The Weavers
Encyclopedia
The Weavers were an American folk music
quartet based in the Greenwich Village
area of New York City
. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues
, gospel music
, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballad
s, and selling millions of records at the height of their popularity. Their hard-driving string-band style inspired the commercial "folk boom" that followed them in the 1950s and 1960s, including such performing groups as The Kingston Trio
and Peter, Paul and Mary
.
, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman
and Pete Seeger
. In 1940 and 1941, Hays and Seeger had co-founded a previous group, the Almanac Singers
, which disbanded during the war. The new group took its name from a play by Gerhart Hauptmann
, Die Weber (The Weavers: a Drama of the Forties 1892), a powerful play depicting the rising of the Silesian weavers in 1844, containing the lines, "I'll stand it no more, come what may". After a period of being unable to find much paid work, they landed a steady and successful engagement at the Village Vanguard
jazz club. This led to their discovery by arranger-bandleader Gordon Jenkins
and their signing with Decca Records
. The group had a big hit in 1950 with Leadbelly
's "Goodnight, Irene
", backed with the 1941 Israeli song "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
", which in turn became a best seller. The recording stayed at number one on the charts for an unbelievable 13 weeks. In keeping with the audience expectations of the time, these and other early Weavers releases had violins and orchestration added behind the group's own string-band instruments. Because of the deepening Red Scare of the early 1950s, their manager, Pete Cameron, advised them not to sing their most explicitly political songs and to avoid performing at progressive venues and events. Because of this some folk song fans criticized them for watering down their beliefs and commercializing their singing style. But the Weavers felt it was worth it to get their songs before the public.
The Weavers' successful concerts and hit recordings helped introduce to new audiences such folk revival standards as "On Top of Old Smoky
" (with guest vocalist Terry Gilkyson
), "Follow the Drinking Gourd", "Kisses Sweeter than Wine", "The Wreck of the John B" (aka "Sloop John B
"), "Rock Island Line
", "The Midnight Special
", "Pay Me My Money Down
", and "Darling Corey". The Weavers encouraged sing-alongs in their concerts, and Seeger would sometimes shout out the lyrics in advance of each line in lining out
style.
Film footage of the Weavers is relatively scarce. The group appeared as a specialty act in a B-movie musical, Disc Jockey (1951), and filmed five of their record hits that same year for TV producer Lou Snader: "Goodnight, Irene
", "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
", "So Long", "Around the World", and "The Roving Kind
".
During the Red Scare
, however, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays were denounced as Communist Party
members by FBI informant Harvey Matusow
(who later recanted) and ended up being called up to testify to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1955. Hays took the Fifth Amendment
. Seeger, however, refused to answer on First Amendment
grounds, the first to do so after the conviction of the Hollywood Ten in 1950. Seeger was found guilty of contempt and placed under restrictions by the court pending appeal, but in 1961 his conviction was overturned on constitutional grounds, effectively ending the power of the committee. Because Seeger was among those listed in the entertainment industry blacklist
publication, Red Channels
, all of the Weavers were placed under FBI
surveillance and not allowed to perform on television or radio during the McCarthy
era. Decca Records
terminated their recording contract and deleted their songs from its catalog in 1953, and their records were denied airplay, which dried up their income from royalties. Right-wing and anti-Communist groups protested at their performances and harassed promoters. As a result, the group's economic viability diminished rapidly and in 1952 it disbanded. After this, Pete Seeger continued his solo career, although like all of them he continued to suffer from the effects of blacklisting.
In December 1955, the group reunited to play a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall
. The concert was a huge success. A recording of the concert was issued by the independent Vanguard Records
, and this led to their signing by that record label. By the late 1950s, folk music was surging in popularity and McCarthyism was fading. Yet the media industry of the time was so timid and conventional that it wasn't until the height of the revolutionary '60s that Seeger was able to end his blacklisting by appearing on a nationally distributed US television show, the Smothers Brothers
Comedy Hour, in 1968.
When in the late fifties The Weavers agreed to provide the vocals for a TV cigarette commercial, Pete Seeger, opposed to the dangers of tobacco and discouraged by the group's apparent sell-out to commercial interests, decided to resign. He spent his last year with the Weavers honoring his commitments, but described himself as feeling like a prisoner. He left the group on April 1, 1958.
Seeger recommended Erik Darling of The Tarriers
as his replacement. Darling remained with the group until June 1962, leaving to pursue a solo career and eventually to form the folk-jazz trio The Rooftop Singers
. Frank Hamilton
, who replaced Darling, stayed with the group nine months, giving his notice just before the Weavers celebrated the group's 15th anniversary with two nights of concerts at Carnegie Hall
in March 1963. Folksinger Bernie Krause
, later a pioneer in bringing the Moog synthesizer
to popular music, was the last performer to occupy "the Seeger chair." The group disbanded in 1964, but Gilbert, Hellerman and Hays occasionally reunited with either Seeger or Darling into 1981.
Lee Hays, ill and using a wheelchair, wistfully approached the original Weavers for one last get-together. Hays's informal picnic prompted a professional reunion, and a triumphant return to Carnegie Hall. A documentary
film, The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time!
(1982), was released after Hays's death, and chronicled the history of the group, and the events leading up to the reunion.
Lee Hays died in 1981, and his biography, Lonesome Traveler by Doris Willens, was published in 1988. Ronnie Gilbert has toured America as a soloist. Fred Hellerman is a recording engineer and producer. Pete Seeger is the elder statesman of folk music; he doesn't travel as often as formerly. Erik Darling died August 3, 2008, in Chapel Hill
, North Carolina
from lymphoma
, at the age of 74. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame
in 2001.
In February 2006 The Weavers received the Lifetime Achievement Award
given out annually at the Grammy awards show. Represented by members Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, they struck a chord with the crowd as their struggles with political witch hunts during the 1950s were recounted. "If you can exist, and stay the course -- not a course of blind obstinacy and faulty conception -- but one of decency and good sense, you can outlast your enemies with your honor and integrity intact," said Hellerman.
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
quartet based in the Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
area of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s, and selling millions of records at the height of their popularity. Their hard-driving string-band style inspired the commercial "folk boom" that followed them in the 1950s and 1960s, including such performing groups as The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...
and Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
.
History
The Weavers were formed in November 1948 by Ronnie GilbertRonnie Gilbert
Ronnie Gilbert is an American folk-singer. She is one of the original members of the Weavers with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman.-Career:...
, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman
Fred Hellerman
Fred Hellerman, born in Brooklyn, New York and educated at Brooklyn College, is an American folk singer, guitarist, producer and song writer, primarily known as one of the members of The Weavers, together with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Ronnie Gilbert...
and Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
. In 1940 and 1941, Hays and Seeger had co-founded a previous group, the Almanac Singers
Almanac Singers
The Almanac Singers were a group of folk musicians who, as their name indicates, specialized in topical songs, especially songs connected with the labor movement...
, which disbanded during the war. The new group took its name from a play by Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...
, Die Weber (The Weavers: a Drama of the Forties 1892), a powerful play depicting the rising of the Silesian weavers in 1844, containing the lines, "I'll stand it no more, come what may". After a period of being unable to find much paid work, they landed a steady and successful engagement at the Village Vanguard
Village Vanguard
The Village Vanguard is a jazz club located at in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. At first, it also featured other forms of music such as folk music and beat poetry, but it switched to an all-jazz format in 1957.-History:Over 100 jazz...
jazz club. This led to their discovery by arranger-bandleader Gordon Jenkins
Gordon Jenkins
Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer and pianist who was an influential figure in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s, renowned for his lush string arrangements...
and their signing with Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
. The group had a big hit in 1950 with Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
's "Goodnight, Irene
Goodnight, Irene
"Goodnight, Irene" or "Irene, Goodnight," is a 20th century American folk standard, written in 3/4 time, first recorded by American blues musician Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter in 1932....
", backed with the 1941 Israeli song "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
"Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" is a song, originally written in Hebrew by Issachar Miron , a Polish emigrant to what was then The British Mandate of Palestine but is now Israel, and Jehiel Hagges .-History and development:...
", which in turn became a best seller. The recording stayed at number one on the charts for an unbelievable 13 weeks. In keeping with the audience expectations of the time, these and other early Weavers releases had violins and orchestration added behind the group's own string-band instruments. Because of the deepening Red Scare of the early 1950s, their manager, Pete Cameron, advised them not to sing their most explicitly political songs and to avoid performing at progressive venues and events. Because of this some folk song fans criticized them for watering down their beliefs and commercializing their singing style. But the Weavers felt it was worth it to get their songs before the public.
The Weavers' successful concerts and hit recordings helped introduce to new audiences such folk revival standards as "On Top of Old Smoky
On Top of Old Smoky
"On Top of Old Smoky" is a traditional folk song and a well-known ballad of the United States which, as recorded by The Weavers, reached the pop music charts in 1951....
" (with guest vocalist Terry Gilkyson
Terry Gilkyson
Hamilton H. Gilkyson III , better known as Terry Gilkyson, was an American folk singer, composer, and lyricist.-Biography:...
), "Follow the Drinking Gourd", "Kisses Sweeter than Wine", "The Wreck of the John B" (aka "Sloop John B
The John B. Sails
"The John B. Sails" is a folk song that first appeared in a 1917 American novel, Pieces of Eight, written by Richard Le Gallienne. The "secret" narrator of the story describes it as "one of the quaint Nassau ditties," the first verse and chorus of which are:-1950 to 1963:Among others, the song has...
"), "Rock Island Line
Rock Island Line (song)
"Rock Island Line" is an American blues/folk song first recorded by John Lomax in 1934 as sung by inmates in an Arkansas State Prison, and later popularized by Lead Belly. Many versions have been recorded by other artists, most significantly the world-wide hit version in the mid-1950s by Lonnie...
", "The Midnight Special
Midnight Special (song)
"Midnight Special" is a traditional folk song thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South. The title comes from the refrain which refers to the Midnight Special and its "ever-loving light" ....
", "Pay Me My Money Down
Pay Me My Money Down
A work song, "Pay Me My Money Down" originated among the Negro stevedores working in the Georgia Sea Islands. It was collected by Lydia Parrish and published in her 1942 book, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands:Also known as "Pay Me" or "Pay Me, You Owe Me", it was performed by The Weavers...
", and "Darling Corey". The Weavers encouraged sing-alongs in their concerts, and Seeger would sometimes shout out the lyrics in advance of each line in lining out
Lining out
Lining out is a form of a cappella hymn-singing or hymnody in which a leader, often called the clerk or precentor, gives each line of a hymn tune as it is to be sung, usually in a chanted form giving or suggesting the tune...
style.
Film footage of the Weavers is relatively scarce. The group appeared as a specialty act in a B-movie musical, Disc Jockey (1951), and filmed five of their record hits that same year for TV producer Lou Snader: "Goodnight, Irene
Goodnight, Irene
"Goodnight, Irene" or "Irene, Goodnight," is a 20th century American folk standard, written in 3/4 time, first recorded by American blues musician Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter in 1932....
", "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
"Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" is a song, originally written in Hebrew by Issachar Miron , a Polish emigrant to what was then The British Mandate of Palestine but is now Israel, and Jehiel Hagges .-History and development:...
", "So Long", "Around the World", and "The Roving Kind
The Roving Kind (song)
The Roving Kind was a popular song adapted in 1950 from a British folksong "The Pirate Ship" by Jessie Cavanaugh and Arnold Stanton. The best known version was recorded by Guy Mitchell in 1950, in which it reached #4 on Billboard in December 1950...
".
During the Red Scare
Red Scare
Durrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
, however, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays were denounced as Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
members by FBI informant Harvey Matusow
Harvey Matusow
Harvey Matusow was a U.S. Communist who protected himself from HUAC by providing evidence against his former left-wing colleagues. His false accusations led to his own perjury conviction and to being blacklisted...
(who later recanted) and ended up being called up to testify to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1955. Hays took the Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
. Seeger, however, refused to answer on First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
grounds, the first to do so after the conviction of the Hollywood Ten in 1950. Seeger was found guilty of contempt and placed under restrictions by the court pending appeal, but in 1961 his conviction was overturned on constitutional grounds, effectively ending the power of the committee. Because Seeger was among those listed in the entertainment industry blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
publication, Red Channels
Red Channels
Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television is an anti-Communist tract published in the United States at the height of the Red Scare...
, all of the Weavers were placed under FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
surveillance and not allowed to perform on television or radio during the McCarthy
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
era. Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
terminated their recording contract and deleted their songs from its catalog in 1953, and their records were denied airplay, which dried up their income from royalties. Right-wing and anti-Communist groups protested at their performances and harassed promoters. As a result, the group's economic viability diminished rapidly and in 1952 it disbanded. After this, Pete Seeger continued his solo career, although like all of them he continued to suffer from the effects of blacklisting.
In December 1955, the group reunited to play a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
. The concert was a huge success. A recording of the concert was issued by the independent Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
, and this led to their signing by that record label. By the late 1950s, folk music was surging in popularity and McCarthyism was fading. Yet the media industry of the time was so timid and conventional that it wasn't until the height of the revolutionary '60s that Seeger was able to end his blacklisting by appearing on a nationally distributed US television show, the Smothers Brothers
Smothers Brothers
The Smothers Brothers are Thomas and Richard , American singers, musicians, comedians and folk heroes. The brothers' trademark act was performing folk songs , which usually led to arguments between the siblings...
Comedy Hour, in 1968.
When in the late fifties The Weavers agreed to provide the vocals for a TV cigarette commercial, Pete Seeger, opposed to the dangers of tobacco and discouraged by the group's apparent sell-out to commercial interests, decided to resign. He spent his last year with the Weavers honoring his commitments, but described himself as feeling like a prisoner. He left the group on April 1, 1958.
Seeger recommended Erik Darling of The Tarriers
The Tarriers
The Tarriers were an American vocal group, specializing in folk music and folk-flavored popular music. Named after the folk song "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill", and founded in 1956 by Erik Darling, Alan Arkin, and Bob Carey, the group had two hit songs during 1956-57: "Cindy, Oh Cindy" and "The...
as his replacement. Darling remained with the group until June 1962, leaving to pursue a solo career and eventually to form the folk-jazz trio The Rooftop Singers
The Rooftop Singers
The Rooftop Singers were an American progressive folk-singing trio in the early 1960s, best known for the hit "Walk Right In". The group was composed of Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe with former jazz singer Lynne Taylor ....
. Frank Hamilton
Frank Hamilton (musician)
Frank Hamilton is an American folk musician and co-founder of the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois. As a performer, he has recorded for Folkways Records and, as a member of the folk group The Weavers, for Vanguard Records, as well as for Philips and several other labels and...
, who replaced Darling, stayed with the group nine months, giving his notice just before the Weavers celebrated the group's 15th anniversary with two nights of concerts at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in March 1963. Folksinger Bernie Krause
Bernie Krause
Bernard L. Krause is an American musician, soundscape recordist and bio-acoustician, who coined the term biophony and helped define the structure of soundscape ecology. Krause holds a Ph.D. in bioacoustics from Union Institute & University in Cincinnati.-Biography:Bernie Krause was born in 1938...
, later a pioneer in bringing the Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
to popular music, was the last performer to occupy "the Seeger chair." The group disbanded in 1964, but Gilbert, Hellerman and Hays occasionally reunited with either Seeger or Darling into 1981.
Lee Hays, ill and using a wheelchair, wistfully approached the original Weavers for one last get-together. Hays's informal picnic prompted a professional reunion, and a triumphant return to Carnegie Hall. A documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
film, The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time!
The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time!
The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time! is a 1982 documentary film about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers and the events leading up to their 1980 reunion concert at Carnegie Hall.The film was the inspiration for the 2003 mockumentary film A Mighty Wind....
(1982), was released after Hays's death, and chronicled the history of the group, and the events leading up to the reunion.
Lee Hays died in 1981, and his biography, Lonesome Traveler by Doris Willens, was published in 1988. Ronnie Gilbert has toured America as a soloist. Fred Hellerman is a recording engineer and producer. Pete Seeger is the elder statesman of folk music; he doesn't travel as often as formerly. Erik Darling died August 3, 2008, in Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
from lymphoma
Lymphoma
Lymphoma is a cancer in the lymphatic cells of the immune system. Typically, lymphomas present as a solid tumor of lymphoid cells. Treatment might involve chemotherapy and in some cases radiotherapy and/or bone marrow transplantation, and can be curable depending on the histology, type, and stage...
, at the age of 74. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame
Vocal Group Hall of Fame
The Vocal Group Hall of Fame was organized to honor outstanding vocal groups throughout the world. It is headquartered in Sharon, Pennsylvania, United States. It includes a theater and a museum....
in 2001.
In February 2006 The Weavers received the Lifetime Achievement Award
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."...
given out annually at the Grammy awards show. Represented by members Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, they struck a chord with the crowd as their struggles with political witch hunts during the 1950s were recounted. "If you can exist, and stay the course -- not a course of blind obstinacy and faulty conception -- but one of decency and good sense, you can outlast your enemies with your honor and integrity intact," said Hellerman.
Discography
- The Weavers' Greatest Hits
- The Weavers at Carnegie Hall (Live)
- The Weavers at Carnegie Hall Vol. 2 (Live) The Weavers at Carnegie Hall Vol. 2The Weavers At Carnegie Hall Vol. 2 is a live album by The Weavers, released in 1963. Because Lee Hays was off-microphone during this concert, most of the songs here actually stem from a Berkeley, California, performance.-Track listing:# On My Journey...
- Wasn't That a Time! box set
- Best of the Vanguard Years
- The Weavers Reunion at Carnegie Hall: 1963 (Live)
- The Reunion at Carnegie Hall, 1963, Pt. 2 (Live)
- The Weavers at Home - Vanguard VRS 9024 (1957–58)
- Travelling On with The Weavers VRS 9043 (1957–58)
- Reunion at Carnegie Hall No. 2 (Live)
- Rarities from the Vanguard Vault
- Kisses Sweeter Than Wine (compilation of 1950-51 live shows, edited by Fred Hellerman)
- The Weavers Almanac
- The Best of the Decca Years
- Ultimate Collection
- The Weavers Classics
- Best of the Weavers
- Gospel
- Goodnight Irene: Weavers 1949-53 box set
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas
- The Weavers on Tour (Live) - Vanguard VRS 9013
- The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time!The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time!The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time! is a 1982 documentary film about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers and the events leading up to their 1980 reunion concert at Carnegie Hall.The film was the inspiration for the 2003 mockumentary film A Mighty Wind....
(video)
External links
- Folk music archives article on the Weavers
- Pete Seeger interviewed (recorded 2.14.1968)http://www.library.unt.edu/resolveuid/4cc65566ba40054b35e4348f2eece755 on the Pop ChroniclesPop ChroniclesThe Pop Chronicles are two radio documentary series which together "may constitute the most complete audio history of 1940s-60s popular music." Both were produced by John Gilliland.-The Pop Chronicles of the 50s and 60s:...
See also
- Pete SeegerPete SeegerPeter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
- Lee Hays
- Almanac SingersAlmanac SingersThe Almanac Singers were a group of folk musicians who, as their name indicates, specialized in topical songs, especially songs connected with the labor movement...
- The Kingston TrioThe Kingston TrioThe Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...
- American folk music revivalAmerican folk music revivalThe American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
- Lead Belly
- Red ScareRed ScareDurrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
- Waist Deep in the Big MuddyWaist Deep in the Big Muddy"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" is a song written by Pete Seeger in 1967 and made famous because of its censorship from a popular television program of that era.-Story:...
, the song that ended the Weavers' blacklisting in 1968