BURIED TREASURE
The Gaia Sermon
Sprouting this month from rock obscuria’s compost heap, a folk/ jazz/synth eco-suite for the world.
Soul to soil: Wilderness America mastermind David Riordan (left) with (middle) co-producer Peter Scott and musician Tom Salisbury.
David Riordan
Various
Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land
PRIVATE PRESS, 1975
AMONG THE sobering challenges the 21st centur y presents, the need to protect the natural world is increasingly urgent. In the middle ’70s, time of the mysterious death of nuclear whistleblower Karen Silkwood, the publication of Edward Abbey’s eco-anarchist novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, and the growing environmental awareness of such artists as Neil Young, Stevie Wonder and the Eagles, the fight arguably remained a more atomised, grass roots affair.
One such ground level activist who sought to widen and promote the struggle was Emily DeSpain Polk, the poet and conser vationist born in Washington state in 1910. In 1971 she founded SWAP, or Small Wilderness Area Preser vation, to prevent the bulldozing of ancient Californian woodland for development. Shortly after, with a grant from the Bank Of America’s charitable foundation, she hit upon the idea of, “a musical exploration of our place within the cycle of living things.” To help assemble what would become the consciousness-raising album Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land, she asked Cliff Branch of San Luis Obisbo’s mail-order hi-fi outfit Warehouse Sound Co if he knew any likely candidates.