Standing before thousands of people gathered at the Marin Civic Center last month for the “Hands Off” protest against President Donald Trump’s administration, Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman followed the political speeches by strapping on his acoustic guitar and leading the placard-carrying crowd in a defiant rendition of “I Won’t Back Down,” a Tom Petty song that’s a strong candidate to become an anthem of the resistance movement.

It was a rousing moment that brought everyone together to sing in one large, loud voice.

“My wife had the idea to do ‘I Won’t Back Down,’” Huffman said last week by phone as he was leaving Washington, D.C., for a political meeting in Palm Springs. “It’s such a perfect protest song, and I’ve never heard it done that way.

“I was pleased that people instantly recognized it. They looked up the lyrics on their iPhones and were singing along.”

Music has been a part of politics forever — from campaign jingles to patriotic anthems and protest songs. As a national politician, Huffman, a singer and guitar player, has been using music to inspire, unite, entertain and, in some cases, find common ground, even reaching across the aisle to do it.

Earlier this year, at an annual show called the Congressional Record that’s hosted by the Library of Congress, he performed a duet on the Band song “The Weight” with Iowa Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, a former local TV news anchor and classically trained violinist.

“We’ll do something again next year,” he said. “I have some Republican colleagues who play. I’ve played with them a little bit, and we’ll try to find a way to do it more.”

Following the lead of his older brothers, he began playing guitar when he was kid in a musical household in Missouri.

“I grew up in a house with all this great ‘70s music — James Taylor, Carole King,” he said. “I was learning all that stuff on guitar from a very young age.”

Since 2013, the 61-year-old politician has represented California’s left-leaning 2nd Congressional District, a huge swath ranging from Marin County to the Oregon border. With a district of nearly 750,000 people, it’s safe to assume that many, if not most, of his constituents are unaware that they’re represented by a singing, guitar-strumming politician. In fact, he’s so modest about it that he doesn’t even list it on his website as one of the things he likes to do in his spare time, along with hiking, fishing and playing tennis.

“I’m not good enough at it to list it,” he said, “but maybe I should.”Huffman’s Hootenanny

For 15 years, he’s hosted Huffman’s Hootenanny, an annual musical/political jam session featuring Huffman and his “house” band, a Sonoma County Americana group called SoloRio. Past guests have included Democratic luminaries Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris.

This year’s special guest was Huffman’s high-profile colleague Jamie Raskin, an outspoken opponent of the Trump administration. On April 22, the day of the Hootenanny, they updated a big crowd at the College of Marin on the steps the Democratic Party is taking to resist what they see as an assault on democracy by Trump and his MAGA movement.

That evening, they repaired to the Lagunitas Brewing Co. in Petaluma for the Hootenanny, a hot ticket show that sold out a month in advance. While Raskin, a keyboard player, has not shied away from speaking his mind on the Trump administration, earning a spot on the president’s enemies list, he was nevertheless anxious about performing in front of an audience as a musician.

“Jamie has never performed for anyone like that,” Huffman said, “so he was a little nervous.”

After a little practice, though, he was comfortable enough to jam on “The Weight,” a Huffman standby, and he had so much fun that he joined in on a couple more songs, even taking the lead on the Dave Mason song “Feelin’ Alright.”

During the pandemic, Huffman recorded a video of “The Times They Are A-Changin’” virtually that included Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Beto O’Rourke, Livingston Taylor, Mickey Hart and members of SoloRio.

“It was totally cool,” Huffman said. “We did a ‘Hollywood Squares’ thing on the video, jamming together. It was a great lineup.”

Music and the environment

Huffman has been playing with members of SoloRio since he was in the state Assembly in the early 2000s. He’s a longtime friend of the band’s guitar, banjo and dobro player, Craig Anderson, whose day job is as an executive with LandPaths, a Sonoma County environmental organization founded by Caryl Hart, wife of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.

Huffman, who serves on the Natural Resources Committee in Congress, has worked with Anderson over the years on environmental and political issues as well as performed with him and the band at musical events, often combining the two. Huffman calls Anderson “my 2nd District musical director.”

“Jared harnesses this notion that we can enjoy ourselves when there’s music as part of a gathering, and then he paths into the part of ourselves where inspiration and connection meet social justice and outrage,” Anderson said. “Music is certainly there for fun at these events, but I think in carrying on the tradition of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, he really sees it as a means in emphasizing these societal and political points.”

The Grateful Dads

Huffman has a guitar at his home in San Rafael and keeps another one in Washington, where he regularly jams and performs with a band called the Grateful Dads, an informal group that includes Kentucky Rep. Morgan McGarvey, who plays guitar and harmonica, recently retired Michigan Rep. Dan Kildee on drums and New York Rep. Tom Suozzi on vocals.

“We will do a little acoustic jam at our Democratic Caucus retreats and sometimes we’ll have events around the Capitol when people ask us to be the entertainment,” Huffman said. “We just have fun with it.”

At the Civic Center rally, Huffman also played Woody Guthrie’s famed folk song “This Land Is Your Land,” another crowd-pleaser that turned into a sing-along. Guthrie, whose guitar famously bore the words “This machine kills fascists,” reportedly wrote it in 1940 as a critical response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”

At times, Huffman has had that same Guthrie saying on his guitar, and sees the father of protest music as someone to admire and emulate.

“I’d love to channel some of that, sure,” he said. “Especially in this moment. We need it.”

For Huffman, music has been a tool in building a resistance movement against Trumpism. But he also sees it in service of an even larger purpose.

“It’s part of reclaiming some of our common humanity,” he said. “Honestly, I think it’s mostly a human connection. It’s just a wonderful, powerful thing. I don’t think there’s any downside to music at all.

“There’s nothing about music that makes people fight each other or hate each other.”

Contact Paul Liberatore at p.liberatore@comcast.net