"Get up, Stand Up"

Chuck D, Bono "Stand Up"

Politically minded musicians to appear in new documentary

Bono, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Michael Stipe, Peter Gabriel and Bob Geldof will appear in Get Up, Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Protest, a documentary about the history of protest music, to air September 28th on PBS.

Produced and directed by the team of Hannes Rossacher and Rudi Dolezal -- whose previous work includes documentaries about Miles Davis, Freddie Mercury, Quincy Jones and Billy Joel -- the film recounts the origins of protest songs in American labor unions and how musicians ranging from Bob Dylan to Sly Stone to the MC5 put political issues front and center for a generation of listeners.

Named for the Bob Marley song, Get Up, Stand Up is narrated by politically minded rapper Chuck D. The Public Enemy frontman grew up listening to protest music, and later used it as inspiration for his own work.

"'Fight the Power' by the Isley Brothers was the song that inspired me to write 'Fight the Power' by Public Enemy," he says. "But, being a child of the Sixties, there's so many great protest songs. 'People Get Ready' and a lot of Curtis Mayfield's songs touched my soul. James Brown had a protest song against drugs with 'King Heroin,' and Peter, Paul and Mary struck me as a kindergartener. How could those songs not mean so much?"

Colin Devenish