5.0 out of 5 stars
The Long Memory, Indeed, January 10, 2009
This review is from: Long Memory (Audio CD)
The first paragraph here has been used in reviewing other Rosalie Sorrels CDs in this space.
"My first association of the name Rosalie Sorrels with folk music came, many years ago now, from hearing the recently departed folk singer/storyteller/ songwriter and unrepentant Wobblie (IWW) Utah Phillips mention his long time friendship with her going back before he became known as a folksinger. I also recall that combination of Sorrels and Phillips as he performed his classic "Starlight On The Rails" and she his also classic "If I Could Be The Rain" on a PBS documentary honoring the Café Lena in Saratoga, New York, a place that I am also very familiar with for many personal and musical reasons. Of note here: it should be remembered that Rosalie saved, literally, many of the compositions that Utah left helter-skelter around the country in his "bumming" days."
That said, what could be better than to have Rosalie and Utah on the same CD (although not together) singing and telling stories about the old days in the labor movement, mainly the labor movement of the American West that was instrumental in creating the Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW, Wobblies). Listen to Rosalie on the story of Aunt Molly Jackson and the National Miners' Union (NMU) (a Stalinist `third period' "red union" that took over when John L. Lewis' UMW left the miners in the lurch-sound familiar?). Or the saga of a mill closing in an earlier version of runaway factories (then mainly to the South of this country) in "Aragon Mills".
A nice story told by Utah is that of the genesis of soap box oration by labor agitators as is his singing of his classic ode to the average working stiff "All Used Up". Utah here pays tribute to the heroic exploits of Mother Jones, one of our early real militant labor leaders (by example, on the streets I should add). And also notes what happens when there are no (or few, as today) militant unions to fight for decency and justice in "No More Reds In The Union".
I give special attention here to "Nevada Jane" a song that Utah wrote based on stories told to him in Butte, Montana about the legendary "Big Bill" Haywood , probably the best labor leader, pound for pound, produced by the American labor movement in the 20th century and his wife Nevada Jane. Whether the stories he was told were true and the song has it right about the relationship between the pair are separate questions but I still like it. While Utah and I had a very wide political gap between us we shared one thing in common- a long, long memory about the historical fate of the international labor movement. Adieu, Utah.
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