Tom Rush and Country Joe McDonald don’t think protest music is dead. It’s alive and well, the 1960s songwriters say.

People just have to look beyond their radio dials to find it.

Rush and McDonald were the latest speakers in IPFW’s Omnibus lecture series. In front of a crowded auditorium Wednesday, they took questions from the audience, shared some of their favorite songs and spoke about music’s relationship with activism in the 1960s.

Both men said it’s as good a time as any to write protest songs, and they complimented work done by Bono, Green Day and other artists.

That said, McDonald argued much of the best protest music of today isn’t played on the airwaves.

“Real protest music is never going to be in the mainstream because people don’t always like it,” McDonald said during a news conference before the talk. “It’s not nice. It can be upsetting.”

Rush said there seemed to be a notable lack of popular anti-war music today, and he attributed that to the lack of a Vietnam War era-style draft.

“In the 1960s, you could get drafted and you could be killed – and people took that to heart,” he said. “It was a very personal threat. Now it’s more abstract.”

Rush helped shape the folk revival of the 1960s and its renaissance in the ’80s and ’90s. His work influenced many artists, including James Taylor and Garth Brooks. Rolling Stone credits him with ushering in the singer-songwriter era with his “The Circle Game” album.

McDonald performed at Woodstock and has recorded 31 albums. His “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” was one of the more popular anthems of the 1960s protest era.

Rush and McDonald were the final speakers in the Omnibus series, held in the Auer Performance Hall in the Rhinehart Music Center. The series, in its 16th year, is committed to presenting diverse perspectives through educated, respected, entertaining speakers.

The series will resume again this fall.

dhaynie@jg.net