Artists:Emma's Revolution

Emma's Revolution

When singer-songwriters Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow joined forces in 2001, they melded full-throated harmonies, ringing guitars, and the shared sensibilities of their individual repertoires of covers and sell-penned songs of social justice into a sum greater than its already impressive parts--creating a shapely sound and sense that is at once both personal and political. With their first joint release, One x 1,000,000 = Change (Big W Productions), Humphries and Opatow became Emma's Revolution, invoking the motto attributed to late-19th/early-20th Century Lithuanian anarchist-feminist-labor rights-peace activist Emma Goldman--"If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." The Goldman reference is more than a catchy moniker. By naming their musical partnership Emma's Revolution, Pat and Sandy at once stake their claim as inheritors of Emma Goldman's personal and political legacy, and frame their own territory of peace, environmental, feminist and workers' rights activism. That terrain is often populated with earnest, hard-working and worthy singers and songwriters whose message outpaces their musical prowess. So Emma's Revolution is a revelation. When they're at the top of their form--which is often--these women focus their political passions in deftly-turned phrases and memorable melodies to testily for love, peace, equality and justice in that delicate balance exemplified by Pete Seeger: writing and singing rare and exquisite songs that teach but don't preach.

Pete Seeger has been a Pat Humphries fan for nearly two decades--almost as long as Pat's songs have been circulating through her own performances and those by others, including Seeger. Her first self-penned work, the "zipper" anthem "Keep On Moving Forward (Never Turning Back)," written during an Omega Institute workshop led by Si Kahn in 1984, has been praised by Seeger as "an extraordinary song; one of the best songs I have heard in 50 years." In 1990, the third Gay Games in Vancouver opened and closed with that extraordinary song. In 1995, "Keep On Moving Forward" was sung by more than 30,000 voices to open the fourth United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing. Pat's extraordinary first song became the conference's theme, and her lyrics headlined news articles around the world. And when the late New York Congresswoman, feminist and environmental activist Bella Abzug was memorialized at the United Nations General Assembly chamber in 1998. Pat was invited to sing "Keep On Moving Forward" in Abzug's honor, and in the company of such feminist notables as Gloria Steinem. Lily Tomlin. Lee Grant. Robin Morgan and Abzug's daughters Eve and Liz.

Seeger's enthusiasm extends to many others of Humphries' songs. He compares her "'Swimming to the Other Side" favorably to Woody Guthrie's "'This Land Is Your Land. because the song has traveled far and wide the way a good song should: from stager to singer, from one guitar picker to another, until "it will reach millions of people because [like all good songs] it makes you feel good, starts you thinking." Read more..