'Solidarity' group bolsters the cause of union workers Sunday, December 25, 2005
By JIM BECKERMAN RECORD COLUMNIST
It's standing room only when singer Bennet Zurofsky does a gig.
That's because his gigs are generally on sidewalks, in public squares and in front of factories - and his audience is generally marching in circles, handing out leaflets and hoisting signs protesting unfair conditions.
True, last week's transit strike in New York was not blessed with the presence of Zurofsky and his Solidarity Singers of the New Jersey Industrial Union Council. But then, they weren't asked.
"We usually go where we're invited," Zurofsky says.
"Solidarity singing" is not, on the whole, an art form with much cachet these days.
Yet the folk music tradition spawned by the labor movement, starting in the early 1900s, had a huge effect on pop music. You can connect the dots from Joe Hill to Woody Guthrie to Pete Seeger to Joan Baez to Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen.
But while Bob and The Boss play stadiums, Zurofsky is still down in the trenches.
"The individuals who kept folk music alive largely came from the left," says Zurofsky, a Maplewood resident.
In civilian life, he's a lawyer for Newark's Reitman Parsonnet, a firm specializing in labor cases.
But when a strike, protest or picket line beckons, it's time for Zurofsky to grab his guitar, call up a dozen of his colleagues and reconvene the Solidarity Singers.
You could see them out in the freezing cold in Newark earlier this month, singing encouragement to about 100 antiwar protesters in Peter Francisco Park near Pennsylvania Station.
"No more torture, no more war
Bring 'em home, bring 'em home.
What noble cause are we fighting for?
Bring 'em home, bring 'em home."
"We were formed mostly for labor, but also to support a number of causes we believe in, including peace," Zurofsky says.
The group, based in Edison, is about 10 years old now (they have a CD called "Solidarity: It Can't Be Beat"), and they are seemingly never out of work - unlike some of the people at their marches and pickets.
They do formal shows on occasion, including a performance Jan. 21 at the People's Voice Café (Workman's Circle Building) on 33rd Street in New York. But their main venue is the street.
When duty calls, so does Zurofsky.
He'll start phoning a short list of about 30 Solidarity Singers - and can generally count on getting at least 10, he says. "We put out a call to see who can make it," says Zurofsky, a Rutgers Law School graduate.
Among their recent gigs: a demonstration for striking lithographers in Carlstadt, an International Human Rights Day demonstration in East Orange and a rally in front of Wal-Mart headquarters in Manhattan, where they sang Christmas carols specially adapted for the occasion. Among the titles: "Wal-Mart Stores Are Comin' to Town" and "Away in a Sweat Shop."
"People say we add a lot of spirit to picket lines, help morale," Zurofsky says.
It was Joe Hill, the early 1900s labor leader (commemorated in the song "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night") and the father of the protest song, who pioneered the idea of appropriating carols and other pop songs and giving them a pro-labor slant.
"He believed that songs were better than pamphlets for spreading the message," Zurofsky says. "A worker would read a pamphlet - if he could read - and throw it away. If he heard a song, and the song got to him, it would stay in his head, and he would go around singing it himself."
Hill, says Zurofsky, found hymn tunes especially useful.
"He used to take on the Salvation Army," Zurofsky says. "In the poor sections of town, where there was no entertainment to speak of, the Salvation Army bands were the best thing around. But they were preaching a message that was anathema to Joe Hill, because they were preaching that you should turn the other cheek, comply with what the bosses are asking, and that you'll get your reward in heaven. And to add insult to injury, they were asking poor people to put quarters and dimes into the tambourine.
"So Joe Hill and the Wobblies [Industrial Workers of the World] would use the Salvation Army tunes. They would set up on another corner or down the street, steal their music, and steal their audience."
Which is how Hill's best-known song, "The Preacher and the Slave," with its famous phrase "pie in the sky when you die," evolved.
Another example: Zurofsky's most-requested number, "Solidarity Forever," was lifted directly from "Glory, Glory Hallelujah."
Zurofsky, who has been hooked on labor tunes since he heard Pete Seeger in concert as a 6-year-old and playing them since about age 12, can spoof songs with the best of them.
Protesting at a Disney outlet store in a South Jersey mall some years ago, he transformed the anthem "It's a Small World After All" into "It's a Small Wage After All."
"At first the [employees] thought we were carolers singing the Disney song," Zurofsky says. "Then they started listening to the words, and they called internal mall security."
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For more information on the Solidarity Singers of the New Jersey Industrial Union Council, call (973) 642-0885. -------------------------------------------------------------- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.