VA - Eat The Rich - Featuring The Songs Of Motorhead

Tomorrow is the International Workers' Day - EAT THE RICH!

For those who want to read more about the origins of this day:

"In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Jack London's The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860's, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn't until the late 1880's that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class.

At this time, socialism was a new and attractive idea to working people, many of whom were drawn to its ideology of working class control over the production and distribution of all goods and services. Workers had seen first-hand that Capitalism benefited only their bosses, trading workers' lives for profit. Thousands of men, women and children were dying needlessly every year in the workplace, with life expectancy as low as their early twenties in some industries, and little hope but death of rising out of their destitution. Socialism offered another option.

A variety of socialist organizations sprung up throughout the later half of the 19th century, ranging from political parties to choir groups. In fact, many socialists were elected into governmental office by their constituency. But again, many of these socialists were ham-strung by the political process which was so evidently controlled by big business and the bi-partisan political machine. Tens of thousands of socialists broke ranks from their parties, rebuffed the entire political process, which was seen as nothing more than protection for the wealthy, and created anarchist groups throughout the country. Literally thousands of working people embraced the ideals of anarchism, which sought to put an end to all hierarchical structures (including government), emphasized worker controlled industry, and valued direct action over the bureaucratic political process. It is inaccurate to say that labor unions were "taken over" by anarchists and socialists, but rather anarchists and socialist made up the labor unions.

At its national convention in Chicago, held in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor), proclaimed that "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886." The following year, the FOTLU, backed by many Knights of Labor locals, reiterated their proclamation stating that it would be supported by strikes and demonstrations. At first, most radicals and anarchists regarded this demand as too reformist, failing to strike "at the root of the evil." A year before the Haymarket Massacre, Samuel Fielden pointed out in the anarchist newspaper, The Alarm, that "whether a man works eight hours a day or ten hours a day, he is still a slave."

Despite the misgivings of many of the anarchists, an estimated quarter million workers in the Chicago area became directly involved in the crusade to implement the eight hour work day, including the Trades and Labor Assembly, the Socialistic Labor Party and local Knights of Labor. As more and more of the workforce mobilized against the employers, these radicals conceded to fight for the 8-hour day, realizing that "the tide of opinion and determination of most wage-workers was set in this direction." With the involvement of the anarchists, there seemed to be an infusion of greater issues than the 8-hour day. There grew a sense of a greater social revolution beyond the more immediate gains of shortened hours, but a drastic change in the economic structure of capitalism.
In a proclamation printed just before May 1, 1886, one publisher appealed to working people with this plea:

• Workingmen to Arms!
• War to the Palace, Peace to the Cottage, and Death to LUXURIOUS IDLENESS.
• The wage system is the only cause of the World's misery. It is supported by the rich classes, and to destroy it, they must be either made to work or DIE.
• One pound of DYNAMITE is better than a bushel of BALLOTS!
• MAKE YOUR DEMAND FOR EIGHT HOURS with weapons in your hands to meet the capitalistic bloodhounds, police, and militia in proper manner.

Not surprisingly the entire city was prepared for mass bloodshed, reminiscent of the railroad strike a decade earlier when police and soldiers gunned down hundreds of striking workers. On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike with the anarchists in the forefront of the public's eye. With their fiery speeches and revolutionary ideology of direct action, anarchists and anarchism became respected and embraced by the working people and despised by the capitalists.

The names of many - Albert Parsons, Johann Most, August Spies and Louis Lingg - became household words in Chicago and throughout the country. Parades, bands and tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets exemplified the workers' strength and unity, yet didn't become violent as the newspapers and authorities predicted.

More and more workers continued to walk off their jobs until the numbers swelled to nearly 100,000, yet peace prevailed. It was not until two days later, May 3, 1886, that violence broke out at the McCormick Reaper Works between police and strikers.

For six months, armed Pinkerton agents and the police harassed and beat locked-out steelworkers as they picketed. Most of these workers belonged to the "anarchist-dominated" Metal Workers' Union. During a speech near the McCormick plant, some two hundred demonstrators joined the steelworkers on the picket line. Beatings with police clubs escalated into rock throwing by the strikers which the police responded to with gunfire. At least two strikers were killed and an unknown number were wounded.

Full of rage, a public meeting was called by some of the anarchists for the following day in Haymarket Square to discuss the police brutality. Due to bad weather and short notice, only about 3000 of the tens of thousands of people showed up from the day before. This affair included families with children and the mayor of Chicago himself. Later, the mayor would testify that the crowd remained calm and orderly and that speaker August Spies made "no suggestion... for immediate use of force or violence toward any person..."

As the speech wound down, two detectives rushed to the main body of police, reporting that a speaker was using inflammatory language, inciting the police to march on the speakers' wagon. As the police began to disperse the already thinning crowd, a bomb was thrown into the police ranks. No one knows who threw the bomb, but speculations varied from blaming any one of the anarchists, to an agent provocateur working for the police.

Enraged, the police fired into the crowd. The exact number of civilians killed or wounded was never determined, but an estimated seven or eight civilians died, and up to forty were wounded. One officer died immediately and another seven died in the following weeks. Later evidence indicated that only one of the police deaths could be attributed to the bomb and that all the other police fatalities had or could have had been due to their own indiscriminate gun fire. Aside from the bomb thrower, who was never identified, it was the police, not the anarchists, who perpetrated the violence.

Eight anarchists - Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Louis Lingg - were arrested and convicted of murder, though only three were even present at Haymarket and those three were in full view of all when the bombing occurred. The jury in their trial was comprised of business leaders in a gross mockery of justice similar to the Sacco-Vanzetti case thirty years later, or the trials of AIM and Black Panther members in the seventies. The entire world watched as these eight organizers were convicted, not for their actions, of which all of were innocent, but for their political and social beliefs. On November 11, 1887, after many failed appeals, Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fisher were hung to death. Louis Lingg, in his final protest of the state's claim of authority and punishment, took his own life the night before with an explosive device in his mouth.

The remaining organizers, Fielden, Neebe and Schwab, were pardoned six years later by Governor Altgeld, who publicly lambasted the judge on a travesty of justice. Immediately after the Haymarket Massacre, big business and government conducted what some say was the very first "Red Scare" in this country. Spun by mainstream media, anarchism became synonymous with bomb throwing and socialism became un-American. The common image of an anarchist became a bearded, eastern European immigrant with a bomb in one hand and a dagger in the other.

Today we see tens of thousands of activists embracing the ideals of the Haymarket Martyrs and those who established May Day as an International Workers' Day. Ironically, May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but rarely is it recognized in this country where it began.

Over one hundred years have passed since that first May Day. In the earlier part of the 20th century, the US government tried to curb the celebration and further wipe it from the public's memory by establishing "Law and Order Day" on May 1. We can draw many parallels between the events of 1886 and today. We still have locked out steelworkers struggling for justice. We still have voices of freedom behind bars as in the cases of Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier. We still had the ability to mobilize tens of thousands of people in the streets of a major city to proclaim "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!" at the WTO and FTAA demonstrations.

Words stronger than any I could write are engraved on the Haymarket Monument:

THE DAY WILL COME WHEN OUR SILENCE WILL BE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE VOICES YOU ARE THROTTLING TODAY.

Truly, history has a lot to teach us about the roots of our radicalism. When we remember that people were shot so we could have the 8-hour day; if we acknowledge that homes with families in them were burned to the ground so we could have Saturday as part of the weekend; when we recall 8-year old victims of industrial accidents who marched in the streets protesting working conditions and child labor only to be beat down by the police and company thugs, we understand that our current condition cannot be taken for granted - people fought for the rights and dignities we enjoy today, and there is still a lot more to fight for. The sacrifices of so many people can not be forgotten or we'll end up fighting for those same gains all over again. This is why we celebrate May Day."

(from: http://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/origins_of_mayday)

Tracklist:

Motörhead	Eat The Rich	3:40
Simon Brint	Terrorists	1:29
Motörhead	Built For Speed	4:50
Danny Eccleston	Nosher In The Bar	1:00
Motörhead	Nothing Up My Sleeve	3:10
Simon Brint	Arriba Salsa	2:14
Motörhead	Doctor Rock	3:36
Motörhead	On The Road (Live)	4:55
Lannah	Pistol In My Pockets	5:37
Simon Brint	Car Approach	1:00
Motörhead	Orgasmatron	5:25
Wurzel	Bess	3:00
Danny Eccleston	End Titles Theme	2:14

VA - Eat The Rich - Featuring The Songs Of Motorhead
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Pete Seeger - Children´s Concert At Town Hall (1963)

There have been no shortage of memorable live albums by Pete Seeger across the decades - and, in fact, the Carnegie Hall concert from this same era has tended to eclipse a lot of the other performance documents of Seeger's work from the '60s. But this album has a special charm, showing Seeger directing his appeal at a younger audience which he treats with surprising sophistication - perhaps some of what he says is aimed at parents in the audience, but the mere fact that he enunciates such political sentiments in this setting could not have been lost on the young ones.

In other words, this was an album that one could grow up on, and it sold well enough on vinyl across the decades so that was absolutely the case with many thousands of kindred spirits of the next generation. Musically, Seeger is in excellent voice as he carries us through a mix of lighter political fare - and some topical and consciousness-raising songs aimed specifically at kids, and the kid in all of us - and children's songs such as "Skip to My Lou" and "I've Been Working on the Railroad."

He doesn't do "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," but he does close with "This Land Is Your Land," and includes a few songs he learned from Leadbelly (and mentions him as well - clearly a nod to the parents in the audience). The sound is excellent, state-of-the-art in its time and still crisp and vivid.          

Tracklist:                           

1	Applause	0:18
2	Little Birdie	3:01
3	Henry My Son	3:52
4	Here's To Cheshire—Here's To Cheese (Froggy)	6:27
5	Oh Shenandoah	1:41
6	Skip To My Lou	2:16
7	Git Along, Little Dogies	2:43
8	Didn' Ol' John Cross The Water On His Knees	2:47
9	Fifteen Miles On The Erie Canal	2:26
10	I've Been Working On The Railroad	1:53
11	Riding In My Car	1:22
12	Put Your Finger In The Air	2:18
13	The Foolish Frog	8:35
14	Ilka's Bedouin Tune	1:31
15	Frere Jacques	1:58
16	Fisherman's Song	0:59
17	It Could Be A Wonderful World	2:27
18	Abiyoyo	5:55
19	Let Everyone Clap Hands Like Me	2:00
20	Michael Row The Boat Ashore	2:04
21	Ha, Ha Thisaway	0:43
22	De Grey Goose	3:26
23	Be Kind To Your Parents	1:10
24	Applause	0:31
25	This Land Is Your Land	1:31
26	Applause	0:30

Pete Seeger - Children´s Concert At Town Hall (1963)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Duke Reid´s Treasure Chest (Treasure Isle Rocksteady)

Duke Reid (born Arthur S. Reid ca. 1915, Jamaica, died in 1974) was one of the initial producers in Kingston who developed Jamaican music. He started in the early 1960s with ska productions, developed the rock steady style and took part in the early days of reggae music.

This is the original, 41-track, double CD collection, with all the classic rock steady hits by the great groups (Melodians, Paragons) and singers (Alton Ellis, Phyllis Dillon). Digitally re-mastered, "Duke Reid's Treasure Chest" is a collection that truly showcases the label's greatness, and captures the magic of Treasure Isle rock steady. Pure soul magic from start to finish.

"Duke Reid's Treasure Chest" provides quite a proficient overview of the formative years of reggae. It compiles tunes from the vaults of his Treasure Isle label, perhaps second only to Studio One in terms of success and influence.

Duke Reid´s Treasure Chest CD 1
Duke Reid´s Treasure Chest CD 2
(192 kbsp)

Rio Reiser - Live in Mannheim (Capitol, 1988)

A revolutionary artist and a huge influence in his native Germany, singer/songwriter Rio Reiser was born Ralph Möbius in Berlin and spent most of his childhood traveling thanks to his father's job. As he would say in later interviews, music was an effort to create something like a permanent home. He taught himself guitar, piano, and cello and during his teen years gave himself the stage name Rio Reiser as a reference to Karl Philipp Moritz's mammoth autobiographical work Anton Reiser.

After he spent some time with the pop group the Beat Kings, he formed an avant-garde theater group with his brother in Berlin. One bizarre opera later, the theater group dissolved, but Reiser had already moved on and joined the rock group Ton Steine Scherben, who released their self-titled debut in 1970. They built a cult following by writing aggressive anthems that spoke to Germany's leftist youth.

After numerous albums and tours, Ton Steine Scherben broke up in 1985, leaving Reiser to launch a solo career. His debut solo album, Rio 1, arrived in 1986. Through the years he would work with more new wave-oriented producers like Gareth Jones and Annette Humpe, and while his lyrics and politics remained radical, his popularity grew. A 1990 move from Germany's Green Party to the Communist Party of Democratic Socialism made news and had more conservative radio stations refusing to play his music.

On August 20, 1996, Reiser passed away at his home in Fresenhagen after hepatitis C and internal bleeding led to a cardiovascular collapse.

Here´s a bootleg with the recording of his gig in Mannheim at the Capitol in the year 1988:

Rio Reiser - Live in Mannheim pt. 1
Rio Reiser - Live in Mannheim pt. 2
(192 kbps, front & back cover included)

Ensemble Modern / Heiner Goebbels - Black On White

Heiner Goebbels's music-theatre work "Black on White" was put together during several months of rehearsal with Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt's Theater am Turm in 1996. Its flickering, erratic musical surface combines elements of composed music, improvisation, musique concrete and spoken text, reflecting the composer's previous work as an improviser and theatre director.

"Black on White," a masterful if sometimes frustrating concoction of chaos and discipline, was built around the astonishingly flexible Ensemble Modern, whose members play in constant motion. They wind through a stage full of debris, set up a triumphant arch made of ladders, take up their horns and march in formation across a phalanx of benches. When a proscenium arch is sent keeling to the ground, nobody flinches.

The backbone of this motley score is jazz, all kinds of jazz: the jagged, glassy rhythms of be-bop, the baroque frenzy of Ornette Coleman, the stately quiver of a New Orleans funeral. But Goebbels drapes a great many other sources on that solid frame. In one especially haunting episode, the plaintive sound of a Jewish cantor recorded in the 1920s floats above an accompaniment of hard-edged chords.

"Black on White is also an affectionate and curiously moving tribute to the German playwright Heiner Muller, whose taped voice is to be found reading parts of Edgar Allan Poe's parable, Shadow, at various points in the piece. Ensemble Modern are not only called on to speak and sing while playing their normal instruments, but to form impromptu ensembles of saxophones and brass instruments and what sounds like a group of toy violins in the eerie coda. Other sonic delights include a toccata for teapot and piccolo, a gargantuan fantasy for sine tone and didjeridu, and a surreal concert aria for six sampled Jewish cantors and a contrabass clarinet.

You may have guessed by now that I enjoyed listening to this CD. It is true that the recorded sound can be a little dry in places and there were times when I missed the visual element of the musictheatre piece in performance. Nevertheless, Black on White is a powerful and imaginative statement, humorous and intense in equal measure. Great credit is due to Ensemble Modern, Südwestfunk and RCA themselves." -  Martyn Harry

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Ensemble Modern - Heiner Goebbels - Black On White

(192 kbps, front cover included)

Mikis Theodorakis - The Ballad Of Mauthausen & Six Songs - 1974

"A good friend of mine, the poet Iacovos Kambanellis, was a prisoner in Mauthausen during World War II. At the beginning of the sixties, he wrote his memories of this time under the title of "Mauthausen". In 1965, he also wrote four poems on the subject and gave me the opportunity to set them to music. I did this with much pleasure, firstly because I liked the poetry of the texts, and secondly because I was myself locked up during the Nazi occupation in Italian and German prisons, but mainly because this composition gives us the chance to remind the younger generation of history, that history must never be forgotten.

First and foremost, of course, the Mauthausen Cantata is addressed to all those who suffered under Fascism and fought against it. We must keep the Nazi crimes continually in our minds, because that is the only guarantee and the only way to assure that they are not repeated. And we can see every day that the ghost of Fascist is far from being laid. It seldom shows its real face, but Fascist cultures and mentalities exist all over the world. For us, who had to live through this time of horror, the most important task is to protect our children against this peril."
- Mikis Theodorakis

The four Mauthausen songs have a common thread: they express in powerful music and lyrics the terror, the agony and torture of the concentration camp and its effects on the minds and bodies of the inmates. Best-known of the 4 songs is “Asma Asmaton” expressing the anguish of a Jewish prisoner on learning that the women he loves has just been sent to the gas chamber. Maria Faranouri delivers a remarkable performance as in the fourth song ”Otan teliosi O Polemos” ( "When the War Ends") which portrays the life-in-death fantasy of a Jewish internee who dreams of the end of the war, or of life in almost surrealist images.

The six songs that make up the rest of the album, four ballads and two lively, up tempo ones, all demonstrate Farandouris’ distinctive dramatic style, which adds an essentially Greek touch of pathos and nostalgia even in the lively gaiety of the two faster songs.

01-Asma Asmaton - Song Of Songs
02-O Andonis - Anthony
03-O Drapetis - The Hostage
04-Otan Teliosi O Polemos - When The War Ends
05-Kourastika Na Se Krato - I'm Tired Of Holding Your Hand
06-O Iskios Epese Varis - Deep Shadows
07-Pira Tous Drmous Tou Ouranou - I Took To The Streets Of Heaven
08-Stou Kosmou Tin Aniforia - The Uphill Road
09-To Ekremes - The Pendulum
10-To Oniro kapnos - The Dream Went Up In Smoke

Mikis Theodorakis - The Ballad Of Mauthausen & Six Songs (1974)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Leadbelly - Easy Rider (1999)

Huddie Ledbetter, known as Leadbelly, was a unique figure in the American popular music of the 20th century. Ultimately, he was best remembered for a body of songs that he discovered, adapted, or wrote, including "Goodnight, Irene," "Rock Island Line," "The Midnight Special," and "Cotton Fields."

But he was also an early example of a folksinger whose background had brought him into direct contact with the oral tradition by which folk music was handed down, a tradition that, by the early years of the century, already included elements of commercial popular music.

Because he was an African-American, he is sometimes viewed as a blues singer, but blues (a musical form he actually predated) was only one of the styles that informed his music. He was a profound influence on folk performers of the 1940s such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, who in turn influenced the folk revival and the development of rock music from the 1960s onward, which makes his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, early in the hall's existence, wholly appropriate.

Tracklist

01	Fannin Street
02	I've A Pretty Flowers
03	Easy Rider
04	Bull Cow
05	Dekalb Blues
06	New York City
07	Mother's Blues
08	Tell Me Baby
09	Sweet Mary Blues
10	Bourgeois Blues
11	My Friend Blind Lemon
12	Good Morning Blues
13	Gallis Pole
14	Outskirts Of Town
15	Grasshoppers In My Pillow
16	Scottsboro Blues
17	Sail On Little Girl, Sail On
18	Don't You Love You Daddy No More
19	Where Did You Sleep Last Night
20	How Long
21	Looky Looky Yonder

Leadbelly - Easy Rider
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Ton Steine Scherben & Kollektiv Rote Rübe - Liebe, Tod, Hysterie (1979)

Formed in 1970, Ton Steine Scherben were one of Germany's first real homegrown rock bands (as opposed to bands covering American and British rock songs), and although they weren't commercially successful in the normal sense, the group's influence in Germany has been long-lasting.

With a lineup of vocalist Rio Reiser, guitarist R.P.S. Lanrue, drummer Funky Götzner, bassist Kai Sichtermann, and keyboardist Martin Paul, Ton Steine Scherben (or TSS, as they came to be known) released several independent records on their own dime, recordings that were frequently highly political and controversial.

In time, Ton Steine Scherben shifted ground just slightly and explored more personal territory in their lyrics, but they never abandoned a sort of renegade stance, what in later years would be dubbed "punk." The first incarnation of TSS disbanded in 1985, but Reiser's death in 1996 reunited the surviving members for a farewell concert that same year, and they came together again in 2005 for a successful reunion tour and played a gig at the revolutionary May demonstration in Berlin this year.

Here´s another colaboration with the left wing cabaret Kollektiv Rote Rübe, called "Liebe, Tod, Hysterie".

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Ton Steine Scherben & Kollektiv Rote Rübe - Liebe, Tod, Hysterie (1979)

Force Of Music - Freedom Fighters Dub

Although the Royals' lineup had shifted on a number of occasions, in the mid-'70s a more dramatic cleft occurred, forcing Roy Cousins to take stock. While he mulled his next move, the singer/producer kept his group's name alive with the release of "Pick Up the Pieces", a stunning compilation of the Royals' best recent work, with a second set, "Ten Years After", following in 1978.

Thanks to DJ Lloyd Coxsone, who set the London scene shaking with dubs of "Ten Years After"'s songs, Cousins struck a deal with United Artists. The label, via their Ballistic imprint, released both "Pick Up the Pieces" and Ten Years After, as well as "Freedom Fighter Dub", whose ten versions were drawn evenly from both vocal albums. "Freedom Fighter" itself was credited to Force of Music, a moniker that encompassed just about every name musician then on the scene. The Royals never used one studio exclusively, and even the dub set was divvied up, with various tracks mixed down by Errol Thompson, Ernest Hoo Kim, and Scientist.

The echoing-in-the-ether of "Smoke Pipe Dub," the militant sound of "Pagan Front Dub," and the melody laced "Free Nambia Dub" each highlight the diversity of the approaches within. "Tribute to Lloyd Coxsone in Dub" is just exuberant, a fitting homage to the man who helped make it all happen; Cousins gratefully dedicated the album to him. The bulk of the vocal tracks were stunning versions of classic riddims, most arranged in roots reggae style, with only a few falling into rockers territory. The dubs invariably toughened them up, although "Promised Land"'s cheery atmosphere still shines through on "Fresh Cow Milk Dub," while the sweet melody of "Freedom Fighters" bubbles to the surface of "Free Namibia Dub" The vocal sets cemented the Royals' vocal reputation in stone, this dub set did the same for Cousins' productions.

Tracklist:                           

A1	Blood For Freedom Dub	2:46
A2	Free Namibia Dub	3:06
A3	Black Prince And Princess Dub	2:57
A4	Quake Heart Dub	3:03
A5	Pieces Of Dub	3:33
B1	Smoke Pipe Dub	2:54
B2	Pagan Front Dub	3:41
B3	Tribute To Lloyd Coxone Dub	3:47
B4	Fresh Cow Milk Dub	3:51
B5	Meet The People Dub	3:42

Force Of Music - Freedom Fighters Dub
(192 kbps, cover art included, track 10 is missing!)

Geoff & Maria Muldaur ‎– Sweet Potatoes

In the midst of leaving the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and beginning the juggernaut that would be the solo career of Maria Muldaur, the happily singing and swinging couple made several sides which made expert use of a loose-knit group of players who had grown into masters of the folk revival arts.

At times the choice of material on this album is unfortunately lazy; "Havana Moon" was a song that not even Chuck Berry himself could complete without boredom setting in, and the efforts here don't pay off much better. At the same time, the players here really don't need much more than the most basic framework from which to jump off and they are hard at it, pushing the music forward with a sense of purpose that inevitably helped it earn its hard-fought respectability. As a whole, "Sweet Potatoes" is something of a masterwork, rich and revealing, possessing the contagious enthusiasm of young musicians finding a personal voice in the rich traditions of the past as well as the relaxed sophistication that develops when these players are no longer novices.

The Geoff and Maria Muldaur combination, when it was working, was also very special, a challenging partnership that also was something of an inviting nucleus to the players with the talent to be drawn into the fold. This album contains some of the better playing of harmonica man Paul Butterfield, removed from the hyper-drive excess of his blues bands. "Kneein' Me" and "Cordelia" are among the song highlights. - Eugene Chadbourne

Tracklist:                           

1	Blue Railroad Train	3:00
2	Havana Moon	4:52
3	Lazy Bones	4:50
4	Cordelia	3:55
5	Dardanella	4:30
6	I'm Rich	5:11
7	Sweet Potatoes	2:03
8	Kneein' Me	3:18
9	Lover Man ( Oh Where Can You Be )	4:07
10	Hard Time Killin' Floor	4:55

Geoff & Maria Muldaur ‎– Sweet Potatoes
(192 kbps, cover art included)

VA - Township Jazz 'N' Jive

In the second quarter of the 20th century, American jazz records began making their way to South Africa and exerting a huge impact upon the country's culturally besieged black community. As fascinated by the tight, hot jazz sounds as by the celebrity of the African-American stars playing them, urban musicians began appropriating the look, the sound, and, most courageously, the style of Louis Armstrong and the zoot-suited gangsters they saw in American films.

The township jazz, or marabi, that came to fruition in the '50s is some of the sweetest summertime jazz you'll ever hear. The main sound is the driving hot sound Armstrong perfected in the late '20s, but elements of Cuban rumba, American doo-wop, and South African a cappella singing slip into the mix. Groups like the Manhattan Brothers, the Jazz Dazzlers, and the Four Yanks provide gorgeous ensemble work, while legendary girl groups like the Skylarks and Nancy Jacobs & Her Sisters sing glowing soul tunes that would have made Phil Spector weak in the knees. This is the sound of people using music to transcend their own reality, and it's as redemptive as Jimmy Cliff's THE HARDER THEY COME or the best Sam Cooke singles.

 

"Before mbaqanga's stomping bumpkin intensity swept the townships, small jazz-style ensembles played indigenous tunes with a South African beat you could jitterbug to. This is that music, the same urbane mode cherry-picked so infectiously on the Mandela soundtrack: the swinging jive of the '50s, when social dancing was a passion in every slapped-together apartheid ghetto. Far suaver than mbaqanga or kwela yet no less African, far simpler than Count Basie or the Mills Brothers yet no less artful, it implied an indoor space even if it couldn't always find one big enough for its spiritual ambitions. Its matchless buoyancy is mostly a matter of two learned rhythms coming together. But it evinces an unsinkability nobody would ever puncture." - Robert Christgau

 

Tracklist:

 

1. Ubuhlungu - The Four Yanks

2. Clarinet Kwela - Kippie Moeketsi & The Marabi Kings

3. Banana Ba Rustenburg - Spokess Mashiyane

4. De Makebam - Jazz Dazzlers

5. Omnyakane - Royal Players

6. Something New In Africa - Solven Whistlers

7. Holilili - Skylarks

8. Ndenzeni Na? - Father Huddlestone Band

9. Baby Are Yeng - Nancy Jacobs & Her Sisters

10. Dudu Wam - Four Yanks

11. Tihapi Ke Noga - Dolly Rathebe

12. Loafers Corner - Orlando Seven

13. Ishumelosheleni - Manhattan Brothers

14. Kwela Blues - Lemmy 'Special' Mabuse

15. Ngi Hamba Ngedwa - Dorothy Masuka

16. Thaba Tseu - Manhattan Brothers

17. Mbube - Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds

18. Midnight Ska - Reggie Msomi's Hollywood Jazz Band

 

VA - Township Jazz 'N' Jive

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Bob Dylan - Folk Rogue 1964 - 1965

This CD is one to grab for several reasons. First of all, Newport shows are essential both to any serious Dylan collection, as well as to any music historian. This set compares the sublime acoustic folk '64 show to the infamous 'Electric' '65 show that forever changed the face of folk, rock, and folk-rock music. The entire CD is soundboard recordings, and this is the best sounding Newport recordings ever. The filler material is of fascinating historical importance as well. The two missing songs from the newly discovered Hollywood Bowl show (with Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson) are also included. Finally, the aesthetics are nice, the venue information is complete, and the period photos are vibrant.

--Craig Pinkerton, bobsboots.com

In the span of exactly 365 days, from his July 26, 1964, appearance at the famed Newport Folk Festival to his return on July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan rocketed from folk luminary to lightning rod. After first abandoning the protest themes of his classic early anthems to focus on more poetic, personal subjects, Dylan next forsook the rigid traditions of roots music to go electric, drawing on the spirit of rock & roll to forge a revolutionary and controversial sound all his own. The must-have bootleg release "Folk Rogue 1964-1965" contains both Newport sets in their entirety, and the contrast is extraordinary: while the 1964 audience treats sublime, introspective songs like "It Ain't Me, Babe" and "All I Really Want to Do" with reverence and awe, the 1965 crowd seems poised on the brink of anarchy, and regardless of whether the catalyst was the elemental ferocity of the music, the inadequate sound system, or the brevity of the three-song set, the tension is palpable, and it elevates Dylan and his band to remarkable heights. Adding a pair of songs from Dylan's September 3, 1965, show at Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl for good measure, "Folk Rogue 1964-1965" remains the definitive single-disc presentation of this landmark material. Soundboard-quality fidelity and tasteful packaging complete an essential collection, although Dandelion's two-disc "From Newport to the Ancient Empty Streets in LA" adds the Hollywood Bowl show in its entirety while subtracting "It Ain't Me Babe" from the 1964 Newport appearance, so comparison shopping is recommended.  - allmusic.com


Tracklist:

1. It Ain't Me Babe *
2. All I Really Want To Do
3. To Ramona
4. Mr Tambourine Man
5. Chimes Of Freedom
6. Don't Think Twice **
7. All I Really Wanna Do *(afternoon workshop)
8. Maggie's Farm
9. Like A Rolling Stone
10. Phantom Engineer
11. Tombstone Blues ***
12. It Ain't Me Babe ***
13. We Want Bobby
14. It's All Over Now Baby Blue
15. Mr Tambourine Man

Newport Folk Festival, RI July 25, 1965 Except:
* Newport Folk Festival, RI July 26, 1964
** Newcastle, UK City Hall May 6, 1965
*** Hollywood Bowl, LA, CA September 3, 1965

Bob Dylan - Folk Rogue 1964 - 1965
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Bobby Darin - The Bobby Darin Story (1961)

 

Released in the early '60s, here's the first part of Darin's career told by the vocalist himself in a 12-song greatest-hits collection that really works. The narration inserts still function well after all these years, making you realize that this was originally a vinyl album, as Darin negotiates from rock & roller to finger-snapping lounge lizard. This album focuses on his early days with ATCO records in the late 50's and early 60's. Not all the cuts are the ones that were released as singles, and it's interesting to hear the unfamiliar cuts of familiar songs. :~ Cub Koda

Tracks:
01. Splish Splash
02. Early In The Morning
03. Queen Of The Hop
04. Plain Jane
05. Dream Lover
06. Mack The Knife
07. Beyond The Sea
08. Clementine
09. Bill Bailey
10. Artificial Flowers
11. Somebody To Love
12. Lazy River


This is an early compilation album transferred intact to CD. Between numbers, Bobby Darin comments on the impact and import of each song (including a charmingly anachronistic, "If you don't turn this over, I'm liable to run into the label," followed by a resounding crash).
The Bobby Darin Story includes his early hits, "Splish Splash" and "Queen of the Hop" as well as the iconic "Mack The Knife." Everything about this CD screams "musty old record album in the basement" including the label which advises us that this recording is in stereo. Wowee.
Unremastered and rather reedy recordings of most of the songs made me wish I had the original LP, with the cracks, hisses and pops they so rightfully deserve. No Information Age smoothness here. This album, er, CD is a real chestnut, full of artifacts from a vanished time.
The tumult of the Sixties is reflected in the widely varying musical styles on this recording. Bobby Darin spent much of his career finding his own unique voice, veering between bubblegum At The Hop pop and derivative Tin Pan Alley toss-offs until he passed magnificently "Beyond The Sea."
Darin's tragically brief life and stellar career are well remembered on this curio shop recording. And Bobby's commentary makes it all come to life.:~ Amazon Customer Comment

Bobby Darin - The Bobby Darin Story (1961)
(ca. 192 kbps, cover art included)

Buffy Sainte-Marie - Little Wheel Spin and Spin (1966)

Buffy Sainte-Marie took some tentative steps toward a more contemporary sound here, with contributions from supporting musicians such as Bruce Langhorne, Patrick Sky, Eric Weissberg, and Felix Pappalardi, all of whom were noted New York folk and folk-rock players.

It's an interesting collection of songs, not among either her best or worst work, including some covers of traditional ballads amidst a mostly original program. It was one of those originals, "My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying," that caught the most attention and remains her most protest-oriented composition.

Tracklist:

A1	Little Wheel Spin And Spin	2:26
A2	House Carpenter	3:43
A3	Waly, Waly	3:45
A4	Rolling Log Blues	3:28
A5	My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying	6:43
A6	Men Of The Field	1:55
B1	Timeless Love	2:40
B2	Sir Patrick Spens	5:10
B3	Poor Man's Daughter	2:55
B4	Lady Margaret	1:40
B5	Sometimes When I Get To Thinkin'	3:35
B6	Winter Boy	2:10

Buffy Sainte-Marie - Little Wheel Spin and Spin (1966)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Kurt Weill & Bert Brecht - Die Dreigroschenoper - Songs & Szenen (1968)

Kurt Weill was born in Dessau on 2 March 1900. Having displayed musical talent early on, he became a substitute accompanist at the Dessau Court Theater during the First World War, and after studying theory and composition with Albert Bingenrolled at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik.

Not liking the training with Engelbert Humperdinck, though, he was accepted finally into Ferruccio Busoni’s master class in composition. In order to support himself, he conducted synagogue choirs, tutored students (e.g. Claudio Arrau, Maurice Abravanel) in music theory and contributed articles and reviews to "Der deutsche Rundfunk“.
By 1925, Weill had been established as one of the leading composers of his generation, along with Paul Hindemith and Ernst Krenek. In the same time, he turned to writing operas, collaborating a.o. with Georg Kaiser (e.g. "Der Protagonist“, Weill’s sensational theatrical debut in 1926, or "Der Silbersee“, 1933) and with Bertolt Brecht (e.g. "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny“ or the ballet "The Seven Deadly Sins" for Balanchine’s troupe). The Brecht-Weill piece „Die Dreigroschenoper“ with its sometimes aggressive, sometimes sentimental popular song-style with elements of jazz, moritat and carabet songs remains one of his most famous works.

Weill’s compositions of the early thirties outraging the Nazis and campaigns discouraging productions of his work, Weill fled Germany in 1933 via Paris and London to America (in 1935) to oversee Max Reinhardt’s production of his opera "Der Weg der Verheißung“ after Franz Werfel’s biblical spectacle. Weill and his wife Lotte Lenya stayed in the USA and applied for American citizenship.
Working mainly for Broadway, Weill established himself soon as a new and original voice in the American musical theater, often chosing unusual collaborators such as Paul Green, Maxwell Anderson, Ogden Nash, and Langston Hughes. He also completed two film scores, including Fritz Lang’s "You and Me“.
In 1946 Weill was elected as the only composer-member of the distinguished Playwrights Producing Company (founded in 1938) which brought his musical version of Elmer Rice’s Pulitzer-Prize winning drama Street Scene to Broadway as an American opera, the first real successor to "Porgy and Bess“. Weill’s experiment "Lady in the Dark“ was a big success and his daring last two works for Broadway, the concept musical "Love Life“ and the musical tragedy "Lost in the Stars“, challenged the Broadway institution and audience to a degree that would not be met until the 1970s in the Sondheim-Prince collaborations.
Apart from his numerous stage works (including pantomime, ballet, student opera and operetta), Weill wrote two symphonies and other orchestral works, two string quartets and different kinds of vocal works.
He died on 3 April 1950 in New York City.

Here´s the 1968 recording of the "Threepenny Opera" wit Helmut Qualtinger, Karin Baal, Martin Held, Sylvia Anders, Hans Clarin, Franz-Josef Degenhardt and James Last (!).

Kurt Weill & Bert Brecht - Die Dreigroschenoper -Songs & Szenen (1968)
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger - The Jacobite Rebellions (1962)

From the sleeve notes:

"AFTER CENTURIES OF CONFLICT, THE KINGDOMS OF ENGLAND AND Scotland had been brought together in 1603 when the Stuart King James VI of Scotland became James I of England. Although united in the person of their ruler the two states retained quite different governments and institutions. They remained separate until the Act of Union in 1707 established a single government for the 'United Kingdom'. By this time the Stuart dynasty had been deposed in the so-called 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688, when the Roman Catholic James II (VII of Scotland) was replaced by the Dutch ruler William of Orange, who had married James' elder daughter Mary. This had been a victory for the powerful landowning and commercial classes which had been rapidly increasing in strength during the preceding century. They were strongly Protestant in religion and they were, moreover, determined to restrict the power of the monarchy permanently.

Scotland benefited materially from the Union with England. Its trade and manufacturing industry increased enormously and, thanks to the superiority of Scottish education over anything, existing south of the Border in the eighteenth century, Scottish businessmen, inventors and intellectual leaders figured amongst the giants of the Industrial Revolution. Adam Smith, the economist; James Watt, inventor of the improved steam engine; and Macadam and Telford, the famous road builders, were amongst the most outstanding.

 

The real increase in the prosperity of Scotland as a result of this important contribution to the processes of industrialisation was, however, unevenly spread. It was concentrated in the Lowlands and in particular in Glasgow, which was rapidly becoming a large commercial centre. The Highlands were scarcely affected by it. In this extensive mountainous area an ancient feudal system based on subsistence farming remained dominant. The clans which maintained it were cut off from both the material developments and currents of thought of the outside world. Personal loyalty was highly valued; the old religion of Roman Catholicism was still strongly entrenched; and with it affection for the exiled 'King across the water' and a romantic attachment to the 'auld alliance" with France against England. In view of this dour resistance to all the forces of innovation which were beginning to transform England and the Lowlands in the eighteenth century, it was natural that the Stuarts should look to the Highlands as their main hope for a revival of their fortunes.

 

James II had gone into exile in France, where he died in 1701. His son James, the 'Old Pretender', inherited the claim to the thrones of England and Scotland, and it was in support of him that the Jacobite Risings occurred. The Act of Settlement of 1701 had ensured that the crown would pass to the Protestant House of Hanover. This happened in 1714, and the first Rising was thus timed to take advantage of the unpopularity of George I. But as it was inadequately planned and badly led, the Rising of 1715 never presented a serious challenge to the new regime. Apart from an abortive expedition in 1719, thirty years passed before the Stuarts made their next and final bid to recover power.

 

On the 25th July 1745, the 25 year old Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the 'Young Pretender', set foot on the Scottish mainland. Less than a month later he raised the standard of his father at Glenfinnan, and the clansmen began to rally to him. By a daring march on Edinburgh the Jacobites captured the city and repulsed an effort to dislodge them at the Battle of Prestonpans. The Prince then led his army southwards towards London, hoping that support would come to him from the inhabitants of the northern English counties. He was disappointed. Although he reached the River Trent just south of Derby on 4th December, he received an extremely cool welcome from the towns and countryside through which he passed. And his clansmen became increasingly disgruntled the further they moved from their native glens.

 

Meanwhile, the government had been desperately raising an army, and although hampered by incredibly bad communications a force was now ready to take the field under the generalship of the Duke of Cumberland.

 

The Prince was forced to retreat, and his forces fell back into Scotland and then into the Highlands, Cumberland pursued them towards the inevitable engagement. This took place on the morning of 16th April 1746, when the clansmen were mown down by the superior armaments of the government forces on Culloden Moor.

 

The Battle of Culloden marked the extinction of the last Jacobite hope of recovering the British crown, and Prince Charles spent many hunted weeks as a fugitive before he managed narrowly to escape to France. But it marked more than that — it was also the end of an ancient social order. The government determined that there should never be another rising in the Highlands, and Cumberland earned himself the nickname of 'The Butcher' by ruthlessly carrying out the policy of breaking the clan system. Estates of the leading Jacobites were confiscated, and the wearing of the tartan prohibited. Even more important, the feudal powers of the clan chieftains, with their own law courts and the right of claiming military service from their tenants, were abolished.

 

These measures were effective. Law and order was imposed on the Highlands. Roads, bridges and harbours were built and improved. The introduction of English practices of land ownership led in time to the establishment of large estates as deer parks, and resulted in large scale depopulation. By 1759 Pitt was able to remove the ban on tartan wearing and to recruit regiments of Highlanders to assist in the conquest of Canada. In 1784, the government felt able to restore most of the forfeited estates to their original owners. Meanwhile, the whole country had begun to show signs of the rapid acceleration in the processes of industrialisation which brought greater prosperity to the nation. Industrial and commercial success in the eighteenth century did more than Cumberland's troops to cement the political foundations of Hanoverian Britain.

 

With the pacification of the Highlands, the Stuart cause was dead. But like many lost causes, that of the Jacobites has retained its attraction and its power to move the spirit. More than most, the Jacobite cause, though lost, has been won in the persistent appeal of the songs which it evoked. These songs recall a social order which has long since passed away under the wheels of the locomotive, the arterial road, the factory, and the hydroelectric power station. They recall the bravery of men who died for a cause in which they believed. And above all, they recall the loyalty felt towards the young prince who, with grace and charm, came to lead the clansmen in his fathers' cause; and who, though doomed to failure, won the hearts and devotion of men and women in his own generation and in those which have followed. - ANGUS BUCHANAN"

 

"In the Jacobite songs every battle became a cry against oppression, and every leader wears the aspect of Ideal courage, boldness and strength, without blemish. The songs are glorious. Through them the Jacobites have won their rebellions, for the songs exist In posterity, moving us who are so far removed from the events, the causes, and the feelings, of the Fifteen and the Forty-Five; who live In other countries and pursue other destinies. As Ewan MacColl writes: "To a world which has become familiar with the concept of genocide, which has known fascism and two world wars, the Jacobite rebellions appear as no more than cases of mild unrest. They have grown dusty in history's lumber room along with all the other lost causes. The Stuart cause is forgotten and nothing, remains of it except the songs. "And what songs they are'. Witty, tender, proud, bitter, ribald, delicate, passionate; the songs of a people with a great zest and appetite for life; the songs of a people who are essentially optimistic and who, oddly enough, succeed In combining sympathy for a declining royal house with the most republican sentiments." - RALPH KNIGHT

Tracklist:

A1	Ye Jacobites By Name
A2	Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation
A3	Will Ye Go To Sheriffmuir
A4	Wae's Me For Prince Charlie
A5	Charlie He's My Darling
A6	The Haughs Of Cromdale
A7	The Bonnie Moorhen
A8	Johnnie Cope
B1	Cam Ye O'er Frae France
B2	There's Three Brave, Loyal Fellows
B3	This Is No My Ain House
B4	The Piper O' Dundee
B5	Donald MacGillavry
B6	MacLean's Welcome
B7	Will Ye No Come Back Again

Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger - The Jacobite Rebellions (1962)
(ca. 250 kbps, cover art incuded)

Ella Fitzgerald - Ella At Juan-Les Pins (1964)

Ella at Juan-les-Pins is a 1964 live album by Ella Fitzgerald, accompianed by a quartet led by Roy Eldridge on trumpet with the pianist Tommy Flanagan, Gus Johnson on drums and Bill Yancey on bass. Val Valentin was the recording engineer, Cover photo by Jean-Pierre Leloir. The original 1964 album featured 12 songs, highlights of two concerts Fitzgerald performed on the 28 and 29 of July 1964 at the Fifth 'Festival Mondial du Jazz Antibes' in Juan-les-Pins, France. Ella is in fine voice, sounding very aggressive at times, as her voice leaps and growls. The listener also gets to hear Ella improvise a musical tribute to the crickets who are also in fine voice throughout the performance. It is

one of the forgotten live LPs from the career of vocal jazz's most impressive live artists.

Ella Fitzgerald does give the appreciative crowd the show they're looking for; whereas most vocalists have treated songs like "Them There Eyes" and "Perdido" as features for their playful side, Fitzgerald simply rips them apart with twisting, turning wordplay, breakneck tempos the band can hardly keep up with, and scats no listener can digest the first or second time through. She wrings all the selfish joi de vivre from "The Lady Is a Tramp" (addressing herself), then, with barely a pause, moves into a carefully paced "Summertime." Two recent crossovers, Barbra Streisand's "People" and the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love," serve as pleasant stopgap items between the real show, and Fitzgerald reprises her legend-making rendition of "Mack the Knife" from "Ella in Berlin", describing the entire sorted Brecht-to-Darin-to-Armstrong history of the song while never losing her sense of swing. Throughout, she never fails to energize or charm her audience.   

Ella Fitzgerald - Ella At Juan-Les Pins (1964)   
(256 kbps, cover art included)  

William S. Burroughs - Dead City Radio (1990)

The elder statesman of literature's Beat Generation - and, by extension, of the American underground culture - few figures outside of the musical sphere exerted a greater influence over rock & roll than novelist William S. Burroughs. A provocative, controversial figure famed for his unique cut-up prose aesthetic, Burroughs lived the rock lifestyle years before the music itself was even created; the ultimate outsider, he existed on the dark fringes of society in a haze of drugs, guns, and violence, remaining a patron saint of hipsterdom until his dying day. Ultimately, Burroughs' hold on the popular culture was extraordinary: few artists failed to credit him as an inspiration, and while bands like Steely Dan and the Soft Machine adopted their names from his turns-of-phrase, younger artists like Kurt Cobain and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy lined up to offer musical support for his occasional excursions into spoken word performing.

One of the best Burroughs recordings, "Dead City Radio" features the writer reading five previously unreleased pieces, along with selections from several of his books. The acerbic Burroughs wit is at its finest on many of these selections, and he even takes a shot at singing on one track. Musical contributors to this project include Sonic Youth, Donald Fagen, Lenny Pickett, Cheryl Hardwick, Chris Stein, and John Cale.

William S. Burroughs - Dead City Radio (1990)

(320 kbps, front cover included)