Troubadours For

By Charles P. Alexander

As the performers take the stage, the audience crackles with excitement. Before long, the fans are clapping their hands, singing along and shouting for their favorite songs. One of those old '60s rock groups now on tour? Not quite. The crowd is old enough to be Stones fans, but these tunes are not about getting satisfaction or spending the night together. Instead the two guitarists are singing of spotted owls and acid rain.

The scene is the Sierra Club International Assembly in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the players are Bill Oliver and Glen Waldeck, the poets of preservation and the unofficial troubadours of the U.S. environment movement. All across the country, at conferences and campfires and on campuses, the two minstrels denounce development and pollution and plead for the rescue of endangered animals. Their music never hits the Top 40, but many a member of the Sierra Club or the National Audubon Society can hum their tunes and recite their lyrics by heart. To thousands of nature lovers, Oliver and Waldeck are to environmentalism what Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were to the antiwar movement in the '60s.

Of course, singing about ecology is chic these days. Superstars from Sting to Madonna have joined the crusade to save the rain forests. But these big names are Johnny-come-latelies. Following the tradition of conservation-minded singers like Woody Guthrie, Oliver, 41, and Waldeck, 32, have been spreading their message on the concert trail for more than a decade -- all through the Reagan years, when environmentalism was on the defensive and Interior Secretary James Watt seemed to be trying to stamp out the movement single- handed.

Oliver and Waldeck win over listeners because they are entertainers first and crusaders second. Dressed in T shirts and sneakers, they mix humor with their anger, and fun with their activism. In one number, Waldeck strolls around the stage under an umbrella. The lyric: "I walk the shores of Lake Champlain/ in the placid acid rain." In another tune, Waldeck dreams of being reincarnated as a "big, wrecking ball" so he can "crack down on condos." But fast-food executives would not find the show especially funny. "Lay down your Whopper and your fries," one song goes. "Save a rain forest, baby, before the rain forest dies." That lyric is a pointed reference to the fact that tropical rain forests are turned into pasture so that beef cattle can be raised for export to the U.S. and that felled trees become paper for hamburger wrappers.

The audience generally gets into the act. Are there any other performers who stir a crowd to let out coyote yelps? And when Waldeck climbs up on a chair and incites Sierra Clubbers to join the "Woodpecker Rebellion," they seem ready to lie down in front of bulldozers.

Sting may be a dedicated environmentalist, but has he ever toured Alaska? Oliver and Waldeck have. Last year they, along with fellow performer-activists Dana Lyons and Mavis Muller, traveled through the 49th state in a Volkswagen van on their Keep It Wild Tour, giving concerts from Anchorage and Fairbanks to such wilderness outposts as Talkeetna and Girdwood. Preaching preservation in a state where many settlers came only to plunder the resources, they found themselves singing about the evils of mining and trapping to audiences that included miners and trappers. That made for some uncomfortable moments. One night a big, burly Alaskan came up after the show and said, "There's plenty of wilderness here. It's endless. Go home. You don't know what you're talking about."

Oliver and Waldeck have been in tune with nature for as long as they can remember. Ironically, Oliver, who grew up in Houston, is the son of a Westinghouse executive who sold nuclear reactors to utilities. Oliver always respected his father but early on was determined to follow a different career path. By the fourth grade he wanted to be a forest ranger and was learning to play the guitar. "I couldn't tell whether I wanted to be Smokey the Bear or Chuck Berry," says Oliver, "and eventually I found I could do both."

Waldeck was raised in Philadelphia in a family that liked to have music playing. Nicknamed "Tinker," he started with the drums ("I was pounding out rhythms before I could sit up") and learned guitar at 14. His father was a handyman and, in Waldeck's view, a true environmentalist. A handyman is the ultimate recycler, he says, who knows how to fix things rather than throw them away.

When Oliver and Waldeck are not on the road together, they split up. Oliver now lives in Austin, and Waldeck's home is still Philadelphia, where he moonlights with a local folk-rock rhythm-and-blues band called the Roosters. Oliver spends many nights playing with Austin's Otter Space Band and many days presenting environment programs in Texas secondary and elementary schools. "We want to pass on our ideas to youngsters," he says. He also composes public-service jingles for cities and towns. One water-conservation message was titled "Please Don't Leave the Water Running When You Wash the Dog."

Oliver and Waldeck are serious about what they do, but they do not take themselves too seriously. In fact, they sing an impish spoof of nature lovers to the melody of Under the Boardwalk. The chorus:

Out on the bird walk

At the crack of dawn,

Out on the bird walk,

Everybody yawn.

But they are proud that their music is more than just entertainment. Muses + Oliver: "I want to look back on my career and be able to say that I spoke my mind and had a good time doing it."