Article at x-ma911truthwalk.com; the links are live. (Scroll down for ALL OF IT 9-10-26 or click HERE.) — MCM
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PITSFIELD, Mass — It was a cool, wet Sunday in the Berkshires — but not inside the Unitarian Universalist Church (the UU) at the corner of Wendell and Broad, where it was dry, warm and amiable.
There, traveling singer, songwriter, and what have you Randy Cahall enchanted a turnout of a dozen or two in attendance. The UU’s Karén Tchourougian would occasionally join him on the piano, and more than occasionally from their seats attendees sang along.
The theme was “With Hope, Cooperation and Music We Can Restore Our Country.” At least for an hour or so for regulars and others, there were all three.
Cahall opened his pro bono appearance by saying why he had driven two and a half hours in the rain from upstate New York to get there: “We’re facing tyranny and dictatorship in this country. If you’re a tyrant, you have to have chaos, cruelty and corruption to keep people off balance.”
With help from Woody Guthrie, the Weavers, Pete Seeger, Malvina Reynolds, Bob Dylan, and John Prine, Cahall addressed immigration, the destruction of civil rights, environmental degradation, and the benefits of labor unions.
He opened with “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” a 1948 song Guthrie started writing (his last) and somebody else finished. Cahall said “the radio didn’t report on the 28 passengers” killed who were deportees headed back to the Mexican border — only the four crew members.
Latin American coworkers in a restaurant kitchen, Cahill said, had shown their identification with hard work while singing “Guantanamera” — as often as not substituting “Yo soy trabajador duro” (I am a hard worker) for the song’s “Yo soy un hombre sincero” (I am a true man).
He then sang Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” the anthem “We Shall Overcome,” John Prine’s autobiographical “Paradise,” Malvina Reynolds’ “I Don’t Mind Failing in This World” and Pete Seeger’s Randy Cahall – YouTube“Talking Union.”
Cahall’s website is randycahall.com. He can also be found at his YouTube channel.
