Classic Protest Songs: Smithsonian Folkways

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 24, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Smithsonian Folkways
• ASIN: B001Q704WA
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,931 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available.
Genre: Folk Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 24-MAR-2009

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As important now as it was then, October 24, 2009

By 

Birdman (Minnetonka, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Classic Protest Songs: Smithsonian Folkways (Audio CD)

This is an important album.

Whenever I find learn another multinational bank has foreclosed on a home in my neighborhood, I recall those who lost their homes to banks a half century ago (even when the owner held principal equity. I remember those whose farms have been foreclosed, whose businesses have gone under for generations because of market pressures beyond all control. The difference between now and then is -- back then -- people reacted with persistent, constructive anger at the way our financial system has wreaked havoc on common people. Earlier generations, through their protest songs, mustered the faith to hold on.

As one confusing reviewer claimed -- in a disparaging context, though here my context is positive -- this superb sampler supplements some of fine remastered recordings of protest songs from the 1940's through '60's by mostly charismatic people who wrote or adapted some cogent, moving ballads and songs of unmitigated defiance. The "supplemental" artists performing on this 22-cut recording include, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Phil Ochs, Steve Forbert and 17 others. Standouts include "Bourgeous Blues," "Turn, Turn, Turn," "Masters of War,""Strange Fruit" and other compositions.

Most performances here, save two, are worthwhile or very fine. While the sound of source recordings is understandably variable, the remastering is crisp and clear; and like all Folkways samplers, the price is right. The liner notes offer both new and veteran listeners a concise introduction to protest music as a form and the annotations to each cut are generally helpful.

The opener -- perhaps the only fully documentary cut here -- speaks to our generation more directly than any other on the album. At just :26, "Freedom Now," chanted by mass-meeting attendees at a rally in Hattiesburg Mississippi in early 1964, shakes it up. While the "freedom" of the song relates to the original Civil Rights Movement, the movement continues. "Freedom" still has universal meaning for us, though: Freedom from predatory banks. Freedom from predatory employers. Freedom from those who would deprive a newborn child of necessary health care. Freedom to drink water and breathe air without poison.

So this is a worthy collection. You can't dance to it nor will you listen to it with the same frequency as, Coltrane or Dylan, both of whom I love.

You can sing to it, though; and you can teach your kids to sing to it too.

Five stars.

0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars As advertised, August 29, 2009

By 

Lewes Martin (Lewes, DE) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Classic Protest Songs: Smithsonian Folkways (Audio CD)

This is probably more to supplement a collection than for every day listening. Of historical value.