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Music as a weapon
Heather Carawan premieres a documentary about her parents Guy & Candie Carawan's musical activism

By Bliss

Many, if not most of us, are awakened to social justice issues in our youth via the political activism of music and movie stars. But for documentarian Heather Carawan, such issues were not only daily fodder for dinner-table debates, they were the substance of her parents' work. Carawan grew up in the idyllic-looking environs of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tenn., a progressive establishment abutting the Smoky Mountains that was a hub of musical and grassroots political activity during the civil rights movement.

Heather's parents are Guy & Candie Carawan, Southern California-raised folk musicians and social activists who built their lives around the center after meeting through individual endeavors in the civil rights movement in Appalachia. They collected, performed and published "freedom songs" throughout their respected careers; Guy's been widely credited with introducing "We Shall Overcome" to the movement. Heather's made a documentary about them, "The Telling Takes Me Home," that premieres tonight at Guy's alma mater, Occidental College. Music figures prominently in the film.

"The music...is what has stayed with me," Heather said during a phone conversation from her home in Tacoma, Wash. "That's part of what drove me to make the film. So many of the songs still cause me to feel so much when I hear them. I am more of the generation to follow particular [artists] than think of specific anthems. But what was unique about the music I grew up hearing was it was so focused on group singing and people sharing songs they might have heard in their families and communities. That's different from what we have today. My mom talks about that a little bit in the film - that, today, if you go to protest marches, you might hear drumming or people expressing themselves through spoken word. That's great, all the diversity of cultures and expression, but we have kind of lost that group singing that was so much a part of the civil rights movement."

The film also helps establish her own, more visually oriented place in her family's very music-centered story (older brother Evan's a folk musician). Just as importantly, it applies lessons of the past to the present.

"We're in an interesting period in the country that feels a little grim," Heather said with a short chuckle. "I am looking for hope. ... As younger people, if we are working toward any kind of change in the country, do we feel part of a movement or community, or is everyone just off doing their own thing? What are we doing today to make change?"

"The Telling Takes Me Home" premieres at 7 p.m. tonight, followed by a performance by Guy & Candie Carawan, at Occidental College, Johnson Hall 200, 1600 Campus Road, Eagle Rock. Free. Call (323) 259-2991, or visit http://photo.ucr.edu/projects/carawan or www.heatcar.com .