Courtesy Holly Near
Directed by Jim Brown, ‘Holly Near: Singing for Our Lives’ introduces a new generation to the trailblazing folksinger, who has dedicated her work to peace, feminist, LGBTQ, and pro-Chile movements.
PBS kicks off Women’s History Month with the stand-up-and-chant documentary Holly Near: Singing for Our Lives. Directed by Jim Brown, Lives introduces a new generation to the trailblazing folksinger, who has dedicated her work to peace, feminist, LGBTQ, and pro-Chile movements. The film premieres March 1 on PBS’s American Masters series.
In his almost hour-long film, Brown, who has also directed PBS productions about Pete Seeger and the Highwaymen, deploys common documentarian techniques to chronicle the life of Near, who turns seventy this June. What makes this cinematic gem shine are original interviews with Near and also New Left luminaries including Jane Fonda, Fonda’s former husband Tom Hayden of Chicago 7 notoriety, and Gloria Steinem.
Lives follows Near from an idyllic Northern California valley childhood, where she was Ukiah High School’s “Football Princess” and Homecoming Queen. Near attended UCLA, but for only one year before the showbiz bug bit. She proceeded to pursue an acting career, in B-movies, on Broadway in the counterculture musical Hair, and on TV shows such as All in the Family and The Partridge Family. In a clip from the sitcom co-starring Shirley Jones and David Cassidy, Near is shown arguing for students to have greater freedom in clothing choices—as she actually had offscreen, back at Ukiah High.
In less tumultuous times, Near might have pursued more conventional paths onstage, onscreen, and in the recording studios. But like millions of other Americans, she was galvanized by the Vietnam War to support the peace movement.
Near’s heartfelt response to the 1970 shooting of unarmed protesting students at Kent State by Ohio National Guardsmen was “It Could Have Been Me” (released in 1974 on A Live Album). In the film, the late Hayden, the New Left’s elder statesman, notes Near “was always writing lyrics expressing the occasion we’re in.”
Like millions of other Americans, Near was galvanized by the Vietnam War to support the peace movement.
In 1971, Near joined Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Peter Boyle, and others in a New Left counterpart to Bob Hope’s pro-Pentagon USO tours. As part of “FTA”—which alternately stood for “Free The Army” or “Fuck The Army”—she performed antiwar and pro-feminist skits and songs.
Utilizing Hayden’s organizing skills and activist contacts at home and abroad, the agitprop troupe entertained largely G.I. audiences at coffeehouses and other venues near military bases. In one FTA number, Near (at twenty-one the troupe’s youngest cast member) joins Fonda and others singing, “I’m tired of the bastards fucking me over.”
(Unfortunately, Lives doesn’t mention that the Nixon regime allegedly suppressed distribution of the 1972 FTA documentary, just as it sidelined John Lennon from a series of concerts intended to mobilize newly enfranchised youths to vote against Tricky Dick by menacing and preoccupying the ex-Beatle with deportation.)
In Lives, Near relates that participating in the FTA company brought her in contact with women in other parts of the world, helping her to become, “a feminist through the global door.” Near performed “Women’s Music,” at public concerts open to all, followed by female-only concerts that were also linked to political organizing workshops. Works such as “Come Out Singing!’ and “Imagine My Surprise!” became LGBTQ anthems. Steinem observes that Near, who had come fully out by 1976, initiated the first explicitly same-sex love songs for women.
In one moving sequence, the film reveals how it derived its title: While en route to San Francisco after openly-gay Supervisor Harvey Milk’s 1978 assassination there, Near composes “Singing for Our Lives.” Near also pioneered independent labels, founding Redwood Records, which for some eighteen years produced socially conscious albums by progressive and female musicians.
The artist also remained committed to supporting the political left in Chile after the United States helped bring General Augusto Pinochet to power by overthrowing democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973. The film shows Near visiting Villa Grimaldi, a prison and detention center near Santiago, where dissidents were tortured and “disappeared.” At a time when the Trump regime is making military threats against Venezuela, this is a potent reminder of the perils of Uncle Sam’s armed interventions over the years in South America.
It would have been interesting if Brown’s chronicle had compared Near and her work to contemporaries of the politicized folk scene such as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Buffy St. Marie, or Tom Paxton.
Near's longtime friendship with Ronnie Gilbert, female singer of the Weavers, helped build a musical bridge between generations of the New Left and Old Left. Near and Gilbert recorded albums and toured together, including a sold out gig at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Golden Globe-Award winning actor Kevin Bacon, a cousin of Near’s, expresses admiration in the film for how she sacrificed greater fame and fortune for her deeply held beliefs. Near has not achieved the level of fame as Joan Baez, Judy Collins, or Joni Mitchell—was it her open lesbianism, so remarkable and brave for the time? It would have been interesting if Brown’s chronicle had compared Near and her work to contemporaries of the politicized folk scene such as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Buffy St. Marie, or Tom Paxton.
Be that as it may, the film is a stirring ode to a politically engaged artist: Besides documenting Near’s remarkable life and oeuvre, Lives illuminates the process of creating art that synthesizes enlightenment and entertainment.