Throughout my experience of Pete Seeger song compilations, this one has the right to be deemed as the definitive topical song collection. Turn Turn Turn, Which Side Are You On? are all songs that he performed, the best out of all other that have performed them.
I studied a collection of songs assembled by Bess Lomax Hawes, who was a leading member of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie’s band, the Weavers aka the Almanac Singers. The collection of songs had such a range of topic. [I had access to them through a school I was studying at, I was probably the only one to go through these boxes of songs in several decades.] Bess Lomax Hawes was also the daughter of John Lomax and sister of Alan Lomax.
Bottom line, this album is more than a primer to the topical songs that were being produced during that era. It took guts to sing songs like these back during that time, when freedom of expression was muffled by the “red scare”, etc. Pete Seeger was eventually blacklisted, but despite his refusal to admit that he was a “commie” he landed his own television show called “Rainbow Quest” That included highly influencial singers of a younger generation…
There are more on youtube...
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