Time for a little Dusty....

You know, all this talk about artists not "rockin'  the boat" politically has made me think of a wonderful story about my favorite pop singer of all time, Dusty Springfield. 

In 1964 Dusty found herself at the center of a political storm when she refused to play to segregated audiences in South Africa.   Strictly speaking, Dusty wasn't deported, as her return fare wasn't paid for. Nevertheless, she was in her own words, "drummed out of the country." "I wasn't making any major statement," she recalls. "I just thought it was morally the right thing to do."  

Dusty spoke about the incident later on in her life:  ". . . All through the sixties I was incredibly naive about all sorts of things, politics being one of them...I was floundering through things and I had 'ideals'. So, in my contract I put in, in small print, that I wouldn't play to segregated audiences and it all went very quiet and I thought 'Wow! I've achieved it'. When the band and I got off the plane, the South African government people were standing under the wings of the plane thrusting these bits of paper at us to sign to say that we would do exactly as they said we would do and . . . that we had no right to come into the country and make trouble--blah, blah, blah - and that the contract as it stood was null and void. So naturally, none of us signed . . . The promoter had found a loophole that I didn't know about. It's highly technical in that mixed audiences could be allowed in cinemas if it was a live show for some reason. So, the promoter who was a good guy had sorted these venues out . . . With which . . . I don't know, I can't prove it. I imagine the South African government went, 'Whoops! We've missed this one.'   When we got to Cape Town, they just put us under what I would call hotel arrest. The shows were off and as they politely put it, something like . . . '[we] withdraw the right for you to stay here for more than twenty-four hours'."

" . . . The promoter was desperately trying to sort this out and it went [on for] three or four days . . . I never want to see another tomato sandwich - that's what they kept sending up to the room. Tomato sandwiches . . . and in the end they sort of drummed us out of the country, but they didn't deport us because if they deport you they have to pay your fares. After that two things happened. The promoter gave up and moved his family to Israel . . . and that loophole got closed. So I didn't do an ounce of good. But I didn't really go there to do good. I went there to sing and I had, somewhere, this really naive ideal that perhaps being there would make some kind of a difference. Well, it didn't. For a while it made it worse and I think those were the accusations I got for making trouble and my records were taken off South African radio for years and out of the shops for many years."

Despite Dusty's own views that standing up for her political ideals didn't do "an ounce of good", I think she's too hard on herself.     Of course standing up for what she believed in was important and good for her for doing so.     If more artists today were like Dusty, we might have a more caring, fair world.    While artists are not political leaders, they do have a platform and are often able to address the needs and concerns of the general population, especially when that general population is disenfranchised.    With Linda Ronstadt's recent struggles and Michael Moore being vilified at every turn, it seems we have forgotten that artists have always been the front-runners for the cause of the downtrodden.       They have to be, because it they are not, who will be?   Certainly not the corporations, whose only interest is to make a profit.    Certainly not this administration, who only seems to focus on the war in Iraq and has forgotten about any domestic issues whatsoever.

So Dusty's pioneering spirit, way back in 1964, should be a lesson to us today, 40 years later.   Hopefully, the Dixie Chicks and Linda Ronstadts and Michael Moores of this world won't give up and won't be allowed to be muzzled by the fear of losing record sales and corporate and advertising pressures.       After all, money isn't and shouldn't be the only motivator of a Great Society...at some point, we have to keep the interests of our fellow americans at heart.