John McCutcheon – To Everyone in all the World: A Celebration of Pete Seeger

JOHN McCUTCHEON

To Everyone in all the World: A Celebration of Pete Seeger

Appalseed Productions

folkmusic.com

This coming May 3 will mark the centennial of the birth of legendary folksinger Pete Seeger. Pete – who died January 27, 2014 at age 94 – was perhaps the most influential and certainly one of the most inspirational figures in the folk world.

When Pete died, I mentioned I was grateful for having had the opportunity to have known known him for most of my life and to have enjoyed some small measure of friendship with him.

John McCutcheon – who has surely been one of our finest folksingers for decades now – was also deeply inspired by Pete, whom he describes as “a beacon, a mentor, a friend, a musical partner” to him. On To Everyone in all the World: A Celebration of Pete Seeger, John offers a loving and masterful tribute to Pete with 15 songs from his repertoire (12 of them written or co-written by Pete), performed in many different styles, many of them featuring stellar guest collaborators.

John opens the album with great versions of the optimistic “Well May the World Go” with backing by Hot Rize, one of the finest of my generation’s bluegrass bands, and “If I Had a Hammer,” with members of the great Cajun band Beausoleil.

I could mention every other song as a highlight – and they all are – but I’ll call attention to a few.

Pete Seeger and John McCutcheon (2010)

“Die Gedanken Sind Frei,” a 19th century song that became an anti-Nazi rallying cry in Germany during the Second World War, is given a classical treatment with a brass ensemble and wonderful harmonies by Ottawa’s own Finest Kind.

“Sailing Down My Golden River,” my favorite of Pete’s many Hudson River songs, is a beautiful duet with Suzy Bogguss and features some lovely fills from John’s hammer dulcimer, while “Guantanamera,” Pete’s adaptation of a song made from the words of Cuban poet José Marti, has an infectious Latin arrangement and duet vocals by Nicaraguan singer Katia Cardenal.

“Letter to Eve,” which Pete used the biblical figures of Adam and Eve as the starting point for a critical commentary on the state of the world, is arranged brilliantly in a blues-jazz setting, while “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” – on which Pete used his army training experiences during the Second World War as a metaphor for the futility of the Vietnam War in the 1960s – has a powerful rock arrangement.

To Everyone in all the World: A Celebration of Pete Seeger is the first great folk album of 2019 and a most worthy companion to John’s previous centennial tributes marking the birth of Woody Guthrie and the execution of Joe Hill.

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–Mike Regenstreif

The Klezmatics – Apikorsim/Heretics

THE KLEZMATICS

Apikorsim/Heretics

World Village

klezmatics.com

The most recent albums by the Klezmatics were the superb in-concert set, Live At Town Hall, released in 2011 but recorded in 2006, and the Grammy-winning Wonder Wheel, featuring the Klezmatics’ wonderful settings of newly discovered Woody Guthrie lyrics on Jewish themes, in 2006. So, it’s been much too long since we’ve had a new album from perhaps my all-time favorite klezmer band – in fact, one of my all-time favorite bands period.

Apikorsim/Heretics is a return to the kind of progressive Jewish cultural albums the Klezmatics were making in the first half of their now 30-year history: superb material drawn from both traditional sources and their own imaginations  matched by brilliant singing and playing.

In some ways, it’s an album of contrasts. On the one hand, there are songs like “Zol shoyn kumen di geule (May Redemption Come),” a joyous longing for the coming of the Messiah, and “Ver firt di ale shifn? (Who Guides the Ships?),” a contemplative song about God, which express religious concepts which could be embraced by the most fervently Orthodox Jews. On the other hand, there are songs like the equally joyous title track which celebrate a completely secular lifestyle that rejects all of the restrictions of an Orthodox – or even moderately religious – lifestyle.

There are also songs of class struggle including “Der yokh (L’estaca),” a Yiddish translation of a Catalan song, “Kermeshl in Ades (Party in Odessa),” whose joyous music is in contrast to the bitter subtext in the lyrics, and “Vi lang? (How Long?),” which challenges oppressed workers to rise up and overcome their chains in terms similar to those expressed by the likes of Joe Hill or Woody Guthrie.

Among the most poignant songs are “Tayer Yankele (Dear Little Yankl),” a traditional Yiddish song about an economic migrant or refugee who went to Istanbul looking for a better life only to be murdered, and “Der mames shpigl (My Mother’s Mirror),” about the realization so many of us have as we age about how much there is of our parents in ourselves.

One of the most infectious songs on the album is “Shushan Purim,” which celebrates the tradition, practiced by some, of getting so drunk on the holiday of Purim that you can’t tell the difference between Mordechai, one of the heroes of the Purim story, and Haman, the evil villain of the story – but, then, waking up the next day, Shushan Purim, with a horrible hangover. The music to the song was composed by Klezmatics’ trumpeter Frank London, while the lyrics were written by author and Yiddish scholar Michael Wex, my oldest childhood friend. 

While all of the songs are sung in Yiddish, the CD booklet includes English translations of the lyrics so there is no language gap for non-Yiddish speakers.

As always, the lead singing of Lorin Sklamberg, is a delight throughout the album as is the playing of each of the Klezmatics. As well as on the arrangements to the songs, their playing is featured on several great instrumentals including violinist Lisa Gutkin’s “Der geler fink (The Yellow Finch),” clarinetist Matt Darriau’s “Three-Ring Sirba,” and Frank London’s “Green Violin.”

Apikorsim/Heretics was released late last year but it arrived just a couple of weeks too late to claim a spot on my best-of list for 2016. But, because I only got to hear the CD this month, it will definitely be in contention for the 2017 list.

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--Mike Regenstreif

John McCutcheon – Joe Hill’s Last Will

JOHN McCUTCHEON

Joe Hill’s Last Will

Appalsongs

folkmusic.com

Joe Hill (1879-1915) is a legendary figure in the history of folk music and the labor movement. A Swedish immigrant (born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund), he immigrated to the United States in 1902 and learned to speak English as a migrant laborer. Sometime around 1910, Hill joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the Wobblies, a union that believes in industrial unionization, “One Big Union,” as opposed to trade unionism, and began to write songs for them – often set to tunes borrowed from popular songs of the day. In some ways, Woody Guthrie followed in Hill’s footsteps a generation later.

In 1914, Hill was arrested in Salt Lake City, Utah for a murder he did not commit, and was tried and convicted. He was executed by firing squad on November 19, 1915 at the age of 36.

Like many of my generation, I initially learned about Joe Hill from the song written about him in the 1930s by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson via recordings by Paul Robeson and recordings and performances in the ‘60s by Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. Much of what I know about Joe Hill, though, came from another great Wobblie songwriter, my late friend Bruce “Utah” Phillips, who I heard sing many of Joe Hill’s songs, and tell many stories about him, over a period of many years.

This year is the 100th anniversary of Hill’s execution and John McCutcheon marks the occasion with Joe Hill’s Last Will, an inspired and inspiring collection of Joe Hill songs – a couple of which I’m hearing for the first time on this CD, others which I know from recordings by such artists as Utah Phillips, Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, and Hazel Dickens.

One of the astounding things that hits home about these songs is the so very brief period in which they were created. The earliest is from 1911 and the latest from 1915 – just a four year period. But, although these songs date from a century and more ago and are essentially topical songs, most – particularly with John’s infectious and creative arrangements – seem relevant to the (economic) times we’re living in now.

While the entire album is entirely praiseworthy, some of the finest moments include “It’s a Long Way to the Soup Line,” a song Hill wrote in prison in 1915 to the tune of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”; “The Preacher & the Slave,” a parody of “In the Sweet Bye and Bye,” that Hill used to mock the Salvation Army (the “Starvation Army”) and their brass bands that were used back in the day to disrupt IWW rallies; and the rousing finale, “There is Power in the Union,” on which John is joined by a bunch of fellow workers from the American Federation of Musicians, Local 1000 (the folksingers' local), and the Seattle Labor Chorus.

Certainly the most moving song is the title track, “Joe Hill’s Last Will,” whose words Hill wrote the day before his execution and which were smuggled out of the prison by a guard.

My will is easy to decide,
For there is nothing to divide.
My kind don't need to fuss and moan –
“Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.”

My body? Ah, If I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce,
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow.

Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will.
Good luck to all of you.

Joe Hill

“Joe Hill’s Last Will” has been set to music several times over the years – I have a bluegrass version on the collaborative 1976 album by Country Cooking and the Fiction Brothers – but John’s lovely version is to a melody of his own. (I’ve also heard it performed as recitation by both Utah Phillips and the late Tex König.)

I’ll also note that a couple of the songs, “Overalls & Snuff,” and “Where the Fraser River Flows,” are of special Canadian interest as they were written for the strike against the Canadian National Railroad in 1912.

An essential recording and an excellent companion to John's Woody Guthrie tribute, This Land: Woody Guthrie's America.

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--Mike Regenstreif