![]() Still, it's Seeger's homage to his friend and fellow Weaver, Lee Hays, who had recently passed away, that is the album's true highlight. He's more successful with time-tested material such as the 1920s ragtime of "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone," as well as Blind Blake's "Run, Come See Jerusalem" and a trio of tunes by his father. On the other hand, tracks such as Guthrie's cover of Tom Paxton's "I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler" and especially "Neutron Bomb" have lost much of their initial charm with time. Listening to Pete Seeger is kind of like hearing a museum piece, which in his case is fine. And while Seeger's singalongs and Guthrie's raps can wear a bit thin after a while, there are some genuine moments of both energy and hominess that are quite nice. Seeger is his usual folksy self, leading the crowd through a series of folk tunes ranging from the traditional African chant "Wimoweh (Mbube)" to Harry Chapin's "Circles," while Guthrie mixes his warm counterculture storytelling with selections of old ragtime, gospel, and folk. One who did was Sam Hinton, curator of the Thomas Wayland Vaughan Aquarium Museum at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego.Recorded in late summer of 1981, Precious Friend, the second of Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger's live collaborations, is pretty much what you would expect. Outside of activists within People's Songs, few people bought Seeger's record. Pete Seeger recorded it in 1948 for Irwin Silber and Brownie McGhee's Encore label. Laced with irony, the song circulated among other singer-songwriters after its appearance as Atomic Talking Blues in the January 1947 People's Songs Bulletin. After interviewing scientists on the consequences of a nuclear war, he wrote Old Man Atom, a talking blues using a musical template Woody Guthrie adapted from the recordings of Chris Bouchillon. When Earl Robinson opened the first People's Songs office on the West Coast, Partlow became one of its earliest members. ![]() ![]() In the mid-'40s forties he hosted a program covering labor issues for a Los Angeles station. Hired by the Los Angeles Daily News, he became an early supporter of the American Newspaper Guild, formed in 1933. The organization set up a booking office for its members and encouraged aspiring singer-songwriters and established composers to send sheet music or demos of new topical songs for possible publication in the monthly bulletin.Īlthough some professional composers were among People's Songs' earliest supporters, the most enduring songs to emerge from the movement were penned by non-professionals like Vern Partlow, a Los Angeles journalist and union activist.īorn May 25, 1910, in Bloomington, Illinois, Verneil Partlow moved to California after working for newspapers and radio stations in Wisconsin and Chicago. In October 1947, the organization held its first national convention in Chicago. Within a year's time the People's Songs concept spread to other major North American cities. Committees were established to find office space, set up a corporation, establish a regular newsletter, secure financing and recruit new members. Reaching out to New York's leftist folk, theatrical and literary communities, Seeger invited potential members to attend the December 31, 1945, organizational meeting of People's Songs. Seeger's model was Great Britain's Workers Music Association, founded in 1939 by members of England's Communist Party. With the war over and now back in civilian life, he dreamed of expanding the Almanacs' ideals into a national movement that would unify singers, performers, choral leaders and labor unions into a force for political and social change. Pete Seeger never abandoned the original vision of the Almanac Singers.
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