Southern California folk singer-songwriter Kaz Murphy takes us back through generations of musical dissent on his new single “Old Protest Records”, which we are thrilled to premiere today ahead of its release this Thursday, 3rd of September.
Taken from Murphy’s forthcoming fifth studio album Making Noise: Songs Of Rebellion & Redemption, out on the 18th of September, “Old Protest Records” is steeped in traditional folk and Americana, teetering on the edge of Appalachian bluegrass.
It has a captivating intimacy, and it will sound familiar to the listener, drawing on some of the most impactful protest songs that have come before. The lyrics operate almost as a collage of protest music history. Murphy threads together references to songs that helped shape him, drawing from Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”, Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”, Pete Seeger’s “We Shall Overcome”, Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” and “Get Up, Stand Up”, Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”, Phil Ochs’ “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” and many more.
Rather than simply celebrating those records, Murphy uses their titles to construct a new narrative, connecting the protest music of his childhood with a present he believes still demands artists willing to speak up. “Old Protest Records” doesn’t simply look back at protest music history; it makes a convincing case for why those songs, and the voices behind them, still matter.
Murphy explains:
“I still have a bunch of old protest records, and since I was writing songs for this album, I was going through some of those classic tunes. That’s when the idea showed up: to just write a protest song by naming all of the great protest records that came before it. Those songs have already done the work they were meant to do. My favorite lyric is, “Masters of War, Mississippi Goddamn” in the first verse. The words together sound very powerful, and putting Dylan and Simone in the same verse couldn’t be a bad way to go. I also like “Get Up and Stand Up, Go Tell it on the Mountain;” it’s like Bob Marley channelling his song into an ancient spiritual, pointing the way through the song that has uplifted hearts for almost two centuries. Great protest songs will live forever, or at least until the world is a perfect place, which we all know will probably never happen. Calling up all those old protest records, really struck a chord in me, and many of them could have been written this morning. They hit the heart and cleanse the soul.
I really wanted this song to have an old-timey feel. The Louvin Brothers sound was at the top of my list. When Ben [Shaw] and I started singing it together, we just looked at each other and knew the magic was there. In the studio, I convinced Jacque [Grad] to lay down a seriously old-timey fiddle part, telling her that perfection wasn’t the goal. Then she laid down that ancient-sounding Appalachian line that can stay in your head all day long. She wanted to do it again, and I begged her to leave it alone. It was perfect!
I became a folkie when I was about 12. After playing drums for two years in a little South Jersey combo called the Looking Glass Band, I traded my drums for a guitar and banjo at the same time. Phil Ochs, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Mississippi John Hurt, John Prine, Peter, Paul and Mary, and countless other folk giants became my mentors. The Vietnam War was raging in the late ’60s, and I gravitated toward all the protest singers and songs. I even went to see Pete Seeger sing in Philly at a Protest March when I was 12 or 13, and I was on the evening news sitting on a wall right near Pete. The announcer said something like, “Even the real young ones are coming out to protest the war.” All the kids in school who saw it thought I was pretty cool after that.
In the last several years, writing protest songs just came naturally to me, out of thin air. I really didn’t plan on making an album, but then my wife, Jacque Grad, said, “You’ve got to get these songs on an album and get it out there.” And I think I said, ” Yes, dear.” LOL. The songs on this album came from my guts and heart, more than my brain or my politics. Watching our country get destroyed from the inside out often hits me pretty hard, and that is where the songs come from. The more protest and resilience songs we can have these days, the better, in my opinion.
As far as Australian protest music goes, I was a big fan of Midnight Oil. Now there’s a protest band! The music was fabulous, but the lyrics are what always turned me on.”
I love that he has referenced Midnight Oil. They were great advocates for highlighting inequalities and injustices, particularly on our Australian shores. There seem to be fewer songwriters these days willing to take on broader societal issues, with too many focusing solely on their own personal struggles and experiences rather than looking beyond themselves to what is happening in the wider world.
“Old Protest Records” features Murphy on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, Jacque Grad on mandolin and violin, and Ben Shaw on backing vocals and lap steel guitar. Murphy and Pat Kearns produced the track, with Kearns also handling engineering and mastering. The single offers another taste of Making Noise: Songs Of Rebellion & Redemption, a record Murphy describes as a collection of songs of protest, resilience, and social unease. Recorded at the solar-powered Goat Mountain Recording in Landers, California, the album was made largely live, helping retain the spontaneous, homespun quality that comes through so strongly here.
If you want to take a deeper dive into the songs that inspired “Old Protest Records”, Murphy has put together a Spotify playlist for you to explore.
Take an exclusive first listen to Kaz Murphy’s “Old Protest Records” below before its release this Thursday. Making Noise: Songs Of Rebellion & Redemption will be released on the 18th of September via Green Monkey Records.
You can keep up to date with Kaz Murphy via his website, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music,
Header image credit: Paul Buck
