Pete Seeger - American Industrial Ballads (1957)

Songs of struggle which emerged from the coal mines, textile mills and acres of farmland, and spoke of issues important to the American laborer. Twenty-four songs written about the unprecedented industrialization of the 19th century, including Peg and Awl, The Farmer is the Man, and Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues. Irwin Silber's notes provide a history of labor folk song and its role in American popular music. "Seeger's straightforward, sincere singing is accompanied by sparse, effective banjo and guitar...an important reissue." — Sing Out

Pete Seeger presents a history of the Industrial Revolution and its impact on working people on "American Industrial Ballads", a collection of 24 songs (over half of them shorter than two minutes each) sequenced in chronological order by date of composition, to the extent that this can be determined, from the early-1800s appearance of "Peg and Awl," in which a worker struggles to keep up with a machine, to songs written by Woody Guthrie and Les Rice in the 1940s.

Only a couple of songs are well known, and those don't fit the concept perfectly. "The Buffalo Skinners," an account of cowboys who kill their overseer after he refuses to pay them, and "Casey Jones," the famous tale of a train wreck, are both somewhat tangential to industrial concerns, though they do fit themes heard throughout the album: first, employers' abuse of workers, who then must fight back (although usually by starting unions and going out on strike); and second, the relationship between an individual worker and the system of machinery he encounters.

As the album goes on, the workers' complaints about ill treatment and low pay become more extreme, and eventually the need for unions to represent them seems overwhelming. Even then, the bosses respond with violence, as Seeger documents in such songs as Jim Garland's "The Death of Harry Simms" and Della Mae Graham's "Ballad of Barney Graham," both true stories of murdered union men. Accompanying himself mostly on banjo and sometimes guitar, Seeger presents the songs straightforwardly with only occasional flourishes, intent on getting the meanings across, although occasionally his desire to lead singalongs comes out, such as in "Raggedy," when he provides cues to sing each verse, even though he's performing alone in a recording studio. Many of these songs are too harrowing to sing along to, though. Taken together, they chronicle a century and a half of the efforts of farmers, textile workers, and miners, primarily, to get what they deserve from increasingly rich and powerful captains of industry.     

Tracklist:

A1		Peg And Awl
A2		The Blind Fiddler
A3		Buffalo Skinners
A4		Eight Hour Day
A5		Hard Times In The Mill
A6		Roll Down The Line
A7		Hayseed Like Me
A8		The Farmer Is The Man
A9		Come All You Hardy Miners
A10		He Lies In The American Land
A11		Casey Jones
A12		Let Them Wear Their Watches Fine
A13		Weave Room Blues
B1		Cotton Mill Colic
B2		7c. Cotton And 40c. Meat
B3		Mill Mother's Lament
B4		Fare Ye Well, Old Ely Branch
B5		Beans, Bacon And Gravy
B6		The Death Of Harry Simms
B7		Winnsboro Cotton Mills Blues
B8		Ballad Of Barney Graham
B9		My Children Are Seven In Number
B10		Raggedy, Raggedy Are We
B11		Pittsburgh Town
B12		60% Parity

Pete Seeger - American Industrial Ballads (1957)
(256 kbps, cover art and booklet included)