Cover Image

Track List

1.	Ground Hog
2.	Ride An Old Paint
3.	Hard Ain't It Hard
4.	House Of The Rising Sun
5.	Babe O'MIne
6.	State Of Arkansas
7.	Side By Side
8.	Away Rio
9.	Blow The Man Down
10.	Blow Ye WInds Heigh Ho
11.	The Coast Of High Barbary
12.	The Golden Vanity
13.	Haul Away Joe
14.	The Sinking Of The Reuben James
15.	Union Maid
16.	Talking Union
17.	All I Want
18.	Get Thee Behind Me Satan
19.	Song For Bridges
20.	Which Side Are You On?
21.	The Dodger Song
22.	Plow Under
23.	Liza Jane
24.	Deliver The Goods
25.	Billy Boy
26.	Belt-Line Girl
27.	Ballard Of October
28.	Washington Breakdown
29.	Round And Round Hitler's Grave
30.	C For Conscription
31.	The Strange Death Of John Doe

Details

Released	2006
No of Discs	1
Label	Rev-Ola

Description

The sleeve notes on this excellent release sum up the Almanac Singers so well, they are copied below;

'The Almanac Singers were a group of folk musicians who achieved popularity in the radical left/anti-fascist circles of early 1940sAmerica, using the music of the people and the soil in a classic leftist way to promote their intellectual concerns. Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Americana Godfather Woody Guthrie began playing together informally at the communal Almanac House after Seeger and Hays had been playing left-wing political functions for a time. Mainstream national success began after the American Youth Congress meeting in Washington D.C. in February of 1941. Others who sang with the group at various times included folk/leftist legends such as Sis Cunningham, Peter Hawes, Butch Hawes, Bess Lomax , Cisco Houston, and Arthur Stern. Politics and music remained closely intertwined with the members' political beliefs, which were far-left and led to controversial associations with the US Communist Party.

Their first release was the album "Songs For John Doe" on their own indie label, which urged non-intervention in World War II, and was made with the help of Eric Bernay (of Keynote), Joe Thompson (of NBC), Nicholas Ray (future film director) and Alan Lomax (musicologist). The second album was "Talking Union", a collection of Trade Union-themed songs, many of which were intensely anti-Roosevelt. More recordings followed, but blacklisting and internal friction drove the group apart soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Key members Hayes and Seeger went on to enjoy chart success with The Weavers, but the radical politics which informed their early work returned to haunt them as they became victims of the sinister early 1950s anti-Communist witch-hunt which divided America...

The Almanac Singers are at the very root of the politicised modern American folk music which rose from the ashes in the early 1960s to take over the world and here are their most vital recordings in a first-time European CD collection.'

Price: £7.99