The Untold Story of Bernie Sanders’ 1987 Folk Album
The year was 1987. President Reagan was embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal, Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant were tangling at Wrestlemania III, and a young(ish) Bernie Sanders was launching his political career as the mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
Pre-Bernie Burlington was home to antiquated, Footloose-style sound ordinances restricting the use of amplified music in city parks or public buildings, and in order to book a show at the city’s one auditorium, a promoter would have to appear before the city council to play a sample of the artists’ music and get approval.
“It was just mind-bogglingly stuck in the Fifties,” recalls Todd Lockwood, then owner of the local recording studio, White Crow Audio.
But Mayor Sanders changed all that. “When he got into City Hall and cleaned house, suddenly we had music everywhere,” Lockwood says. Today Burlington is home to one of the premiere jazz festivals in North America and free concerts in the park every Thursday, and Lockwood credits Sanders for both.
Sanders became something of hero to Lockwood and other local musicians for, but that wasn’t why Lockwood wrote a letter to the mayor, care of City Hall, 28 years ago, to ask if Sanders would collaborate on a folk album.
The reason was much more practical: Lockwood had grown the tiny recording studio he started in his carriage-house apartment into a large, state-of-the-art operation, complete with a hand-built Neve recording console from England and a Swiss-made Studer tape machine, to rival any set-up in New York City. He had a staff to man the fancy equipment, and he had salaries and health benefits to pay, so whenever there was dead time, Lockwood would try to fill the studio with local projects to put out on his label, BurlingTown Recordings.
The idea for “We Shall Overcome” was something on the order of Michael Jackson’s “We Are the World” album, released two years prior, except, as Lockwood says, “Michael assembled a bunch of superstars — we assembled a bunch of Vermonters.”
There were about 30 artists in all, like Nancy Beavens, Jon Gailmor and future state senator Dick McCormack.
Some of them, like Gailmor – who held one of the first benefit concerts for Sanders when he ran for mayor in ’81 – were confirmed Bernie supporters. (“Ten people showed up,” Gailmor says of that first concert, “but the thing is, he won by ten votes — I don’t ever let him hear the end of that.”)