Emma's Revolution

Peace in Every Language
Emma’s Revolution spreads a positive message through music
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 2:05 PM EST
Princeton Packet
http://www.centraljersey.com/articles/2010/01/13/time_off/entertainment_news/doc4b4e0c2a765bd437852899.txt
By Adam Grybowski


EMMA’s Revolution, the musical duo of activists Pat Humphries and Sandy O, writes songs about the environment, free speech, equal rights, peace, love and war. The band travels the globe spreading its message through music that Pete Seeger said will help save the world.

”We’re not single-issue activists,” Ms. O says. “We’re looking at a lot of issues wherever we travel. All of these things affect us. The way we look at issues, they’re interconnected and multi-dimensional and not isolated.”

All this sounds very serious, but the band promises its performances are not only fun but inspiring.

”In other hands these songs can be heavy-handed and not fun at all,” Ms. Humphries says. “We experience that ourselves in other settings. We feel there’s a lot of levity and playfulness and celebration to our concerts, which is what attracts audiences, who leave energized and excited. There are very few concerts where people aren’t enthusiastically on their feet.”

Emma’s Revolution will perform at Christ Congregation Church in Princeton Jan. 15, as part of the Princeton Folk Music Society Concert Series.
”Our role is to raise the issues that affect everyone’s lives so that there isn’t a deadly silence around things that people are feeling,” Ms. Humphries says, adding that an onslaught of bad news can lull people into a sense of helplessness.

Emma’s Revolution hopes its listeners can see themselves and the issues that affect them through its songs and discover how they can contribute.

”It’s putting the human perspective back into these situations that are human but only talked about in these geopolitical layers that don’t allow people to feel empowered,” Ms. O says. “That’s where we can all be part of the change.”

Forming nearly nine years ago, Ms. Humphries and Ms. O went through a series of names before choosing Emma’s Revolution, in honor of Emma Goldman, the Russian-born activist who lived most of her life in the U.S. Goldman championed free speech, the rights of women and workers, and anarchism.

”We realize we wanted to have a name that was more emblematic of what we were doing,” Ms. Humphries says. “We wanted to indicate to people that we’re women singing about progressive issues.”

Goldman is sometimes considered controversial because of her legacy surrounding political violence, but, Ms. Humphries says, “There’s controversy around anyone who’s ever done anything meaningful.”

If Goldman’s words are read directly, and she is understood in the context of her own time and place, the duo maintains that she never advocated violence. “We don’t advocate violence and neither did Emma Goldman,” Ms. Humphries says. “I do think she was a woman of her time. I also think people were fearful of an outspoken woman.”

Ms. O listened to Ms. Humphries’ music before they met. Ms. O invited Ms. Humphries to come on tour, they began to develop music together, and a relationship developed as well. They were married in an “outlaw wedding” in New York not two weeks before Sept. 11, 2001.

The first song they wrote after that day was “Peace, Salaam, Shalom.” The Arabic and Hebrew words mean peace in English. They sang the song for the first time at a national peace rally in New York City on Oct. 7, the day the United States began bombing Afghanistan. The song has gone on to be sung in peace and justice events around the world.

”Amazing things happen with the songs we sing,” Ms. O says. “They’re taken up into the back pocket of every activist and sung in amazing places.”

Her partner adds, “It’s a great compliment to have your songs become a part of people’s lives.”

Commuting to the rally, the women observed the handmade signs and graffiti responding to Sept. 11. Taken with what they heard being reported by the media, they realized the outpouring of patriotism was going to lead to war.

”It became clear to us very quickly that Sept. 11, rather than becoming an opportunity for greater understanding and greater dialogue, that it was going to become an excuse for war and retribution,” Ms. Humphries says.

They had been told to wear white to the rally as a symbol of peace. “It wasn’t enough just to wear white, so I wrote those words (peace, salaam, shalom) on a shirt,” Ms. Humphries says. “At every opportunity we needed to have those words out there. It was one more way we could make a statement against the inevitability of war.”

Although around 10,000 people were singing the song that day, the shirt attracted more attention than the song — so much so the band decided to print and sell them.
Later, in Washington, D.C., a woman wearing a burka, the traditional Islamic outer garment for women, bought a shirt and immediately put it on, which expressed the singers’ belief that the message of “Peace, Salaam, Shalom” transcends religious and racial backgrounds. “What’s happening with this shirt is very important,” Ms. O says.

Following their first CD, one x 1,000,000 = change (Moving Forward Music/BMI, 2004), and 2007’s roots, rock, & revolution (Moving Forward Music/BMI), Ms. Humphries and Ms. O recorded their latest CD, We Came to Sing! (Calico Tracks Music, 2009), with Holly Near, the entertainer, teacher and activist who has been part of social change movements for 40 years. The featured three-part harmonies, sung mostly a cappella, put a new stamp on several of Ms. Near’s most popular songs.

Ms. Near and Emma’s Revolution often perform together at demonstrations and other events. Ms. Near began inviting them to harmonize with her when her accompaniment wasn’t available. “People just loved the sound,” Ms. O says.

Singing a cappella has its own benefit, outside of aesthetics. For instance, when the three women recently visited Chile to perform in an event honoring families lost during the Pinochet regime, “Wherever we were, instruments or not, we could sing a song,” Ms. Humphries says.

If protest songs reached a zenith of visibility in the 1960s, it’s only because the media paid more attention to it then, Ms. Humphries and Ms. O maintain. They say activist music will live as long as people are struggling and grievances are left unaddressed.

”This kind of music is being performed all over the world,” Ms. Humphries says. “It creates community around these issues. I think that while songs by themselves don’t have the power to change things, it’s the effect that songs have on a group of people, inciting their imagination and their creativity and their strength of purpose to realize that they actually do have the power to make these changes.”

Emma’s Revolution will perform at Christ Congregation Church, 50 Walnut Lane, Princeton, Jan. 15, 8:15 p.m., $20, $15 Princeton Folk Music Society members, $5 ages 12 and under; 609-799-0944; www.emmasrevolution.com

- Princeton Packet, Central New Jersey.Com

By Chris Serico • cserico@lohud.com • April 6, 2010

As acoustic duo Emma's Revolution, activist singer-
songwriters Pat Humphries and Sandy O had just
performed at Whidbey Island in Washington, when a
fan approached Sandy with a note.

"A year and a half ago, 100,000 of us gathered at
the Seattle football stadium to see the Dalai Lama
and 500 of us who rehearsed for several months to
sing behind him sang your (anti-war anthem),
'Peace, Salaam, Shalom,'" it read. "I thought you'd
like to know."

Sandy remains "really moved and thrilled" by the
gesture, with one mild exception that she and
Humphries explain to audience members of their
shows.

"We really want you to sing it with your community,"
says Sandy, paraphrasing her stage rap. "We're
going to teach you the song right now. But we just
ask that if you're going to sing it for the Dalai Lama,
invite us next time!"

Likening their performances to "Rachel Maddow and
John Stewart with guitars," Emma's Revolution will
bring their combination of activism, music and
humor to the Walkabout Clearwater Coffeehouse in
White Plains on Saturday.

"Just telling people the bad news is a good way to
keep people quiet, and to keep people from doing
anything about their circumstances or other
people's circumstances," Humphries says. "We're all
about activating people."

It won't be the first time Humphries, who lived in
Hastings-on-Hudson in the early '90s, will have performed at a venue with "Clearwater" in the name.
In addition to working with folk legend Pete Seeger's
nonprofit Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in the
'80s, she has performed solo and with Sandy at the
annual Clearwater Festival to fundraise for the folk
legend's charity, which aims to protect the
environment and champion social justice.

"He sort of discovered my music back in 1985 at a
gathering of the People's Music Network," says
Humphries, who contributed to his "Seeds: The
Songs of Pete Seeger" double-album. "We've
performed together some, over the years, and
crossed paths many, many times, of course, by way
of all the things I did with Clearwater. He's done a
lot to help pass some of my songs around."


Seeger has called the second Emma's Revolution
album, "Roots, Rock & Revolution," "part of the
worldwide revolution that will save this planet (with)
songs you'll find yourself singing for the rest of
your life."

Humphries' song, "Swimming to the Other Side,"
inspired Sandy Opatow — whose stage name ends
with her surname initial "because it's easier for
people to remember" — to share a demo tape of her
own songs through a common friend.

"I wasn't sure if I was attracted to the song or this
tiny, postage-sized photo of Pat that was on the
cassette cover," Sandy says. "That's how long ago it
was."

Humphries recalls listening to the demo Sandy
mailed her.

"She was a wonderful, soulful writer," she says. "She
put it right out there that she was interested in
having me come on (her) tour. To have her music be so strong, and the fact that she was cute, all
worked."

The two became partners, on and off the stage, and
adopted the name Emma's Revolution after being
inspired by a famous quote attributed to the late
activist Emma Goldman: "If I can't dance, I don't want
to be part of your revolution."

Says Sandy: "It felt really strong, but for those who
know the quote, it also refers to joyousness."

Humphries agrees. "Music that addresses issues
other than relationship sometimes have a bad rap
for being depressing," she says. "We understand
that people have this particular impression of this
kind of music. For us, this sort of music has to have
an element of hope and humor and celebration and
love in it."

They've taken their tours to hundreds of American
and international festivals promoting peace, justice,
fair labor practices, the environment, and equal
rights for women, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and
transgendered people.

Their song about 9/11 World Trade Center victims,
"If I Give Your Name," won the grand prize in the
John Lennon Songwriting Contest in 2002. Their
venues have ranged from the Inaugural Peace Ball in W
ashington, D.C., to the World Culture Open in
Seoul, Korea. And they've performed for a crowd of
some 500,000 people at a rally in Washington, D.C.

They've already tackled most of the United States,
gigging as a duo in 40 states along the way. In
honor of Humphries' 50th birthday, the two plan to
gig in the remaining 10 this year.

As they prepare for their White Plains gig, which
includes a set by fellow guitarist Sara Thomsen, they
hope audience members enjoy the show and leave
with a sense of purpose.

"If we can leave them singing and hopeful,"
Humphries says, "it's really the best possible
outcome."
- The Journal News

Revolution in Carbondale
By Marleen Shepherd, For the Southern | Home / Lifestyles / Faith and Values | Posted: Saturday, February 6, 2010 1:00 am

Their song “Peace, Salaam, Shalom” has serenaded the Dalai Lama and helped rally 500,000 anti-war protestors in Washington, D.C. Now, Emma’s Revolution, a duo of award-winning activist musicians Pat Humphries & Sandy O, will bring songs of social justice to Carbondale to raise funds for HIV/AIDS relief efforts.

A Feb. 13 concert at the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship will benefit the fellowship’s partnership with Ranchhod Hospice and Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Kabwe, Zambia, as well as HIV/AIDS services in Southern Illinois.

“We’re often brought into town for some type of social action in that community,” said Humphries, who called it an honor to be surrounded by people who are doing “the most inspiring and exciting things around.”

While some of the songs in the Carbondale set will address the benefit directly, the folk-pop duo will also bring their award-winning repertoire, which has been featured at hundreds of peace, justice, labor, environmental, LGBTQ and women’s rights events around the world.

“The point always is to make connections between various issues,” said Sandy O. “People in Zambia who have AIDS don’t just have AIDS as a medical concern; there are poverty issues, environmental issues, geopolitical dynamics. This is part of the reason why things are spiraling out of control and why it’s amazing when community groups step in and do what they can to make change wherever people feel moved to work and to help shift the picture.”

Emma’s Revolution’s songs have been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and Pacifica’s “Democracy Now!” The song “If I Give Your Name” garnered Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. “Keep On Moving Forward” opened the NGO Forum at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, becoming the unofficial theme of the conference. “Peace, Salaam, Shalom” is sung around the world and has been called the “anthem of the anti-war movement.”

Emma’s Revolution regularly performs at major international events, but the band’s typical audiences are found in small coffeehouses, churches and community groups with a passion for social justice work.

“So much of the organization around these issues is generated out of the progressive churches,” Pat said. “We find ourselves working with all manner of different people who have a desire to address the needs of those who have the least say and least power. That is a principle place where so many of the world religions intersect.”

The pair said they’re proud that many of their songs have found their way into the worship services of faith communities, and that they love to visit communities like Carbondale that identify with their music on a spiritual level.

“My sense of spirituality comes through peace and justice work wherever it is,” Humphries said. “Communities that are doing peace and justice work is where I want to be.”

The concert and a silent auction with wine and finger food reception will benefit local HIV/AIDS care and the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship’s support of children affected by HIV/AIDS in Zambia. The fellowship and Hospice of Southern Illinois have partnered to raise funds and medical and school supplies for the African hospice since 2003. They are delivered during annual trips to Kabwe by fellowship members and local hospice staff.

The band’s purpose in coming is to help raise funds for this cause and to encourage community members to continue working for positive change, Humphries said.

“If everybody puts forth some effort and takes on a sense of personal responsibility, change will happen,” she said. “We want to leave people with a sense of their own personal power and with the sense of hope that really fuels all of our abilities.” - The Southern

BY Rebecca Kensil, Correspondent
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 3:18 PM EST

Duo's activist message has gained a global audience

PAWTUCKET - The duo emma's revolution, who have sung songs of political activisim, women's rights and environmentalism around the world, will be performing Saturday night, Jan. 9, at the Stone Soup Coffeehouse.

Sandy O and Pat Humphries met through a mutual friend and played off and on together for eight years before becoming a couple and forming emma's revolution eight years ago.

Their name refers to Emma Goldman, an important figure in the labor, women's, free speech, and early anarchists' movements in the United States. According to O, Goldman was chastised for her dancing at a party and said, in essence, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be a part of the revolution."

The quote has been the inspiration for the duo's musical activism. "What's important is that songs become important tools," said O, who added that she was also inspired by the Dixie Chick's album, "Taking The Long Way," and its theme of standing up for individual rights of expression.

If you go to see emma's revolution, you can expect a good dose of humor from the duo in addition to their activism. "A goal of ours is to bring uplifting laughter," said Humphries.
"It's not our first time in Pawtucket," said O. "We're looking forward to starting 2010 there."

"Our music is unique. While we are not on every radio station, we're sung around the world," she said.

The duo has played in Canada, Chile, Korea, Scotland, England, Israel, Palestine, Nicaragua, Cuba and in 40 states across America. They performed by invitation at the First Inaugural Peace Ball in 2009, Sing out the Vote Ohio in 2008, and the first International Convocation of Unitarian Universalist Women last year.

"Peace, Salaam, Shalom" is sung around the world, has been called the "anthem of the anti-war movement" and has even been sung for the Dalai Lama, O said. The saying is now sold on T-shirts on the duo's Web site.

"People really want to stand behind the message of peace," said O.

Their song, "If I Give Your Name" won the grand prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and their music has been featured on NPR's "All Things Considered" and Pacifica's "Democracy Now!"

On winning the Lennon award, O said, "John Lennon wrote similar music. It is great to be recognized by a group like that."

The duo recently collaborated on a CD with folk icon Holly Near and toured and performed with her onstage.

"There is power in harmonies," said Humphries. "It is most exciting to see people believe change is possible after listening to our music. There are people challenging racism and even abusive governments."

The duo is currently working on a book to document their stories of activism around the world.

- The Sun Chronicle

"Randall Amster recently spoke with Pat and Sandy about their travels, how they stay inspired in these troubling times, and the legacy of their anthemic songs."

Read the full article at http://emmasrevolution.com/media/articles/Chronicle.pdf - The Peace Chronicle Newsletter of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, Fall 2008

"Beyond progressive commentary, Emma's Revolution examines issues of our time the way the media should."

Read the full article at http://emmasrevolution.com/media/articles/zmag.pdf - Z Magazine

emma's revolution perform intelligent folk rock. - Magic City Morning Star, Millinocket, ME

May 22, 2002 -- When Marika Partridge was director of All Things Considered, she would listen to hundreds of songs a week, picking the ones heard on the program. Now at home raising three children, Partridge is still listening to music -- and still marveling at how the convergence of melody, rhythm and words can make one song meaningful and lasting. For All Things Considered, Partridge tells the story of one song she found extraordinary: "Swimming to the Other Side" by Pat Humphries. And exclusively for npr.org, Partridge offers the following essay about Humphries -- and, more broadly, about where songs come from and how they travel among us.

By Marika Partridge

Pat Humphries was born in 1960, the fifth of six girls in a northeast Ohio family. Relatives recall that Pat started singing at about the same time she talked, and she started playing guitar when her parents surprised her on her ninth birthday with a "no-name wooden guitar." She never did take music lessons -- so many kids, simply not enough cash. That was the real world.

It was again the real world that caused her to become politically involved early on. Says Humphries: "We lived 35 miles from Kent State, and my sisters and our friends -- we all went to Kent State University. When the four students got shot in 1970, I was 10 years old -- and it felt like it happened to me, to us! We all took it personally." The desire to make the world better took hold, and music was an avenue.

By the time she was a teen, Pat had toured and performed nationally and internationally with two youth choruses, and she had discovered that a young singer-songwriter with something substantial to say was welcome in the folk community of Cleveland. Pat performed in clubs and coffee houses there, and honed her skills as a rhythm guitarist in bluegrass, Irish and old-timey bands.

Music ultimately derailed her education; she dropped out of Kent State to work for the National Folk Festival, and kept using her guitar and her voice -- a powerful, warm alto -- to work for justice and peace.

Pat didn’t set out to become a songwriter. As she says, "there’s an abundance of wonderful material out there and I never felt at a loss." But songs began emerging. Pat’s first original song came out of a songwriting workshop led by labor organizer/folksinger Si Kahn in 1984. He asked the participants to quickly compose a song. Without delay, Pat wrote her first song, "Never Turning Back," which folk legend Pete Seeger calls "one of the best songs I’ve heard in 50 years."

Some songs, Pat says, start as a nagging feeling, something she needs to deal with. But some simply arrive full blown, surprising even Pat. "Swimming to the Other Side" is such a song. Pat says, "This did not just come out of me. This came from a lot of different people and different places, and I just happened to be here at the right time for it to flow through my pen, my tape recorder. It’s very emotional for me."

I heard "Swimming to the Other Side" at a summer music camp, and was captivated. I pursued my obsession with the song, and my search led to a range of conversations. Pete Seeger sings several of Pat’s songs, and is a champion of her work as an activist musician. He says "Swimming to the Other Side" has the same kind of significance as Woody Guthrie’s anthem "This Land is Your Land" -- because it’s passed along, in the same vital way, from one singer to the next, right across the country. When a song or a story takes off on its own like that, says Pete, it can’t be stopped.

Someone else who loves and sings "Swimming to the Other Side" is Lui Collins, a singer/songwriter from Massachusetts; she added a new part, borrowed from a hymn she learned as a child. Many who teach the song teach Lui’s version, with its potential spectacular harmony.

Here’s what Lui writes about "Swimming to the Other Side": "I often hear songs that I am quite drawn to, but at some point there’ll be some lyric that just doesn’t fit, and I’ll end up not learning the song. The first time I heard Pat sing this song, it caught my ear immediately. I followed the lyrics all the way through, and the lyrics just kept getting better and better, a perfect expression of something I would want to communicate to an audience. Another aspect of the song that invites immediate connection with it, is that the melody and harmonies are reminiscent of the familiar Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Without being identical, it’s close enough to pull on those same heart strings!"

Pat Humphries now lives in the Washington, D.C., area, where she struggles to make a living performing music that’s often critical of the powers that be. Yet, she says, Washington has all the fundamental elements a protest singer requires in a home base: people involved in progressive politics, and excellent support for acoustic music.

Other Resources

• Pat Humphries official Web site.

• Lui Collins official Web site.

• Watch a video of Humphries perfoming at a Jan. 28, 2002 Writer's Night showcase at the Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

For NPR broadcast soundfiles see http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/may/humphries/index.html

- www.npr.org