Tag: Pete Seeger

Trini Lopez: Hammerin’ Out Danger

Singer-actor Trini Lopez was born in Dallas on May 15, 1937. At the age of 26, he had his first hit recording with “If I Had a Hammer.”

Lopez’s released a live album as his first record, Trini Lopez at PJ’s, in 1963. That album featured his live version of “If I Had a Hammer” that became a hit song for him.

Although the song seems timeless, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote “If I Had a Hammer” in 1949 and first recorded it in 1950 as “The Hammer Song” with The Weavers. I believe the first time I heard the song was in the version by Peter, Paul & Mary. They had a top ten hit with the song in 1962, one year before Lopez’s release.

Other artists continued to record the anthem, even immediately after the hit versions by Lopez and Peter, Paul and Mary. For example, Sam Cooke featured a live version of the song on his 1964 album Sam Cooke at the Copa. And Martha and the Vandellas included their version on the 1963 album Heat Wave.

There is something about the song about the hammer. It reminds me of “The Riddle Song (I Gave My Love a Cherry)” where the final verse of the songs answers the riddles about the cherry, the ring, the chicken, and the baby. Perhaps the way “If I Had a Hammer” is similarly structured gives it the timeless quality of the old English folk song, “The Riddle Song.”

As others have noted, though, with “If I Had a Hammer,” Seeger and Hays beautifully combined activism with a popular song format. The lyrics re-purpose the working person’s hammer, the laborer’s song, and the work bell. And the writers use those tools as patriotic instruments to change the world and protect civil rights.

And while “The Riddle Song” is melancholy like a lullaby, “If I Had a Hammer” has more energy. Lopez’s driving version really captures that it is a song about the hammer of justice, the bell of freedom, and the song about love between my brothers and my sisters.

What is your favorite version of “If I Had a Hammer”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Pete Seeger: “Bring Them Home”

    Pete Seeger was born on May 3, 1919 in New York City. He grew up to be a great social justice activist and folk singer. His many contributions to the battle against the Vietnam War included his song, “Bring Them Home,” which decades later he also later used to protest U.S. wars in the Middle East.

    One of the clever aspects of “Bring Them Home” is that Seeger asserts that he wishes to bring the soldiers home because of his love for his country. Many who favored the war accused anti-war activists of being anti-American. But Seeger reminded them that the truth was far different. The people protesting the war did so because they cared about their country and what their country was doing.

    While some of Seeger’s activism made TV executives nervous, such as the time he was censored in 1967 on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, many artists respected him. So, he did find his way onto our televisions, including in this March 1970 appearance on The Johnny Cash Show.

    It is pretty amazing to watch Seeger perform “Bring Them Home” on a national television show in 1970. That year, Richard Nixon was in the White House and the war still going on. But Seeger (and Johnny Cash) always sang the truth. Check it out.

    One of the signs of a great song is how it can be timeless even if written about a certain moment in time. “Bring Them Home” holds up. During the Iraq War, Bruce Springsteen performed a slightly modified version of the song, called “Bring ‘Em Home,” which was released as a digital download to support his album in tribute to Seeger, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006).

    As long as there are wars, “Bring Them Home” will be sung.

    In honor of Seeger’s 100th birthday, Smithsonian Folkways is releasing  Pete Seeger: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection. What is your favorite Pete Seeger song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Burl Ives & Johnny Cash

    Folksinger, actor, and famous snowman Burl Ives was born in Illinois on June 14, 1909.  Ives had one of the most recognizable voices of American singers, although I suspect that most people today know him for one TV role more than anything else.  But many of us, like Johnny Cash, learned some of our first songs from Ives.

    In the 1930s, Ives became an important figure in the folk-revival movement.  After moving to New York City, he worked for progressive causes and performed with musicians that included Pete Seeger, Josh White, Alan Lomax and Lead Belly.

    A rift later developed between Ives and Seeger after Ives, accused of being a communist, cooperated with the witch hunt by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.  Ives saved his career as others who stood up for the First Amendment suffered.  Seeger compared him to a “common stool pigeon.”  But Ives and Seeger eventually reconciled decades later.

    Ives recorded a number of successful albums and helped popularize songs like “Blue Tail Fly” and “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”  Growing up, my family welcomed Christmas every year with Ives’ interpretation of Christmas folk songs on the record album Christmas Eve (1957).

    Many associate Ives with Christmas for another reason.  He provided the voice for the narrator Sam the Snowman in the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer holiday TV special.  Ives also developed a career as an actor, including roles in films like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).  He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Big Country (1958).

    Throughout it all was his wonderful voice.  The warmth of his tone made every song welcoming and familiar.

    Below, Ives appears on Johnny Cash’s television show.  After performing by himself, Ives is joined by Cash to sit down, tell some stories, and sing some folk songs.  Cash introduces the songs by noting how he learned some of his first songs and chords by listening to Ives.

    Ives, who was a pipe and cigar smoker, died from complications related to oral cancer on April 14, 1995.

    What is your favorite Burl Ives recording? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Sounding Joy: A Refreshing Timeless Christmas Album

    Elizabeth Mitchell

    The Sounding Joy: Christmas Songs In and Out of the Ruth Crawford Seeger Songbook provides a wonderful alternative to the glossy over-used Christmas songs we hear every year. On the 2013 album, Elizabeth Mitchell, with a little help from her friends, provides a refreshing break from the commercialization of the holiday with songs taken from a songbook created by Ruth Crawford Seeger.

    The songbook was published in 1953 and used in schoolhouses around the country before it was taken out of circulation. As part of the WPA Federal Music Project during the Great Depression, Seeger worked to help preserve old folk songs. She often worked with her family members as well as John Avery Lomax, Alan Lomax, and Bess Lomax Hawes. Ruth Seeger also worked as a composer in her own right.  And she used her skills in arranging the songs in her songbooks.

    The Songbook

    Seeger arranged her songbooks for families to sing the folk songs in their living rooms. As she wrote, “These songs grew out of and were used in the old-time American Christmas, a Christmas not of Santa Claus and tinseled trees but of homespun worship and festivity.” Her 1953 songbook, American Folk Songs for Christmas, followed two songbooks she created of folk songs for children.

    Ruth Seeger died of cancer the year her Christmas songbook was published. But her children Mike, Peggy, Penny, and stepson Pete Seeger helped continue the American folk revival she helped start. Peggy Seeger is one of the friends who joins Elizabeth Mitchell on two of the carols on the CD.

    There are a few songs you will recognize, like a version of “Joy to the World” with lovely banjo and vocal harmonies.  But most of the songs will be new to the casual listener. Some are more religious than many songs usually played today. Yet others capture other aspects of the holiday season like the Winter solstice.

    As Mitchell writes in her liner notes for the album, “Through her song choices, Ruth Crawford Singer shined a light on a distinctly American Christmas tradion that might be unrecognizable to us today.”

    The Album

    Mitchell adds her own touch to the songs.  But she also keeps the simplicity of the folk songs that reflect certain regions and times in America. The album also features other friends largely from around her community in Woodstock, New York.  Other performers include Natalie Merchant, Aoife O’Donovan, Amy Helm, John Sebastian, Dan Zanes, and Happy Traum.

    One of my favorites on the album is “Singing in the Land.” The song features vocals by Mitchell, Merchant, Traum, Sebastian, Ruth Unger, Daniel LIttleton, Michael Merenda, and Lyn Hardy.

    The album also features photos and wonderful liner notes.  The notes include essays by each of Natalie Merchant, Daniel Littleton, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Additionally, Mitchell wrote comments for each song on the album.

    If you are looking for some holiday music that warms your heart and seems significantly removed from the commercialization of Christmas, check out this album. The Sounding Joy: Christmas Songs In and Out of the Ruth Crawford Seeger Songbook by Elizabeth Mitchell and Friends is available from Smithsonian Folkways.

    Information in post comes from the liner notes to The Sounding Joy. What is your favorite lesser-known Christmas album? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Pete Seeger: Down By the Riverside

    Seeger McGhee Terry

    The great Pete Seeger was born in Manhattan on May 3, 1919. People have used a number of terms to describe the late Seeger, “folk singer,” “songwriter,” “Civil Rights activist,” “environmentalist,” “communist,” “defender of free speech,” etc. But whenever he had his banjo and an audience, he was simply wonderful.

    In this video, he plays “Down By the Riverside,” a spiritual that goes back to before the Civil War. During the Vietnam War era, the song often appeared at anti-war rallies because of its refrain, “Ain’t gonna study war no more.”

    Here, Seeger plays “Down by the Riverside” with two other legends, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. The two blues and folk musicians achieved some fame playing together. And Terry, who passed away in 1986, appeared in some films (The Color Purple (1985), Steve Martin’s The Jerk (1979)). McGhee, who passed away in 1996, similarly appeared in some movies and TV shows (The Jerk (1979), Angel Heart (1987)).

    Check out Seeger, Terry, and McGhee singing “Down By the Riverside.”

    The video is taken from a segment of Seeger’s television show Rainbow Quest, which ran on a UHF New York City channel from 1965-1966. You may watch the entire episode with Terry and McGhee below.

    What is your favorite Pete Seeger song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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