FSM Audio Gallery
Most notably, the Bancroft Library hosts two pages of straming audio links, most from the KPFA Recordings
Free Speech Movement, UC Berkeley - Online Audio Recordings
This page maps recordings to a chronology, with recordings starting September 30/October 1 and continuing through January 4, 1965The Free Speech Movement and Its Legacy: Overviews, Explanations, and Histories of the Movement
FSM-A KPFA Recordings Page
Some of the KPFA/Pacifica recordings are available here for download. The files are large.The Texture of Things: Listening to Colin Edwards’ Free Speech Movement tapes
includes recording from Mario Savio's 22nd birthday partyThe Freedom Archives Colin Edwards Recordings online
YouTube audio of Savio December 2, 1964 speech in its 7 min 41 sec entirety
2/23/2021 from Dave Mandel via email
Brothers Sol & Max Weiss, co-founders of Fantasy Records (founded just to provide Credence Clearwater Revival their own label & studios!), and Chris Strachwitz, founder of El Cerrito's Down Home Records, participated in recording & producing both the "Joy to UC" Christmas 45 and the original FSM album.
3/19/2021 from Lee Felsenstein via email
Gleason was the ultimate censor of the songs included on the FSM “Sounds and Songs of the Demonstration” LP. Both it and the Christmas Carols EP were recorded at Max Weiss’ Fantasy Studios (on Alabama St. in SF) on the weekend after the November Regents’ meeting - I had sung my Woody Guthrie - derived song at the demo and was asked to join in on the record. We (a pickup group) rehearsed the carols under Joe LaPenta’s direction on Thursday and Friday and recorded at night on the weekend.
One of the best songs I heard in that studio was “An Age-Old Tale” by Paul Gilbert - it was literary and prescient, about alienation and the coming upsurge of protest and breakthrough (on personal and social levels). I put it in the FSM Songbook but Gleason nixed it from the record - apparently too influenced by Dylan for Gleason’s taste as versus the Popular-Front influenced songs we folkies had grown up on. It outclassed any one of the topical songs that made it onto the record.
I appear to be the only person left to have heard it sung by Gilbert and I would like to see it recorded by people who could do it justice.
December 1964 KPAL Radio (Palm Springs, CA) FSM Interviews
with Michael Lerner, Stephen Maizlish, and Keith Simons New!FSM Songbook as pdf
May 1965 Sing Out, Songs from Berkeley, Irwin Silber
above May 8, 1965 Saturday Evening Post: Dec 2, 1964 photo: L to R: Dave Mandel, Sue Chesney, who?, who, who?
Dec 2, 1964 inside Sproul Hall: The FSM Singers: L to R: who? Dave Mandel, David Bacon, who? Lee Felsenstein, Hilbert Coleman.
photo by Steven Marcus. Used with permission of UC.Terrific photo 11/24/1964 in San Francisco News-Call Bulletin by Murf
Music happened in many contexts, both private and public. Jack Radey wrote on 9/5/2014:
"At 11:00 nearly every day, Davey Mandel and Hilbert Coleman would lead us in an hour of singing on the northeast corner of the ASUC,
warming up a group of up to 200 people with civil rights, union, Pete Seeger, and Beatles songs before the rally. I was often part of that group."
December 1964 KPAL Radio (Palm Springs, CA) FSM Interviews
During the 1964 December break three FSMers, Michael Lerner, a Philosophy grad student, Keith Simons, a sophomore in Political Science, and Stephen Maizlish, a sophomore in History, were interviewed in a live broadcast by radio station KPAL in Palm Springs, CA. We don’t know the name of the host, but the woman identified as the Public Service Director was Steve Maizlish’s mother, Ruth Maizlish, and his father Harry owned the station. Great interviews as mp3 files which can be downloaded!
Steve Maizlish wrote on 2/10/2015:
Keith and I went to the same High School in LA, were roommates our first semester at Berkeley, and kept up our friendship. Mike and I taught Hebrew School at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland and so knew each other from there when FSM began. That was the connection. We developed a friendship and he came down to Palm Springs with me for the winter break.
My parents were sympathetic with what we were doing in Berkeley and always ready to use the radio station for causes like that one. So we set up the interview. Really great to hear it again. To me what it shows is the growing experience that was FSM for so many of us. Every detail was so critical back then because with the detailed experience came a building awareness of what we were facing and how the system we were dealing with worked. With that awareness came connections to other injustices, how they operated, and how to resist them. I really think the interview shows that process at work and that for me is its greatest value. We were into the details because through them we learned and grew.
Keith Simons wrote on 2/11/2015:
The history of how this recording of our KPAL FSM interview came to be is an interesting story in itself. Shortly after this interview, Stephen Maizlish gave me a tape copy (on the old style tape reel). In my mind, at that time, I thought this interview was important, and I wanted to preserve it for myself and possibly for others who might find it of historical value in the future.
I put this tape and other FSM materials I had saved (including my student datebook whose entries showed up on the FSM webpage around the time of the 50th anniversary of our Sproul Hall arrest) into a box and marked it as important. My wife and I have moved many times over the years From California to Colorado to Arkansas, then to Seattle, Portland and Eugene, OR, and finally ending in near Santa Fe, New Mexico. During that period it was lucky the tape survived, as at one point, it was stored in a leaky shed during our "back to the earth" days in a community we lived in in the Ozarks of Arkansas.
I did not think too much about this tape recording until quite a bit later, when I was living in Portland, OR. By then, it was apparent to me that no one else still had a copy of this tape, and it was up to me to preserve it. I began to search all my old boxes to find that tape and other FSM relics. It took a while, but it seemed to almost magically appear inside of one of the many boxes that had not been opened in years. I then hunted around for a recording studio that could convert it from the old tape format into cassette tapes. When I myself listened to it again for the first time in years, I realized just how significant to the history of the time it was. At that point, I mailed a cassette copy to my friend and co-interviewee Stephen Maizlish. When I attended the 30th reunion of the FSM, I already had these cassette tapes, but did not know of the existence of the FSM web page (if it was already in existence at this time).
As it turned out, I did not learn of the FSM web page until 2014, at which point I thought this interview should be on it. I then had the recording format re-mastered again, converting from cassette to CD. At least I did know where the cassette tapes were at this point after another 30 years of moves since Portland. I then got into contact by email with Barbara Stack of the FSM archives and mailed her a CD copy. Barbara had a tremendous load of the 50th reunion work to get through first, but when she listened to the interview, she agreed it was significant material and should be on the FSM website. After more research on her part, and questions to me and then Steve as to how this interview came to be, she converted the CD into the MP3 format that is now on the web page.
I completely agree with Steve that this interview shows how rapidly we all evolved and learned the issues involved in the FSM and how those events shaped our political thinking both then and for the rest of our lives.01 KPAL Intro FSM Interview Host & Ruth Maizlish 02 KPAL Michael Lerner FS Controversy 03 KPAL Keith Simons FSM Goals 04 KPAL Stephen Maizlish Rights Removed 05 KPAL Michael Lerner Goals 06 KPAL Stephen Maizlish College Education 07 KPAL Keith Simons Academic Senate 08 KPAL Keith Simons Outside Influence 09 KPAL Stephen Maizlish Who is the FSM 10 KPAL All_Arrests
