We Shall Overcome enters its sixth campaign this year needed now more than ever before.
With the post-election and post-Brexit fallout consuming the national conversation, and ideological warfare sucking all the air out of social media, it is once again those at the front line of government cuts who get left behind and forgotten.
It shouldn’t be this way. Yet such have been the battles for control of the wider political narrative, that those who need representation the most often get the least, and the more time we spend fighting, the more we begin to associate politics with the art of winning an argument and not the act of solving a real and pressing need on our streets.
The We Shall Overcome movement began the day after the General Election of May 2015 as a response from the artistic community to the renewed vigor with which the newly elected Tory government was set to pursue its austerity agenda. We wanted to encourage anyone, whether they had run a gig before or not, to book a venue and run a local benefit gig for their community. We wanted you to choose where that help went, because you knew and understood the needs of your town better than anyone. So we had people collecting donations of not just cash, but food, warm clothing, toiletries, sanitary ware, you name it, if it was needed we were running gigs to collect it, for food banks, soup kitchens, homeless outreach, crisis centres, refugee support and youth projects.
And we have had success too, with more than 1000 events in 150 towns and cities up and down the UK raising an estimated £500,000 worth of help for those struggling to make ends meet out there; not just the homeless, but those on poverty wages in zero hours employment battling to raise a family and swimming against the tide.
We Shall Overcome is something I am phenomenally proud to be a part of. It’s a genuinely community-led movement of ordinary people who roll up their sleeves and become that somebody somewhere who does something about it. These are people being the change they want to see in the world.
They inspire me.
And I hope they will inspire you to join in and make #WSO2020 a force for good in an uncertain world.
Lee Hays opening line to a song I sing on the new EP.
It sounds naive, almost childlike, but that is why I sang it; because it isn’t Hays’ lack of insight which makes it that way- it is our cynicism.
We have become so embittered as a society, so beaten down, that this cynicism has embedded itself in our belief system and become so entrenched that our solution to a loss of faith in politics is to elect a proven liar as prime minister. Johnson isn’t there on hard-earned merit, he is there because we have given up.
I believe songs are there to press our reset button; not to tell us things we think we already know about the times we are living in, but to take us back to the distilled essence of what we believe and why we believe it.
They are a message from the past, yes, but they are something more- they are the key to unlocking the future.
Hays didn’t write that lyric because he was an innocent. He wrote as a man who was physically and verbally assaulted for his politics, who was blacklisted as a musician and tried under McCarthyism. He wrote because the purity of those words took him back to why he chose to fight in the first place, like a prisoner alone in a cell finding hope in the light creeping through a crack in the wall.
The same is true of many of those songs.
“Solidarity forever for the union makes us strong” Ralph Chaplin wrote. Yet he wrote it at a time when being a trade union member made it harder to find work, and could get you beaten, ostracised and even killed by armed thugs in the pay of bosses and under the protection of the police. We may look at our unions today and see leaders more concerned with protecting their OWN jobs than they are ours, but it is our cynicism doing that; Chaplin’s message remains the same, if we DO stand together, if we DO demonstrate unity in the face of exploitation, the union STILL makes us strong. We have just lost the ability to believe it.
And that is where the secret lies.
Belief.
The original protest songs often took their music from well-known hymns of the day and in doing so subliminally transferred some belief in a better future from the churches to the fields and the factory floors. As we have become more secular as a society, so have we lost that belief, not just in an abstract concept like God, but in a collective purpose, and ultimately in ourselves.
We need to press reset.
We need to remind ourselves we stand on the shoulders of giants who took the insults, the beatings, the jail time, the misery, the death and the war and were STILL able to sing “We Shall overcome some day”.
And maybe then we will hear what so many miss.
That the emphasis in that song is on the word ‘shall’.
We SHALL overcome.
It was not written in a moment of whimsical fancy.
It is a threat.
So put down your baggage. Pack away your cynicism. And press reset.
Tomorrow IS a highway broad and fair.
A brave man devoted his life to making sure future generations heard that and stayed strong.
The ‘We Shall Overcome EP’ landed on CD yesterday, and all pre-orders shipped First Class this morning so will be landing on doormats from tomorrow.
For years I have been chewing over the idea of a record of covers, not just ANY covers but songs written in the golden age of protest music and sung in the corners of fields, on picket lines and factory floors, to help Educate, Agitate, Organise, and to inspire.
Many of the songs I considered were Little Red Song Book staples, from the days when the IWW helped spread them through their regular publications, because they understood the unique way in which music helps not only to convey a message, but to hammer it deep into the hearts and minds of those who raise their voices to sing.
Some of these songs are very well known. ‘Solidarity Forever’ and ‘Which Side Are You On?’ both performed here with the Hatfield Brigade, are well known lefty anthems with lyrics by Ralph Chaplin and Florence Reece respectively, which I’ve adapted for the current political climate; and civil rights era hymn ‘We Shall Overcome’ I played straight because that’s how it works best, but the presence of the mighty Commoners Choir makes it a magical close to the record.
Two more are less well known. ‘Tomorrow Is A Highway’ was a Lee Hays lyric Pete Seeger set to music; and ‘Step By Step’ a haunting metaphorical lesson in the power of unity. Both I adapted the lyrics to, and both are brought to life by Rebekah Findlay’s violin.
Rebekah takes lead vocal on ‘Bread & Roses’ bringing that lyric to life over a Phil Spector meets Jesus & Mary Chain backing track; while the EP is completed, perhaps incongruously, by my version of Paul Simmonds 1986 The Men They Couldn’t Hang classic ‘The Ghosts Of Cable Street’; and a massive thank you to Paul for his permission to use it here and stand it shoulder to shoulder with such legendary songs, exactly where it belongs.
The idea behind this EP was to save as much money as I could through 2019, then stand the cost of pressing it and give every penny it raises away to We Shall Overcome causes fighting on the front line of poverty in some of our most forgotten communities. I think the original writers and performers would approve of their work being put to such use in the 21st Century. I hope so anyway.
Primarily the EP will support my new #NotOnOurWatchCampaign helping people bridge the gap when the money runs out. In this way I hope to keep lights on, homes warm, and food on the table for folks who would otherwise be sat cold and hungry in the dark.
The EP is available to stream, download, and buy on CD here:
There are four new releases en route in 2020 so here’s a quick heads-up on what’s imminent incoming.
First up is the 7-track ‘We Shall Overcome EP’ which is available to download now with CD copies landing next week. I recorded these protest covers with the principle aim of selling it to raise money for #WSO2020 causes and the brand new #NotOnOurWatchCampaign. Six are songs associated with Pete Seeger, and the seventh The Men They Couldn’t Hang‘s ‘Ghosts Of Cable Street’ which Paul Simmonds kindly gave me permission to include here. I had help from The Hatfield Brigade on ‘Solidarity Forever’ and ‘Which Side Are You On?’; Commoners Choir on ‘We Shall Overcome’; and there’s some absolutely sublime Rebekah Findlay fiddle on ‘Tomorrow Is A Highway’ and ‘Step By Step’. The CD is a fiver, and the download ‘Name Your Price’, but every penny will go to supporting WSO causes wherever need is greatest.
Second is the ‘No Pasaran: Special Edition’ which will land next month. The original album sold out late last year, but I had more songs which helped further to tell the story of Hull’s volunteers and I wanted to include them as bonus tracks. So there are five additional songs again featuring Commoners Choir and Rebekah Findlay, but also with a very special Solidarity Choir featuring relatives of Hull’s International Brigade heroes joining me in a call-and-response tribute to their forefathers. There is brand new artwork by Kevin Pearson which is also available as a limited edition signed and numbered A4 print if you’re quick. You can pre-order the CD, download, or bag that artwork here:
Third on the roster is the brand new Lithium Joe single ‘Answer Machine/Forget To Remember’ which we finish on January 30th and will get out there as soon as we can. The backing track is almost complete, so it’s up to Dave Foy and meself to get our vocals down and make the thing fly. Bonus track on the CD will be ’29 More Stolen Summers’ an acoustic track featuring Rebekah on fiddle.
The fourth will follow in the Summer. It’s a 10-track CD of songs written as we pick through the rubble of one struggle and dust ourselves down for the next. With the working title ‘Keep On Fighting’, I’ll be chiselling away at the demos and re-records over the coming weeks before the gigs make recording impossible once more. You can hear the early versions here:
I’ll also be working on a double-CD compiling my best work so far and putting together an accompanying songbook. This may take some time though so early 2021 is more realistic than this year…..but then who knows.
Please support these releases if you can. As ever, a fiver from every CD sale goes to WSO causes, in particular to Pauline Town to help fund her extraordinary work fighting homelessness in Greater Manchester; but on top of that it is so good to travel miles and miles from home and hear people singing along with every word. That is an incredible feeling I will never tire of, and it can’t happen unless you know the stuff!
Please don’t struggle through the next few weeks without food or heating because December’s money runs out before January’s arrives.
I have set up #NotOnOurWatchCampaign up to use my music in a way that stands in solidarity with all those our failed State has left behind. It is an attempt, no matter how futile, to shore up the dam, to hold back the flood, and I will move heaven and earth to help if I can.
Message me if you are struggling, and I will try to raise small amounts to get you through those days you would otherwise be going cold and hungry. It’s NOT charity. I believe it has become a responsibility now to stand in defiance of the poison that dominates parliament, and to stand in solidarity with all of its victims in any way possible.
My work with We Shall Overcome, and especially that alongside Pauline Town, has shown me austerity has impacted on our communities in many different ways, from those made street homeless to those targeted for benefit sanctions; from those on poverty wages and zero hours contracts to those tricked into becoming ‘self-employed’; from those losing out on Universal Credit to those whose empty bedroom takes all their food money, or whose disability claim is fraudulently turned down by those being paid handsomely by the tax payer to save the tax payer money.
All of these problems and no one solution to any of it.
But we can try.
One of the conversations I have had most is with people who went 48 hours hungry and cold because the money ran out before the wages or the benefit payment arrived. It is desperately sad to hear people you know and love going through this, and it simply should not be happening.
Small amounts can stop this. £5/£10/£20 is often all it takes, but it is a hidden effect of austerity because the suffering it inflicts is short-term, relatively minor, and not worth column inches in a newspaper.
Unless you’re going through it.
Then the guilt, the sense of helplessness, the wounded pride, the impotent rage are overwhelming.
So I want to try and stop as many people as I can from going through it.
Message me, entirely in confidence, and with no strings attached. It isn’t a loan. It is one way I can use music to fight back. If I can get you to payday I will, and judging from the messages I have received in support of this, we can raise more if we need it.
We can, we must, and we will fight back and ultimately we will win; but in the meantime the offer of help is here if you need it.
So that was 2019, a year that brought hope and heartbreak, dreams, doubts and disappointment, and yet leaves us with a sense that something HAS to change for the better and soon. I was always told that light shines brightest in the darkest places, so we take that light where we can find it and, as a new year beckons, we fight on.
For me 2019 started in the Trades Club, Rotherham and ended in All Hallows Church, Leeds eleven months and two days later. En route the madness and the mayhem landed in Nottingham, Hull, London, Ashton-under-Lyne, Crewe, York, Doncaster, Walthamstow, Bishop Auckland, Wakefield, Stoke, Burnley, Wrexham, Medway, Durham, Saltburn, Scunthorpe, Hartlepool, Sheffield, Barnsley, Hebden Bridge, Redcar, Oldham, Stockton-on-Tees, Manchester, Dewsbury, Liverpool, Tolpuddle, Widnes, Glasgow, Bradford, Wigan, Goole, Brighton, Stainforth, Darlington, Whitby, Pickering, Middlesbrough and Haxey…..some of them multiple times…..and I crawled home mid-December absolutely shattered; but every single mile was worth it for the singing and shouting, the smiles and the solidarity. We did good out there in testing times, and I can’t wait to get back on the road in January.
Highlights have to include my first ever sold-out headline show in London at Greenwich Theatre back in February; the album launch for ‘Headscarves & Hurricanes’ at The Station Hotel, Ashton-under-Lyne; unveiling the the new memorial to Hull’s International Brigade volunteers…..
opening for the peerless Grace Petrie in a packed Old Cinema Launderette in Durham…..
….when I even got to SING harmony!!!
……our best May Day Festival Of Solidarity yet, where I sang for the first time live with Commoners Choir, a sound that will stay with me forever….
….‘With Banners Held High’ where I got to recite my custom-written poem to kick the whole thing off, and sing with the Commoners AGAIN!
…..singing ‘Headscarves & Hurricanes’ right in the heart of the Hessle Road community whose stories the record tells was truly spine-tingling….
And the whole gig was captured on camera here:
……Durham Miners Gala with the Hatfield Brigade is ALWAYS a day to remember, especially when you’re given the honour of pole duty (the left one, obviously hehe)…
There was the truly FANTASTIC Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival….
….where I shared a stage with Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds on top of delivering mischief as per; there was the utterly brilliant Love Glasgow, Hate Racism event sharing a bill with my comrades and friends The Wakes among many others, and meeting the legendary Skids-frontman Richard Jobson…
…..the Peterloo March to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the massacre in St Peter’s Field 16th August 1819….
An unforgettable Wigan Diggers Festival where I not only got to hand the Gerrard Winstanley Gold Spade Award to the wonderful Pauline Town, but I got to sing with first Darren Poyzer, and then my boyhood heroes The Men They Couldn’t Hang!!!
A truly incredible afternoon at Musicport Festival in Whitby, sharing a stage with Rebekah Findlay and Commoners Choir on a very packed North Sea Stage….
…..and, after thousands of miles for We Shall Overcome, hundreds more for the Labour Party, Xmas hospital singalongs, and just about every other form of mischief that could be conjured, the gigging year ended with a sold-out WSO show in Leeds.
In between, I managed to record Commoners Choir, Rebekah Findlay, The Hatfield Brigade, and a special Hull Relatives Solidarity Choir for new releases; raise £1200 for Refugees putting my running shoes on for the British Red Cross….
……oh and reform Lithium Joe for two VERY special gigs which raised £1800 for Greater Manchester’s homeless and Hull Help For Refugees at a packed Station in Ashton for my 50th birthday We Shall Overcome all-dayer; and a sold-out Adelphi in Hull the night after…..
So small wonder then that I’m a little bit knackered right now.
Though not knackered enough to not pen a brand new 4-track EP called ‘Keep On Fighting’ to put the wind back in a few sagging sails as we steel ourselves to fight all over again. That, plus a brand new single from Lithium Joe, a re-issue of ‘No Pasaran’ with bonus tracks, and the imminent ‘We Shall Overcome EP’ of protest covers will form the basis of what I’m up to in 2020.
And read about the new ‘Not On Our Watch Campaign’ elsewhere on this site. That will be used to help anyone running out of money before a pay day or benefit payment to stop them having to turn off the heating or go without food.
And so a MASSIVE thank you to all of you who supported me through thick and thin; who marched at my side, who sang along, who shouted and hollered and laughed and cried; who kept me going when I needed coffee or a hug; who bought the CDs and the t-shirts and the downloads to keep the appeals going, making sure we did everything we could to feed and clothe and house folks who needed us in their darkest hour of need; and of course, to all you amazing people who book me to play and keep me out there doing what I do best.
Special mentions to my comrade-in-crayons Kevin Pearson for his unflinching support; Tony Wright for being my brother in arms; to Paul and Lindsay Rutland for being my road buddies over more miles than are healthy; Chip Hamer and all at Poetry On The Picket Line, for showing street-level solidarity to the world and being there when I’m miles away from home; to Dave, Big E and Aidy for making a 25 year old racket fresher and more fun than ever; Dave Griffiths for getting me electric again; Pete Yen without whom We Shall Overcome would have withered and died; and of course to Pauline Town, a daily inspiration when the world gets on top of me.
Loads more people keep my show on the road, and I love you all to bits.
Right now, 2020 beckons. No idea where it will take me. I just can’t plan that far ahead.
But I promise you this, I will fight harder than ever.
Holed-up writing and preparing for a new year and a fresh fight. There are new releases and new projects to run alongside the old ones, but here’s a quick run through where I’m heading.
Three new CDs will land early in 2020.
1. First will be the ‘We Shall Overcome EP’, seven protest covers all raising funds for the new #NotOnOurWatchCampaign (see below). The download is available now as well as the CD on pre-order, but they won’t land in your letterbox until the end of January when they are scheduled for delivery to Solo Towers. The EP features collaborations with Rebekah Findlay, The Hatfield Brigade and Commoners Choir.
2. Hot on its heels will be the reissue of ‘No Pasaran’ with the new artwork by Kevin Pearson which looks STUNNING. There are five bonus tracks and we also have 50 limited edition numbered A4 prints of the sleeve art for those who want it on their wall. There will be a launch gig for this in Hull and details will follow.
3. The new #LithiumJoe single ‘Answer Machine’ will be released in the Spring on CD and download, and potentially vinyl if we can make ends meet. The B-Side will be ‘Forget To Remember’ and ’29 More Stolen Summers’, and we can’t wait to get that out there. Michael Lee Toas has shot footage for a music video and short documentary, so that will be along too.
On the other side of things, the fight just got harder, which means I will have to dig a little deeper just to tread water.
That’s ok. I’m good for it.
We Shall Overcome will continue as before, and we’ll be looking to encourage more people to get involved so that every weekend we are hitting poverty where it hurts and getting help to the front line of need. I will continue to hit the road and head wherever I’m needed to support #WSO2020. Too many people need it.
My gigs will continue to be collection points for food donations, warm clothing parcels for #SocksAppeal, sanitary towels for #PeriodPovertySolidarityCampaign and I will continue with the Pauline Pocket for anyone who would like to get a few quid to The Station Hotel, Ashton Under Lyne for those daily packed lunches.
And the #NotOnOurWatchCampaign is my new battle. It has been launched in response to the people I’ve spoken to, or messaged, who are going without food and heating waiting for wage packets or benefit payments after the money has run out. I’m going to be building a fighting fund to help bridge those gaps for anyone who messages me in trouble. Can’t promise masses, but if £5, £10, £20 will get folks fed and allow them to turn the heating on, then I’ll sort it. Not a loan, not charity, just solidarity in action because that’s what Woody would have done.
So I hope to see you all out there again next year fighting on. I promise to hit every venue and festival that will have me, and to support every benefit gig and picket line I possibly can. The Struggle may have left parliament, but it leaves there bigger, bolder and better than it began and I genuinely believe we are stronger for it.
And f*** it, I’ve got nothing better to do for five years.
The first of three releases due in the first months of 2020 is the ‘We Shall Overcome EP’.
These seven songs are protest covers and feature Rebekah Findlay on fiddle and vocal, The Hatfield Brigade and Commoners Choir.
I am using this release to raise funds for the new #NotOnOurWatchCampaign which I’ve set up to help people bridge the short term gap if they are running out of money before wage packets or benefit payments arrive.
The songs have mostly passed through the hands of Pete Seeger over the years, but The Men They Couldn’t Hang‘s 1986 classic ‘Ghosts Of Cable Street’ is there too and a massive thank you to Paul Simmonds for his permission to use it for the cause.
Not quite sure where to start with this so I’ll just dive in.
The two #LithiumJoe gigs this weekend were absolute dynamite.
We loved playing together and kicking up a racket for you, and we can’t wait to get back on the road with our new single in the Spring. We finish that on January 30th and we’re working on the finer details over the Christmas break. Just have to say a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who filled both venues to support the band. I know there were plenty of you from back in the day, but plenty of you used to seeing me with a maraca in my shoe travelled from all over the country and that means more than I can possibly say.
Between the lot of us we moved absolute mountains.
Saturday at The Station Hotel, Ashton Under Lyne raised £1000 in cash, plus loads of bags of food and warm clothing. The cash housed four people, including a homeless family of three now facing their first Christmas together in a place to call home. So no matter how small your donation into the WSO bucket, YOU did that. Just brilliant.
Sunday at The New Adelphi Club in Hull raised £850 for Hull Help For Refugees and the money is being used to get decent quality waterproof footwear into the refugee camps around Calais and Dunkirk where cases of trenchfoot are a daily occurance. The donations of warm clothing I will get to Scarborough Friends of Refugees for their SNUG parcels heading in the same direction. The venue also waived their fee on hire for the room and donated that to the cause, so a massive #WSO2019 thank you to Jacko, Jim, Mat and all the Adelphi for that awesome gesture of solidarity.
So that’s £1850 plus food and clothing. In two gigs.
Absolutely amazing. Can’t thank you all enough.
Thank you’s are going to be complicated so here goes….
For Sunday, The Hurriers for a superb set opening for us; Chris Von Trapp for DJ skills; Michael Lee Toas for hauling down to film us; Ian Jones for hauling up to snap us; David Craik and Marie for handing merch; and everyone who sold the place out weeks ago making sure we walked out to a full house on our return home. You will never know how good that felt. Amazing.
For Saturday, all the musicians who gave their time and talents to the cause. I was in and out a bit, but it was great to see Darren Poyzer, Tony Auton, Bard Company, the utterly incredible Rebekah Findlay and bringing solidarity in stanzas from darn sarf, Karl and Red Rosa of Poetry on the Picket Line. So good to see The Hatfield Brigade drink their way through virtually every optic on the shelf and keep the pub running as an actual pub for once! And fab to see the Wigan Diggers and BFAWU contingents out in force. Great to see the place to full and so buzzing with positive energy. Fantastic.
And respect is due to all who went to both gigs, especially Paul and Lindsay Rutland and Simon Welsh Notton whose enthusiasm for it all could not help but put a smile on your face.
One last thing. I booked Saturday as a birthday party, not for the attention, but because I thought it was a good excuse to have a big all-dayer at The Station before the worst of the winter set in. I know you got that. I know you understood that. But your presents and cards made my day anyway. Love you all to bits. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your warm words, hugs and handshakes and all the rest. Incredible support xx
So to old friends and new THANK YOU for making the Lithium Joe comeback such a blast. We LOVED it.
Someone once said we were the best band they saw that never made it.
Joe Solo 