Johanson Brothers: Protest Singing Estonian Style

Similar to the way in which music was a rallying point for social change in the United States in the ‘60s, popular music has become a leading force for protest in Estonia, one of several Soviet republics presently tugging at Moscow’s leash. Once under a pre- glasnost ban for performing such music, sibling singers Jaak and Mart Johanson sang odes to change at Los Angeles’ Estonian House on Thursday evening that were a marked contrast to Western protest styles.

Rather than vent anger over their homeland’s situation (the Baltic states were seized by Stalin at the outset of World War II) the Johanson brothers’ folk hymns instead asserted forbearance and hope in idealized visions of a free future. How remote that future has seemed was best expressed in “Dream Song,” a musical fairy tale in which Estonia only becomes free through a fairy aiding them in pushing the tiny country out to sea. Ending with the question “Is there a place for us somewhere under this sky?,” the song had a visible emotional effect on the largely expatriate audience.

While few of the songs were delivered in English, there was a transcendent yearning to the brothers’ delicate harmonies, though there was also a touch of whimsy that brought to mind New Zealand pop brothers Neil and Tim Finn. (On one number Mart brushed his Levi’s with his hands as a rhythm instrument.) That the two also excelled at Irish ballads made a certain amount of sense considering the Estonian propensity for rolling their R’s and the shared history of occupation.