Mississippi John Hurt - Live (Vanguard, 2002)

It's the stories, the warmth of the voice and guitar and the straight-from-the-heart stage patter that made Mississippi John Hurt one of our most enduring bluesmen. This 1965 concert reveals how influential and inspiring he was.

Mississippi John Hurt's vocal and guitar style are always easy on the ears. Unlike a number of Delta stylists with their high-pitched voices and slashing slide guitars, Hurt's approach to country blues is immediately accessible. Recorded (for the most part) at Oberlin College in 1965, "Live" captures Hurt a couple of years after his rediscovery and one year before his death. He kicks off with several spirituals, including "I Shall Not Be Moved" and "Nearer My God to Thee." As Billy Altman points out in the liner notes, religious material was often excluded from studio recordings because no one believed it marketable. The remainder of "Live" consists of folk-blues, from "Salty Dog Blues" to "Coffee Blues" to "Ain't Nobody's Business." Hurt's finger-style guitar reminds one of Elizabeth Cotton and has more in common with the Piedmont players in general than those of his Mississippi home. Perhaps this connection helps explain why Hurt, who is considered primarily a bluesman, covered so many traditional folk songs. Indeed, the inclusion of songs like "C.C. Rider" also connects him to that other great straddler of folk and blues, Leadbelly. The last three tracks -- "Hop Joint," "Trouble, I've Had It All My Days," and "Spike Driver Blues" -- originate from the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 and fit in well with the other material. Fans will thank their Maker that Tom Hoskins traveled to Mississippi in 1963 to find out if Hurt was still among the living. Otherwise, excellent recordings like "Live" would've never been made.

"Country blues just doesn't get much better, or any sweeter, than Hurt's performance here. When this concert recording was issued as a two-record set 35 years ago, it bore the misleading title The Best of Mississippi John Hurt. Misleading because it featured the rediscovered 70-something artist reviving material he'd originally recorded more than 35 years earlier. But age did nothing to diminish the sly sensuality of Hurt's songs or the gentle virtuosity of his guitar. The selection includes traditional spirituals, such as "I Shall Not Be Moved" and "Nearer My God to Thee"; signature standards, such as "Candy Man" and "My Creole Belle"; and surprises, such as the instrumental "Spanish Fandango" and the evergreen "You Are My Sunshine." Hurt's return from obscurity ranks with the more rewarding upshots of the 1960s folk revival, and his legacy (since his death in 1966) has continued to influence contemporary folk and blues musicians. In addition to the original recordings from a 1965 concert at Oberlin College, this reissue contains three previously unreleased tracks recorded at the same year's Newport Folk Festival workshop." --Don McLeese


Tracklist:
1 Here Am I, Oh Lord, Send Me
2 I Shall Not Be Moved
3 Nearer My God To Thee
4 Baby What's Wrong With You
5 Ain't Nobody's Business
6 Salty Dog Blues
7 Coffee Blues
8 Avalon, My Home Town
9 Make Me A Pallet On The Floor
10 Since I've Laid This Burden Down
11 Sliding Delta
12 Monday Morning Blues
13 Richland Woman Blues
14 Candy Man
15 Stagolee
16 My Creole Bell
17 C C Rider
18 Spanish Fandango
19 Talking Casey
20 Chicken
21 You Are My Sunshine
22 Hop Joint
23 Trouble, I've Had It All My Days
24 Spike Driver's Blues

Mississippi John Hurt - Live (Vanguard, 2002)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Hans-A-Plast - II (1981)

Hans-A-Plast was a German independent punkrock band from Hannover, founded in 1978. They released their first album DIY with a little help by the local independent-label Lava Records, which permit to use the label and labelcode for this enterprise. This first album was something like an initial spark to the later called NDW and against any expectation, very successful. More than 10 000 copies sold very fast, so the band decided to do their own Label "No Fun Records", founded in 1980. They did a rerelease of the first album and two more on it, but also offers it to several local bands. There was some attention all over the world at this time, and up to now, the band still belong to the most important German punkrockbands.

To complete the Hans-A-Plast history, here´s their second album.

The german pop magazin "Sounds" wrote about this release:
"Hans-A-Plast II ist ein schwieriges, abwechslungsreiches Album, mit dem auseinanderzusetzen sich lohnt. Viele der Texte enthalten Tiefen und Anspielungen, die sich erst bei häufigerem Gebrauch auftun" (Sounds 1/81)

Tracklist:

A1	Spielfilm	2:40
A2	Untitled	0:12
A3	Reicher Vati	2:42
A4	Kunde und Vieh	3:30
A5	Dicke Kinder	2:37
A6	Sicherheit	2:42
A7	Machtspiel / Eidexe kriech	3:31
B1	Humphrey Bogart	2:47
B2	Kurz und dreckig	3:09
B3	Tuaregs	5:26
B4	Ich zünd mich an	2:10
B5	Mono-Ton	3:49

Hans-A-Plast - II (1981)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Maria Farantouri - Way Home

A well-known Greek vocalist and political activist, Maria Farantouri is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Greek music, especially the work of composer Mikis Theodorakis. A contralto singer with a deep, resonant voice, Farantouri is sometimes referred to as the Joan Baez of Greece, and over the years has moved from traditional and folk styles to more jazz, classical, and avant-garde works.

In the year of her 60th birthday, Maria Farantouri is presenting one of her most personal albums. Way Home is a collection of 18 songs with which the singer interprets both traditional songs as well as works by various Greek composers in her own way. For decades now, Maria Farantouri has been known as the voice of Greece both at home and abroad. Le Monde called her the ""Mediterranean Joan Baez"" and The Guardian said: ""Her voice is a present from the gods of Olympus". 

Maria Farantouri - Way Home
(256 kbps, cover art included) 

Renft - Die frühen Jahre (Amiga, 1989)

The Klaus Renft Combo is a veteran German rock band, formed in Leipzig in what was then East Germany, in 1958. Founded by Klaus Renft , the band enjoyed significant success in East Germany until banned by the authorities in 1975. The band was reunited in 1990.

The group was very successful, but seen by the Stasi as far too radical. In September 1975, Renft were asked to play for the Ministry of Culture in order to have their license (a document necessary for any working musician or musical group) renewed. Klaus Renft decided to conceal a cassette recorder behind his guitar to preserve their session. However, the woman in charge of their meeting, Comrade Ruth Oelschlägel, informed them that they would not be performing because their music was insulting and libelous, and further told them that they "[didn't] exist anymore." She explained that it was not that they were banned, but that they simply did not exist any longer "as a combo."

"Die frühen Jahre" is a compilation of recordings from 1972 to 1974. The songs "Ich und der Rock" and "Als ich wie ein Vogel war" are from the soundtrack of the DEFA film "Für die Liebe noch zu mager".


Tracklist:

Ketten werden knapper 2:55

Der Apfeltraum 4:35

Kinder, ich bin nicht der Sandmann 2:05

Wer die Rose ehrt 3:07

Liebeslied 3:01

Wandersmann 3:54

Lied auf den Weg 4:06

Ich bau euch ein Lied 1:05

Nach der Schlacht 4:55

Wiegenlied für Susann' 1:48

Ermutigung 4:10

Ich und der Rock 2:34

Irgendwann werd' ich mal... 2:52

Als ich wie ein Vogel war 3:55

Gelbe Straßenbahnballade 4:57

Renft - Die frühen Jahre (Amiga, 1989)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Mimi & Richard Farina - Pack Up Your Sorrows (The Best of the Vanguard Years)

When Vanguard Records issued its double album "The Best of Mimi & Richard Fariña" in 1971, five years after the motorcycle crash that claimed Richard Fariña's life, the label simply repackaged the duo's two regular album releases, "Celebrations for a Grey Day" (1965) and "Reflections in a Crystal Wind" (1966).

In 1988, when it reissued the package on CD, Vanguard cut six tracks to fit "The Best Of" on a single disc, leaving 20. Eighteen of those tracks are repeated on "Pack Up Your Sorrows: Best of the Vanguard Years", which restores one of the cut songs and adds two tracks from the 1968 outtakes album "Memories", plus one previously unreleased instrumental, "Tuileries."

All of that makes the new compilation a slight improvement in terms of selection, while the CD remastering improves the sound. (Ed Ward's enthusiastic but ill-informed liner notes -- he confuses the Big Sur Folk Festival with the Newport Folk Festival and makes other errors -- are not a plus.) As a lyricist, Fariña matched the elliptical style of mid-'60s Bob Dylan image for image, and tracks such as "Hard Loving Loser" are stylistically identical to the folk-rock of Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home", partly because they employ some of the same sidemen. But Fariña and his wife Mimi gave his words a sweet-and-sour harmony style, and their most distinctive music was made when they duetted on autoharp and dulcimer, as on the instrumentals that make up a good part of the song list.

Richard Fariña's early death robbed the music world of an important singer/songwriter (not to mention robbing literature of a promising novelist), but the work he left behind ranks with the best folk-rock of the 1960s.

Tracklist
1. Dandelion River Run
2. Pack up Your Sorrows
3. Reflections in a Crystal Wind
4. Swallow Song, A
5. Tommy Makem Fantasy
6. Hard-Loving Loser
7. Michael, Andrew and James
8. Hamish
9. Another Country
10. Falcon, The
11. Reno, Nevada
12. Celebration for a Grey Day
13. Bold Marauder
14. Dopico
15. Sell-Out Agitation Waltz
16. House un-American Blues Activity Dream
17. Raven Child
18. Miles - (TRUE instrumental)
19. Children of Darkness
20. Blood Red Roses
21. Morgan the Pirate
22. Tuileries - (previously unreleased)

Mimi & Richard Farina - Pack Up Your Sorrows (The Best of the Vanguard Years)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Oktoberklub - Aha (Amiga, 1973)

"Singe-Bewegung" and "Oktoberklub" in East Germany, part 5.

The GDR viewed the whole democratic and revolutionary song tradition as its own cultural inheritance. The "Kampflieder" of Brecht and Eisler and songs from the Spanish Civil War were learned in scholls and in the army. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s these songs appeared in song books of the Free German Youth (FDJ) and the Young Pioneers alongside German folk songs and new, so called "Aufbaulieder" written specially for the GDR youth. Songs such as "Fleißig, nur fleißig" and Johannes R. Becher´s "Nationalhymne der DDR" encouraged diligence and a joyful common purpose in the building of the new socialist state. In general, however, the political song genre did not prosper in the 1950s. It was a serious, sacred tradition, not to be tampered with, and the writing of new songs critical of the GDR was unthinkable. On the other hand, as Lutz Kirchenwitz notes, for the young poets of the 1950s, who were inspired by the creation of a socialist state on German soil, the political crises caused by the uprising of 17th June 1953 and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 created an atmosphere of disillusionment that was detrimental for the writing of new political poetry and song.

By the early 1960s, a completely new kind of protest song culture was being encountered. The American civil rights song was filtering over the air waves via West Germany through to East Berlin. The building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 had given the GDR government a sufficient sense of security to relax the severity of censorship in the arts. During this political thaw, which lasted roughly up until the infamous 11th Plenum of the SED in December 1965, an independent folk music scene emerged in East Berlin, based on the informal Hootenanny model made famous by American folk singers such as Pete Seeger.
The Berlin Hootenannies were guided by the resident banjo-playing Canadian Perry Friedman. With his uninhibited performance style, Friedman made German folk songs attractive for the youth and freed the workers´ songs of their sacred aura.

The following members of the "Oktoberklub" contributed to the album "Aha", released in 1973 on the Amiga label: Peter Andert, Reinhold Andert, Volkmar Andrä, Helmut Baumert, Elke Bitterhof, Michael Brandt, Jürgen Briese, Reinhard Buchholz, Erwin Burkert, Rainer-Henri Butschke, Rene Büttner, Bernd Engel, Jörn Fechner, Sabine Fechner, Jürgen Feige, Carsten Görner, Reinhard Heinemann, Michael Höft, Gerhard Kegel, Lutz Kirchenwitz, Ursula Kleinert, Fred Krüger, Stefanie Lenke, Uwe Leo, Reinhard Mann, Waltraud Monzer, Rainer Neumann, Brigitte Normann, Karl Heinz Ocasek, Bert Ostberg, Katja Ostberg, Gina Pietsch, Peter Porsch, Gudrun Sonnenburg, Horst-Fred Stolle, Andreas Turowski, Ilona Wagemann and Siegfried Wein.

Oktoberklub - Aha (Amiga, 1973)
(Quality update: 320 kbps, front & back cover inclued)

To be continued...

New Age Steppers - Massive Hits Vol. 1 (1994, On-U Sound)

The New Age Steppers were a twisted sort of punk/reggae supergroup organized by On-U Sound label head Adrian Sherwood in the early '80s. It included vocalists Ari Up (formerly of the Slits) and Mark Stewart (known for his work with the infamous Mafia) as well as Roots Radics drummer Style Scott and a handful of other studio musicians, with Sherwood himself doing that dubwise voodoo that he did so well at the mixing board. 

The ironically titled "Massive Hits, Vol. 1" draws on the band's first three releases, taking about half the material from New Age Steppers and Action Battlefield and putting those tracks together with all but two selections from Foundation Steppers to create a generous program and about as good an overview of the group's formative years as you could ask for. There's an early and drastically deconstructed version of "High Ideals and Crazy Dreams" (which would later be recorded in a far superior version by Strange Parcels) with Stewart on vocals, and a charmingly heartfelt and vocally amateurish rendition of the Junior Byles classic "Fade Away" performed by Ari Up. Bim Sherman makes an uncredited appearance on "Dreamers" and "Vice of My Enemies." But some of the collection's best moments are purely instrumental dub, such as an excellent remix of "Private Armies" and the coolly militant-sounding "Stabilizer." Avant roots reggae doesn't get any better than this.


Tracklist:

1. Fade Away
2. State Assembly
3. High Ideals & Crazy Dreams
4. Private Army Dub
5. My Whole World
6. Observe Life
7. Problems Pt. 1 +2
8. Nuclear Zulu
9. Memories
10. 5 Dog Race
11. Misplaced Love
12. Dreamers
13. Stabilizer
14. Vice Of My Enemies
15. Mandarin


New Age Steppers - Massive Hits Vol. 1 (1994)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

VA - Echoes Of A Red Empire - Russian Songs Of Struggle From The Great Revolution & Second World War

Historically, the people of Russia have been no stranger to tyranny. However trampled was the spirit of the Russian people during the miseries of Communism, it did produce some very stirring and tuneful music, often based on traditional folk melodies, sometimes operatically inspired. It was also the Communist way to encourage the people to sing about its great triumphs, of which obviously the Great Revolution in 1917 was foremost, followed by the Great Patriotic War, which is how Soviet Russia named its part in the Second World War. Even in the greatest depths of the Cold War, cultural exchanges took place between East and West, led by Moscow’s prestigious Bolshoi Ballet. Perhaps surprisingly, also popular in the West was the Russian Army Ensemble; whilst doubtless its ranks contained an appropriate number of KGB agents, it was essentially a large singing and dancing group, and very exuberant and entertaining it was too. This collection evokes memories of visits and recordings by the Russian Army Ensemble and others, and although the subject matter is often very serious and sometimes comical by Western tastes, no one can doubt the tunefulness, vigour and sincerity of the result.

Tracklist:

SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR, 1917
1. WE SHALL BRAVELY GO INTO BATTLE
2. WE, THE RED SOLDIERS
3. THE SHOOTING OF THE COMMUNARDS
4. THE SEEING OFF OF VANYA
5. BUDENNIY MARCH
6. YOUNG GUARDS
7. FAR AWAY, ACROSS THE RIVER
8. CHAPAEV, THE HERO WAGED WAR IN THE URALS
9. OVER HILLS AND DALES
10. OUR LOCOMOTIVE
11. SONG OF THE COMMUNE

SONGS OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, 1941 - 1945
12. SCARED STONE
13. ROSTOV TOWN
14. LILACS ARE BLOOMING
15. LIZAVETA
16. NIGHTINGALES
17. KATYUSHA
18. SAD WILLOWS
19. PLAY, MY ACCORDION

VA - Echoes Of A Red Empire - Russian Songs Of Struggle From The Great Revolution & Second World War
(320 kbps, cover art included)

VA - Let Freedom Sing - This Land Is Your Land, Vol. 2

While everyone doesn't agree on what patriotism means, even left-leaning folksingers celebrate the promises of America. Promises, however, sometimes fall short. So if singers like Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Cisco Houston point out America's shortcomings in protest songs, they don't consider themselves unpatriotic: they're only reminding Americans of their original principals. 

"Let Freedom Sing" travels back to the early-to-mid '60s, the golden age of the protest song, for the majority of its material. Since Vanguard signed so many top folk acts during the time, the major voices from the era are represented here. There's a live take of Dylan singing "Playboys and Playgirls" with Pete Seeger and a live, acapella version of Baez singing "Oh Freedom." Patrick Sky and Buffy Sainte-Marie weigh in on Native-American rights on the "Ballad of Ira Hayes" and "Now That the Buffalo's Gone" respectively. 

While most of this collection is rather somber, Mimi & Richard Farina's "House Un-American Blues Activity Dream" and the Chad Mitchell Trio's "The John Birch Society" offer a slight reprieve. Two Woody Guthrie classics get overhauled by Houston ("Deportee") and Ramblin' Jack Elliott ("1913 Massacre"), while the Weavers sing the rousing "Which Side Are You On?" 

This is an excellent collection that entertains while reminding Americans that there are many types of patriotism. - allmusic.com, Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.

Tracklist:

1 –Phil Ochs - I Ain't Marchin' Anymore
2 –Phil Ochs  - There But For Fortune
3 –Bob Dylan & Pete Seeger  - Playboys and Playgirls
4 –Bob Dylan - Blowing In The Wind
5 –Joan Baez - Oh Freedom
6 –Joan Baez - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
7 –The Weavers - Which Side Are You On?
8 –The Weavers - Miner's Life
9 –Patrick Sky  - Ballad of Ira Hayes
10 –Eric Andersen - Thirsty Boots
11 –Judy Collins - Carry It On
12 –Mimi & Richard Farina - House Un-American Blues Activity Dream
13 –Tom Paxton  -The Death Of Stephen Biko
14 –The Chad Mitchell Trio - The John Birch Society
15 –Buffy Sainte-Marie - Now That the Buffalo's Gone
16 –Ramblin' Jack Elliott - 1913 Massacre
17 –Cisco Houston - Deportee
18 –Odetta - No More Auction Block For Me

VA - Let Freedom Sing - This Land Is Your Land, Vol. 2

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Mimi & Richard Farina - Celebrations For A Grey Day (1965)

Richard Fariña was a noted counterculture author and folksinger in the early '60s. Married for a time to folksinger Carolyn Hester, he was an early intimate of Bob Dylan, and in fact recorded a collectable album with Dylan (playing under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt) and Ric Von Schmidt in 1963. After marrying Joan Baez's sister, Mimi, he formed a folk-rock duo who released two acclaimed albums in the mid-'60s. Unlike folk-rock figureheads like the Byrds, the Fariñas were far more firmly rooted in folk than rock.

Their recordings effectively flavored their material (mostly written by Fariña) with jangling electric guitars and a rhythm section, ably assisted by such session players as guitarist Bruce Langhorne (who also played on Dylan's first electric recordings), bassist Felix Pappalardi, and harmonica player John Hammond. The Fariñas themselves also played guitar, autoharp, and dulcimer. Least successful with blues, they recorded some effective Appalachian-flavored material, and several excellent bona fide mid-tempo folk-rockers and ballads. Their best songs effectively balanced world-wise, sardonic observations with good-natured, melodic optimism.

The Fariñas' promising career ended prematurely with the death of Richard Fariña in a motorcycle accident on his birthday in 1966. His novel of the same year, "Been Down So Long It Looks Like up to Me", became a cult favorite. Since Richard Fariña's death, Mimi Fariña has sporadically recorded and performed as a solo act.

Richard & Mimi Fariña's debut effectively laid out their approach: Appalachian-like instrumentals that put the dulcimer to the fore alternate with strong contemporary folk compositions, which are by turns mournful and high-spirited. The world-weary "Reno Nevada" (a part of Fairport Convention's repertoire in their early days) is the duo's best song.

A note on the song "Michael, Andrew and James":
Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney were members of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). On June 21, 1964, they traveled to Longdale, Mississippi to visit a church that had been bombed by the Ku Klux Klan. On their way back they were arrested by the sherrif, then released, and then shot by a mob and buried in a shallow grave. Their bodies were not discovered until two weeks later, on August 4th. Michael Schwerner had been a Cornell student (class of '61), which probably gave the tragic events an extra poignancy for Fariña. His song is a sequel of sorts to "Birmingham Sunday," which likewise commemorated the victims of a racist attack. In both songs Fariña called upon the folk trope of naming each victim to preserve them in our collective memory, a tradition older than the Homeric epics. Tom Paxton also wrote a song for them, called "Goodman, Schwerner And Chaney," on his album Ain't That News and Carolyn Hester wrote one called "Three Young Men" on At Town Hall, vol. 1.


SIDE ONE:

1. DANDELION RIVER RUN 1:42
Instr.--guitar & dulcimer
2. PACK UP YOUR SORROWS 2:58
Vocal--with guitar & dulcimer
(by Pauline Marden and Richard Fariña)
3. TOMMY MAKEM FANTASY 1:29
Instr.--autoharp & dulcimer
4. MICHAEL, ANDREW AND JAMES 5:07
Vocal--with dulcimer and guitar
5. DOG BLUE 1:42 (arr. by Mimi Fariña)
Instr.--guitar & dulcimer
6. V.
Instr.--dulcimer & tambourine (Bruce Langhorne)
7. ONE-WAY TICKET 3:24
Vocal--with guitar, dulcimer, electric guitar (Bruce Langhorne), piano (Charles Small) and bass (Russ Savakus)

SIDE TWO:

8. HAMISH 1:47
Instr.--autoharp & dulcimer
9. ANOTHER COUNTRY 4:00
Vocal--with guitar & electric guitar (Bruce Langhorne)
10. TUILERIES 1:45
Instr.--dulcimer
11. THE FALCON 3:38
Vocal--with guitar
12. RENO NEVADA 3:07
Vocal--with guitar, dulcimer, electric guitar (Bruce Langhorne), piano (Charles Small) and bass (Russ Savakus)
13. CELEBRATION FOR A GREY DAY 3:47
Instr.--guitar & dulcimer

Mimi & Richard Farina - Celebrations For A Grey Day (1965)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Joan Baez - Carry It On (1971)

"Carry It On" is a 1971 album by Joan Baez, a soundtrack album to the documentary film of the same name. The film is a documentary on the powerful emotional and political currents of the late 60's as seen through the eyes of folksinger Joan Baez and her then husband David Harris, a student organizer and leader of the draft resistance movement. Its title is taken from one of its songs, "Carry It On", which was written by Gil Turner.

The film chronicles the events taking place in the months immediately before the incarceration of Joan's husband at the time, David Harris, in 1969.

This soundtrack intersperses acoustic live performances with politically oriented dialog, much of which is spoken by her then-husband, draft resister David Harris. If not for the commentary by her then husband, David Harris, throughout the recording, one could easily forget this is actually a soundtrack for a documentary being filmed of the events leading up to Harris being locked away in prison for draft resistance.

In spite of their impending separation, the mood of the entire album is upbeat and encouraging. From the gospel "Oh, Happy Day" to the audience-accompanied "We Shall Overcome", listeners should be impressed by the social conscience typified by Harris's comments and Baez' singing.

"Carry It On" is also a tribute to Joan's eclectic tastes; the selections range from traditional "We Shall Overcome", "Joe Hill" to contemporary composers such as Gram Parsons ("Hickory Wind") and two songs written by Bob Dylan, one of which, "Love is Just a Four Letter Word", Dylan never recorded.

In 1971, when "Carry It On" was released, Joan still had the magnificent five octave range which is vividly clear on each of the 10 songs.

Tracklist:

"Oh Happy Day" (Edwin Hawkins) – 3:43
"Carry It On" (Gil Turner) – 3:48
"In Forty Days" ("Joan & David") – 3:22
"Hickory Wind" (Gram Parsons, Bob Buchanan) – 3:16
"The Last Thing on My Mind" (Tom Paxton) – 3:29
"Life Is Sacred" (David) – 2:02
"Joe Hill" (Robinson, Hayes) – 3:53
"I Shall Be Released" (Dylan) – 3:33
"Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" (assisted by Jeffrey Shurtleff) (Dan Penn, Chips Moman) – 4:21
"Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word" (Bob Dylan) – 4:05
"Suzanne" (Leonard Cohen) – 4:54
"Idols and Heroes" (David) – 2:30
"We Shall Overcome" (Horton, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, Pete Seeger) – 4:45

Joan Baez - Carry It On (1971)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Dick Farina & Eric Von Schmidt - Dick Farina & Eric Von Schmidt (1963)

This obscure album, recorded in January 1963 at Dobell's record shop in London, is known primarily for a very famous session musician playing under a pseudonym. Blind Boy Grunt, aka Bob Dylan, contributed harmonica and backup vocals to half a dozen of the tracks (using that pseudonym, most likely, as he was under contract to a different label at the time).

Farina and Von Schmidt, already noted performers in the American coffeehouse folk scene, are the principal figures on this pretty typical '60s folk revival LP. The material and delivery are rooted in traditional folk forms, including jug band, blues, and Appalachian music, and are neither too dry nor too exciting. Certainly Farina, the more talented of the front line pair, shows few flashes of the first-rate songwriting and arrangements that would flower on the albums he did in the mid-'60s with his wife Mimi Farina.

The one vivid flash of that brilliance is on the instrumental "Old Joe's Dulcimer," in which he unveils his considerable talents on the instrument. With its almost Indian-like drones, it could just about fit as one of the instrumentals on the Richard & Mimi Farina albums, although the absence of Mimi Farina's guitar accompaniment creates (if only in retrospect) a sonic gap. "Wobble Bird" (derived from the standard "Cuckoo") and "Wildwood Flower" (a vocal number which has some dulcimer) aren't bad, but really this is just another folk album of its time, notable primarily as a collector's item.

If you're picking this up just for Dylan's contributions, be advised that those are pretty low-key; he doesn't contribute any songwriting or lead vocals. Also lending a hand on these sessions is Ethan Signer of the Original Charles River Valley Boys.      - www.allmusic.com          


Tracklist:

Side One:
1.) JOHNNY CUCKOO (4:27) adaption of a children's game song learned from Bessie Jones, a negro woman from St. Simon's Island, Georgia
2.) JUMPING JUDY (3:55) an ax song, sometimes called "Drive it On," from the unaccompanied singing of convicts, Cummins State Farm, Arkansas, 1934. Played in an open G-tuning.
3.) GLORY, GLORY (2:34) traditional negro hymn, the tune relating closely to the Southern white hymn, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"
4.) OLD JOE'S DULCIMER (2:55) a medley of dance tunes including "Old Joe Clark," "Swing and Turn," "Darlin' Corey," etc.
5.) WOBBLE BIRD (2:44) a variation on "The Cuckoo," in 3/4 time.
6.) WILDWOOD FLOWER (1:56) instrumental on the well known Carter song.
7.) OVERSEAS STOMP (2:43) in the spirit of the 1927 Memphis Jug Band.

  Side Two:
1.) LONZO N'HOWARD (3:30) learned from Tom Shoemaker of Harlan, Kentucky, who heard it there from a mountain fiddler called Blind Jim. This is probably its first recording.
2.) YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL (3:00) a tune based on Furry Lewis' "Dry Land Blues," with additional verses.
3.) XMAS ISLAND (3:18) a twelve-bar written by Fariña.
4.) STICK WITH ME BABY (3:32) played in an open G-tuning, adapted from the 1928 Lewis, "I Will Turn Your Money Green."
5.) RIDDLE SONG (1:10) traditional, with new answers to fit the old questions.
6.) COCAINE (4:03) learned from Rev. Gary Davis at Indian Neck, 1960.
7.) LONDON WALTZ (3:10) a blues in 3/4 time, music by Fariña, words spontaneous.

Dick Farina & Eric Von Schmidt - Dick Farina & Eric Von Schmidt (1963)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Tom Robinson - Last Tango (Line, 1989)

Tom Robinson wasn’t the first openly gay recording artist, but the Tom Robinson Band was the first group led by a proudly uncloseted rocker to really make an impact on mainstream Anglo/American pop fans. 

Robinson’s saga began in Finchton Manor, a home for “maladjusted” boys, where he came out and met future lead guitarist Danny Kustow. Robinson’s first group, Cafe Society, was signed to the Kinks’ Konk label and released one forgettable album. After a long legal and personal battle with Ray Davies, the singing bassist was released from his contract and set about forming the Tom Robinson Band. Kustow resurfaced, and after recruiting young keyboard wizard Mark Ambler and drummer Brian “Dolphin” Taylor, they were ready to go. 

EMI, fresh from their debacle with the Sex Pistols, signed the band, whose leader’s avowed homosexuality and uncompromising left-wing political stance made him an extremely controversial figure. Luckily, a brilliant (and surprisingly non-topical) first single, “2-4-6-8 Motorway” became a Top 5 hit in Britain and a riveting debut album made the band internationally successful. That afforded the singing bassist the opportunity to be an activist — spearheading Rock Against Racism — rather than merely a complainer. But a myopic outlook and limited musical range drew Robinson into a morass of sloganeering and overbearing self-righteousness that forced a major career rethink after only two LPs.

"Last Tango" is a live album that's surfaced both as 'Last Tango' and 'Midnight At The Fringe' over the years. Original 1983 recordings from the Edinburgh Fringe have been restored and recompiled, with high quality recordings of the three best-known hits included for good measure

Tracklist:

Atmospherics: Listen To The Radio
Tango An Der Wand
Surabaya Johnny
War Baby
2-4-6-8 Motorway
Back In The Old Country
The Night Tide
I Wanna Be Your Cabin Boy
Old Friend
Glad To Be Gay '87

Tom Robinson - Last Tango (Line, 1989)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Richard & Mimi Fariña ‎– Reflections In A Crystal Wind (1965)

The Farinas' mix of unusual instrumentations and Dick's gift for words made them a formidable duo in the mid-sixties, his writing alternating and mixing the political, satirical, and poetic . This album showcased both's songwriting and singing talents, and backed by most of Dylan's off-duty session players, the music sounds as fresh today as then.

Richard Farina was a great poet in the great tradition of the troubador. His life ended too early as the result of a motorcycle accident. Nonetheless, he and his partner/wife Mimi Baez (sister of Joan Baez) created one of the great albums of the "beat" and new folk movement, "Reflections In A Crystal Wind". Songs on it such as "Children of Darkness" and "Raven Girl" metaphorically describe the sense of personal torment and social destruction experiemced by a whole generation during the Vietnam Era


Tracklist:                                                     

A1	Reflections In A Crystal Wind	3:30
A2	Bold Marauder	4:24
A3	Dopico	3:58
A4	A Swallow Song	2:51
A5	Chrysanthemum (Instr.)	2:27
A6	Sell-Out Agitation Waltz	2:50
A7	Hard-Loving Loser	4:32
B1	Mainline Prosperity Blues	6:25
B2	Allen's Interlude	2:50
B3	House Un-American Blues Activity Dream	3:10
B4	Raven Girl	5:07
B5	Miles (Instr.)	2:53
B6	Children Of Darkness	4:00

Richard & Mimi Fariña ‎– Reflections In A Crystal Wind (1965)
(256 kbps, cover art included)
        

Judy Collins - Live At Newport 1959 - 1966

A 13-song compilation of material recorded at the 1959, 1963, 1964, and 1966 Newport Folk Festival; it would have been nice if they'd been able to document what year each song was recorded. In any case, "Live at Newport, 1959-1966" does reflect Judy Collins' artistic growth during this period, from an interpreter of strictly traditional fare to more contemporary material by Bob Dylan, Richard Farina, and others.

Highlights include her versions of "Turn, Turn, Turn," "Blowin' in the Wind," "Hey, Nelly Nelly," "Get Together," "Hard Lovin' Loser," and "The Great Silkie," which has the same melody the Byrds used for "I Come and Stand at Every Door" on their "Fifth Dimension" album.

All of the songs are previously unreleased, except "The Greenland Whale Fisheries," a duet with Theodore Bikel; on some tracks, Collins is accompanied on upright bass by Bill Lee, and on second guitar by Steve Mandell or Eric Weissberg. With good sound, a nice if not essential addition to the Collins catalog.     

Tracklist

1	Introduction	0:24
2	The Greenland Whale Fisheries	3:56
3	Anathea	4:22
4	The Bonny Ship The Diamond	2:44
5	Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There Is A Season)	4:07
6	Blowin' In The Wind	4:28
7	Hey, Nelly Nelly	3:16
8	The Great Silkie	5:34
9	Carry It On	3:02
10	Hard Lovin' Loser	3:07
11	The Coming Of The Roads	4:11
12	Silver Dagger	3:56
13	Get Together	2:58
14	Bullgine Run	3:02

Judy Collins - Live At Newport 1959 - 1966  
(ca. 192 kbps, cover art included)

Mimi & Richard Farina - Memories (1968)

A posthumous collection of odds and ends, this actually holds considerable appeal for anyone who likes their pair of fully realized albums. The 12 songs include a few studio outtakes, a few solo turns by Mimi on compositions written by Richard but incompletely recorded at the time of his death, a couple performances from the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, and a couple of Joan Baez tracks from sessions for an aborted album Richard was producing with her. These leftovers are generally up to the standard of the two "real" albums, especially "The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood" (covered by Fairport Convention) and "Morgan the Pirate" (a farewell to Bob Dylan, according to the sketchy liner notes). The two cuts by Baez (which Richard wrote or co-wrote), especially the compellingly melancholy "All The World Has Gone By," are excellent, leading one to wonder if the projected album they came from would have been one of Baez's best if it had been completed. These may be leftovers, but it's a worthwhile collection nonetheless.                

This album is one of those very few works that truly points towards what might have been had tragedy not struck. Richard and Mimi Fariña had defined a very particular place for themselves by the middle of the sixties: they had released two critically acclaimed and highly influential albums in “Celebrations For A Grey Day” and “Reflections In A Crystal Wind” (both 1965) and Richard's novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me had just been published in 1966. However Richard was to die in a motorcycle accident right after the launch party for this novel, never knowing how it would quickly become a cult success and remain in print for decades afterwards.

It is the musical legacy that we are concerned with here, and there can be no doubt that Richard and Mimi were trail-blazers as they were in the absolute vanguard of what became known as folk-rock, and we talk here not of the pop version of the Turtles, Grass Roots and PF Sloan, but of the highly intelligent re-invention of traditional folk music into new forms that would eventually lead to far better-known albums like Fairport Convention's “Liege And Lief”. Indeed Richard and Mimi's albums were amongst a select few in play rotation at Fairport (the house) in the early months of 1967.

After the first two albums, this one was a posthumous release in 1968, and culled tracks from some differing sources. There are some session out-takes, and some that could be called works-in-progress, and there are two live tracks taken from the pair's successful appearance at the 1965 Newport folk Festival. There are also two Richard Fariña productions of Joan Baez (Mimi's big sister) taking lead vocal on ‘A Swallow Song’ and ‘All The World Has Gone By’. The album begins with Mimi's achingly beautiful rendition of ‘The Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood’, associated later by many with Sandy Denny, and these Fairport family connections continue with the inclusion of the a capella ‘Blood Red Roses’ and ‘House Un-American Blues Activity Dream’ which were both reworked later by Ian Matthews. But such links should not take away from the beauty of the original works, as this was an album that proved how exciting their direction could have been with most of the songs written by Richard. Even with an instrumental, ‘Lemonade Lady’, that Richard plays on the dulcimer in an attacking and radical style far removed from the instrument's usual delicacy, there is music here that caught many ears in the sixties and continues to do so in the new century. One song that thrusts forward even more that the others is ‘Morgan The Pirate’, which is apparently Richard's 'farewell to Dylan'. Its structure and attacking framework is arguably the most interesting new direction that the pair could have followed, and could have certainly led them towards further and heavier electrification. With every track here fascinating, it is a release that can lead new listeners to more investigation of their small but incredibly rich catalogue.

Tracklist

The Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood	4:16
Joy 'Round My Brain	3:45
Lemonade Lady	2:00
Downtown (Instrumental)	1:34
Almond Joy	2:11
Blood Red Roses	2:29
Morgan The Pirate	5:45
Dopico (Instrumental)	6:34
House Un-American Blues Activity Dream	3:50
A Swallow Song	2:45
All The World Has Gone By	3:40
Pack Up Your Sorrows	3:00

Mimi & Richard Farina - Memories (1968)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Klaus Renft Combo - RENFT (Amiga, 1974)

Dubbed "the bad boy of East German rock & roll," Klaus Renft epitomized youth rebellion in the Communist-controlled German Democratic Republic. Born Klaus Jentzsch on June 30, 1942, in Jena, Germany, he assembled the Klaus Renft Combo at age 16, assuming his mother's maiden name as his stage alias. Within months the group ran afoul of GDR authorities for its raw, frenetic rock, and in 1964 its leader dissolved the lineup, immediately forming a new group, the British Invasion-inspired Butlers. In response, the East German secret police, the Stasi, opened a file on Renft code-named "Wanderer," and in 1965 banned the Butlers from performing. Renft spent the next two years woodshedding, writing songs and honing covers of favorites including the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. 

When the GDR lifted its ban in 1967, Renft returned to the stage with longer hair and even more contempt for Stasi authority than before. Songs like "Autostop," "Wer die Rose ehrt" (He Who Honors the Rose), and "Der Apfeltraum" (The Apple Dream) were scrutinized by government censors and fans with equal fervor, and the intensity only grew when lyricist Gerulf Pannach joined the lineup in 1969, steering the Klaus Renft Combo in a more explicitly sociopolitical direction than ever before. 

Finally, on September 22, 1975, GDR authorities summoned Renft and his bandmates and informed them the group would officially cease to exist from that moment forward. A splinter group, Karussel, soon formed, but the Combo's back catalog deleted and its gigs canceled, Renft finally fled to West Germany, working at radio station Rias. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he relaunched his career, and in 1997 published an autobiography, Zwischen Liebe und Zorn (Between Love and Anger). Renft died in Löhma, Germany, on October 9, 2006.

This album offers intelligent and well-crafted pop rock, clearly one of the best releases from the GDR in the early 70s.


Tracklist:

Ich Bau Euch Ein Lied (I)
Nach Der Schlacht
Wiegenlied Für Susann'
Mama
Als Ich Wie Ein Vogel War
Gelbe Straßenbahnballade
Weggefährten
Ermutigung
Ich Und Der Rock
Irgendwann Werd' Ich Mal...
Ich Bau Euch Ein Lied (II)
Was Noch Zu Sagen Wär


Klaus Renft Combo - RENFT (Amiga, 1974)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Les Chœurs De L'Armée Soviétique (The Red Army Choir) - Les Choeurs De L' Armée Rouge A Paris (1961)

The Alexandrov Academic Ensemble of Song and Dance of the Russian Army is Russia’s biggest military artistic team. October 12, 1928 is considered as the day of establishment of the Ensemble. On this day the team’s first performance took place within the premises of the Central House of the Red Army. At that time it included 12 persons. But by the middle of the 30-s the staff has increased up to 300 persons already and its fame has transcended the boundaries of the country.

During World War II, the ensemble gave over 1500 performances at both Soviet fronts, entertaining troops about to go into battle, at gun emplacements, airfields, and in hospitals.

The ensemble services are marked with the highest Russian awards, and the Diploma of the International exhibit in Paris “Grand-Prix” (1937), the rewards for the record edition of the gramophone recordings – “The Golden Discs” of the French company “Chan du Monde” (1964), the Dutch “N.O.S.” (1974) and the “Grand Prix de Disque” (1961) for the best disc of the year according to the French Academy of the gramophone recordings.

This album was the winner of the Grand Prix de Disque in the year 1961.           

Tracklist

A1	La Chanson Du Bouleau	3:30
A2	Les Partisans	3:25
A3	Battu Par Les Vagues Froides	4:40
A4	Poème À L'Ukraine	5:35
A5	En Route	3:57
A6	Chœurs Des Soldats De Faust "Gloire Immortelle De Nos Aïeux"	3:00
B1	Le Chant Du Départ	3:00
B2	Plaine Ma Plaine	3:00
B3	Le Coucou Gris	3:30
B4	Chant Du Voyageur	2:15
B5	La Voisine	2:14
B6	Le Long De La Perterskaïa	3:10
B7	Chant De La Libération	3:55

Les Chœurs De L'Armée Soviétique (The Red Army Choir) - Les Choeurs De L' Armée Rouge A Paris (1961)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Christof Schlingensief - Three Radio Plays (Rocky Dutschke `68, Freakstars 3000 & Lager ohne Grenzen)

Christoph Schlingensief (born October 24, 1960 in Oberhausen, died August 21, 2010) was a German film director, theatre director, actor, author, artist, and talkshow host.

In the beginning he organized culture-events in the cellar of his parents house. Artists like Helge Schneider or Theo Jörgensmann performned at this place.
He created controversial and provocative theatre pieces as well as motion pictures. One of his main works, the so-called "Germany-Trilogy" consisting of the movies "Hundert Jahre Adolf Hitler"("A Hundred Years Of Adolf Hitler"), "Das deutsche Kettensägenmassaker"("The German Chainsaw-Massacre) and "Terror 2000" which handle three markpoints in German history of the 20th century. While "Hundert Jahre Adolf Hitler" is about the last hours of Adolf Hitler, "Das deutsche Kettensägen-Massaker" heads the German reunion of 1989 and shows a few East-German people who cross the border to visit West-Germany and get slaughtered by a psychopathic family with non-running chainsaws. "Terror 2000" is about the 1970´s Red Army Faction terror in Germany.

In 1993 he debuted as a theatre director at the Berliner Volksbühne with “100 Years of the CDU – Games Without Frontiers”. This was followed by various projects outside the theatre, such as the Mission project for drug addicts and the homeless at Hamburg Central Station in 1997, “Passion Impossible – 7 Days Emergency Call for Germany” or, in 2000, the Big Brother game for asylum seekers in Vienna, “Please Love Austria”.

In 1997 he was arrested at documenta X during an art action because he used a sign with the inscription “Kill Helmut Kohl”. In 1998 he founded the party “Chance 2000” ("Opportunity 2000") and took part in the campaign for elections to the Bundestag.

Schlingensief is an extremely provocative artist and his major targets are the German and Austrian identity.

Christof Schlingensief produced a few radio plays, we present four of them in this posting:
"Lager ohne Grenzen" about the Kosovo war, "Freakstars 3000" about the normality of handicapped people and two versions of the mind-blowing radio play "Rocky Dutschke `68".

"Rocky Dutschke `68" was produced in 1997 by the WDR (German radio station) and won the "Prix Futura". It is a remake of a theatre play for the "Volksbühne" in Berlin.
This audio collage simulates a meeting of some student activists of the 1968 generation in a radio studio: Amonst others Wolf Biermann, Marget Kleinert (editor of the "Thoughts without pain"-broadcasting) and Heiner Müller are talking about hobbys, work and Rudi Dutschke. This fake broadcasting "assimilates" German history and present and reflects some phenomenons of our trivial media society. Full of provocation and cynicism it shows the thoughtless dealings with language, music and ideologic ideas.

"One of the best radio-shows I ever experienced," as R3000 wrote about this recording over at http://themoreyouthinkaboutit.blogspot.com/ - thanks a lot for bringing the work of Schlingensief back to my attention!

Maybe you want to read the other posting about Christof Schlingensief.

Christof Schlingensief - Three Radio Plays

Canciones De Las Brigadas Internacionales - Songs Of The International Brigade

The Spanish Civil War has been referred to as the last noble cause, or the last heroic war. It's also been said that if the British and the Americans had bothered with Spain, they could have prevented World War Two. The war lasted from 1936 through 1939 and by the end Fransico Franco had overthrown the democratically elected government.

The election prior to the outbreak of the war had seen a coalition government formed among moderate and socialist parties. The Republican government's goals were to reduce the power of the aristocracy and the Catholic Church and try to redress the economic disparity in the country.

Needless to say that went over like the proverbial ton of bricks with those who were going to have to surrender their power. Calling themselves The Nationalists, they formed an army under the leadership of Francisco Franco to overthrow the Republican government. They were supplied with weapons, air support, tanks, and troops by the governments of Italy and Germany almost immediately.
The Republicans received little or no official help from any government, save some assistance from the Soviet Union that was too little and too late. In some ways the Republican side was a typical venture of the left and centre in those, and even these days, where internal fights over power, took precedence over an enemy out to destroy you all. Soviet aid only became available after a faction acceptable to Moscow controlled a goodly portion of the doomed government.

The Spanish Civil War was also notable for two other reasons. It was where the Nazis first put into effect their practice of targeting strictly civilian targets for the sake of the effect on morale. First Guernica, rendered forever immortal by Picasso, then Madrid suffered through bombings.
The other was the fact that in spite of their own government's refusal to oppose Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco (until Hitler signed his infamous non-aggression pact with Stalin, he was actually seen as a bulwark against the Red hoards by far too many Western pundits) young men and women from around the world came to Spain on their own to fight for the Republican cause.
The International Brigade was composed of German, American, Canadian, and others from across Europe who came to fight the fascists. The American soldiers served in what became known as the Lincoln Brigade and became part of the 15th International Brigade. Since their own governments had refused to aid the Republicans, and in some instances had tried their best to prevent people from doing so, it wasn't very surprising that the returning soldiers at the end of the war were ignored in their own countries.

Some, like the Germans and the Italian, had to become refugees because they couldn't go home. When it became obvious that nothing was going to be done to honour their efforts, and in fact official policy has been to ignore the veterans of Spain almost entirely, Pete Seeger and the Almanac singers recorded seven songs that had been sung by the Lincoln Brigade while marching. In 1943 they were released as part of an album called "Songs Of The Lincoln Brigade".
It has been next to impossible to find this and other music of the Spanish Civil War. But now thanks to a Spanish label, Discmedi, the songs and other music of the war have been released on a great CD called "Canciones De Las Brigadas Internacionales (Songs Of The International Brigade)".
The first seven songs are the aforementioned tracks from "Songs Of The Lincoln Brigade", which have been beautifully digitally remastered so they sound great. The six songs following that were originally released in 1940, but had been recorded during the war. The German actor Ernst Busch, who was already living in exile from Hitler due to his politics, recorded six songs with a chorus of soldiers called "Six Songs For Democracy".
They were recorded in the men's barracks so if you listen closely you can hear background noises of wartime activity. Again the sound is great, and it's really nice not to hear these songs like they're being sung to you via a sewer pipe. The only previous recording I had heard of them was so full of echoes it was almost impossible to hear what was being sung.

Following these 13 tracks, the producers of the disc have gathered together some performances of these and other songs of the period by different performers as bonus tracks. Six of them are by Ernst Busch again and are Spanish versions of some of the songs that had been performed by Pete Seeger and The Almanac Singers on the "Songs Of The Lincoln Brigade" album. Again he has recorded them with soldiers serving during the war, and in fact this recording was interrupted by Franco's bombing of Barcelona. On occasion you can hear where a brown-out is occurring as the sound starts to fade away: life during wartime indeed.
Ernst's voice may not be what a North American audience would expect from a musical theatre actor, but he had been working with Bertolt Brecht in Germany, and they had a different attitude towards what sound they wanted on stage. Brecht wasn't interested in pretty, or in polish; he wanted the audience to listen to the words being sung to them, not to just sit back and enjoy the music.
After Busch, we have a brief visit from Woody Guthrie as he sings his version of "Jarama Valley". What's great about this song, as you will have noticed in The Almanac Singers' version earlier on the disc, is that the tune is "Red Rive Valley". The soldiers who wrote these songs had done what was fairly typical for the day, and just changed the lyrics of songs they were already familiar with to make them suit their needs.
The last four songs on the disc are from what I consider two of the United States' finest treasures; The Weavers and Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson was a star football player, Broadway and Hollywood actor, and amazing singer. He was also Black and left wing, which in the 1940s and 50s meant he was considered a threat to society.
He had his passport revoked by the American government so he could no longer do concert tours in Europe. This pretty much guaranteed the end of his singing career, as very few venues in the States would book anyone who was blacklisted by Joe McCarthy. But here we find him in full beautiful voice singing two of the songs he learned from the soldiers when he went to Spain during the War to lend his support to the cause. His version of "The Peat-Bog Soldiers" has to be one of the best I've ever heard.

The last two songs included are by the Weavers. Somehow or other the Weavers were able to play the music of the Spanish Civil War during the 1950's in places like Carnegie Hall without people really twigging to what was going on. Included here are two of those songs; both were recorded in Carnegie Hall but one in the fifties and one in their reunion concert in the eighties.

In Spain today the soldiers who fought in the International Brigade are still considered heroes of the country, in North America, where they came from, they've either been almost completely forgotten, and even worse some were treated like criminals by their own governments. Canciones De Las Brigades Internacionales is wonderful tribute to men who have been ignored for too long.

.

Canciones De Las Brigadas Internacionales

(192 kbps)

The Red Army Ensemble - Volume 2 - Recorded Live In London, 1963

The Alexandrov Ensemble was the official army choir of the Russian armed forces. Founded during the Soviet era, the ensemble consists of a male choir, an orchestra, and a dance ensemble.

The Alexandrov Ensemble has entertained audiences both in Russia and throughout the world, performing a range of music including folk tunes, hymns, operatic arias, and popular music. The group's repertoire has included The Volga Boatmen's Song, Katyusha, Kalinka, and Ave Maria.

The ensemble is named for its first director, Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. Its formal name since 1998 is Academic Ensemble of Song and Dance of the Russian Army named after A. V. Alexandrov, shortened to Academic Ensemble.

During World War II, the Ensemble gave over 1500 performances at both Soviet fronts, entertaining troops about to go into battle, at gun emplacements, airfields, and in hospitals.

Following the death of Alexander Alexandrov, the Ensemble was taken over by his son, Boris Alexandrovich Alexandrov. Under his leadership, the Ensemble gained fame outside the Soviet Union, making extensive tours worldwide.

Boris Alexandrov was a composer, arranger, conductor, music critic, artist and teacher: an important 20th century figure in Russian military music. He saw to the training and promotion of many fine soloists. After World War II, the ensemble, led by Boris Alexandrov, travelled abroad sixty-eight times and was well received in many countries throughout Europe. He carried on the central idea which drove his father: that the choir was central to the ensemble, and that without the choir there would be no ensemble.

Tracklist:

A1		The Courageous Don Cossacks
A2		Beautiful Moonlit Night (Ukrainian Folk Song)
A3		Kamarinskaya (Russian Folk Song)
A4		Ah! Lovely Night (Russian Folk Song)
A5		You Are Always Beautiful
A6		Kalinka (Russian Folk Song)
B1		A Birch Tree Stood In The Meadow (Russian Folk Song)
B2		Song Of The Plains
B3		Poem Of The Ukraine
B4		Annie Laurie (Scottish Folk Song)
B5		Zaparozhtsi Dance (Soldiers' Dance)

                       

Credits:

Chorus Master, Conductor– Colonel Konstantin Vinogradov
Directed By, Conductor– Major Vladimir Alexandrov
Directed By, Conductor [Principle]– Colonel Boris Alexandrov

The Red Army Ensemble - Volume 2 - Recorded Live In London 1963
(192 kbps, cover art included, vinyl rip)