Revving up the Revolution

Emma’s Revolution‘s latest album, Revolution Now, which came out last July, features the activist duo’s protest song take on a wide range of issues from reproductive justice to refugees, LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter, and the women’s movement. The album also features “Sing People Sing”, a loving tribute to the late folksinger icon Pete Seeger, who was a friend and mentor to the duo, comprising Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow, who goes by her last initial professionally. They also offer a setting of Woody Guthrie’s lyrics “Revolutionary Mind”, one of the many songs the “This Land is Your Land” songwriter left behind without an existing melody.

The only hot-button topic missing from their fourth album is gun violence in America. But the Parkland school shooting and the astonishing teen-led movement was too important to wait for a new CD. So in February, they recorded a YouTube video of “Another 17”, which begins with the title line followed by “…and you send thoughts and prayers.”

“What’s going on now is like what happened at Kent State,” opined Opatow. “We’re very inspired by having people out in the streets again. It’s an amazing time… (But) we’ve been in place doing activist music for years.”

Indeed, Emma’s Revolution’s “If I Give Your Name”, about undocumented workers killed in the World Trade Center in the September 11 attacks, won the Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Holly Near has covered their songs, and the duo’s “Peace Salaam Shalom” was performed for the Dalai Lama in Seattle.

“We’ve been doing the music all along, with all sorts of activists and community organizers who actually are doing the work that’s needed,” Sandy said. “But we’re very encouraged by what’s happening. It’s a huge moment.”

However, Emma’s Revolution don’t want to be seen merely as poetic preachers. Which is why they took as their namesake Emma Goldman, the activist who was famously attributed with saying, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

“We are engaged in activist work through our music, and it’s how we live our lives,” Opatow said. “But we must have joy and fun and all the wonderful parts of life too. Otherwise, what are we working for? So, our shows cover a wide range of life experience – headlines from the news, but also laughter and love.”

Local residents can be harkened and heartened by the duo heavenly harmonies when Emma’s Revolution returns to town to perform at the Unitarian Society this weekend in their first visit to the venue after at least four previous shows over the last 10 years at Trinity Backstage coffeehouse.

“That’s just because of the way the world has been these days,” Opatow said. “We play at communities of faith, spaces that are open to having a conversation about these things. It’s a good time for people to know that there’s music like what we do out there to hear.”

(Emma’s Revolution performs at 7 pm Saturday, April 14, at Unitarian Society, 1535 Santa Barbara Street. Tickets are $20 advance, $25 at the door. Visit www.ussb.org/emmas-revolution-april-14.)

Further in Folk

A quarter-century ago, Steve Poltz had a band called the Rugburns, which San Diego loved for its spunky and quirky college rock. On vacation in Mexico, he came up with a typical Poltz ditty but decided to offer it to his girlfriend, a barista who was a budding singer-songwriter herself. She turned the tune into a song called “You Were Meant for Me”, stuck it on her debut album, and Jewel became a star. Soon, Poltz scored a major label deal of his own, and Jewel sang on it, as did a few other special guests including Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks and Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench. But the album tanked, Jewel dumped him, and Poltz disappeared from the studio for a while, though he never stopped writing or touring. 

The well-traveled still prolific singer-songwriter settles into the Lobero on Saturday, April 14, sharing his alternate tunings and fruitful finger-picking approach with the Sings Like Hell crowd on a bill with Western Centuries, a honky-tonk group comprising three different country-leaning singer-songwriters of their own.