At the Bitter End [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, Live]

Chad Mitchell Trio | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 24, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, Live
• Label: Folk Era Records
• ASIN: B000001843
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,742 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. John Birch Society

2. Hello Susan Brown

3. The Unfortunate Man

4. Blues Around My Head

5. James James Morrison Morrison

6. The Great Historical Bum (The Bragging Song)

7. Alberta

8. Moscow Nights

9. Come Along Home (Tom's Song)

10. You Can Tell the World

11. Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream

Editorial Reviews

This album shows the Chad Mitchell Trio at their best -- an informal, irreverent, totally entertaining concert recorded at Greenwich Village's Bitter End on March 19, 1962. Discarding their suits from earlier album covers, the trio now performed in comfortable sweaters along with their accompanists, future Byrd Jim McGuinn, former Weaver Fred Hellerman and bassist Bill Lee. The audience was more intimate as well, the coffeehouse audience responding more reverently than the raucous, huge crowd on the Mighty Day on Campus album. The trio's choice of material is solid, mixing traditional folk songs arranged by Milt Okun with more contemporary songs written by the likes of Bob Gibson ("You Can Tell the World," "Blues Around My Head") and Tom Paxton ("Come Along Home"). The album starts off with a bang with the ingeniusly wicked "The John Birch Society" ("if Mommy is a Commie, then you've gotta turn her in"). Woody Guthrie's "Great Historical Bum" is preceded by some humorous bragging by the group members about their respective hometowns. The trio also performs the humorous one-hundred-year-old ballad, "The Unfortunate Man," which was brought out of obscurity by folklorist J. Barre Toelken and Arkansas country singer Jimmie Driftwood. The subject deals with a man marrying for looks only to discover that beauty is not even skin deep. When the audience started singing along with Ed McCurdy's pacifist anthem, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream," it resulted in one of the most moving moments of the urban folk revival. The song so impressed Simon and Garfunkel that they recorded it on their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM several years later. Despite an average age of 22, Mitchell, Joe Frazier, and Mike Kobluk show tremendous poise and folk sensibilities on this marvelous album. ~ Cary Ginell, All Music Guide

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars WONDERFUL lyrics and fun music to sing along to., July 8, 1998

By 

Jon Bunnell (Florence, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At the Bitter End (Audio CD)

The songs in this album are some of the few that have well writen, smart, fun lyrics. Some of the songs are comentaries on the "curent" events and are almost the musical equivilant of political cartoons. My favorits are "John birch society", "James james Morrison Morrison" and "Last night I had the strangest dream". I think a lot of people get turned off by the words "folk music" but then most of them don't have much experiance with it. The first time I heard on of their songs I fell off the couch laughing! If you come across the album "a mighty day on campus" it is even better than this one. (P.S. I'm 17 and listen to folk music on a record player, there may be hope yet.)

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb live recording of the Chad Mitchell Trio (3/19/62), July 29, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: At the Bitter End (Audio CD)

The Chad Mitchell Trio released three albums for Kapp Records at the beginning of the 1960s before parting ways (the studio refused to release the group's cover of "Blowin' in the Wind" and let Peter, Paul & Mary have the hit instead). These were the years when the American folk music revival was approaching its zenith and after the success of "Mighty Day on Campus," recorded live at a Brooklyn College concert, Kapp followed up with this March 19, 1962 live recording "At the Bitter End" in Greenwich Village (where else?). The trio at this point consisted of Chad Mitchell, Mike Kobluk and Joe Frazier. Backing them up for this intimate concert was former Weaver Fred Hellerman, future Byrd Jim McGuinn, and bass player Bill Lee. If that were not impressive enough, the songs were being arranged by the legendary Milt Okun, who mixed up traditional folk songs like "The Unfortunate Man" and Woody Guthrie's "Great Historical Bum," with more contemporary works by Tom Paxton ("Come Along Home") and Bob Gibson ("You Can Tell the World"). The album begins with "The John Brich Society," a wickedly barbed song that certainly sets the tone for the evening's festivities, and then continues on the other ten songs.

"The Chad Mitchell At the Bitter end" offers up both political satire and social humor. The group also had the advantage of performing in a coffeehouse, where the audience response was a lot more appropriate than what they had received on the college campus. You have to think that the three singers, all of whom were still in their early 20s when this album was recorded, were inspired by both their audience and the superb musicians backing them up. Besides, one of the great truisms about albums by folk singers are that they just do not sound the same if they are not performing live for an audience. This makes sense. Folk music is the music of the people, to be played by people, and for people. There are several excellent collections of songs by the Chad Mitchell Trio, but if you pick up one of their original albums, then this would be the one I would urge you to track down. Note: The most familiar song on the album might be "You Can Tell the World," which Simon & Garfunkle covered on their first album.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyed this folk trip in time back to the 60s, December 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: At the Bitter End (Audio CD)

I spent most of my teen years listening to the Chad Mitchell Trio. This collection is as good a cross-section as any of the brilliance of the lyrics, and the harmonic resonance of the group, even though, as Chad jokingly once put it: "One of us doesn't have a very good ear."

If you've never heard the group, you need to buy this album. They represent a great style of music that is all but extinct. It's a shame, too. It's our loss.