Customer Reviews

Songs of Free Men / A Paul Robeson Recital

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It's hard to believe that most of these recordings pre-date the advent of magnetic tape: the CD transfer is superlative. The songs and performance are beyond reproach. Notable is the imaginative packaging in miniature 'record album' format, complete with the original cover art by Alex Steinweiss, and a replica of the original Columbia record label applied to the CD.

In response to a previous question: Robeson's performance of Danny Boy (Londonderry Air) can be found on the Vanguard LP entitled "Robeson" (VRS-9037).

Put this on your stereo and if it is good enough the depth and richness of Robeson's voice will make your fillings rattle and your chest rumble. The power of his voice is awesome. This CD is superbly recorded with no audible noise at normal listening levels.

In the 1940s, before rabid McCarthyism and racism had taken its toll on him, Robeson made these wonderful recordings of spirituals, classics and pop tunes. Accompanied by the solo piano of the incomparable Lawrence Brown, or by an orchestra, the songs ring out with pride, dignity, skill and unmatched integrity. The shameful treatment that Robeson was subject to from American authorities certainly seem grotesquely absurd to a modern listener. The wonderful version of "The House I Live In" included on this cd should forever kill off any suspicion that Robeson did not love his country deeply. This album ought to be heard by millions of people, world wide. Robeson's voice is nothing less than a glorious high point in 20th century music, and it's hard to think of any recording capturing it to greater advantage.

Really enjoyable set of songs. I never tire of hearing Robeson sing. These songs are my constant delight while on the road.

Recorded during the 1940s, this album captures with all its splendor the radian vocal majesty of this unequalled bass : Paul Robeson the indomitable, the supreme nightingale of a selected repertoire.

The first seventeen tracks were recorded with the piano accompaniment of Lawrence Brown and the last eight with the Columbia Concert Orchestra conducted by Emanuel Balaban. They convey indeed arguably the excitement and visceral expression around every song.

This album was a fortunate release for all of those who were aware about him but that never had the chance to appreciate his craftsmanship. Particularly effective are to my mind, the following tracks: Ol' man river (His everlasting personal hymn), Water boy, My curly headed baby, Balm in Gilead, From border to border, The purest kid of Guy, Song of the plains and Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

Believe me all the album is pure gold. One of these albums that you definitively will not be able to do without.

Don't miss it.

During World War II Robeson recorded the original Songs of Freemen. I believe there were eight songs in this album. I well remember them from my early childhood, and they inspired attitudes which have lasted more than fifty years. I suppose they can't have the same meaning for the present generation, but they are certainly worth a listen.

Some of these are very different from what you may have come to expect from Robeson. The spirituals and more usual Robeson pieces have been added to fill out the CD. Even so, they are some of his best. But, if you haven't heard Peat Bog Soldiers (written in a Nazi Concentration Camp), or Song of the Plains (Meadowlands), you're in for a real treat. And for you older foldks, especially you "Red Diaper Babies", a real emotional high!

"Red diaper babies" have greeted this disc with nostalgic joy, and it captures a time and an aesthetic and a political belief with precision. Anyone interested in the emotional life of the pro-Soviet left of the 1940s should buy this disc. It's something like Henry Wallace set to music. There is much more to Robeson than that, however, and Sony has given us Robeson whole: there are songs by American masters of the musical, there are labor songs, religious songs, as well as the kind of faux-folk songs which the butcher supreme Josef Stalin encouraged and which were not taken seriously inside the USSR (except at gunpoint!!) but which were taken up by dupes around the world. This is Robeson at his least savory - willing propagandist for a vile mass murderer. Songs such as "Native Land" (fittingly, Robeson is referring to the Soviet Union) and the Red Army song are the equivalent of the "Horst Wessel Song", anthems of murder, and it is difficult to listen to the worst of them without retching. On the other hand, Robeson's commitment to American folk culture was real. "Balm in Gilead" is deeply beautiful; "John Henry" is heroic; "By an' By" is both resigned yet hopeful. "Joe Hill" captures an era in labor history. Anyone interested in American popular song should hear these. Turning to Broadway, his "Old Man River" is very fine, though Robeson changed the lyrics for political reasons and Leonard Warren has done the song better. I disagree with the editorial reviewer: "I Still Suits Me" is wonderfully playful and shows Robeson using his gorgeously rich voice to tease and poke fun. However, Marc Blitzstein's "Purest Kind of a Guy" is beyond saving - another example of Robeson recording an unworthy song by a political fellow-traveller. Ugh. But for every miss there are two hits. Robeson performs Mendelssohn's Elijah with nobility, and sings his favorite song, "Water Boy", with joyous pride: "There ain't no hammer that's on these mountains that rings like mine, boys, that rings like mine."
No one need have any fears about the mono sound quality. The orchestra in the second half of the program is at times a little dwarfed by Robeson's voice, but it generally sounds clean and colorful, and the great artist's voice rings like no other.

There was a reviewer that presented us with the typical judgemental Cold War posturing without acknowledging any historical context or making any comparisons to the history of other nations.

Why did so many artists, intellectuals, etc. support Stalin's Russia.

1. Many knew that the US had its own unsavory history: its gulag was the three hundred year old slave system, its genocide was the removal and ethnocide of the indigenous peoples, and its regular support for the oppression and "free trade"colonization of many nations in the Far East and Latin America.

2. The global capitalist system appeared to have completely collapsed and there were no obvious socioeconomic models that seemed to be working...it certainly wasn't doing so in the US.

3. For thinking and creative individuals in the Third World, it seemed that the only post-WWII nation that could stand up to the mighty hegemon -the US- was the SU.
That is why, for example, the last (uncharacteristic) portrait Frida Kahlo was in the process painting was one of Stalin.

She was horrified by the US elite's overthrow of Guatemala's and Iran's democratically elected governments.

4. In other nations, the communist parties many times supported the political rights and economic empowerment of extremely subservient populations -such as blacks in the US. And they put their lives and bodies on the line. This is something liberals wouldn't even think of doing.

5. Hitler's regime was based on the extermination or extreme subjegation of whole populations -permanently.

6. If you are honest to yourself, you must ask, where, in the political and economic world of the 1930s and 40s, would you find yourself? Even in the US and W Europe, millions were both starving and homeless (Hoovervilles). What were the actual options at that time? There were not many.

Last, My wish was that the SU based it's revolution on the already existing mir system of the peasants. It was democratic, communal and non-consumerist. The mir was open to learning appropriate forms of new agricultural technology in orderto raise both the level of agricultural yields and expand the diversity of crops and animal protein.

And it generated a very authentic folk music, dance and craft culture.

However, what would have happened if the SU was organized under the above principals and something like the Nazi regime invaded its territory. As WWI demonstrated, Imperial Germany's war in the East was its most successful venture. And the military elite were already putting into place many of the plans Hitler's regime later attempted to institute.

I found this album in a thrift store last week, for a couple of dollars. It's the original pressing on four 78 RPM records, in a gatefold format. It's in pristine condition. I really bought it for the incredible cover art, although I hope to be able to listen to it in this format at some point.

Does anyone know the album on which Paul Robeson sings the Irish ballad, "Danny Boy"?