Category Archives: Bird People

Miller Francis

miller1
Photo by Dee McCargo

Miller Francis was at most basic, the music reviewer for The Great Speckled Bird. He is almost the first journalist to note Duane Allman and The Allman Brothers Band as something special. Rolling Stone Oct 4, 1969 pg. 18 Excerpt From The Underground Press ( a special report) [WHITE RACISM IN OURSELVES] One of the best rock and roll writers the underground has produced is Miller Francis, Jr., of The Great Speckled Bird in Atlanta. Francis is unique in his ability to place rock in the perspective of the revolution. Equally committed to the Movement and to rock and roll, Francis demands nothing but the best from both. This was how he reviewed the first MC-5 album: “The new, long-awaited MC-5 album is a disaster. Its very existence demonstrates perhaps the greatest weakness of the Movement in this country: its inability to understand, thus to make use of, the communications media, particularly the one that is by its very nature a ‘Movement music’—rock and roll music … At its best the MC-5 is an emasculated version of what the Who did years, ago; at its worst it is a pasty EPSON scanner imagefaced derivative of black music (as if we needed yet another minstrel group!). The MC-5, who I understand were a white rhythm and blues group before they were ‘revolutionized’ by John Sinclair, have simply wheeled their grimy Detroit vehicle up to a Black Power station and said ‘Fill ‘er up.’ They play with their hands and feet, not with their guts and soul. They are smug, not proud . . . That white radicals can be turned on by this farce sadly demonstrates how far we must go before we can approach the problem of white racism in ourselves and in our communities without guilt and intimidation.”

Miller Francis interview

t_img150 Miller Francis grew up in Anniston, Alabama in a working class family. He was in high school when a Freedom Rider bus was attacked and burned just outside of town. Inspired by Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, he studied fiction writing at the University of Alabama. He watched as Governor George Wallace took his stand for racial segregation in the schoolhouse door, and he met Vivian Malone and James Hood after they were admitted as students. He joined thousands at a rally in the former capitol of the Confederacy to welcome those who had marched for civil rights from Selma to Montgomery.

Freed from the bullying that had plagued his hometown years, Miller came out to his college friends and soon developed a “second family” of freethinkers, misfits and hippies. At his Army physical, after much soul-searching, he declared himself homosexual, and because of his opposition to the Vietnam War, a conscientious objector. To his surprise, the Army responded by denying him either status, and in 1967 he refused induction into the burning_busmilitary. Intending to leave for Canada, he married his best friend in a large, public Wed-In on the campus quadrangle, held on the release date of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. After deciding to stay in the US and fight his case in court, and he settled in Atlanta. There, he was arrested, and the ACLU provided legal defense. When the Army ordered a second physical exam, as required by Alabama law, he was declared 4F for reasons of health, and all charges were dropped only weeks before trial was to begin. As forces for radical change gained momentum in the Sixties, Miller moved from fiction writing and bet_img153came more active politically, writing only non-fiction, and continuing to demonstrate for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. He lived for a time in an Atlanta commune called The Heathen Rage, and wrote music and film reviews for The Great Speckled Bird, a weekly underground newspaper with national impact. Some of his articles were reprinted by other underground papers, and he also contributed briefly to Rolling Stone and Creem (including a review of Music To Eat by The Hampton Grease Band). He covered national events such as the Woodstock Music Festival, the Memphis Blues Festival and the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival. His enthusiastic “discovery” account of The Allman Brothers Band’s first performance in Piedmont Park is still being quoted (Scott Freeman, Midnight Riders: The Story of the Allman Brothers Band). As early as 1969, Rolling Stone Magazine called Miller “one of the best rock and roll writers the underground has produced. . .unique in his ability to place rock in the perspective of the revolution”. In his book on the underground press, The Paper Revolutionaries, Laurence Leamer called Miller t_img151“the most articulate of the cultural radicals. [He] maneuvers the symbols of cultural radicalism with the subtlety and sureness of Marx working with the tools of economic determinism.”

As new social movements began to develop, Miller wrote articles articulating the oppression of women and homosexuals, contributing some of the earliest statements of what soon came to be called the Gay Liberation Movement. Miller was divorced in the early 70s. For several years, he worked as a legal secretary at the Southern Regional Office of the ACLU and the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, and later held a number of different jobs–mill worker, county court transcriber and computer typesetter. After he left The Bird, he visited then-socialist China in 1973 as part of a delegation from the U.S.-People’s Friendship Association. As the era of the Sixties ebbed, Miller broke from identity politics for a broader vision of social change. From 1982 to 1996, he was DJ/host of Revolution Rock (By All Music Necessary) at listener-supported radio station WRFG EPSON scanner imageAtlanta 89.3 FM. In addition to playing punk rock and other forms of music on the cutting edge at the time, he conducted in-depth interviews with world class musicians such as Fela Kuti, Henry Rollins, KRS-One and The Clash’s Joe Strummer. Promoter Steve Harris described Revolution Rock as one of the shows that “exemplify radio pushed to its highest potential. . .Francis’ well-researched and tasteful presentation allows the music to communicate the message, avoiding the obvious pitfalls of political proselytizing.” Miller lives in Atlanta and is currently separated. For over twenty years, he has worked in the video library archives at CNN. In a return to fiction writing, he spent the last several years completing a novel, If Heaven’s Not My Home, which is set in a small town in Alabama in 1957.

FOIBLES TO ADE PEOPLE -og, king ofbashan-

9/29/1969

FOIBLES TO ADE PEOPLE: L1

One day in Municipal Court the Judge looked down over his Bench an there was a Liddle Old Lady in a wheelchair with a big old Bandage around her headbone an a sling on her Arm an a Trained Nurse standin by holdin plasma which was flowin into her other Arm and the Judge says like this My goodness madam whatever Happened to you? An a Cop standin by says Judge this is the way it happened an the Judge says shut up son i ast this Lady here an i will Talk to you Later.

So the liddle ol lady says Judge we citizens really need protection from Riff and Raff these days why the ‘”Streets ain’t safe for Decent People no more an the Judge says well yes i hev heard Somethin like That but i am sure that our Noble Bluecoats are doin the Best they can an the Lady says well Maybe so but when a Honest liddle ol Lady like I cant roll the streets in her Wheelchair without bein set upon by Hoodlums why something must be Did an the Judge says kindly-like well How did it Happen? , .

Well says the Liddle ol Lady i was rollin down the sidewalk at Fourteenth an Peachtree the Other day (Oh wow says the Judge that is a bad Neighborhood; you are Tellin me says the lady with the Bandages) an i was On my Way to the store for my Bosco when a Feller comes ‘up to Me an says Hey liddle ol lady in a power wheelchair, how about I turn you on? an I says I am runnin priddy good up to now, thank you, but if I feel like I am shuttin off 1 will contact you, son (an the Judge says So it was the Dope Pushers what jumped on you an Beated you up about the Head an Shoulders an rendered you into a Hospital Case; i always Knew them Potblowers an morninggloryseedchewers an Opium Smokers was up to No Good: an the ol lady says No it was not this Young Gentleman at all, let me Tell you: an the Judge says Excuse Me, go on with your Story) so she goes on:

So i Roll down the Street a Liddle Ways an here Comes a young man with Long Hair an a Beard an purple Fingernails an he is Sellin Papers an he says like this:

Bird, lady? an I say I hev a parakeet but he says Nasty Words an i am Thinkin of Gettin Rid of Him an the young man says Ha Ha well I guess you do not want this Bird Either because sometimes it does too an I say oh really well Maybe I will take it because it Might keep my parakeet company an Besides it is funny to wake up at Night an hear the Liddle Dear goin kahkah to His self (an the Judge sed so it was the Pornography Merchants what did you in; I always figured they Read they Own stuff an get all charged Up an go roarin out into the Public Thoroughfares intent on Rapin the first Passerby: it must hev been Awful for you; no such Luck says the Liddle 01 Lady an if you will jus Hush your Mouth i will tell you how it Happened.)

Priddy soon, she says, I begin to near music in the Direction of the Park an so I roll on over in that Direction; i am really enjoy in the Music when i get there because see I am deaf an it has been a long Time since I hev been where there is Music i can hear; though to Tell you the Truth some thin is goin wrong with my Glasse. hippys run amok an stomped you into the Piedmont Sod; no says the Lady, let me tell you)

Well she says 1 was listenin to the Music an watchin the kids dance, an somebody was Burnin somethin that made a Awful priddy smell an 1 was breathin deep an jus bein out in Nature like that made me feel Real Good; when all of a Sudden i was somehow just Overcome with Emotion an begun to Cry. An i noticed that Several Young People aroun me was beginnin to Cry too an 1 thought how Nice that was an how nex time I came I wood bring a book an read them some of the Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; an priddy soon Everybody was Cryin an boohooin an blubberin an I took off my glasses an dropped them an Then i was in Bad Shape because I couldnt see nothin: but through the smoke an haze i did see a Blue Uniform an i rolled over that Way an said like this Officer could you help me Find my Glasses’.’

An he said like this Oh Wise Guy Eh an the first thing I know I wake up in jail an it turns out I have a busted head an nineteen Stitches an a creased clavicle an a bunch of Charges filed against me, namely usin dope resistin arrest, assaultin a officer, wisein off to a Bluecoat, an Leavin the Scene of a Accident. An i think, the lady winds up, that somebody is goin aroun in the Uniform of the Atlanta Police Department an doin all kinds of bad Numbers on People; an that if the ciddy dont want to Lose its Good Name, they Better do somethin about it.

Moral: Violence is Addictive: an the innocent Policeman who starts out with a Liddle Harmless drunk-beatin or hippy-roustin or n_gger-sluggin may eventually Fall into Bad Habits.

-og, king ofbashan-