The Voices of the Civil Rights Movement - Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966

This double-CD reissue documents a central aspect of the cultural environment of the Civil Rights Movement, acknowledging songs as the language that focused people's energy. These 43 tracks are a series of musical images, of a people in coversation about their determination to be free. Many of the songs were recorded live in mass meetings held in churches, where people from different life experiences, predominantly black, with a few white supporters, came together in a common struggle. These freedom songs draw from spirituals, gospel, rhythm and blues, football chants, blues and calypso forms.

"The Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966" documents the importance of songs in the Civil Rights Movement. The first disc features songs from mass meetings, where a singer or core of singers leads the people in the singing of the songs, while the second focuses on ensemble works by the SNCC Freedom Singers and other groups.

Chances are that unless you were involved in the Civil Rights Movement you will not especially recognize many of these songs, with "This Little Light of Mine," "Go Tell It On the Mountain," and "We Shall Overcome" being the obvious exceptions. But you will be surprised at some of the popular songs that were appropriate for the cause, such as "Calypso Freedom," based on Harry Belafonte's "The Banana Boat Song," and "Get Your Rights, Jack," based on the Ray Charles hit "Hit the Road, Jack." For me the song that stood out was "In the Mississippi River," written by Marshall Jones after the disappearance of three Civil Rights workers in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. As local rivers were dragged in search of the men, many other bodies were discovered, a chilling fact that certainly needs to be more than a historic footnote to that tragic event. There is also a lengthy segment from a sermon by Rev. Lawrence Campbell, which illustrates the song-sermons that were an integral part of the movement and its traditions. The result is a historical document of immense value.

Folkways Records was founded by Moses Asch and Marian Distler in 1948 to document music and spoken word from around the world. The Smithsonian Institution acquired Folkways from the Asch estate and has succeeded in preserving the best of the label's 2,200 albums. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has continued this grand tradition. Their releases are superb, especially in terms of providing the historical context by which we can best appreciate these songs from another place and another time.
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The Voices Of The Civil Rights Movement pt.1

The Voices Of The Civil Rights Movement pt. 2

Egon Erwin Kisch - Erinnerungen an den rasenden Reporter

On March 31, 1948, Egon Erwin Kisch, a german-speaking Czech journalist and novelist, died in Prague, Czech Republic.

Egon Erwin Kisch was "der rasende Reporter" ("the raging reporter"), a journalist whose interest in marginalized parts of society and the world outside Europe endeared him to a large number of readers. He became a figurehead in the fight against fascism. Later generations of journalists regarded his documentaries as exemplary and pioneering. He is admired to this day for the high literary quality of his journalitic work.

Kisch was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and began his journalistic career as a reporter for a local German language newspaper in 1906. His early work is characterised by an interest in crime and the lives of the poor of Prague, taking Jan Neruda, Emile Zola and Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz as his models. He deserted from the army in World War I in October 1918 as the war came to an end and played a leading role in the left-wing revolution in Vienna in November of that year. Although the revolution failed, in 1919, Kisch joined the Communist party, a political allegiance he maintained for the rest of his life.
Between 1921 and 1930 Kisch, though a citizen of Czechoslovakia, lived primarily in Berlin, where his work found a new and appreciative audience. In books of collected journalism such as "Der rasende Reporter" (1924), he cultivated the image of a witty, gritty, daring reporter always on the move, a cigarette clamped doggedly between his lips. His work and his public persona found an echo in the artistic movement of "Neue Sachlichkeit", a major strand in the culture of the Weimar Republic.
On February 28 1933, the day after the Reichstag Fire, Kisch was one of many prominent opponents of Nazism to be arrested. He was briefly imprisoned in Spandau, but as a Czechoslovakian citizen, was expelled from Germany. His works were banned and burnt in Germany, but he continued to write for the Czech and émigré German press, bearing witness to the horrors of the Nazi takeover.
In 1937 and 1938, Kisch took part in Spanish Civil War. He travelled across the country speaking in the Republican cause and his reports from the front line were widely published.

Following the "Munich Agreement" of 1938 and the subsequent Nazi occupation of Bohemia six months later, Kisch was unable to return to the country of his birth. Once war broke out, Paris, which he had made his main home since 1933, also became too dangerous for an outspoken Jewish communist whose native land no longer existed. In late 1939, Kisch and his wife Gisela, sailed for New York where, once again, he was initially denied entry. He eventually landed at Ellis Island on December 28, but as he only had a transit visa moved onto Mexico in 1940.
He remained in Mexico for the next five years, one of a circle of European communist refugees, notable among them Anna Seghers and Ludwig Renn.

Kisch died two years after his return to Prague, shortly after the Communist party seized complete power. There are contradictory reports of his attitude - as a German-speaking Jew - to the party in this period as it began to develop the anti-semitism which culminated in the "Prague Trials" of 1952 and supported the expulsion of most of Czechoslovakia's ethnic Germans.
To remember his great work, here is "Erinnerungen an den rasenden Reporter", a wonderful feature in german language about Egon Erwin Kisch.

Egon Erwin Kisch - Erinnerungen an den rasenden Reporter
(192 kbps, front cover included)

VA - Songs For Desert Refugees - A Compilation In Aid Of The Refugees From Northern Mali

Mali is one of the musical power-houses of Africa, but today it's a country in chaos, and its ancient culture is under threat. In the desert north, the rebels of the MNLA have been ousted by Islamist groups, adding to the crisis in which hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to neighbouring states, at a time of acute food shortage across the region. This benefit album aims to raise money for refugee projects, but also provides a rousing new compilation of desert blues, with unreleased or rare tracks from Tuareg musicians from Mali, Niger and Algeria. It starts, appropriately, with a slinky, rhythmic and previous unreleased song from Saharan superstars Tinariwen, and there are contributions from younger Malian bands Tamikrest, Amanar and the hypnotic Tartit. But many of the best tracks are from across the border in Niger, with an engaging, rhythmic contribution from Etran Finatawa, and a remarkable 13-minute live work-out from Bombino, proving why he is the desert's new guitar hero.

For beginners, this album can serve as an introduction to the incredible music of northern Mali, the cultural center of the Tuareg people. For people who already know this music, it's an introduction to new artists you may not have heard of before.

All proceeds from the sale of this album will be donated to TAMOUDR´R and ETAR, two NGOs working with refugees in northern Mali. If you want to support them, please make a donation to the associations via www.tamoudre.org/desertrefugees .

Tracklist:

	1.	Tinariwen - Amous Idraout Assouf d'Alwa   04:27
	2.	Tamikrest - Warktifed   03:50
	3.	Ibrahim Djo experience - Blues du Désert [part 1]   04:32
	4.	Faris & Terakaft - Derhan Alkher   04:13
	5.	Nabil Baly Othmani - Teswa Ténéré [desert version]   05:52
	6.	Amanar - Ténéré   05:39
	7.	Tadalat - Taghdart   04:55
	8.	Etran Finatawa - Gourma   06:35
	9.	Terakaft - Nak Essanagh   04:34
	10.	Toumast - Aïtma   04:14
	11.	Bombino - Tigrawahi Tikma [live version]   13:01
	12.	Tartit - Tihou Beyatene   05:02

VA - Songs For Desert Refugees - A Compilation In Aid Of The Refugees From Northern Mali
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Charly Garcia - Parte de la Religión

Charly Garcia is one of the most talented and influential figures of Argentine and Latin rock. He composed many generational hymns and was always obsessed with expanding the boundaries of pop music and the musician's role itself.               

"Parte de la Religión", released in 1987, was an album recorded almost entirely by García himself. An exception can be found in "Rap de las Hormigas," on which the Brazilian group Os Paralams do Succeso took part. The record was clearly a masterpiece and showed Prince's influence. Songs like "No Voy en Tren," "Buscando un Símbolo de Paz," and "En la Ruta del Tentempié" became Top Ten hits.    


    
Charly Garcia - Parte de la Religión     
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Sun Ra - Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold (1964)

In 1964, Sun Ra asked the young tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders to join him, while Arkestra mainstay John Gilmore was busy working with Paul Bley, Andrew Hill, and Art Blakey. Before the recording's original release in 1976, Sun Ra stated: "It should be very interesting to the world to show what the pre-Coltrane Pharoah Sanders was like." Also appearing on "Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold" is the little-heard flautist, Black Harold (Harold Murray), who takes the lead on the track "The Voice of Pan," continuing into "Dawn over Israel." Bassist Alan Silva (ESP 1091) also does some fine bass work on the release.

"Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold" is notable not only for its unique lineup, but also for the first known recording of the composition "The Shadow World," here titled "The World Shadow," which was featured on later Arkestra albums.

The music is vital, as much a testament to the times, as it is to Sun Ra's approach. An innovator who was not constricted by form, the music flowed as he and the band saw fit. He not only assimilated various musical genres, he juxtaposed composition and invention to add impact to the development of the music.

Tracks:
Gods on a Safari (Ra)
The World Shadow (Ra)
Rocket Number 9(Ra)
The Voice of Pan (Ra)
Dawn over Israel  (Ra)
Space Mates (Ra)


Sun Ra - Featuring Pharoah Sanders &  Black Harold (1964)
(192 kbps, front cover included)