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Artist Rosko

Release Murder at Kent State University

Year 1970

Label Flying Dutchman # FDS-127

Format LP · Album

Country USA

Language English

Songs here 8 in the archive

Citation: Justin A. Brummer, Vietnam War Song Project (VWSP) — Rosko, Murder at Kent State University; cite each song by its SongID

Rosko

Murder at Kent State University

1970 · Album · Flying Dutchman # FDS-127 · USA

8 songs from this release are in the archive, listed below in catalogue order. Track positions are not recorded; the release may carry other songs that do not reference the war. Most common themes: Kent State, Anti-War.

Annotation

A largely spoken word release, with musical background (Flying Dutchman # FDS-127) in which Rosko narrated the newspaper articles of Pete Hamill - an American journalist who in the 1960s wrote for the New York Post, reporting from Vietnam.¹ It took a highly critical view of the Vietnam War, the military, and the politicians of the era, such as President Eisenhower and President Nixon. Produced by Bob Thiele, founder of Flying Dutchman, it featured background music from Ron Carter (bass) and James Spaulding (flute). Nat Hentoff, music critic and historian, wrote the linear notes to the record. Hamill also wrote the words for the 1970 record Massacre at My Lai (Flying Dutchman # FDS-118). On the front cover appeared a painting of John Filo's photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling next to Jeffrey Miller's body.

Billboard wrote an article about the album on 6 June 1970, reporting that "Bob Thiele's Fluing Dutchman label is releasing...a documentary album compiled from the columns of New York Post writer, Pete Hamill. This is the fourth album in a series of social comment LP's....Said Thiele: 'I also have tape of the Richard Nixon remark about 'student bums' and some comments by Vice President Agnew, including the 'intellectual snobs' remark. I think the new album is the most provocative of all - it show the gap between the administration and the young people today'".² One of those other albums was A Night at Santa Rita (Flying Dutchman # FDS-111), about the People's Park protest at the University of California in Berkeley in May 1969, from the perspective of the journalist Robert Scheer.

So Hamill sought to establish the general context of the protests throughout the US, such as the Cambodia invasion and the history of the Vietnam War. The track "The Last Press Conference" started by quoting Richard Nixon, talking about the war as the Vice-President on 16 April 1954: "If to avoid communist expansion in Asia and Indochina...we must put our boys in, I think the executive...has to do" . Hamill then noted "There are four dead Americans at the campus of Kent State University, gunned down by other Americans...from Indochina we hear news...of moving into Cambodia. Burning, and shooting, and destroying" . In the track "The Army of the Young" , Hamill focused on the aftermath of a demonstration in Washington, in which the young had all gone home, with their "style, energy, sweetness, outrage, and courage" . He condemned the Washington political elite, and said that the Capitol had "sold itself to the lies and crimes of old men" .

Sources

1 petehamill.com ↩
2 Billboard, 6 June 1970 ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Collections

Songs from this release appear in these 3 curated collections.

Jazz Songs Kent / Jackson State Songs Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]

The songs

Rosko The Army of the Young