Wasn't That a Time: The Best of [Import]

The Weavers | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 27, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Half Moon UK
• ASIN: B000024SZ4
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,883 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. On Top Of Old Smokey

2. Hard, Ain't It Hard

3. Goodnight Irene

4. Around The Corner (Beneath The Berry Tree)

5. Old Paint (Ride Around Little Dogies)

6. (The Wreck Of The) John B.

7. The Roving Kind

8. Tzena, Tzena, Tzena

9. Wimoweh

10. Kisses Sweeter Than Wine

11. So Long (It's Been Good To Know You)

12. Midnight Special

13. Rock Island Line

14. Sylvie

15. Lonesome Traveller

16. When The Saints Go Marching In

17. Bay Of Mexico

18. Hush Little Baby

19. I Know Where I'm Going

20. Suliram

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

It's richly ironic that Pete Seeger threatened to ax the wires when Bob Dylan went electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Dylan, after all, was doing the same thing Seeger had done 15 years earlier with the Weavers: lending contemporary pop arrangements to folk music. Back in 1950, going pop didn't mean plugging in electric guitars but adding big-band charts by Frank Sinatra's future arranger Gordon Jenkins. And it worked. The quartet took songs by a black Louisiana convict, a Dust Bowl socialist, and an anonymous Zulu troubador and turned them into pop hits between 1950 and 1952. The Weavers' four-CD box set, Wasn't That a Time, begins with eight of those early 78s for Decca Records and then offers 79 more songs from their later recordings for Vanguard. Weavers' songs like "Wimoweh," "If I Had a Hammer," "Guantanamera," and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" have been recorded by everyone from R.E.M. to Aretha Franklin. If only for their historical impact, the songs on this box set are important. --Geoffrey Himes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another solid collection of the best of the Weavers, August 2, 2005

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: Wasn't That a Time: The Best of (Audio CD)

Little did I know when I was growing up listening to the Smothers Brothers do their versions of "Tzena Tzena," "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," and "Marching to Pretoria" that the boys were doing songs they had learned from the Weavers. Now I know that even if you ignored the folk music revival you have probably heard songs the Weavers were doing in the 1950s, albeit by different names. You might not recognize "Wimoweh," but you have heard a version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," while "Wreck of the John B." is probably more familiar as "Sloop John B." But it is folk artists such as Peter, Paul & Mary that have kept alive a lot of the songs the Weavers made popular (e.g., "If I Had a Hammer").

The Weavers were Pete Seeger, tenor and banjo; Ronnie Gilbert, alto; Lee Hays, baritone and bass; and Fred Hellerman, baritone and guitar. "Wasn't That a Time: The Best of the Weavers" is one of several solid collections of the songs this seminal folk group made popular. This 22-track collection should not be confused with the larger box set also entitled "Wasn't That a Time." Still, this has the core songs that are on anybody's short list of Weavers songs, which would be the ones mentioned above plus "On the Top of Old Smokey," "Goodnight Irene," "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," "The Midnight Special," "Rock Island Line," "Lonesome Traveler," and "When the Saints Go Marching In." Really, the only song that I can say is missing that would be on my list is "Follow the Drinking Gourd," but that is not enough to quibble and if that song is high up on your list keep looking because it is out there to be found.

The other part of the equation is that this collection offers some other songs by the Weavers that do not pop up as often, such as "Around The Corner (Beneath The Berry Tree)," "Old Paint (Ride Around Little Dogies)," and "Along the Colorado Trail," all of which serve to remind you how subversive this group was and why they were denounced as Communist sympathizers (I find it interesting that the Weavers were also denounced by the left for being sellouts at the same time they were being viewed with suspicion by the right because of their politics). Unfortunately, if you are hoping to hear what all the fuss was about in terms of the political controversy, forget about it. For that you probably have to check out the solo recordings of Seeger, who would continue to be political thorn in the side of the system for some time to come.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can't go wrong with this set!, October 6, 2000

By 

Rick Forrester "A shaman" (Hoboken, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Wasn't That a Time (Audio CD)

This 4 CD set covers the gamut of the Weavers career, and contains versions of just about all the hit songs that are associated with them. While disk 3 that features Erik Darling in place of Pete Seeger is a bit weaker, if you want a smattering of all phases of their career, this is the definitely the set to get. The booklet that comes with this set contains recent interviews with the (surviving) Weavers, and is also worthwhile.

If you already know that you like (or love) the Weavers, than I would say Go for It!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Down Memory Lane, February 5, 2010

By 

Sweetwater Larry - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Wasn't That a Time: The Best of (Audio CD)

There's a wonderful old movie, "A Trip to Bountiful," in which Geraldine Page goes back to visit the small community where she used to live. When Page's character, "Carrie Watts," overcomes difficulties and reaches her destination, things aren't quite the way she remembered, but it was worth the effort all the same. For me, this Weavers CD was my trip to Bountiful. If I literally went back to the 1950s, things wouldn't be what I recall. But these songs . . . these songs have improved with age: "On Top of Old Smokey," "Goodnight, Irene," "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You," "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena," "The Roving Kind." There's more than a dozen other cuts, but these revive the deepest memories and make me say, with the Weavers, "Wasn't That a Time?" This was also the era of early Pete Seeger. In fact, wasn't he in the Weavers? If you could wear out a CD the way you did the 78 RPM's of the original Weavers records, my Weavers CD would need to be replaced.

I don't want to go back and try to relive the Fifties. They are part of those "dear, dead days beyond recall." But the music from that era comes alive for me, thanks to modern technology which recreates the sound of the Weavers.