WHITE, Josh.

Description

De Montfort Hall, Leicester February 1951 concert program + ticket

Original vintage two-fold concert program produced for American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist Josh White’s performance at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester [England] on Monday, 12th February, 1951, presented by Arthur Kimbrell and Alan Fletcher, and with the Hedley Ward Trio, Walter Pert, Ronnie Leslie, and Arthur Haynes also on the bill. By the early 1950s, Josh White was living in London, and even had his own BBC radio show, “My Guitar Is Old As Father Time”. From there, he made many tours through England, Sweden, France, Italy, and Australia. In 1950, while traveling in England on a goodwill tour with Eleanor Roosevelt, then United Nations Ambassador in charge of War Relief, Josh had learned that he was listed in the blacklist publication Red Channels: the Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television (along with Orson Wells, Aaron Copeland, Leonard Bernstein, Judy Holiday, Zero Mostel, Lena Horne, Langston Hughes, Edward G. Robinson, and Alan Lomax, among other luminaries). And when he returned to the U.S.A. in 1954, the F.B.I. interrogated him for three hours, threatening him with deportation. Nevertheless, his fortunes gradually improved. In 1955, Jac Holzman, of the newly established Elektra Records, in New York, issued the LP Josh White 25th Anniversary Album. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy, a long-time fan, finally did what television network executives would not when he broke the TV blacklist by inviting Josh to appear on the CBS-TV civil rights special, Dinner with the President. This was followed that year by a national TV appearance at the Lincoln Memorial, where Josh performed as part of Martin Luther King’s historic March on Washington. Josh White died on 5th September 5, 1969, at the age of 54, while undergoing heart-valve replacement surgery in a Manhasset, Long Island, hospital. Original ticket for the concert, laid in.

Original black and white pictorial uncoated two-fold brochure, 12.6 x 19.0 cm (folded). Faint horizontal fold line to the middle, else in near excellent condition. Additional images of the program available on request.