Songs of Protest [Import]

The Almanac Singers | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Prism
• ASIN: B00005Q4AQ
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #330,085 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. I Ride an Old Paint

2. The Dodger Song

3. The Golden Vanity

4. House of the Rising Sun

5. Blow Ye Winds, Heigh Ho

6. Haul Away Joe

7. Blow the Man Down

8. Ground Hog

9. State of Arkansas

10. Coast of High Barbary

11. Hard, Ain't It Hard

12. Away, Rio

13. Billy Boy

14. Ballad of October 16

15. Plow Under

16. Get Thee Behind Me Satan

17. The Strange Death of John Doe

18. Round and Round Hitler's Grave

19. The Sinking of the Reuben James

20. Liza Jane

See all 29 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wasn't that a time?, June 24, 2002

By 

William E. Adams (Midland, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Songs of Protest (Audio CD)

Although I would date the modern recorded folksong movement from Woody Guthrie's "Dust Bowl Ballads", done in 1940, there is no doubt that the 1941 and early '42 performances of The Almanac Singers are precious historical gems. The group performed for a little more than a year, and had four recording sessions between April of '41 and February of '42. At the sessions, fewer than 35 songs were cut, and 29 of them are on this one bargain-priced and good-sounding disc. Actually, 11 different musicians performed either in person or on record as "Almanacs" ranging from solos to seven at a time. The most famous turned out to be Woody, who joined late, and Pete Seeger, there from the first, and Lee Hays, who later became a vital part of "The Weavers." Among the others were Josh White, Millard Lampell, Pete and Bess Hawes, and Sis Cunningham. The strength and the fatal flaw in the group was the same thing: identification with the American Communist Party at the end of the depression and just before the U.S. joined World War II. The generally shared leftist view allowed the Almanacs to write, arrange and perform the greatest pro-labor union songs we've ever had, during a time when forming or joining a union was an act of bravery. Five of those dated treasures are included here, including Woody's "Union Maid" and "I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister" (here titled "All I Want".) Also included is Woody's classic "Sinking of the Reuben James" with the lead vocal done by the young Pete Seeger, only a few months after the ship went down in the North Atlantic. Oddly, the most dated songs, a half-dozen which protested any thought of America joining the war (because in the weeks of their creation the Soviet Union and Germany had a friendship pact) are pretty much the most powerful pieces on here. Listening, one can find the seeds of the anti-Vietnam music which was nearly 25 years in the future. The Almanacs got caught in a bind caused by political naivete and youthful excess, because shortly after they recorded an album full of these kinds of tunes, the Hitler-Stalin treaty went bust, and all of a sudden it was OK to consider going to war. The final recording session, in early '42, after Pearl Harbor, is represented by four songs here, including two versions of "Round and Round Hitler's Grave." The disc starts out with traditional songs of farming, ranching, and going to sea, and while the Almanacs' performances are fine, there is a noticeable lack of passion when compared to the political songs which follow. Since Pete Seeger does lead vocals on 19 of these 29 items, any Pete fan needs to have this in his collection. He is so young here, he does not always sound like the more familiar and beloved Pete of the Civil Rights era. Same with Lee Hays, so young that he has not quite developed that magnificent deep sound that for my dough, was the soul of the Weavers, a group which came into its own nearly a decade later. If you like songs of the Depression, songs for or against WWII, leftist propaganda songs, pro-union numbers, or songs of the sea and soil, early Pete or early Woody, you should own this. For this price, it is priceless. You may not play it constantly, but when you do play it, it will take you back to an earlier but still troubled America, and to a group of good souls who played music more for love than money.