Jack Williams

June 2007 Kerrville Folk Festival

FAF: Well first of all Jack, I read the Folk Alliance ListServ, so I know you’re outspoken and have lots of opinions.

“Somebody has to represent the non-commercial side. Anybody who’s involved with that stuff with BMI is searching for something other than what I am. They want to be paid for their songs. I just want to be paid to drive around and communicate with people. That’s all I want to do.

FAF: That leads in to a couple of things I wanted to ask you about. Considering all the things that are happening in our country today, what is the biggest issue we have to face?

“There’s a single issue, and it covers all of them. And that’s that the people in charge are either undeniably evil or unaware that they’re evil and they really think they’re doing the right thing, which I don’t believe. But the most important, I can’t name one. The environment, democracy, our freedoms, are all just fading, right before us. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I’ve had the opinion that we’re facing the possibility of (and I was forced into this belief recently when George Bush signed a paper in which he gave himself the right to declare Martial Law for any reason – those are the words – and I realized, I was afraid that, my dire prediction might come true), Martial Law and something of a dictatorship, guided by, possibly, the same kind of religious zealotry that he is fighting.

“There is an insanity going on. At first, I noticed it with the environment and our culture, our culture being our music, our art, what matters to Americans. These things were being eroded, and then I realized that it was everything, that we were being taken for whatever purpose and I don’t know what that purpose is, but I’m scared to death. I’m starting to imagine where I’d like to be, whose company I’d like to be in, in case we have to ‘circle the wagons’ somewhere.

“I’ve never thought like that. I even miss Richard Nixon. I hate to say that. But at least the man had some skills and he was just trying to do his job. He was just an oaf at it. And he lied like everybody else.

“I’m sorry but I can’t give you a single answer to your question, because it is the powers that govern us, and that are destroying our freedoms. Because that affects the environment, our cultural life, our social life, our interaction that is polarizing us: white from black, rich from poor, men from women; it is dividing us again, and seriously this time.

“And now, what I hear on the radio the other day, the U.S. and Russia are arguing about nuclear missiles and what they will do, and there will be military and, holy cow, come on now, we got over that. Didn’t we grow up?

FAF: Considering the state we are in, do you think that we, as musicians, are doing enough, given the situation?

“Probably. Musicians will never be able to do enough anymore, because there used to be, as in classical music, as in jazz music, as in folk music, there was a much closer connection in the culture between the people and the art and the music. They were face-to-face more often. Even back in the early rock ‘n roll radio days. Even then. And folk before that. And jazz music and classical music, where the composers responded to the people. And of course, coming into the 20^th century, they responded to the grants, the grant money given, and they said ‘screw the people,’ we’ll write what we want.

“And what’s happened is, the people have moved away from the musicians. And the musicians have become louder. The political ones have become screamers and flag wavers. Who listens to them? Not the people they think they’re affecting. They’re flag wavers, for their own choir. They’re preaching to their own choirs. I never do that. My politics are evident in all of my music, but I do it in such a way that I can play it in Ganado, Texas or I can play it in Austin, Texas or I can play it in Saluda, North Carolina or I can play it in Boston, Massachusetts. And still, any time I have any kind of statement I want to make, above all, I’m still an artist, and I don’t think my politics or my religion or any of my issues should supercede the quality of my art.

“What I play should be good music first. It’s not my job to change the world. But I have issues that trouble me, and so they come out in my music. Rather than standing up in front of an audience and saying, “You people should believe this and ...,” (well, okay, you can say that at Kerrville), and you’re gonna have a few people who don’t believe that, just gonna sit back and not listen to the music.

“I’d rather hear music, and if somebody has a good story to tell, and if they’re writing good, non-commercial music from the heart, not for money, then very often the truth of that person’s beliefs comes straight out in the music. And you can hear it. Anybody with half an attention span is gonna pick up that message, and it will mean ten times more than someone waving a big flag in front of their faces.

“I think there are some musicians who touch that nerve very well. And sometimes it’s not just picking on a politician or an issue. Sometimes it’s just that they talk about the way people deal with each other.

“I have a story to tell. It has to do with my religious upbringing. Only the diehard fundamentalists, who just believe you should say things ‘the way I mean it, the way I believe it,’ would take offense. The thing is, I have some very straightforward things to say, but they're said in a humorous way about my upbringing, which I have found, there are a lot of people who share that experience. So with my songs, if I can speak of one person's version of a shared experience with my audience, then I’ve struck pay dirt. And I feel like, in that way, people might go home and say, I thought about that. I doubt seriously that a red-blooded Republican person, Right Wing, who’s listening to someone up there who is Left Wing, bleeding heart Liberal, screaming, ‘damn you guys,’ I doubt anybody is making any communication at all. I don’t preach to the choir. I just have stories to tell and whoever wants to listen listens.

“And the answer to your question, are musicians doing enough, is I don’t think we should try. I think we should do what we do. If a musician is an artist, he or she knows what to do to communicate with people, and they should just do it. But right now the gap is much too great, and I think it’s folly to try and do more. What in the world can you do with people who have stopped listening and don’t care? People who are tied to radio and TV? And they believe everything they read.

“So, you’ve got to go find your community. That’s what I do. I travel thousands of miles every year, all driving. This is my 49^th professional year. Next year will be Number 50. And I’ve found that you go out and you seek your community of kindred spirits, and those who would be kindred spirits, and you unify them. That’s all you can do.

“But as far as musicians doing enough to address those issues, probably they’re doing more than they should. I think that so many of them speak so loudly, and they put out, you know, as soon as 9-11 hit. I wrote a song, beginning that day, and I performed it five days later. And I only performed it about five more times and I have never played it again. You know why? Because every songwriter in the world, and rightly so, wrote about it. Instantly there was this outpouring of songs, but of course they were on the Lists, they were on the Folk DJ Lists. Everybody wanted to push their song and get it played. Everybody wanted to be heard. But I mean, how many voices can America listen to at one time? And so I decided I’m going to put mine on the shelf. It’s been since 9-11, it’s 2007, I’ve left it on the shelf and I’ve not played it again. I figured, ten years, if that song’s worth its salt; what good would it have done to pull it out and throw it into the crowd of yelling voices? I’m not blaming those people. Like I said, they were songwriters, they needed to write. I wrote mine. But I didn’t push it to the DJs.

“So I think there’s a distance between the public now; I mean, we have the folk culture, the Kerrville folk culture meets here, the Falcon Ridge folk culture meets up there, the Strawberry Festival culture meets over there, and these people get together. And sometimes they have smaller communities in their house concerts, and the musicians can reach them. But the ones that reach them are the ones that will touch more deeply and more personally, and not paint the big issues.

“I enjoy hearing it well done and humorously done. I’ve heard, and I don’t want to mention any names because there are people here who write great stuff, and I hear some of the political songs that are flag wavers. First of all, if you’re going to wave a flag, don’t use music as the vehicle. I don’t want music as just a vehicle. Music is too important to me to be just used as a means to express an issue. Music has melody, rhythm, harmony; it’s got worth, it has internal, it has a life of its own. Don’t abuse the music in order to use it for issues that are just too strident. Stand up there and play a big fat chord and then scream your head off if you want to, but I don’t want to hear music that’s belligerently political.

“I want a strong message that hits me in the heart, that’s all I want; and I just hope that I can write those messages.”