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The only artist in the history of Folk Music International to have been awarded both the Triple Crown and Spirit of Folk awards, 2024 sees Si Kahn celebrate both his 80th birthday and the 50th anniversary of recording the now classic New Wood that saw him spoken of as the new Woody Guthrie.
To mark the occasion, titled for the international holiday (known as International Workers’ Day in Europe, which falls on May Day) in celebration of the labour force, he’s teamed with Mann to create a 21-track collection of songs reflecting his career as both an artist and a civil rights activist and organiser that features both previously released – and one unreleased – covers, new songs and new versions.
The previously unreleased number (though no date’s given) comes from Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, a long-time award-winning bluegrass and children’s music duo, and the wheezing harmonica and fiddle chugging Truck Driving Woman, a song that appeared on Kahn’s debut. Indeed, three of the covers also stem from that album: Lawrence Jones, which tells of the miner killed on the Harlan County picket line in 1974, is taken from Kathy Mattea’s 2008 album Coal, Peggy Seeger’s take on Aragon Mill, again relating to a strike following its closure in 1970, comes from 1982’s From Where I Stand – Topical Songs from America and England, with Gone, Gonna Rise Again by Michael Johnathon and Odetta from 1997’s Woodsongs. The other covers line up as Jail Can’t Hold My Body Down, written for his Mother Jones In Heaven musical, from Vivian Nesbitt and John Dillon’s 2021 Songs Of Mother Jones In Heaven; his duet with Laurie Lewis on Long Way To Harlan from his own 2000 album Been A Long Time; The Old Labor Hall, a tribute to The Socialist Party Labor Hall in Barre, Vermont, from Joe Jencks’s 2018 The Forgotten: Recovered Treasures From The Pen Of Si Kahn; Spinning Mills Of Home from Magpie’s 1983 Working My Life Away; George Mann’s version of They All Sang Bread & Roses (which features the line “whoever thought the ‘60s/Would be called “the good old days”) off of 2021’s A World Like This, and, the most recent, from 2022’s Hold Our Ground a teaming of Tom Chapin and his daughters The Chapin Sisters with Hold Our Ground Forever.
Looking to the new versions, first up features John McCutcheon singing a capella on Go To Work On Monday, recorded by Kahn on 1982’s Doing My Job as a tribute to his late cotton mill worker friend Louis Harrell. Kahn himself reworks We’re Not Leaving, commissioned by the United Steel Workers of America and recorded in 1983 with members of the American Federation of Musicians union for a USWA video in support of the copper miners on strike in Arizona. The third comes from Mann, originally from Kahn’s 1979 Home, the strummed refrain-friendly People Like You, a song of union solidarity and mutual support.
The biggest selling point, however, is the nine never-recorded Kahn songs, the first of which, sung by Kahn with Doug Robinson on double bass, pianist Molly Macmillan, and Joe Jencks, Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino on harmonies is the strummed opener Back When Times Were Hard, a Guthrie-like tribute to all the union and civil rights organisers who fought for justice (“They stood for the union/Back when times were hard/Who will spread the message/Who will bring the news/Who will guide the plow and break the ground/Who will show the courage/To overcome the fear/Who will build a union in this town/Outside the gates at midnight/In a hundred company towns/They talked about the truth that makes us free”).
Written for and first performed at the Washington, DC Solidarity Day march on September 19, 1981, to protest President Reagan’s firing of 12,500 air traffic controllers striking to demand better wages and safer working conditions, sung by Mann, Solidarity Day (“Today we have the chance/To stand on the mountaintop/See the future like a vision far away”) comes as a bit of a startler after its folky predecessor with its almost Dire Straits-like driving rock n rolling boogie rhythm. Mann also takes the lead on Were You There with its New Orleans-style brass section and title refrain response to the questions (“When we stood up to the bosses/Were you there, were you there”).
Also upbeat and rocking with trumpet, sax and trombone, Kahn takes the lead on Standing At The End Of The Line, another call to push back fears of being fired by the company and unionise (“We know it takes a lot of time to make up your mind/But wouldn’t it feel good to belong to something/After spending a lifetime standing at the end of the line”). Again with brass but with a marching rhythm that evokes those of the Civil War, inspired by a poster on a union hall wall, Kahn sings the self-explanatory solidary-themed benediction You Are The “U” In Union and its call to “Lift up your voice/Come to the great reunion… Promised this earth/Let us unite and share it/Seeking for justice/ere in this world/We shall one day inherit”.
He’s also on vocals for the folksier sway of In The Family, inspired by those he met while organising campaigns (“I look at my children, my hope for the future/Some of the best work I’ve done/If they turn out as good-hearted hard-working people/Then I’ve earned my place in the sun/And I’m proud to be in the family/Of people who work for a living each day/If you’re looking for good-hearted hardworking people/You won’t find no better, nowhere, no way”). Indeed, the album bears the subtitle “A Tribute To Hardworking People Everywhere”.
The last sung by Mann with its resolute marching beat pace, ringing guitars and group choir, The Power Of The Union is, as you might surmise, a celebration of those who “stand up whatever the cost/To fight for the rights of a neighbour …hand in hand with the power of the union”. The title is, of course, also that of a classic Billy Bragg song and no self-respecting album about activism would be complete without his contribution; his signature vocals and abrasive raw guitar duly accounted for here with the rousing anthemic We’re The Ones (“All we have we had to fight for/Now they want to take it back/For the mothers and the fathers/For the daughters and the sons/Ours the challenge, ours the struggle/Ours the victory, we’re the ones… We’re the ones who built our countries/Now it’s up to me and you/Working folk of every color/Union women, union men/Side by side stand up for freedom/Stand together ‘til we win”). It’s probably fair to say that Kahn’s name is not as popularly well-known as that of Seeger or Guthrie, but as this album – and the many before it – unequivocally demonstrates, he’s every inch their equal.
Labor Day (13th September, 2024) Strictly Country Records
Order via: https://sikahn.com/recordings/
