Album Reviews

These songs will be familiar to you if you attended a “socialist” summer camp during the 1950’s and/or 1960’s. I did. What’s a “socialist” summer camp? It’s roughly defined as one that had an on staff guitar and banjo-playing Pete Seeger following pre-Hippie collegiate or “long hair.”

Mine did and we were and are all the richer for it. His name was Dave Sear (later replaced by “Banjo Bernie”) and I’ll never forget those sing-a-longs in the Camp Arcady Little Theater. I think Dave Sear is still at it!

We sang “Wim-o-weh” before the Tokens covered it as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” we sung “If I Had a Hammer” before Peter, Paul and Mary, and we sang “ Eerie Canal,” “There Was An Old Lady (Who Swallowed A Fly),” “The Sinking Of The Titantic,” and so many others on the tip of my memory’s tongue. Those were golden shared moments.

Springsteen’s tribute to Seeger captures the spirit of those summer camp sing-alongs with live in a living room recordings of many folk tunes Seeger helped popularize. I don’t know what diehard Springsteen fans think of this detour but as a non-diehard fan, I enjoy the hell out of listening to these almost spontaneous performances recorded, I gather, in Springsteen’s farmhouse somewhere or other.

The performances have an infectious exuberance, not surprising, since they were spontaneous outpourings with no rehearsals. Even the arrangements were created on the fly: you can often hear Springsteen calling out the musicians ("alright somebody!"), though how they all knew to change key at the same time on “Jacob’s Ladder” is difficult to fathom.

Though the three sessions were spread out in time (1997, 2005, 2006), it sounds as if it all went down in one long evening of playing and singing.

Springsteen’s singing has an odd shitkicking country twang to it that no native New Jerseyite would have, and sometimes it sounds cartoony, but what the hell. It’s fun to hear a totally different, almost Mitch Miller-y Bruce leading the charge, and his genuine enthusiasm for the material is unmistakable. When he hunkers down for "We Shall Overcome," the results are moving and inspirational, recalling a time when right wing conservatives got together to solve the problems of Jim Crow and segregation. Don't think they really had anything whatsoever to do with it? Just ask one! You'll get a load full of crap like "WMDs" explaining why they should get credit.

Also unmistakable is the superb sounding live recording of a bunch of folks playing and singing together all at one time. The sound will shock generations more familiar with compartmentalized, single-tracked mono recordings cobbled together with digital reverb. Fiddles, banjos, guitars, brass, reeds and brass combine to produce a glorious sound. There’s ragtime, New Orleans jazz, folk, gospel, and more, all combining to produce a truly liberating experience.

I haven’t heard the CD, but the double 180g LP sounds alive and three-dimensional. The spread is wide, with outstanding rendering of depth. My only complaint would be that the mix tends to create a left/center/right sensation instead of a more natural perspective. However, there’s a refreshing absence of obvious processing.

My sources tell me the vinyl was cut from high resolution digital, so you can be sure the vinyl is superior to the 16 bit/44.1K CD. So is the full color double insert packaging. Again my only complaint is the lack of Seeger information. Somewhere in the notes a bit of Pete’s history should have been told.

A nice tribute to Seeger, a feather in Springsteen’s musical cap and a great “lights out” listening treat. You may not play this often, but when you do, you'll be uplifted by both the music and the sound.