Pop Culture Gadabout
Thursday, August 02, 2007
      ( 8/02/2007 07:16:00 AM ) Bill S.  


"LAST NIGHT I HAD THE STRANGEST DREAM" – Looking at the title of the current "Vanguard Visionaries" CD retrospective series, a part of me couldn't help wondering if that "visionary" label isn't even more appropriately applied to Maynard Solomon, the co-founder/producer of Vanguard Records. It was Solomon's label, after all, which had the foresight to go against commercial wisdom and sign the Weavers to a new recording contract in the mid-fifties. The legendary folk quartet, though it had a small string of hit folk singles in the late forties/early fifties on Decca, were commercially blacklisted in the McCarthy Era for their openly left-wing allegiances. Though little in the group's actual recorded repertoire ("Goodnight Irene," "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," "Rock Island Line") reflected their political affiliations, that hadn't stopped timid record companies and reactionary radio programmers from steering far away from the group.

Vanguard helped changed that with a recording of their 1955 reunion concert, At Carnegie Hall, and a second volume from the same performance. In so doing, the label helped to usher in the folk music boom of the sixties. The rediscovered Weavers paved the way for the commercial pop success of groups like the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul & Mary – and also helped expand Vanguard's repertoire beyond its original classical music catalog. When the original quartet (Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman & Pete Seeger) splintered with Seeger's decision to go solo in 1958, vocalist Eric Darling proved an effective replacement. He, too, would ultimately leave to form the Rooftop Singers, but in later years both Seeger and Darling variously showed up at Weavers reunion concerts.

Given this history, though, perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the current ten-track Vanguard Visionaries retrospective disc is the absence of any liner notes explaining when each track was recorded, so we might have a better idea of the personnel involved. Since the band did a second big concert at Carnegie Hall in 1963 before their second full dissolution in 1964, attempting to gauge the guilty parties by doing a studio vs. concert comparison is no help either. This is really the first time where the absence of liner notes in these "Vanguard Visionaries" releases bugged me, primarily because I have less of a handle on these folkies' recorded output than I do, say, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, which itself had its share of personnel changes over the years.

As for the music itself, it's folk, pure and simple: where the group's earlier Decca recordings frequently suffer from excess orchestral sweetening, their Vanguard tracks are just the foursome and their acoustic instruments. A lot of the expected standards are here – "This Land Is Your Land," "Midnight Special," Hays & Seeger's "If I Had A Hammer," "House of the Rising Sun" – along with their classic concert performance of "Wimoweh," a pop hit for the group in the early fifties and an even bigger charter for the Tokens when it was incorporated into "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Though it isn't mentioned in the track listings, the group did manage to sneak in a political statement during their Carnegie performance of the Israeli folk song, "Tzena Tzena," tacking Ed McCurdy's anti-war song "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" onto the end of the track. The song's sentiments (Gee, wouldn't it be sweet if all the world's rulers put an end to war!) may sound pretty innocuous today, but it was fairly daring back in the day.

But the main pleasures of the Weavers are to be found in their singing: Ronnie Gilbert's stately soprano (beautifully used in "Rising Sun"), the plainer but melodic voices of the group's four male singers – folkish tenors Seeger and Darling, the slightly more country tinged Hellerman, jovial bass Hays. If one of the basic tenets of folk music is to celebrate and encourage the singing of regular folks, than there's no better representatives of this than the Weavers. Listening to them singing together, you have to be the dourest of fuddy-duddies not to recognize the sheer joy of unaffected group sing that these folk brought to the mics. It can be heard to this day in the Weavers' musical descendants, and it still sounds pretty damn good in its original form.

So let's give a thanks to that ol' leftie visionary, Solomon, for rescuing these veteran folkies from their commercial exile. Anybody up for a rousing group sing?
# |



Pop cultural criticism - plus the occasional egocentric socio/political commentary by Bill Sherman (popculturegadabout AT yahoo.com).



On Sale Now!
Measure by Measure:



A Romantic Romp with the Fat and Fabulous
By Rebecca Fox & William Sherman

(Available through Amazon)

Measure by Measure Web Page







Ask for These Fine Cultural Blogs & Journals by Name!

aaronneathery.com News
Aaron Neathery

American Sideshow Blow-Off
Marc Hartzman

Arf Lovers
Craig Yoe

Attentiondeficitdisorderly
Sean T. Collins

Barbers Blog
Wilson Barbers

The Bastard Machine
Tim Goodman

The Beat
Heidi MacDonald

BeaucoupKevin
Kevin Church

Big Fat Blog
Paul McAleer

Big Mouth Types Again
Evan Dorkin

Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog
Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag

Blog This, Pal!
Gordon Dymowski

Bookgasm
Rod Lott

Cartoon Brew
Amid Amidi & Jerry Beck

Cartoon Web Log!
Daryl Cagle

Clea's Cave
Juana Moore-Overmyer

Collected Editions

The Comics Curmudgeon
Josh Fruhlinger

The Comics Reporter
Tom Spurgeon

Comics.212
Christopher Butcher

Comics Waiting Room
Marc Mason

Comics Worth Reading
Johanna Draper Carlson

a dragon dancing with the Buddha
Ben Varkentine

Egon

Electromatic Radio
Matt Appleyard Aaron Neathery

Estoreal
RAB

Eye of the Goof
Mr. Bali Hai

Fred Sez
Fred Hembeck

Greenbriar Picture Shows
John McElwee

The Groovy Age of Horror
Curt Purcell

The Hooded Utilitarian
Noah Berlatsky

Hooray for Captain Spaulding
Daniel Frank

The Horn Section
Hal

The House Next Door
Matt Zoller Seitz

Howling Curmudgeons
Greg Morrow & Friends

The Hurting
Tim O'Neil

I Am A Child of Television
Brent McKee

I Am NOT the Beastmaster
Marc Singer

In Sequence
Teresa Ortega

Innocent Bystander
Gary Sassaman

Irresponsible Pictures
Pata

Jog - The Blog
Joe McCulloch

The Johnny Bacardi Show
David Allen Jones

Journalista
Dirk Deppey

King's Chronicles
Paul Dini

Let's You And Him Fight
One of the Jones Boys

Mah Two Cents
Tony Collett

Metrokitty
Kitty

Michael's Movie Palace
Michael

Nat's TV
Nat Gertler

Ned Sonntag

Neilalien

News from ME
Mark Evanier

No Rock&Roll Fun
Simon B

Omega Channel
Matt Bradshaw

Pen-Elayne on the Web
Elayne Riggs

PeterDavid.net
Peter David

(postmodernbarney.com)
Dorian White

Progressive Ruin
Mike Sterling

Punk Rock Graffiti
Cindy Johnson & Autumn Meredith

Revoltin' Developments
Ken Cuperus

Rhinoplastique
Marc Bernardin

Scrubbles
Matt Hinrichs

Self-Styled Siren
Campaspe

Spatula Forum
Nik Dirga

Tales from the Longbox
Chris Mosby

TangognaT

The Third Banana
Aaron Neathery & Friends

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.

Toner Mishap
B2 et al

Trusty Plinko Stick
Bill Doughty

TV Barn
Aaron Barnhart et al

Unqualified Offerings
Jim Henley

Various And Sundry
Augie De Blieck

Video WatchBlog
Tim Lucas

When Fangirls Attack
Kalinara & Ragnell

X-Ray Spex
Will Pfeifer

Yet Another Comics Blog
Dave Carter



A Brief Political Disclaimer:

If this blog does not discuss a specific political issue or event, it is not because this writer finds said event politically inconvenient to acknowledge - it's simply because he's scatterbrained and irresponsible.




My Token List of Poli-Blogs:

Alicublog
Roy Edroso

Eschaton
Atrios

Firedoglake
Jane Hamsher

James Wolcott

Lance Mannion

The Moderate Voice
Joe Gandelman

Modulator
Steve

Pandagon
Amanda Marcotte & Friends

The Sideshow
Avedon Carol

Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy

Talking Points Memo
Joshua Micah Marshall

This Modern World
Tom Tomorrow

Welcome to Shakesville
Melissa McEwan & Friends



Blogcritics: news and reviews
Site Feed



Powered by Blogger



Twittering:
    follow me on Twitter