Songs for MLK Day

From Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Nina Simone, Rhiannon Giddens, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Allison Russell, Phil Ochs, Louis Armstrong and Allen Toussaint.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS: please see links at bottom of this post. Before all that he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.

A holiday special: a few songs in memory of Martin Luther King Jr. But first: If you watched the long-awaited but possible too twisty opening episode of “True Detective” on HBO last night and wondered what the hell was that haunting a cappella song that appeared early in the show and then over the end credits: We laughed when we heard it, recognizing it from a cult Brit series we loved, "The Detectorists," from years ago, in which a magpie plays a key role. By The Unthanks:

For MLK

Sam Cooke wrote the greatest song of our era, “A Change Gonna Come,” partly inspired by Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He felt a black man should have written that so he penned an even better one. Here he does the Dylan live.

Otis’s version of “Change” just before he passed.

Another of the all-time greats, Nina Simone, with stupendous “Mississippi Goddam.”

My old pal Phil Ochs with his “Here’s to the State of Mississippi.” Near end of his life he re-cut it as “Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon.”

A modern giant talent, Rhiannon Giddens, with her take on the classic song about the four girls killed in church bombing, “Birmingham Sunday.”

Another of “greatest songs of the century,” Allen Toussaint’s wider lens with his “Freedom for the Stallion.” The line that always slays me: “Heading for a brand new land / that some cat said he up and found.”

A just-emerging youngster named Bobby Dylan looked a little nervous performing his classic “Only a Pawn in Their Game” at MLK’s “March on Washington.” He later told Marty Scorcese, “I looked up from the podium and I thought to myself, ‘I’ve never seen such a large crowd.’ I was up close when King was giving that speech. To this day, it still affects me in a profound way.”

John Legend & Common, “Glory”

Few may recall that while Dion had the hit with “Abraham, Martin and John,” Marvin Gaye had his own version at the same time, as only he could sing it…

And one of the best songs of 2023, “Eve Was Black,” from one of our faves, Allison Russell.

And, finally, back in time to peak period of the century’s most important musician and sing, Mr. Louis Armstrong, with “Black and Blue.”

Cartoons of the Day

»>Greg Mitchell’s films and books

Films: Watch award-winning “Atomic Cover-up” at PBS site and via PBS apps now or free from Kanopy, and see companion book at Amazon. Watch “Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried” at PBS site and via apps, also companion book at Amazon. Read about “The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair.”

Books include: Best-sellers “The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Film JFK Tried to Kill.” Award-winners “The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics” and “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” A New York Times Notable Book, “Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas.”

Also, two acclaimed books with Robert Jay Lifton, “Hiroshima in America” and “Who Owns Death? Against Capital Punishment.” On the media and Iraq, “So Wrong for So Long,” with an preface by Bruce Springsteen. And in a different vein, “Vonnegut and Me,” “Journeys With Beethoven” and “Joy in Mudville: A Little League Memoir.”