Just over 50 years ago America was the scene of huge street marches protesting the Vietnam War. During one of these protests a group of unarmed students at Kent State University were fired on by Ohio’s National Guard. 67 rounds were fired in the space of 13 seconds leaving 4 dead and 9 wounded. The fatal shootings triggered immediate and massive outrage on campuses around the country. More than 4 million students participated in organized walk-outs at hundreds of universities, colleges and high schools, the largest such strike in the history of the United States.
As a response to this tragedy Neil Young wrote one of the all time protest songs. He was praised for keeping Nixon’s name in the lyrics. This meant that it was banned from many AM radio stations but found much airplay on the underground FM stations. In 2009 the song was inducted into the Grammy ‘Hall of Fame’.
Shortly after Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young released their version, it was covered by The Isley Brothers a group hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio. They chose to mix it with a song by Jimi Hendrix entitled ‘Machine Gun’ and created this 9 minute epic.
Here we are 50 years later and the streets of America again ring to the sounds of people protesting injustice. This time protesting the death of george Floyd at the hands of the authorities. Which only goes to prove the old saying “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”, or “the more things change, the more they stay the same“. So it appears appropriate that a new version of Ohio has appeared sung by Jon Batiste with Leon Bridges and Gary Clark Jr. This was first heard at the Newport Folk Festival in 2018 but has been released afresh in the wake of yet another tragedy. The new version of the song is nothing like the original. Heavy, barbed guitar riffs have been replaced by a doleful piano melody and minimal slide and acoustic guitar. The trio’s vocals condense C.S.N.Y.’s roaring harmonies into an aching, solemn, bluesy requiem for the dead.
