This Bell Still Rings – My Life of Defiance and Song
Barbara Dane, Heyday, £24.99

TO write an autobiography in your mid-90s would be a daunting task for anyone, but when that person has led a life like Barbara Dane’s it would be a great shame not to have a chronicle of her life, music and involvement in progressive causes in the United States and internationally. 

Starting as a folk singer in the 1940s she got to know Pete Seeger and became associated with People’s Songs, the left-wing musical project associated with Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Later on, she also included jazz and blues in her repertoire, gaining the admiration of Louis Armstrong and Lenny Bruce, among others.

Becoming outraged at racism and inequality at a young age she joined the Communist Party USA, becoming an active member and marrying a fellow member, Rolf Cahn. However, this was the time of McCarthyism when the party had to contend with repression and infiltration from agent provocateurs, and Dane recounts how, on reading her FBI file in recent years, she was to find out that her first husband had been an informer, even showing the FBI a copy of her party card. This was something which she would have been proud to show them anyway.

Possibly due to lingering suspicion about Cahn or some other machinations, Dane was to receive a letter in the 1950s informing her of her expulsion from the CPUSA, a decision which still seems to pain her to this day. However, she remained committed to the policies and the world movement in general, performing at World Youth Festivals in socialist countries, the Festival of Political Song in the German Democratic Republic and the Unita festival in Italy. 

At the same time, she was regularly singing at civil rights marches in the United States and becoming involved in the movement against the Vietnam war working with Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda as part of FTA (https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/focus-political-goal ).

The first American artist to sing in post-revolutionary Cuba, Dane visited the island many times, meeting Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders, and her son Pablo Menendez from her second marriage later settled in Cuba, marrying there and becoming one of Cuba's prominent musicians. 

She also sang to audiences in Vietnam under the threat of American bombs. 

Her commitment to the struggle against imperialism led in 1969 to her founding Paredon Records with her third husband Irwin Silber, devoted to songs about worldwide movements for social justice and national liberation. With album titles like I Hate the Capitalist System  there is no ambiguity about the essential message.

Awarded Cuba’s National Medal of Friendship in 2022, Dane remained committed to the struggle for socialism worldwide. Reflecting on the end of the Soviet Union, she still pays tribute to the achievements despite the insurmountable challenges within and without which may have led to its collapse. One may think such a firm ideological position may put her at odds with other progressive American artists who would want to avoid being tainted with the “C” word. 

However, perhaps because of her firm principles and ability to work in a broad non-sectarian way in peace and civil rights causes, Dane has won respect and plaudits from many mainstream artists in America including Bob Dylan, Linda Rondstadt, Judy Collins, Bonnie Raitt and Jane Fonda who credit her with persuading her to do the film Klute. Younger women singers like Mary Gauthier also claim her as a source of inspiration. 

A journey through the musical and political history of the 20th century, this is an account of a life well lived in its commitment to revolutionary change and the part that music can play in that.

Barbara Dane died last week, on October 20.

An excellent film of her life, The Nine Lives Of Barbara Dane  is showing at the Barbican this Sunday Octpber 27 2024, 5.30pm. For more information see: Barbican.org.uk