by a police officer in North Charleston in April, withdrew his support from Hillary today and endorsed Bernie. Rep. Bamberg: "Hillary Clinton is more a representation of the status quo when I think about politics or about what it means to be a Democrat. Bernie Sanders on the other hand is bold. He doesn’t think like everyone else. He is not afraid to call things as they are."

Gabe Debenedetti, explained the Sanders playbook for Politico readers over the weekend-- a protracted insurgent delegate fight concentrating on caucus states (15% of the delegates) and similar to how Obama playbook beat her in 2008.

The idea is to take advantage of the caucus format, which tends to reward campaigns with the most dedicated partisans. The caucuses play to Sanders’ strength in another important way-- they are largely held in states that are heavily white, which helps Sanders neutralize Clinton’s edge with minority voters.

With a dozen such contests coming before the end of March-- and Clinton expected to perform well on March 1, the first big multi-state primary day-- the caucuses are emerging as an integral part of Sanders’ long-shot plan.

“Caucuses are very good for Bernie Sanders,” explained chief Sanders strategist Tad Devine, likening the 2016 strategy to the one he deployed as Mike Dukakis’ field director in 1988. “Caucuses tend to be in the much-lower turnout universe, and having people who intensely support you in events like that makes a huge difference. You saw that with President Obama in 2008, and you’re going to see it with Bernie Sanders."

...The caucus wins are intended to sustain Sanders’ bid, rather than expected to propel him to the nomination on their own accord.

To defeat Clinton for the nomination, Sanders would likely need to outperform his current numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to the Cook analysis, while making considerable inroads with minority voters who will be casting ballots on March 1 and March 15, two dates filled with big-state primaries.

As Sanders’ team has mapped it out, his path starts with strong showings in Iowa-- a caucus state where recent polling shows Clinton and Sanders running neck-and-neck-- and New Hampshire-- a primary state where he’s led in every major public poll over the past month.

Eyeing Super Tuesday on March 1, Sanders aides concede Clinton is poised for wins in what they consider her six-state Southern stronghold: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. But they see opportunities for gains in Minnesota and Colorado, Sanders’ home state of Vermont, and two other primary states where the senator is well-known: Massachusetts and Virginia-- despite the deep ties between Virginia’s Democratic establishment and the Clinton camp.

The hope is for something resembling a split-decision, allowing the Sanders campaign to gain some momentum in the three caucuses that come into focus the following weekend: Kansas and Nebraska (March 5) and Maine (March 6).

But it doesn’t get any easier for Sanders from there. A best-case scenario has Sanders pulling out a labor-fueled surprise in Michigan on March 8-- he’ll be up against Clinton’s advantage with minorities and the state’s Democratic establishment, her campaign's active presence there during the Flint water crisis, and its broad array of national union endorsements. If Sanders manages to remain competitive there, it might sustain him through the gauntlet of large swing states and a barrage of delegates on March 15 (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio).

Next up?

A stretch of six smaller states, five of which-- Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington-- hold caucuses.

March 22 is also a primary in Arizona. Bernie should do well in the April 5th Wisconsin primary, which allows independents to vote (as does the North Dakota primary April 1). Closed primaries are not good news for Bernie since he needs independent voters and most of the late states and the machine states have closed primaries-- New York, Maryland, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania (about 520 delegates at stake. The real end of the line is June 7th when California and New Jersey have closed primaries to decide 515 delegates. Here are 37 Bernie songs to help us stay strong for the whole trip and keep the blood-sucking conservatives at bay: