Where have all the flowers gone? A bunch to Pete Seeger on his 94th birthday today

Pete Seeger was born on May 3, 1919.  He turns 94 today.

Pete is an alumnus of the Louis August Jonas Foundation‘s Camp Rising Sun, a little nugget that appealed to me when I signed up as a counselor at the Rhinebeck campus in 19#&.  Pete and Arlo Guthrie teamed up for a series of concerts at East Coast venues that summer, including Wolftrap, Saratoga, Tanglewood and others.  Pete lives just down the river from Rhinebeck, near Beacon — but driving home from one of those venues was just a bit too far.  Pete stopped off at his childhood haunts and spent a day with us.

I hoped to invite him to Salt Lake City.  Pete said he might make such a trip, but it was unlikely — and impressed me with his reasoning and dedication to principle.  He explained that he was sticking closer to home as he approached 65, because there was work to do there.  He said he’d attended a local school board or PTA meeting to voice an opinion on some issue in Beacon.  One of the local newspapers complained he was “an outside agitator.”  That stung, he said — he’d been a resident in the town for more than 30 years.

Instead of complaining, though, he started thinking.  He said he’s traveled the world and worked for causes for other people in other towns; and he said he realized that one’s life’s work might be dedicated to making life better where one lives.  So he’d decided to campaign to clean up his local river, the Hudson . . . you’ve heard of the Sloop Clearwater?

Pete’s dedication to making things better, with local action where one may make a huge difference, stuck with me, and it should stick with all of us.

Last month I was doodling around Twitter, and discovered Pete had signed up for a Twitter account — years ago.  He tweets regularly.

He’s an encouragement to all of us.  He boasts that there is no group he has ever refused to sing for, and in his typical humility, he claims that he can get any group to join, so they do all the heavy lifting.  During the pre-inaugural festivities for President Obama’s first inauguration I was happy to see Bruce Springsteen singing some of Pete’s work — highly appropriate for any president’s inauguration — and I thought it would be more fitting only if Pete was singing himself.  Then Springsteen brought Pete out on stage to close out.

Pete keeps up a schedule of concerts, most for causes.  He sails with the Clearwater, campaigning for clean water on the Hudson River (much accomplished) and community efforts to change things for the better.  As you will see below, he pulls his own when raising the sails.    He cuts his own wood to heat the house he built.

Considering his age, 94, we might wonder why he keeps going, doing so much all the time.

Why does he keep on going?  He might be telling us, from this 2012 recording.

More:  

Cover of Pete Seeger’s single release (same photo on an album). The banjo features Pete’s traditional “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender,” a twist on a sticker famously seen on his old friend Woody Guthrie’s guitar. Wikipedia image

• “Celebrating Pete Seeger, America’s troubador, on his 94th birthday,” Beyond Chron, May 2, 2013; Pete’s got a new book out, a collection of much of his writing, Pete Seeger in his own words
• Pre-advance tickets end today for the Croton-on-Hudson Clearwater Festival (with a wonderful lineup), June 15 and 16, 2013 (you can still buy tickets, but they’ll be a bit more expensive) – from Watch Croton (on second thought, it’s a truly stellar lineup: Tom Chapin, David Bromberg, Judy Collins, Mavis Staples and a dozen others, plus Pete on the 16th)
• Pete Seeger on Thistle & Shamrock (bethmagill.wordpress.com)
• NY school names theater after Pete, Toshi Seeger (newsday.com)
• Folk Singer Pete Seeger Hosts Brodsky Fundraising Event (whytmedia.typepad.com)
• School theater named after Pete Seeger (cristianomlima. wordpress.com)
• Pete Seeger Sings for New Bruderhof (virtual-strategy.com)
• Expectations – Literacy and Music Monday (reimagineimago. wordpress.com)
• Bruce Springsteen & Pete Seeger To Be Inducted Into Academy Of Arts & Sciences (contactmusic.com)
• Pete Seeger to Strum for Fractivists in Milford (stateimpact.npr.org)
• “Ry Cooder and the Seegers,” at Old Time Party

Some material in this post is recycled from an earlier post.

Over 65? Why go on? Pete Seeger shows us

Intrigued to learn our old friend Pete Seeger signed up for a Twitter account — years ago.  Pete tweets regularly.

He’s an encouragement to all of us.  He boasts that there is no group he has ever refused to sing for, and in his typical humility, he claims that he can get any group to join, so they do all the heavy lifting.

Pete keeps up a schedule of concerts, most for causes.  He sails with the sloop Clearwater, campaigning for clean water on the Hudson River (much accomplished) and community efforts to change things for the better.  As you will see below, he pulls his own when raising the sails.    He cuts his own wood to heat the house he built.

Pete will be 94 on May 3, 2013.

Why does he keep on going?  He might be telling us, from this 2012 recording.

More:  

Cover of Pete Seeger’s single release (same photo on an album). The banjo features Pete’s traditional “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender,” a twist on a sticker famously seen on his old friend Woody Guthrie’s guitar. Wikipedia image

• Pete Seeger on Thistle & Shamrock (bethmagill.wordpress.com)
• NY school names theater after Pete, Toshi Seeger (newsday.com)
• Folk Singer Pete Seeger Hosts Brodsky Fundraising Event (whytmedia.typepad.com)
• School theater named after Pete Seeger (cristianomlima. wordpress.com)
• Pete Seeger Sings for New Bruderhof (virtual-strategy.com)
• Expectations – Literacy and Music Monday (reimagineimago. wordpress.com)

“If a tree falls” — Bruce Cockburn

Bruce Cockburn (pronounced “coe-burn”), “If a Tree Falls.”  From his 1989 album, “Big Circumstance.”

Canada’s music copyright group SOCAN honored Cockburn in a program last month (all links added here):

The star-studded evening at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall is a chance for the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada to celebrate the best the Canadian music scene has to offer.

Bruce Cockburn performing at the City Stages festival in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Photo: Wikipedia. Some guitar afficianadoes consider Cockburn in the top ranks of guitar wizards. A story we’re working to verify holds a reporter asking Eddie van Halen how it feels to be the world’s best guitarist, to which van Halen is said to have responded: “I don’t know. Ask Bruce Cockburn.”

Cockburn, who has had a 35-year career that produced hits such as Wonderin’ Where the Lions Are and If I Had a Rocket Launcher, will be presented with the SOCAN Lifetime Achievement Award.

Musician Bruce Cockburn gets the lifetime achievement award after 35 years as a singer-songwriter. (Canadian Press)  A Canadian Music Hall of Fame member and 12-time Juno award-winner, Cockburn will be serenaded by Serena Ryder as part of the ceremony.

He’s been around for 35 years, and I don’t have any of his stuff in my library?  How did that happen?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Jim Stanley.

More:

• Ottawa’s Bruce Cockburn to receive SOCAN lifetime achievement award (o.canada.com)
• Michael Buble, Deadmau5 And Bruce Cockburn Honoured For Songwriting (contactmusic.com)
• Ottawa’s Bruce Cockburn to receive SOCAN lifetime achievement award (vancouversun.com)
• Bruce Cockburn, deadmau5 feted at SOCAN gala (cbc.ca)

We remember: U.S.S. Reuben James sunk October 31, 1941

October 31 hosts several famous anniversaries. It is the anniversary of Nevada’s statehood (an October surprise by Lincoln for the 1864 campaign?). It is the anniversary of the cleaving of western, catholic Christianity, as the anniversary of Martin Luther’s tacking his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany in 1517, the formal start of the Reformation. Maybe the original Christian trick or treat.

U.S.S. Reuben James sinking, October 31, 1941 – National Archives photo

October 31 is also the anniversary of the sinking of the World War I era Clemson-class, four-stack destroyer, U.S.S. Reuben James, by a German U-boat. Woody Guthrie memorialized the sad event in the song, Reuben James, recorded by the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger (see also here, and here), and later a hit for the Kingston Trio. The Reuben James was sunk on October 31, 1941 — over a month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Details via Wikipedia (just to make you school librarians nervous):

USS Reuben James (DD-245), a post-World War I four-stack Clemson-class destroyer, was the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II and the first named for Boatswain’s Mate Reuben James (c.1776–1838), who distinguished himself fighting in the Barbary Wars.

This history figured into the 2008 presidential campaign in a small way: One of the internet hoax letters complaining about Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. entered World War II against Germany although the Germans had not fired a single round against the U.S. The 115 dead from the crew of 160 aboard the James testify to the inaccuracy of that claim, wholly apart from the treaty of mutual defense Germany and Japan were parties to, which encouraged Germany to declare war upon any nation that went to war with Japan. After the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, Germany declared war on the U.S., creating a state of war with Germany.

This history also reminds us that many Americans were loathe to enter World War II at all. By October 1941, Japan had been occupying parts of China for ten years, and the Rape of Nanking was four years old. The Battle of the Atlantic was in full swing, and the Battle of Britain was a year in the past, after a year of almost-nightly bombardment of England by Germany. Despite these assaults on friends and allies of the U.S., and the losses of U.S. ships and merchant marines, the U.S. had remained officially neutral.

Many Americans on the left thought the sinking of the Reuben James to be the sort of wake-up call that would push Germany-favoring Americans to reconsider, and people undecided to side with Britain. The political use of the incident didn’t have much time to work. Five weeks later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and by the end of 1941, the U.S. was at war with the Axis Powers.

Letter to the U.S. Navy asking the fate of friends aboard the U.S.S. Reuben James, November, 1941

Telegram informing his family of the death of Gene Guy Evans, of Norfolk, Virginia, lost in the torpedoing of the U.S.S. Reuben James

The Kingston Trio sings, as the names of the dead scroll:

This is mostly an encore post from 2008. Brad DeLong at Berkeley is “live blogging” World War II, and referred to the 2008 post for his entry for October 31, which drove a little traffic this way and reminded me to memorialize the crew again — tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. DeLong

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/liveblogging-world-war-ii-october-31-1941-1.html

More:

• Entry for USS Reuben James in the U.S. Navy’s Dictionary of American Fighting Ships:
• Reuben JamesReuben James was born in Delaware about 1776. During the Quasi-War with France, Boatswain’s Mate James participated in Constellation’s victories over the French ships L’Insurgente, 9 February 1799, and La Vengeance. During the Barbary Wars, he served aboard Enterprise and accompanied Stephen Decatur into the harbor at Tripoli on 16 February 1804, as Decatur and his men burned the captured American frigate Philadelphia to prevent Tripoli from using her in battle. In the ensuing skirmish, an American seaman positioned himself between Decatur and an enemy blade. This act of bravery was attributed to Reuben James and to Daniel Frazier. For the rest of the war, James continued to serve Decatur aboard Constitution and Congress. During the War of 1812, he served in United States, under Decatur, and in President. On 15 January 1815, however, President was defeated by the British and James was taken prisoner. After the war, he resumed service with Decatur, aboard Guerriere, and participated in the capture of the 46-gun Algerian flagship Mashoudaon 17 June 1815. After peace was made with the Barbary states, James continued his service in the Navy until declining health brought about his retirement in January 1836. He died on 3 December 1838 at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C.

  I

  (DD – 245: displacement 1,215; length 314’5”; beam 31’8”; draft 9’4”; speed 35 knots; complement 101; armament 4 4”, 1 3”, 12 21” torpedo tubes; class Clemson)

  Reuben James (DD-245) was laid down 2 April 1919 by New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden, N.J.; launched 4 October 1919; sponsored by Miss Helen Strauss; and commissioned 24 September 1920, Comdr. Gordon W. Haines in command.

  Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, Reuben James sailed from Newport, R.I., 30 November 1920 to Zelenika, Yugoslavia, arriving 18 December. During the spring and summer of 1921, she operated in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean out of Zelenika and Gruz, Yugoslavia, assisting refugees and participating in postwar investigations. In October 1921 at Le Havre, she joined Olympia (C-6) at ceremonies marking the return of the Unknown Soldier to the United States. At Danzig, Poland, from 29 October 1921 to 3 February 1922, she assisted the American Relief Administration in its efforts to relieve hunger and misery. After duty in the Mediterranean, she departed Gibraltar 17 July 1922.

  Based then at New York, she patrolled the Nicaraguan coast to prevent the delivery of weapons to revolutionaries in early 1926. In the spring of 1929, she participated in fleet maneuvers that foreshadowed naval airpower. Reuben James decommissioned at Philadelphia on 20 January 1931.

  Recommissioned 9 March 1932, she again operated in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. From September 1933 to January 1934 she patrolled Cuban waters during a period of revolution. Sailing for the Pacific from Norfolk 19 October 1934, she arrived at her new homeport of San Diego, Calif., 9 November. Following maneuvers that evaluated aircraft carriers, she returned to the Atlantic Fleet in January 1939. Upon the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, she joined the Neutrality Patrol, and guarded the Atlantic and Caribbean approaches to the American coast.

  In March 1941, Reuben James joined the convoy escort force established to promote the safe arrival of war materials to Britain. This escort force guarded convoys as far as Iceland, where they became the responsibility of British escorts. Based at Hvalfjordur, Iceland, she sailed from Argentia, Newfoundland, 23 October 1941, with four other destroyers to escort eastbound convoy HX-156. While escorting that convoy, at about 0525, on 31 October 1941, Reuben James was torpedoed by German submarine U-562. Her magazine exploded, and she sank quickly. Of the crew, 44 survived, and 115 died. Reuben James was the first U.S. Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II.

  ---

  25 September 2005

More:

• Liveblogging World War II: October 31, 1941: The Torpedoing of the U.S.S. Reuben James (delong.typepad.com)
• USS Reuben James to leave Pearl Harbor on last patrol (stripes.com)
• Lyrics to “The Sinking of the Reuben James” by Woody Guthrie; 2012 is the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth

Gilbert and Near, Woody’s “Pastures of Plenty”

Woody Guthrie wrote of freedom . . . when was this written? 1930-something?  [1941, it turns out.]

Ronnie Gilbert and Holly Near combine on one of my favorite arrangements of the song.

This film must be at least ten years old, maybe more.  The song is more than 60 years old [71 years -- from 1941].

It’s still a powerful indictment of corporate greed, heartless and oppressive immigration policies, and it’s a case for a strong labor movement.

Be sure you vote in the November 6 elections.  Sing this song on the way to the polls.

More:

• Woody Guthrie’s 100th birth anniversary came earlier in 2012
• The post in which the comments got me thinking about this song, about the farm disaster in apples in 2012 (oddly, a bumper crop in a few places cannot stave off higher prices and disaster elsewhere); see comments with two Woody Guthrie songs
• Bragging rights for the poor (theage.com.au)
• Woody Guthrie Was No Dumb Okie (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
• Jackson Browne to celebrate Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (troubadourtribune.com)
• Photos: A tribute to Woody Guthrie (wvgazette.com)
• Ron Radosh on the Woody Guthrie Tribute Concert (maverickphilosopher.typepad.com)
• Folk hero Woody Guthrie and the lost Clyde tribute (scotsman.com)
• “A song for our times:  Pete and Arlo sing Woody (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
• “We remember:  Reuben James sunk October 31, 1941″ (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
• Kingston Trio’s 1961 version

Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday

Woody Guthrie singing, Smithsonian Folkways image – The sticker on Woody’s guitar reads, “This Machine Kills Fascists.”  Woody regarded music as a great tool of democracy and freedom.

July 14, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie, folksinger, union organizer, chronicler of American values, troubles and change.

We’re already more than halfway through Woody’s centennial year — and what celebration took place at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub?  History slips by so fast.

Much celebration remains.  Get out your calendar and figure out which events you can join in.

Poster for the 2012 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma

Wonderfully, a website celebrates Woody’s 100th:

• Don’t forget the always-available, official Woody Guthrie website
• Check out the Woody Guthrie Song of the Day (he wrote more than 1,000 songs, and there are only 365 days in most years, 366 in the odd, long one)
• Woody’s son, Arlo, will sing with a slew of other Guthrie family members in a celebration of Woody’s centennial, in Central Park, New York, July 15
• In Okemah, Oklahoma, two days remain on the 2012 Woody Guthrie Folk Music Festival (Associated Press story on the celebration in Oklahoma, via San Jose Mercury News)
  
• Several Centennial Concerts are planned, in conjunction with the Grammy Museum
• Here’s a more detailed calendar of events for Woody’s 100th celebrations

Perhaps fittingly, Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub hits the road again, today — off through Oklahoma.

In the interim, get out there, get the history, and join in the chorus!

• “Dustbowl Troubador,” at DemocracyNow.org
• Woody at PBS’s American Masters
• At the Library of Congress, Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song
• NPR, in print and audio, “At 100, Woody Guthrie still resonates”
• NPR features Woody’s music at The Mix
• Fresh Air celebrates Woody Guthrie at 100
• How is Pete Seeger doing?  He just turned — what? — 93; will he be able to make many of these events?  (Book signing in New York, July 18 . . .)  (Let’s start the Pete Seeger Centennial a few years early, maybe — like now . . .)

More, Other Sources:

• Woody Guthrie: the return of a pariah | Billy Bragg (guardian.co.uk)
• ArtsBeat: John Mellencamp’s Poetic Tribute to Woody Guthrie (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Country Joe McDonald will echo Woody Guthrie’s sound at Woodyfest (hooplanow.com)
• Woody Guthrie Centennial: Singer Joel Rafael Celebrates, Co-Writes With Woody (jack.radio.com)

Page from booklet of Woody Guthrie sheet music and lyrics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We remember: Reuben James sunk October 31, 1941

October 31 hosts several famous anniversaries. It is the anniversary of Nevada’s statehood (an October surprise by Lincoln for the 1864 campaign?). It is the anniversary of the cleaving of western, catholic Christianity, as the anniversary of Martin Luther’s tacking his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany in 1517, the formal start of the Reformation. Maybe the original Christian trick or treat.

U.S.S. Reuben James sinking, October 31, 1941 - National Archives photo

October 31 is also the anniversary of the sinking of the World War I era Clemson-class, four-stack destroyer, U.S.S. Reuben James, by a German U-boat. Woody Guthrie memorialized the sad event in the song, Reuben James, recorded by the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger (see also here, and here), and later a hit for the Kingston Trio. The Reuben James was sunk on October 31, 1941 — over a month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Details via Wikipedia (just to make you school librarians nervous):

USS Reuben James (DD-245), a post-World War I four-stack Clemson-class destroyer, was the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II and the first named for Boatswain’s Mate Reuben James (c.1776–1838), who distinguished himself fighting in the Barbary Wars.

This history figured into the 20088 presidential campaign in a small way: One of the internet hoax letters complaining about Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. entered World War II against Germany although the Germans had not fired a single round against the U.S. The 115 dead from the crew of 160 aboard the James testify to the inaccuracy of that claim, wholly apart from the treaty of mutual defense Germany and Japan were parties to, whichencouraged Germany to declare war upon any nation that went to war with Japan. After the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, Germany declared war on the U.S., creating a state of war with Germany.

This history also reminds us that many Americans were loathe to enter World War II at all. By October 1941, Japan had been occupying parts of China for ten years, and the Rape of Nanking was four years old. The Battle of the Atlantic was in full swing, and the Battle of Britain was a year in the past, after a year of almost-nightly bombardment of England by Germany. Despite these assaults on friends and allies of the U.S., and the losses of U.S. ships and merchant marines, the U.S. had remained officially neutral.

Many Americans on the left thought the sinking of the Reuben James to be the sort of wake-up call that would push Germany-favoring Americans to reconsider, and people undecided to side with Britain. The political use of the incident didn’t have much time to work. Five weeks later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and by the end of 1941, the U.S. was at war with the Axis Powers.

Letter to the U.S. Navy asking the fate of friends aboard the U.S.S. Reuben James, November, 1941

Telegram informing his family of the death of Gene Guy Evans, of Norfolk, Virginia, lost in the torpedoing of the U.S.S. Reuben James

The Kingston Trio sings, as the names of the dead scroll:

This is mostly an encore post from 2008. Brad DeLong at Berkeley is “live blogging” World War II, and referred to the 2008 post for his entry for October 31, which drove a little traffic this way and reminded me to memorialize the crew again — tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. DeLong

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/liveblogging-world-war-ii-october-31-1941-1.html

More:

• Entry for USS Reuben James in the U.S. Navy’s Dictionary of American Fighting Ships:
• Reuben James 

  Reuben James was born in Delaware about 1776. During the Quasi-War with France, Boatswain’s Mate James participated in Constellation’s victories over the French ships L’Insurgente, 9 February 1799, and La Vengeance. During the Barbary Wars, he served aboard Enterprise and accompanied Stephen Decatur into the harbor at Tripoli on 16 February 1804, as Decatur and his men burned the captured American frigate Philadelphia to prevent Tripoli from using her in battle. In the ensuing skirmish, an American seaman positioned himself between Decatur and an enemy blade. This act of bravery was attributed to Reuben James and to Daniel Frazier. For the rest of the war, James continued to serve Decatur aboard Constitution and Congress. During the War of 1812, he served in United States, under Decatur, and in President. On 15 January 1815, however, President was defeated by the British and James was taken prisoner. After the war, he resumed service with Decatur, aboard Guerriere, and participated in the capture of the 46-gun Algerian flagship Mashouda on 17 June 1815. After peace was made with the Barbary states, James continued his service in the Navy until declining health brought about his retirement in January 1836. He died on 3 December 1838 at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C.

  I

  (DD – 245: displacement 1,215; length 314’5”; beam 31’8”; draft 9’4”; speed 35 knots; complement 101; armament 4 4”, 1 3”, 12 21” torpedo tubes; class Clemson)

  Reuben James (DD-245) was laid down 2 April 1919 by New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden, N.J.; launched 4 October 1919; sponsored by Miss Helen Strauss; and commissioned 24 September 1920, Comdr. Gordon W. Haines in command.

  Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, Reuben James sailed from Newport, R.I., 30 November 1920 to Zelenika, Yugoslavia, arriving 18 December. During the spring and summer of 1921, she operated in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean out of Zelenika and Gruz, Yugoslavia, assisting refugees and participating in postwar investigations. In October 1921 at Le Havre, she joined Olympia (C-6) at ceremonies marking the return of the Unknown Soldier to the United States. At Danzig, Poland, from 29 October 1921 to 3 February 1922, she assisted the American Relief Administration in its efforts to relieve hunger and misery. After duty in the Mediterranean, she departed Gibraltar 17 July 1922.

  Based then at New York, she patrolled the Nicaraguan coast to prevent the delivery of weapons to revolutionaries in early 1926. In the spring of 1929, she participated in fleet maneuvers that foreshadowed naval airpower. Reuben James decommissioned at Philadelphia on 20 January 1931.

  Recommissioned 9 March 1932, she again operated in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. From September 1933 to January 1934 she patrolled Cuban waters during a period of revolution. Sailing for the Pacific from Norfolk 19 October 1934, she arrived at her new homeport of San Diego, Calif., 9 November. Following maneuvers that evaluated aircraft carriers, she returned to the Atlantic Fleet in January 1939. Upon the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, she joined the Neutrality Patrol, and guarded the Atlantic and Caribbean approaches to the American coast.

  In March 1941, Reuben James joined the convoy escort force established to promote the safe arrival of war materials to Britain. This escort force guarded convoys as far as Iceland, where they became the responsibility of British escorts. Based at Hvalfjordur, Iceland, she sailed from Argentia, Newfoundland, 23 October 1941, with four other destroyers to escort eastbound convoy HX-156. While escorting that convoy, at about 0525, on 31 October 1941, Reuben James was torpedoed by German submarine U-562. Her magazine exploded, and she sank quickly. Of the crew, 44 survived, and 115 died. Reuben James was the first U.S. Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II.

  ---

  25 September 2005

Typewriter of the moment: Alan Lomax, folk music historian, 1942

Alan Lomax at the typewriter, 1942, using the "hunt and peck method" of typing - Library of Congress photo

Who was Alan Lomax?  Have you really never heard of him before?

Lomax collected folk music, on wire recorders, on tape recorders, in written form, and any other way he could, on farms, at festivals, in jails, at concerts, in churches, on street corners — anywhere people make music.  He did it his entire life.  He collected music in the United States, across the Caribbean, in Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Spain and Italy.

Alan Lomax, Woody Guthrie, Lillie Mae Ledford and an obscured Sonny Terry, New York, 1944 (Library of Congress Collection - photographer unknown)

Almost all of that collection is in the Library of Congress’s unsurpassed American Folklife collection, from which dozens of recordings have been issued.

Born in 1915, Alan Lomax began collecting folk music for the Library of Congress with his father [John Lomax] at the age of 18. He continued his whole life in the pursuit of recording traditional cultures, believing that all cultures should be recorded and presented to the public. His life’s work, represented by seventy years’ worth of documentation, will now be housed under one roof at the Library, a place for which the Lomax family has always had strong connections and great affection.

Were that all, it would be an outstanding record of accomplishment.  Lomax was much more central to the folk revivals in the both England and the U.S. in the 1950s and 19602, though, and in truth it seemed he had a hand in everything dealing with folk music in the English-speaking world and then some.  Carl Sagan used Lomax as a consultant to help choose the music to be placed on the disc sent into space with the exploring satellite Voyager, “the Voyager Golden Record.”

Have you listened to and loved Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo,” and the famous passage, “Hoedown?”  How about Miles Davis, with the Gil Evans-produced “Sketches of Spain?”  [Thank you, Avis Ortner.]  Then you know the work of Alan Lomax, as Wikipedia explains:

The famous “Hoedown” in Aaron Copland‘s 1942 ballet Rodeo was taken note for note from Ruth Crawford Seeger‘s piano transcription of the square-dance tune, “Bonypart” (“Bonaparte’s Retreat”), taken from a recording of W. M. Stepp’s fiddle version, originally recorded in Appalachia for the Library of Congress by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax in 1937. Seeger’s transcription was published in Our Singing Country (1941) by John A. and Alan Lomax and Ruth Crawford Seeger.

Miles Davis‘s 1959 Sketches of Spain album adapts the melodies “Alborada de vigo” and “Saeta” from Alan Lomax’s Columbia World Library album Spain.

Lomax died in 2002.

Other resources:

• Discography, from the Association for Cultural Equity
• Filmography, from the Association for Cultural Equity
• Alan Lomax Collection, Library of Congress
• Lomax Collection photos (hundreds of photos of musicians Lomax recorded and knew)
• “Lomax the Song Hunter,” P.O.V. on PBS, 2006 – teachers guide and lesson plans included

“To Hear Your Banjo Play” featuring Pete Seeger, written and produced by Alan Lomax.
Trailer for the PBS P.O.V. film, “The Song Hunter,” by Rogier Kappers

more about “POV – Lomax the Songhunter | PBS“, posted with vodpod

Sing out!

Folk Alley’s 100 essential folk songs

First, the list.  Discussion and explanation later:

Folk Alley’s The 100 Essential Folk Songs

1. “This Land Is Your Land” – Woody Guthrie
2. “Blowin’ in the Wind” – Bob Dylan
3. “City of New Orleans” – Steve Goodman
4. “If I Had a Hammer” – Pete Seeger
5. “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” – The Kingston Trio
6. “Early Morning Rain” – Gordon Lightfoot
7. “Suzanne” – Leonard Cohen
8. “We Shall Overcome” – Pete Seeger
9. “Four Strong Winds” – Ian and Sylvia
10. “Last Thing on My Mind” – Tom Paxton
11. “The Circle Game” – Joni Mitchell
12. “Tom Dooley” – The Kingston Trio (Trad)
13. “Both Sides Now” – Joni Mitchell
14. “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” – Sandy Denny
15. “Goodnight Irene” – The Weavers (Trad)
16. “Universal Soldier” – Buffy Sainte-Marie
17. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” – Bob Dylan
18. “Diamonds and Rust” – Joan Baez
19. “Sounds of Silence” – Simon & Garfunkel
20. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” – Gordon Lightfoot
21. “Alice’s Restaurant” – Arlo Guthrie
22. “Turn, Turn, Turn!” – The Byrds (Pete Seeger)
23. “Puff the Magic Dragon” – Peter, Paul and Mary
24. “Thirsty Boots” – Eric Anderson
25. “There But for Fortune” – Phil Ochs
26. “Across the Great Divide” – Kate Wolf
27. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” – The Band (Robbie Robertson)
28. “The Dutchman” – Steve Goodman
29. “Matty Groves” – Fairport Convention (Trad)
30. “Pastures of Plenty” – Woody Guthrie
31. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” – Gordon Lightfoot
32. “Ramblin’ Boy” – Tom Paxton
33. “Hello in There” – John Prine
34. “The Mary Ellen Carter” – Stan Rogers
35. “Scarborough Fair” – Martin Carthy (Trad)
36. “Freight Train” – Elizabeth Cotton
37. “Like a Rolling Stone” – Bob Dylan
38. “Paradise” – John Prine
39. “Northwest Passage” – Stan Rogers
40. “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” – Eric Bogel
41. “Changes” – Phil Ochs
42. “Streets of London” – Ralph McTell
43. “Gentle on My Mind” – John Hartford
44. “Barbara Allen” – Shirley Collins (Trad)
45. “Little Boxes” – Malvina Reynolds
46. “The Water Is Wide” – Traditional
47. “Blue Moon of Kentucky” – Bill Monroe
48. “No Regrets” – Tom Rush
49. “Amazing Grace” – Odetta (Trad)
50. “Catch the Wind” – Donovan
51. “If I Were a Carpenter” – Tim Hardin
52. “Big Yellow Taxi” – Joni Mitchell
53. “House of the Rising Sun” – Doc & Richard Watson (Trad)
54. “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” – The Weavers
55. “Tangled Up in Blue” – Bob Dylan
56. “The Boxer” – Simon and Garfunkel
57. “Someday Soon” – Ian and Sylvia
58. “[500?] Miles” – Peter, Paul and Mary
59. “Masters of War” – Bob Dylan
60. “Wildwood Flower” – Carter Family
61. “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” – Carter Family
62. “Can’t Help but Wonder Where I’m Bound” – Tom Paxton
63. “Teach Your Children” – Crosby, Stills Nash & Young
64. “Deportee” – Woody Guthrie
65. “Tecumseh Valley” – Townes Van Zandt
66. “Mr. Bojangles” – Jerry Jeff Walker
67. “Cold Missouri Waters” – James Keeleghan
68. “The Crucifixion” – Phil Ochs
69. “Angel from Montgomery” – John Prine
70. “Christmas in the Trenches” – John McCutcheon
71. “John Henry” – Traditional
72. “Pack Up Your Sorrows” – Richard and Mimi Farina
73. “Dirty Old Town” – Ewan MacColl
74. “Caledonia” – Dougie MacLean
75. “Gentle Arms of Eden” – Dave Carter
76. “My Back Pages” – Bob Dylan
77. “Arrow” – Cheryl Wheeler
78. “Hallelujah” – Leonard Cohen
79. “Eve of Destruction” – Barry McGuire
80. “Man of Constant Sorrow” – Ralph Stanley (Trad)
81. “Shady Grove” – Traditional
82. “Pancho and Lefty” – Townes Van Zandt
83. “Old Man” – Neil Young
84. “Mr. Tambourine Man” – Bob Dylan
85. “American Tune” – Paul Simon
86. “At Seventeen” – Janis Ian
87. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” – Simon & Garfunkel
88. “Road” – Nick Drake
89. “Tam Lin” – Fairport Convention (Trad)
90. “Ashokan Farewell” – Jay Ungar and Molly Mason
91. “Desolation Row” – Bob Dylan
92. “Love Is Our Cross to Bear” – John Gorka
93. “Hobo’s Lullaby” – Woody Guthrie
94. “Urge for Going” – Tom Rush
95. “Return of the Grievous Angel” – Gram Parsons
96. “Chilly Winds” – The Kingston Trio
97. “Fountain of Sorrow” – Jackson Browne
98. “The Times They Are A-Changin’” – Bob Dylan
99. “Our Town” – Iris Dement
100. “Leaving on a Jet Plane” – John Denver

Folk Alley is the name of an online stream from Kent State University’s WKSU, an NPR-affiliated station that offers several genres of music and public affairs programs. A 24-hour stream of folk music is rare, and the programmers probably are among the best qualified to assemble a list like this — even though it is popularly voted. NPR described it:

Folk Alley, the 24-hour online stream of Kent State University’s WKSU, has never hopped on or off any folk-music bandwagons. Which, in turn, makes it a perfect place to explore the genre’s many permutations, from bare-bones acoustic protest music to the many forms of electric roots music that followed. Folk Alley recently spent eight weeks polling its listeners in search of a master list of “The 100 Most Essential Folk Songs.” The results — found here in the form of a printable list and a continuous music mix, streamed in no particular order — are fodder for debate, discussion and discovery.

You can listen to the songs on the list from the WKSU feed, here.

If you are a fan of folk music, you probably have a few bones to pick with the list, no?

It is a modern list.  It is heavy on compositions since 1960 — admittedly a heyday for folk music, and a great time that produced a lot of material to write folk songs about.  I wonder and worry whether some of these songs are really so much in the folk tradition.  I love the Byrds version of Pete Seeger’s “Turn, Turn, Turn,” a song my band covered years ago and which makes me yearn to be back in the band with Leon Anderson shooting out the dissected chords from his electric 12-string guitar.  But it’s a rock and roll song.  It’s a modern composition.

Of course, it’s a modern composition from an ancient tune, Seeger says (“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”) with lyrics adapted from one of the oldest folk traditions we have (Ecclesiastes in the Bible).  A fair reading notes there is a lot of gray area there, with no bright lines.

Still, I think there are notable omissions that really should be there.

For example, the Shaker song, “A Gift to be Simple,” is as much in the folk tradition as anything there.  But it also is the inspiration for a wonderful classical composition by Aaron Copeland.  Shouldn’t it be listed just for that reason alone, let alone its influence on other singers, writers and songs?

One can make  a similar argument for “Greensleeves,” which inspired entire collections of folk versions and classical compositions.

I think history is slighted, too. I can see why “Yankee Doodle” might be overlooked, it’s so ubiquitous.  But should it be overlooked?  How about the Civil War song, “John Brown’s Body.”  What summer camper won’t sing something based on that this year?  Heck, if we’re including Neil Young’s “Old Man,” why not some Irving Berlin?  “Over There” and “You’re in the Army Now, Mr. Jones,” have no less stature in history and folk music.

How about a Stephen Foster tune?  “Camptown Races” alone should outshine 40 or 50 songs on the list.

Jackson Browne’s “Fountain of Sorrow” as a folk song?  If we allow him in, why not the Rolling Stones’ “Salt of the Earth,” even if you have to list it as a Joan Baez performance?

I’m wondering about the list of “100 Great Folk Songs that Didn’t Make the List?”

I’m also looking at my collection, and wondering if I shouldn’t rush to the local CD shops and internet to supplement some of these great songs on the list that I don’t have.  Somebody borrowed my Phil Ochs — 20 years ago?

What great folk songs do you know that are missing from the list, that probably ought to be there?  List them in comments — let’s not let our heritage be reduced to an inadequate list!  (The people at WKSU are really super — check out their own comments list, with a lot of suggestions for tunes that should be there, and others that should not.)

More grist

• What do the members of the World Folk Music Association think about the list?
• Library of Congress folk music catalog

DFH were right

Some guy who goes by Joeyess seems to be the one who put this together — wrote the song?  Performed?

Call it sequencing.  Students often ask — at least once a week — whether I was a hippie.  They figure that’s a possibility since I don’t like much of the rock of the ’80s, and they don’t know much history of the ’50s and ’60s.  They don’t believe me when I tell them I thought college was a better idea.  They look confused when I tell them I was a plainclothes hippie.

Noodling around the radio dial the other day, I wondered how an antiwar movement could work with ClearChannel running so much of the radio formats, and none of the formats being exactly friendly to the slightest political commentary.

So, take a look. Tell us what you think in comments.

Political folk music in the Internet Age, Pete Seeger channeled through Lawrence Lessig (profanity in lyric makes it NSFW, NSFC, alas):

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula.

Good though: Folksinger, Storyteller, Railroad Tramp Utah Phillips Dead at 73

Utah Phillips died Friday. He was 73. He died at his home in Nevada City, California.

Wonderful tribute at Fifteen Iguana.

Phillips’s website lists planned tributes, memorials and the funeral in Nevada City, California. KVMR Radio’s site has an obit and links to other tributes.

• Railroading on the Great Divide, from “Legends of Folk” (buy the CD here)
• Origin of the phrase “Good though” from “Good Though” (buy the CD here)
• Sacramento Bee story – excerpted below the fold