Check out the great article from Kim Ode at the Star Tribune on Larry and his work:
Larry Long doesn’t care for the term folk singer, “which sounds like something from Greenwich Village in the 1960s.”
He prefers troubadour, like the medieval singers who traveled from court to court, delivering messages in song.
Troubadours, Long says, are bridge builders, which sounds all kumbaya until he adds what he’s learned from experience: “It’s been said that a bridge builder is someone who gets stepped on by both sides. So it can be a very uncomfortable place. Your very presence makes people uncomfortable.”
At peace rallies, he pointedly sings a song honoring veterans. At veterans’ rallies, he sings a song seeking peace.
For 40 years, Long has sung at protests, festivals, union actions and political rallies around Minnesota, the nation and the world. He writes and, in his lilting voice, sings in the social justice tradition of Pete Seeger, whom he knew for decades until Seeger’s death in January. He hews to Seeger’s belief that everyone has “a sacred obligation to do their best at what they’re called upon to do.”