New echoes of Robeson

On June 12, 1956, one of America’s best-known entertainers, Paul Leroy Robeson, sat facing the Hon. Francis E. Walter. Walter was a leading Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, while the resume of the famed actor-singer was as astounding then as it is today: 11 feature films, numerous Broadway successes (including creating a role for Eugene O’Neill), an acclaimed “Othello” with England’s Royal Shakespeare Company, member of the New York State Bar, an All-American football player at Rutgers and -- eight years earlier -- a rumored vice presidential candidate for Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party.

Walter and Robeson were just four years apart in age, but their lives could hardly have been more different. The congressman, 62, was a white man leading a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Robeson, 58 -- who was black, a known Communist and an outspoken supporter of Josef Stalin -- was in HUAC’s hot seat.

Robeson, born in Princeton, N.J., had always been known as a champion of black rights in America, but as his fame had grown, so had the scope of his activism. In 1933, he was invited to visit the Soviet Union, where Stalin showed him the best aspects of Communist Russia (while keeping the uglier parts out of sight) and he became convinced that socialism could alleviate the plight of the oppressed everywhere.

During the Depression and World War II, such views were not a problem for Robeson. After the war, however, as the U.S. economy improved and Russia shifted from ally to enemy, his high-profile and left-wing politics had become a problem for federal authorities fearful of a Red menace. In 1949, after he made an incendiary speech in Paris, they revoked his passport.

The HUAC hearing was the culmination of his efforts to reclaim his right to travel abroad and of the government’s attempts to silence a prominent opponent of the Cold War political climate. At one point, Robeson asked Walter: “You are the author of all the bills that are going to keep all kinds of decent people out of the country?”

“No,” Walter responded. “Only your kind.” Robeson’s passport was not reinstated.

A year later, Robeson had been scheduled to travel to England and give a concert for coal miners in South Wales. Unable to make the trip in person, he arranged to do so by phone -- thanks to the newly installed transatlantic cable. He sang from a New York studio, and his voice was heard by more than 5,000 people listening in Wales.

Flash forward 40 years. The Salisbury Music Festival in England wanted to commemorate that historic concert by staging a tribute to Robeson. The organizers needed someone with a voice and presence that recalled Robeson’s. They turned to Jamaican bass-baritone Willard White.

“I had wanted to do a program of Robeson’s material for a long time,” White recalled recently by phone from New York, “but I didn’t have a reason. Then the folks at Salisbury invited me to do this concert.”

The concert consisted of White performing a handful of American and Russian folk songs, accompanied by an orchestra and a narrator who recounted the story of Robeson’s life.

Titled “Willard White Sings Paul Robeson,” the show was such a success that White was invited to perform it at other festivals. Since then, he has tweaked the program a bit, but he continues to tour with it and to sing the spirituals and standards that Robeson made famous. The show is now called “An Evening With Willard White -- A Tribute to Paul Robeson,” and Thursday it will be presented by UCLA Live! at Royce Hall.

A vivid introduction

White never met Robeson, but he remembers vividly his first exposure to a Robeson recording. “It was in my 20th year of life, as I consciously remember hearing him,” he said with a stirring rumble that defines the term “basso profundo.” “I was just getting ready to leave for Juilliard to start my adventure in singing when a friend in Jamaica said to me, ‘You should listen to this.’ ”

The recording was of the Oscar Rasbach song “Trees.” “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Oh, this is a black man who’s made a recording of a classical nature. That’s interesting -- maybe there’s space for me.’ ”

There certainly has been space for White, now 57, who has performed at nearly every major classical venue in the world. He was last seen in Los Angeles singing Joseph in John Adams’ oratorio “El Nino,” a role he originated in Paris four years ago.

White draws no distinction between singing opera and performing American folk songs -- but something besides the beauty and honesty of the music drew him to Robeson. “Before Salisbury,” he said, “I had not looked at aspects of Paul Robeson’s life in detail ... but I soon began to see how he was not just dedicated to the freedom of black men but rather the freedom of all men. I believe in that myself.

“He spent his whole life fighting for this,” White continued, “but my show is not just about Paul Robeson. It’s about how we all have the opportunity to stand up for what we feel is right.”

When he is talking about the world outside music, White’s deep voice gives his words a particular gravity -- as if he was an orator or preacher. But he insists that “Tribute to Paul Robeson” was never intended as a sermon: “It’s not a political statement. It’s not for or against communism -- it’s about living what you believe.”

White does not sympathize with Robeson’s views on Stalin, but he does take into consideration the environment from which they arose. “This is a man who had trouble wherever he went in America,” he said, “and then he felt so completely welcomed in the Soviet Union. It was only there that he felt he could say, ‘I stand in full human dignity.’ ”

The singer paused, then added: “We all want to stand in dignity. Perhaps his dignity was manipulated, but I think what he felt in his soul was clear -- and I can understand that.”

Robeson spent his last years in seclusion, his standing in the black community and in the entertainment industry much diminished. Since his death in 1976, however, his reputation as both singer and activist has undergone a revival. In 1978, the United Nations honored him for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa, and in 1998 he was awarded a posthumous Grammy for lifetime achievement.

That year was also the centennial of Robeson’s birth, and there were many tributes to him. But this year -- almost half a century after he sat in front of HUAC -- Robeson’s name has also acquired new dignity in the eyes of the federal government. In February, the Postal Service issued a 37-cent stamp honoring him. (Interestingly, only a small regional dam in Pennsylvania has been named after Rep. Walter since his death in 1963.)

White, who lives in London, had not heard about the Robeson stamp. “That a stamp has been issued from the government -- to commemorate someone who once stood up against it -- should make us all think,” he said.

Thursday night, at some point during the “Tribute to Paul Robeson,” White will no doubt sing “Ol’ Man River.” It was Robeson’s signature number (and many claim that Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein wrote it with him in mind), but over the years he often tinkered with the lyrics in performance, so it will be interesting to see whether White will sing the song as written or using Robeson’s additions.

In the published score, the final verse goes: “I gets weary an’ sick of tryin’, I’m tired of livin’ and scared of dyin’.” But in the South Wales broadcast (and elsewhere), Robeson changed the last line to “I must keep fightin’ until I’m dyin’.”

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For the ears and for the eyes

Here are some of the available recordings of Paul Robeson and books about him, along with a Willard White tribute CD.

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Recordings

Paul Robeson

Live at Carnegie Hall

(Vanguard Records)

Probably the best introduction to the scope of Robeson’s talent, this disc captures his return to the famous concert hall after an absence of 11 years. It features Robeson reciting the final monologue from “Othello,” a full selection of classical pieces, folk songs including “Jacob’s Ladder” and, of course, “Ol’ Man River.”

Freedom Train and the Welsh Transatlantic Concert (Folk Era)

A short CD made from a live recording of the 1957 South Wales coal miners event. The recording was made not in the New York studio but on the other end of the transatlantic cable, so the sound quality is not good; but as a historical artifact, this is a treasure.

Paul Robeson (Pearl)

This selection of early studio recordings Robeson made with full orchestral accompaniment is a good record of his voice and style when his fame was at its peak. The excerpts from “Porgy and Bess” are of particular note.

Odyssey of Paul Robeson

(Omega Classics)

A compilation of tracks put together from archives by Paul Robeson Jr. All the recordings were made during the turbulent years 1952 to ’58. But in addition to political songs like “Joe Hill,” the disc contains a lyric rendition of “Danny Boy” and a rare version of Robeson performing Mozart’s “O Isis and Osiris” from “The Magic Flute.” Long treasured on bootleg LPs, this track gives a sense of what Robeson might have accomplished had the opera world been open to black singers at the time.

Willard White

The Paul Robeson Legacy

(Linn Records)

Contains a few of the selections White will be singing at Royce Hall. The five-piece orchestrations are fun, and White is in fine form. The stereo sound and White’s much smoother, more polished technique provide a very different listening experience from Robeson’s records but one that captures his spirit.

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Books

Here I Stand

By Paul Robeson (Beacon Press)

Written with the help of Lloyd L. Brown, Robeson’s 1958 autobiography was well received elsewhere but virtually ignored in the United States (The New York Times did not review it until 15 years after it was published). It remains probably the best (if least objective) source for learning about Robeson’s life.

Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World

By Shirley Graham

(Julian Messner Inc.)

Written by the wife of W.E.B. Du Bois, this book is a hagiographic portrait -- complete with a foreword by Carl Van Doren. It was first published in 1946, before the Cold War, so Robeson can be viewed in it as the celebrity he truly was, before his politics began to overshadow his art.

Paul Robeson: A Biography

By Martin Duberman (Knopf)

Probably the most definitive biography. Duberman is a well-regarded nonfiction writer and reportedly spent seven years writing the book. It’s a full account of Robeson’s life, and Duberman does not shy away from the singer’s personal dirty laundry.

Paul Robeson: The Life and Times of a Free Black Man

By Virginia Hamilton

(Harper & Row)

An interesting book published just before Robeson’s death. Hamilton tried to reintroduce Robeson as an important figure in the black community at a time when many felt Robeson’s name was too “Red” and could be poisonous to the civil rights movement.

The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898-1939

By Paul Robeson Jr.

(John Wiley & Sons)

Robeson’s son’s first installment of a proposed two-part biography. (Robeson Jr. was a personal aide to his father for 20 years and is now the head of the Robeson archive). More anecdotal than academic, this is naturally an up-close, first-person look at Robeson’s life.