The First Time Ever I saw Your Face, was made famous by Roberta Flack, but American Idol’s David Cook brought the song back into the spotlight tonight. But most people haven’t heard about the man who wrote the song. Born in 1915 in Langshire, England, Ewan MacColl, was a true renaissance man– a trade-unionist, iron-moulder, singer, songwriter, writer, playright, and activist. And he wrote The First Time Ever I saw Your Face, for his wife, Peggy Seeger, the half sister of Pete Seeger.

Check out the great versions of the song, one by Roberta Flack and one by Johnny Cash. And watch Ewan MacColl sing The Joy of Living

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Pete Seeger : The Power of Song is on PBS tonight! Remember to and tune in!

The Civil Rights Movement is one of the most moving and transformational chapters of Black history so it’s appropriate to highlight it during Black History Month. And it is hard to imagine the Civil Rights Movement without the songs people sang during the good and the bad, during the rallies, sit ins, marches, arrests and beatings. In the face of violence, the songs were not just tools of inspiration but tools of non-violent resistance. While there were too many songs too count, these stand out as among the best.

1. We Shall Overcome was a gospel song, which became a civil rights anthem during a strike in Charleston in 1946. One of the women walking the picket line outside of the American Tobacco Company, started singing the spiritual. Zilphia Horton, the co-founder of the Highlander Research and Education Center, learned the song and taught it to Pete Seeger, who taught it to other folk singers, including Guy Carawan who performed it and taught it at the founding meeting of the Civil Rights Organization SNCC ( Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.) The song then became an anthem not only for the Civil Rights movement in the United States, but for South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, North Ireland’s independence movement, and many other independence movements in countries including India, Bengal, Czechoslovakia. Listen to Mahalia Jackson sing We Shall Overcome:

2. Oh Freedom is an anti-slavery spiritual that was sung by slaves. It is fitting that in 1963, this freedom song inaugurated the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where 250,000 would rally for civil rights and labor rights, and where Martin Luther King would deliver his legendary I have a Dream speech. On the morning of August 28th, the protesters gathered at the Washington Monument, where Joan Baez sang Oh Freedom, immortalizing the song for generations to come.

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Oh, no! I just spent, like, the last forty years idolizing Neil Young, and now he says he doesn’t think music can really make a difference in the world. At the Berlin film festival today, where he presented the documentary “CSNY/Déjà Vu”, about his 2006 anti-war concert tour, he told the AFP:

“I know that the time when music could change the world is past. I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality.”

He may””unlike Pete Seeger–be pessimistic about the power of song, but Young doesn’t really seem ready to give up on being an agent of change. He’s working on a new film called “Repowering The American Dream,” a documentary about the ‘59 Lincoln he’s converted to a plug-in hybrid, according to the Daily Green, which quotes a more optimistic-sounding Young:

“By drawing on entrepreneurial companies’ advanced technology and good old American ingenuity, we intend to transform one of the largest and heaviest gas guzzling vehicles of our generation into a highly energy efficient vehicle, and demonstrate to the American public that we can re-power the American dream by demanding environmentally-friendly vehicles now.”

Sounds like Young is just looking for new ways to electrify the electorate. Long may he run.

Young gives other musicians who want to express their opinion on the war and related topics a chance to be heard on his Living With War website; give them a listen here  if you’d like to hear from folks who still believe music can make a difference. 

One of the best and most inspiring documentaries I saw this year was Jim Brown’s Pete Seeger : The Power of Song. Pete Seeger is a folk singer, who starting in the late 40’s, wrote some amazing folks songs, while encouraging people to change the world, both with their voice and their actions.

He has also faced a lot of controversy in his lifetime, from interactions with the Communist party in the 50’s. He went on to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, but would admit no wrong-doing, as all he had done with fight for workers and African-Americans to have rights. He would be banned from appearing on television and for a long time he did not.

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John Edwards made another appearance with the striking WGA on Tuesday in New York’s Washington Square Park, joining writers and actors in their struggle against corporations and media conglomerates.

This is the second time Edwards spoke on behalf of the WGA (earlier this month he joined them in LA). Between the WGA and the Broadway stagehands strike it looks like labor is making it’s way back into the mainstream. Speaking of which, there is a great new documentary out about the radical folk-singer, labor supporter Pete Seeger called Pete Seeger : The Power of Song that focuses on his work uniting folks with his music and the troubles he faced because of involvement with the labor movement and the communist party.

To learn more about why the writers of the WGA are striking visit http://www.unitedhollywood.com and be sure to watch the trailer for Pete Seeger below.