Songs Of Resistance 1942 - 2018 Marc Ribot

• 1 We Are Soldiers in the Army 05:27
• 2 Bella ciao 03:37
• 3 Srinivas 06:09
• 4 How To Walk In Freedom 05:44
• 5 Rata de dos Patas 04:46
• 6 The Militant Ecologist (Based on Fischia II Vento) 04:10
• 7 The Big Fool 06:34
• 8 Ain't Gonna Let Them Turn Us Round 03:23
• 9 John Brown 05:53
• 10 Knock That Statue Down 03:50
• 11 We'll Never Turn Back 04:33
• Total Runtime 54:06

Info for Songs Of Resistance 1942 - 2018

For his new political album Songs of Resistance 1942 - 2018 – with a September 14 release date on ANTI- Records - Ribot set out to assemble a set of songs that spoke to this political moment with appropriate ambition, passion, and fury.

The eleven songs on the record include a few original compositions as well as traditional songs that are drawn from World War II anti-Fascist Italian partisans, the U.S. civil rights movement and Mexican protest ballads. It also features a wide range of guest vocalists, including Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Meshell Ndegeocello, Justin Vivian Bond, Fay Victor, Ohene Cornelius and Sam Amidon. Steve Earle joins Ribot on one of the album’s new compositions, which is largely based on texts the guitarist encountered as news stories or overheard conversation.

“Srinivas” is a metered version of news articles on Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a Sikh immigrant murdered in February 2017 by a racist who mistook him for a Muslim. “In the original version,” Ribot points out, “I had named the guy who shot him, but Steve changed that—he said, ‘That guy is just some poor idiot, it’s not about him, it’s about the ones who set him up.’ That kind of intelligence and wisdom coming from the artist was important to me.”

“There’s no way Steve Earle is going to be a sock puppet for anyone else’s voice, and that’s exactly the kind of situation I wanted,” Ribot emphasized. “It’s cool to have professional protest singers and all that, but I wanted to include artists who reached outside the ‘protest’ bubble.”

Over a forty-year career, Ribot has released twenty-five albums under his own name and been a beacon of New York’s downtown/experimental music scene, leading a series of bands including Los Cubanos Postizos and Ceramic Dog. Since his work with Tom Waits on 1985’s Rain Dogs album, though, he is best known to the world as a sideman, playing on countless albums by the likes of Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp, Norah Jones, the Black Keys, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Grammy-winning collaboration Raising Sand.

At a time of such overwhelming social turmoil, finding a focus for this kind of project is challenging. Nevertheless, Ribot’s purpose remained clear. “There’s a lot of contradiction in doing any kind of political music,” he says, “how to act against something without becoming it, without resembling what you detest. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what to do, and I imagine we’ll make mistakes, and hopefully, learn from them. But I knew this from the moment Donald Trump was elected: I’m not going to play downtown scene Furtwangler to any orange-comb-over dictator wannabe. No way.”

Marc Ribot, vocals, guitar

Produced by Marc Ribot

Marc Ribot
(pronounced REE-bow) was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1954. As a teen, he played guitar in various garage bands while studying with his mentor, Haitian classical guitarist and composer Frantz Casseus. After moving to New York City in 1978, Ribot was a member of the soul/punk Realtones, and from 1984 - 1989, of John Lurie's Lounge Lizards. Between 1979 and 1985, Ribot also worked as a side musician with Brother Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Chuck Berry, and many others.

Rolling Stone points out that “Guitarist Marc Ribot helped Tom Waits refine a new, weird Americana on 1985's “Rain Dogs”, and since then he's become the go-to guitar guy for all kinds of roots-music adventurers: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp.” Additional recording credits include Soloman Burke, Neko Case, Diana Krall, Beth Orton, Marianne Faithful, Arto Lindsay, Caetano Veloso, Laurie Anderson, Susana Baca, McCoy Tyner, The Jazz Passengers, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Cibo Matto, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, James Carter, Vinicio Capposella (Italy), Auktyon (Russia), Vinicius Cantuaria, Sierra Maestra (Cuba), Alain Bashung (France), Marisa Monte, Allen Ginsburg, Madeleine Peyroux, Sam Phillips, and more recently Joe Henry, Allen Toussaint, Norah Jones, Akiko Yano, The Black Keys, Jeff Bridges, Jolie Holland, Elton John/Leon Russell and many others. Ribot frequently collaborates with producer T Bone Burnett, most notably on Alison Krauss and Robert Plant's Grammy Award winning "Raising Sand" and regularly works with composer John Zorn.

Marc has released 25 albums under his own name over a 40-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler with his group “Spiritual Unity” (Pi Recordings), to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez with two critically acclaimed releases on Atlantic Records under “Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos”. His avant power trio/post-rock band, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog (Pi Recordings), continues the lineage of his earlier experimental no-wave/punk/noise groups Rootless Cosmopolitans (Island Antilles) and Shrek (Tzadik). Marc's solo recordings include "Marc Ribot Plays The Complete Works of Frantz Casseus" (Les Disques Du Crepuscule), "John Zorn’s The Book of Heads" (Tzadik), "Don't Blame Me" (DIW), "Saints" (Atlantic), "Exercises in Futility" (Tzadik), and his latest “Silent Movies” released in 2010 on Pi Recordings was described as a "down-in-mouth-near master piece" by the Village Voice and has landed on several Best of 2010 lists including the LA Times and critical praise across the board. 2014 saw the monumental release: “Marc Ribot Trio Live at the Village Vanguard” (Pi Recordings), documenting Marc’s first headline and the return of Henry Grimes at the historical venue in 2012, included on various Best of 2014 lists including Downbeat Magazine and NPR’s 50 Favorites. 2018 starts off with the release of not one but two politically charged albums: “YRU Still Here?” (Northern Spy), the long awaited third album from Ribot’s post-rock/noise trio Ceramic Dog, and “Songs of Resistance” (featuring guest vocalists Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Meshell Ndegeocello and more on Anti- Records), both voicing anger and outrage during these turbulent times.

Marc has performed on scores such as “The Kids Are All Right,” “Where the Wild Things Are,” "Walk The Line (Mangold)," "Everything is Illuminated," and "The Departed" (Scorcese)." Marc has also composed original scores including the French film Gare du Nord (Simon), the PBS documentary "Revolucion: Cinco Miradas," the film "Drunkboat," starring John Malkovich and John Goodman, a documentary film by Greg Feldman titled "Joe Schmoe," a feature film by director Joe Brewster titled "The Killing Zone", and dance pieces "In as Much as Life is Borrowed", by famed Belgian choreographer, Wim Vandekeybus, and Yoshiko Chuma's "Altogether Different". Marc also occasionally performs his live solo guitar score to Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid”, which was commissioned by the NY Guitar Festival and premiered Jan 2010 at Merkin Hall, as well as live film scores to Jennifer Reeves experimental shorts.

In 2009, Marc was named curator and musical director for the year’s Century of Song Festival, part of the Ruhr Triennale in Germany. The concert series sparked new collaborations with Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, master cajón player Juan Medrano Cotito, Carla Bozulich and Tine Kindermann.

Marc's talents have also been showcased with a full symphony orchestra. Composer Stewart Wallace wrote a guitar concerto with orchestra specifically for Marc. The piece was premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC in July of 2004 and also appeared at The Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz, CA in August of 2005.

Marc is currently touring with several projects including his power trio Ceramic Dog with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith, the Philly soul meets the harmolodics of Ornette Coleman’s The Young Philadelphians with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Calvin Weston, and with Caged Funk, a project of funk arrangements of John Cage’s music.

This album contains no booklet.