Bruce Newman is a folkie. By day, he’s an entertainment attorney. Wednesday mornings, he’s the host of Folk Song Fiesta on WEVL, but he’s not just a fan. Newman writes and produces his own music, which we’ve featured before on Music Video Monday.
“Last week, we hosted a breakfast which included Janis Ian and other folk legends at Folk Alliance in Kansas City. Janis told us that her big songs such as ‘At Seventeen’, ‘Jesse’, and ‘Society’s Child’, were very painful to write, and she received death threats and had things thrown at her when she performed them. She told us it was well worth it; those songs and those things needed to be said,” Newman says.
“During the last few years I have been especially sick and tired of the beatings, the mass shootings, and the racism that has now become commonplace, with our leaders doling out much of it. One particular day hit me; when I went to a rally against the oil pipeline in Boxtown (the formerly enslaved community in South Memphis) I saw the abject poverty which stems from years of institutional racism. I’m not ashamed; white privilege sunk in again. I think everyone should put that on their bucket list; go to a rally in Boxtown and see what reality is.”
Newman’s new song “My Brother Is Weary” is a call for empathy and understanding across races, classes, and religions. The song features performances from Eric Lewis, Susan Marshall, Reba Russell, Gerald Stephens, and Shawn Zorn. The video was directed by longtime Newman collaborator Laura Jean Hocking (who, full disclosure, is my wife, and I helped out on set at Black Lodge.)
“My love of folk music starts with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Josh White, and all who came before and after, including Zimmy [Bob Dylan], and the music they created to champion the exploited workers and the downtrodden. I have come to study the music from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, such as that from the SNCC Freedom Singers, the CORE Freedom Singers, Cordell Reagon and Bernice Johnson, and Phil Ochs, to name just a few. As a young kid growing up in New York, I marched for Soviet Jewry, and now having lived in Memphis for half of my life, I see the issues just have a different name, but intolerance is the common thread. Given the opportunity to speak out for whatever the injustice is, we should, because we are all brothers and sisters.”
If you’d like to see your music video on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
