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The Collective Soul Band - Nowhere to Run

The hope beneath the despair of the blues is what Martin Luther King, Jr. heard, and his success as a reformer is due, in part, to his appreciation of the blues. His strategy of direct action through non violent resistance was an elegant example of the signifying, the practice in African American culture, involving a verbal strategy of indirection that exploited the gap between the denotative and figurative meanings of words, that goes on in the blues.

The blues is seldom associated with Martin Luther King, Jr. but its idiom was foundational to his life and career. In an opening address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival, King offered remarks that give us insights that, in true blues fashion, circle back to where we began by considering the relationship between the blues and religious faith. Indeed, King began by identifying the blues as originating from a divine source.

What makes the blues effective as an agent for social change is its ability to show us how to live with integrity while accepting the contingencies of radical disappointment and profound disenchantment. The blues gives one the context and method for organizing and mobilizing around common concerns while at the same time providing the opportunity for the individual, so often lost in the mass of human need, to have a moment of single recognition and identity as the author of her own song, her own struggles, her own blues. To stick to one’s calling as a blues person, however, requires support... a courageous few who are leavening a loaf by bearing witness to the truth of our circumstances. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one such bluesman who offered a model for how to live a sanctified life.


The Collective Soul Band - Nowhere to Run
  • First performed by: Martha & the Vandellas
  • First Released on: February 10, 1965
  • Written by: Lamont Dozier, brothers Brian Holland, and Eddie Holland

"The Collective Soul group consists of the brothers Ed, lead vocalist, and Dean Roland, rhythm guitarist, Will Turpin, bassist, Johnny Rabb, drummer, and Jesse Triplett, lead guitarist."

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Location: United States

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