When I started writing this column some 15 years ago, my editor asked me to wrap up each year with an overview of the notable political and progressive music of the previous 12 months or so. At first it was there was always sufficient music with a political or progressive bent to fill a space twice the length of my usual column.aSoon that began to decline precipitously. I shifted tack and began to cover more the music that might appeal to those with a leftist bent and include the few political treasures. In time there became even less of that. Last few years I’ve found myself not doing an overview and commenting on the paucity of music that expresses the feelings and concerns of liberals and left wing Americans.What happened? Where did such music go? That’s what I hope to explore and maybe answer at least in part this year. And not just in music but entertainment overall.Certainly there are some people making political music. But for the most part it’s in the margins, ergo not really significant. Nor is much if almost any of it music so strong that it can and will reach a wider audience. If it doesn’t, it’s just preaching to the choir.A little context here: I was born in 1954, the same year that rock’n’roll started to go large in popular culture. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a sensible mainstream Republican, was president. McCarthyism was fading, Korean War had ended, and prosperity was blooming. Eisenhower ended his presidency quite presciently warning about the military-industrial complex.I came of age in the 1960s. Folk music with a topical bent enjoyed its greatest cultural focus at the dawn of that decade, and then came The Beatles and the blossoming of rock’n’roll, soul, pop and more. John F. Kennedy inspired us to conquer new frontiers (and got assassinated). Martin Luther King Jr. inspired us to end segregation by non-violent means (and got assassinated). Robert F. Kennedy began to build on what both his brother and MLK began (and got assassinated).Read More.Source: Populist/Rob Patterson