Album Reviews

I've seen literally hundreds of copies of this 1959 Weavers release, but until this reissue, I've never seen a stereo copy. Didn't even know it existed in a black label “Stereolab” edition.

These are the songs your Jewish socialist summer camp banjo toutin' Peter Seeger-like itinerant (bunk to bunk) folk singer sang and lead you in group song with before skit night, or whatever your camp gathered together to do in the camp's theater, or at late night campfires.

Well some of the songs are the ones, like “Twelve Gates to the City,” “Erie Canal,” and of course the motherload of all socialist summer camp songs“Kumbaya.” The Weavers's version sounds more like a lullaby than a political screed, which is what Joan Baez's resembles on her In Concert LP also reissued recently by Cisco.

You'll forgive Ronnie Gilbert for her Brechtian “House of the Rising Sun,” since she sang it five or six years before Eric Burdon and The Animals performed the version that gave them full ownership.

There are 16 folk songs here, many of which could have, and probably did serve as archetypes for the parodies in “A Mighty Wind.” Some of you will re-live fond socialist summer camp memories listening to this record, others will hold their nose and breath through their mouth even as they admire the superbly natural, transparent, three dimensional tube/analog recording, and revel in the w-i-d-e soundstage and superb vocal separation.

This record, with its multi-part harmonies, acoustic instrumental mix, humor, and songs sung in Spanish, gave birth to The Kingston Trio (listen to “Mi Caballo”).

It's difficult for me to maintain objectivity: 10 years of summer camp have put this stuff in my DNA. I love it and I'm proud to admit it. You may not, but you will admire the recording, that's for sure.