Using fame to push platforms

A vote is a voice, and celebrity provides a microphone.

Especially in an election year, it’s common for politically minded artists and musicians to use their fame as a platform to push agendas and candidates. That’s been the case for hundreds of years in hundreds of countries.

Recently, though, things have gotten tense as stage-front political pronouncements have drawn significant heat from audiences, advertisers and media outlets.

Linda Ronstadt’s praise for Michael Moore’s documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” got her removed from a stage in Las Vegas and booed at a show in Virginia. When Dixie Chick Natalie Maines criticized Bush in March 2003, the group’s music was pulled from country radio stations across the nation.

“I’s more dangerous now,” said Merle Haggard, whose hippie-baiting, Vietnam-era songs “Okie From Muskogee” and “Fightin’ Side of Me” still rank with his most popular works.

“I seems to be more damaging to the females: Seems like people don’t want them to say anything.”

Entertainers – male and female – are speaking up, though.

More than 20 musical acts, including Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and the Dixie Chicks, will perform fund-raising concerts in key election states in October for America Coming Together, an anti-Bush organization.

And a coalition of urban and hip-hop artists this week released a new single, “Wake Up Everybody,” which also will benefit America Coming Together.

Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Ashanti, Eve, Brandy, Wyclef Jean and Jadakiss are among more than two dozen performers who recorded an updated version of the song, a 1976 hit for Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.

Elliott adds topicality with a rap that includes the lines: “Yep, we all best to vote/ I don’t care about the guns you tote/ Listen to me like you listen to ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’ “

In addition to going out to radio this week, the track will be included on an album of politically or socially minded songs, from Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” to Jurassic 5’s “Freedom,” due in stores Sept. 16.

Nashville-based singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith is taking a more personal approach in her opposition to the administration of her fellow native Texan.

“I’ve made a conscious decision in my life that if Kerry does not win in November, I’m leaving this country in January,” Griffith said.

“It hasn’t been an easy decision to make because I love my country. But I think that if we have another four years of George W. Bush, we won’t have a democracy.”

Yet Haggard, Griffith and others prefer to keep their opinions to themselves in concert, urging fans to vote but never pushing individual candidates.

“I always looked at it like there’s an audience of people, a following of Merle Haggard fans, and we respect them enough to let them have their own opinions,” Haggard said. “I never thought of making a line down the middle of the audience.”

Haggard added that his own public criticisms of Bush should not be construed as support of Kerry.

“I’m just bumfuzzled,” he said. “I think, ‘Well, I want to vote this way,’ and then it’s, ‘Well, now I’m not sure.’ “

Toby Keith, whose “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” became a military rallying cry, is often assumed to be a Republican, though he has expressed mixed feelings about the Iraq war and said he was actually a registered Democrat.

Many performers are choosing to take a pro-troops, nonpolitical stance. That is appreciated by voter-registration organization Rock The Vote, which sets up information booths at many concerts.

“We won’t set up at an event where they’re going to support one candidate over another,” said Ashley Collier-Medley, 20, the organization’s Tennessee state street team leader. “I personally think they should just say, ‘Vote.’ “