877746009327

Working-class Heroes: A History Of Struggle In Song

Mat Callahan & Yvonne Moore

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Format: CD

Cat No: DIRTCD0093

Release Date:  28 June 2019

Label:  Free Dirt Records

Packaging Type:  Digipak

No of Units:  1

Barcode:  877746009327

Genres:  Folk  American Folk  

  • Description

    The most essential music is conceived by real human beings: ordinary, anonymous, often poor-people who stood up and joined together to fight injustice and institutional oppression. This is the story of 'Working-Class Heroes: A History of Struggle in Song', a collection of American working class, pre-World War II folk songs revived by Mat Callahan & Yvonne Moore. Inspired by the legendary American songbook 'Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People', Callahan and Moore compiled this set of songs with renewed focus on the individuals who wrote them, and the causes they held dear. The duo presents 20 songs here, written both by folk canon heavyweights (Woody Guthrie) and lesser- known but equally gifted songwriters (Sarah Ogan Gunning, Ella May Wiggins). Recorded in a mostly stripped-down style, the pair performs this music as it was intended to be - the way you would hear it on a picket line or at a hootenanny. Both beautiful and emotionally arresting, the album is a collection of stories as much as songs - stories of the women and men who (sometimes literally) gave their lives to emancipate the working class. 'Working-Class Heroes' is an immersive experience, brimming with hard-truth insights still resonant today.

  • Tracklisting

      Disc 1

      Side 1

      • 1. Come All You Coal Miners
      • 2. There Is Mean Things Happening In This Land
      • 3. Girl Of Constant Sorrow
      • 4. Come On Friends And Let's Go Down
      • 5. I Am A Union Woman
      • 6. I Hate The Capitalist System
      • 7. Mama Don't 'low No Bush-Wahs Hangin' Around
      • 8. Dreadful Memories
      • 9. The Murder Of Harry Simms
      • 10. The Mill Mother's Song
      • 11. Toiling On Life's Pilgrim Pathway
      • 12. Rock-A-Bye Baby
      • 13. Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad
      • 14. Skinnamalinkadoolium
      • 15. A Fool There Was
      • 16. The Preacher And The Slave
      • 17. Joe Hill
      • 18. We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years
      • 19. No More Mournin'
      • 20. The Commonwealth Of Toil