Open Letter to the President

Annotation

Soul singer Roy C., born Roy Charles Hammond in Georgia, 1939, pleaded with the US president to end the war in Vietnam, in the protest song "Open Letter to the President" - released in 1971 on the New York label Alaga Records (# 1006) which he founded a year before in 1970. Thus, he presumably addressed his open letter to Richard Nixon, in the White House since January 1969. Roy C. recorded under the name The Honey Drippers, releasing the 1973 single Impeach the President, about Nixon and the Watergate scandal. Earlier in his career he performed in the 1950s group The Genies. In the first two verses of the song Roy C. imagined a world in which there would be "no more fighting in Vietnam" and that "everybody gonna be free". In the spoken-word segment at the end of the track, Roy C. called on the president to pay attention to all the protesters in the street and to "bring all our boys home". Note the reference to South Africa, one of the early songs to highlight apartheid. It also referred to the treatment of African-American in the US, and thus, another song that combined the issues of Vietnam and civil rights.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: People get ready / There is a new day coming / Everybody gonna be free / A new day for you and me / They'll be no more fighting in Vietnam / Everybody gonna be free all over this land / Listen, Mr President, this is an open letter to you / I want to know why don't you stop the fighting / And bring all our boys home / But Mr. President can't you see all the protesters in the street.... / They want to be free, everybody wants to be free / Way down in Georgia, they want to be free / South Africa, they want to be free / New York...up and down the street of Harlem they want to be free

Notes

Alaga Records AL 1006-B, 45 RPM, compatible stereo, Box 118, Central Station, Jamaica, N.Y. 11345; "Open Letter to the President" (R. Hammond-J. Hines), 3:00, Johnson-Hammond Music, BMI; "A Roy C.-J. Hines Prod." [From the record sleeve and labels]

About the artist

Roy C (born Roy Charles Hammond, 3 August 1939, Newington, Georgia; died 16 September 2020 at his home in Allendale, South Carolina) was a southern soul singer, songwriter and label owner. He began with The Genies in the late 1950s, hit with "Shotgun Wedding" (1965, US #14 R&B, UK #6 in 1966), and founded Alaga Records in 1970. "Open Letter To The President" is the confirmed B-side of his 1971 Alaga single "Got To Get Enough (Of Your Sweet Love Stuff)" (AL-1006), written and produced by Hammond with James Hines, and was anthologised on Ace/Kent's "Does Anybody Know I'm Here? Vietnam Through…

Themes

Anti-War · Nixon · Civil Rights · Apartheid · Demonstration

In collections

Civil Rights Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years] · Soul, Gospel, & Funk Songs