When 80,000 barrels of oil spilled into the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel in January of 1969, the crude-splattered water, beaches, and birds along the California coast in its aftermath became the symbols of modern eco-disaster. While the ensuing public outcry helped hasten the formalization of the environmental movement as we now know it, for musician Van Dyke Parks, the spill and “the revelation of ecology,” as he calls it, was a very personal, life-altering occasion. “It changed my M.O. and changed my very reason for being,” he says. The Union Oil rig rupture in Santa Barbara made Parks go calypso.
My interview with Van Dyke Parks originally appeared in the pages of Crawdaddy! in 2009. Four years later, the story of one man’s adventures in art and activism The Day Van Dyke Parks Went Calypso, remains the most most-read and most searched piece here at denisesullivan.com. Parks had a goal and an idea ahead of its time: To forge environmental healing through music made by instruments made of cast-off oil drums. Read the full story here or at the link above. And happy Earth Day.
Filed under: Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Calypso, Civil Rights, Earth Day Music, Environmental Justice, Protest Songs, video, Esso Trinidad Steel Band, The Mighty Sparrow, Van Dyke Parks
Denise Sullivan 
Fascinating story about Van Dyke Parks!
On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 12:14 PM, denisesullivan wrote:
> ** > denisesullivan posted: “When 80,000 barrels of oil spilled into the > waters of the Santa Barbara Channel in January of 1969, the > crude-splattered water, beaches, and birds along the California coast in > its aftermath became the symbols of modern eco-disaster. While the ensuing > pub”