“What are you listening to?” my wife asked me in an incredulous tone of voice. I was listening to The Weavers singing “On Top of Old Smoky,” one of the priceless tracks on this collection, The Best of the Vanguard Years. I suspect her reaction is not all that uncommon.
The Weavers were one of the most popular groups in America and parts of Europe during the so-called urban folk revival. They were a perfect fit for America in the 1950s. They enunciated clearly, sang precise four-part harmonies, and played their acoustic instruments carefully. And they looked … well, they looked like they sounded. Safe. The kind of neatly dressed and well groomed folks who would be at home in a suburban dining room or at a backyard barbecue.
In a word, The Weavers — Pete Seeger on banjo, Ronnie Gilbert singing alto, Lee Hays on bass and Fred Hellerman on guitar — look and sound “square.” That’s part of what made them so subversive.
It’s too easy from the vantage of the New Millennium to see The Weavers as corny purveyors of sanitized, radio-friendly folk music. Americans had lived through the Great Depression and the chaos of World War II. They were just getting used to the idea that the human race was capable of planning and carrying out genocide on an unthinkable scale and now possessed weapons that could wipe out all life on the planet. They wanted calm, quiet and orderly government, so they elected strong, quiet Eisenhower; and they wanted calm, quiet and orderly entertainment, not that scary “race music” that was beginning to come out of the South.
The Weavers were a foot in the door. They brought America’s folk music heritage to the living rooms, radios and concert halls of white, Christian, middle-class Americans. They opened the door for the Woody Guthries, the Ramblin’ Jack Elliotts, the Peter, Paul and Marys, the Simon and Garfunkels, and the Bob Dylans of the world to come in.
Sure, they pronounced everything clearly, strummed their instruments neatly and precisely, and wore ties. But alongside staid songs like “Smoky,” they introduced subversive ideas and sounds. They sang songs by a hell-raising black ex-con named Huddie Ledbetter and had the white audiences singing along to “Midnight Special” as well as “Goodnight Irene.” They reminded them of the injustices of the Depression with Yip Harburg’s “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” They brought in diverse elements of American and World music like the Israeli folksong “Tzena Tzena” and the black gospel sounds of “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “Go Tell it on the Mountain.” They brought socialist ideas into the mainstream with “Sixteen Tons” and “This Land is Your Land.” They inspired the up-and-coming folk singers of the ’60s with their renditions of “If I Had a Hammer,” “House of the Rising Sun,” and “Wreck of the John B.”
All these songs and more (some never previously released) are included on this glorious disc, culled by Vanguard from several different records, including live performances at Carnegie Hall in 1955 and 1963. It’s a rich slice of musical history that, if you listen closely and with perception, is inspirational. These musicians put their careers and reputations on the line when they sang, in the midst of the Cold War and military expansionism, about putting an end to war (“Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream”). They dared to tell the story of racial injustice behind the rousing ditty “Marching to Pretoria.”
Most of all, they helped wake Americans up to the wonderful folk music that was all around them, and helped get America singing. Perhaps we could all use a reminder of those times that maybe weren’t so much more simple after all, and a refresher course on the power of three chords, four-part harmony, acoustic instruments, and a few verses and choruses about common folks and their concerns.
If that’s square, so be it. I’ll go tell it on the mountain with them.
(Vanguard, 2001)
