“If I Had a Song ...”

IfA Thumbnail I Had History a Song of Sing ...Out! 1950-2000 ... Sharing Songs for 50 years! music that would help us do so. The One little issue of magazine was then, as it is today, a sin- Sing Out! is worth more to cere, strong voice raised, not to exploit the profit potential of Tin Pan Alley humanity than any thousand doggerel, but to promote the best hopes tons of dreamy dopey junk of common people in song. dished out from the trees of For so many readers over the last 50 years, folk music began with Sing our forests along every Out! presenting the best of the new and Broadway in this world. old. Readers learned songs and found I dont know of any they were very much like the diverse magazine, big or little, that peoples around the world. They greeted neighbors throughout the cit- comes within a thousand ies, towns, and rural communities million miles of Sing Out! wherever there was a song to sing and when it comes to doing a front porch on which to do so. good around the world. The fact is, today, Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine is just one Woody Guthrie, important component of an organi- NYC, 1951 zation that also publishes song col- lections, sound recordings, folk mu- oody Guthrie knew the sic books and directories. Although value of a fledgling journal most readers are familiar with the W with big ambitions. For wealth of folk-related material avail- Woody, his colleagues and a growing able in the quarterly magazine and chorus of enthusiasts, Sing Out! was in other Sing Out! publications, they more than ink and paper. They be- should also know that Sing Out! lieved that by sharing meaningful maintains a sizable multimedia re- songs, those of us who cared about source center with a significant li- making the devil dance to our tune brary of important books, periodi- could better stay in touch with the cals, sound recordings, oral histories 17 and photographs which may be ac- banded together as People’s Songs, cessed by the general public, stu- Inc. and began publishing a monthly dents, scholars and performers. bulletin to “create, promote, and dis- While it’s clear that Sing Out!’s tribute songs of labor and the Ameri- mission has grown since its founding, can people.” it has remained true to the spirit and People’s Songs, the newsletter, goals of its founders by supporting and was a novel idea. The bulletin printed preserving traditional and contempo- songs that would not, as a rule, be avail- rary folk music from all cultures while able via popular music outlets. The fare encouraging practice and participation. would include union songs, peace songs, Today, Sing Out! boasts readership of traditional ballads, children’s songs, nearly 20,000 individuals and organi- blues, gospel, songs of civil rights and zations worldwide, conducting busi- international material. Pete Seeger re- ness with a regular paid staff of six members those seminal days which be- joined by a host of regular contractors gan in the basement of his apartment on and freelancers. Things were not al- MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village ways so. in New York City ... “A number of us who loved to ing Out! magazine, now 50 years sing folk songs and union songs Syoung, grew out of a legacy of so- thought it the most natural thing in cial commitment and a tra- the world to start an dition of sing- organization which ing both to ef- could keep us in fect change and touch with one an- to share the pure other, which could enjoyment of promote new and songs. The origi- old songs and nal idea for a singers. We called magazine was our organization served up by the People’s Songs to aspirations of a distinguish it group of urban from the schol- singers who be- arly folklore so- lieved in the power cieties and started of song – musi- a bulletin.” cians who raised What their voices in har- started as a mim- mony and against eographed bulle- injustice. tin in short time After World grew to become War II, a number of a printed maga- artists and enthusi- zine. People’s Songs asts including Pete began handling bookings, too, as Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays, People’s Artists. Now folk performers Paul Robeson, Alan Lomax, Irwin would be treated as professionals when Silber and Earl Robinson sought to they played concerts and hootenannies. combine political activism and music New singers and new songs as they had before the war. They were encouraged, but the bulletin 18 elderly ad 19 never failed to feature traditional as the enemy. The magazine finally songs, many of which were gathered went bankrupt shortly after the 1948 in the archives of the office. Songs presidential election during which were collected from around the People’s Songs and its resources had country and around the world. Most been pressed into service for the can- were songs about people from all didacy of Henry Wallace and the walks of life – Progressive Party. they were folk songs People’s lthough hardly a Songs also fea- A comfortable po- tured reviews and litical climate for a re- articles including newed attempt at pub- a sharp, entertain- lishing a left-wing ing column by music magazine, the Weaver Lee Hays. notion of People’s Although Songs persisted. A People’s Songs at few months later, one point reached a following a keen respectable circula- reassessment of tion of 3,000, a dwin- People’s Songs’ dling subscriber base strengths, some of and a lack of funds the same group meant closing the of- who brought out fice after a three-year People’s Songs run. A combination of went back to the finances and politics drawing board, can be blamed for the and returned in demise of People’s May of 1950 with the first issue of Songs. The Cold War was on, and the Sing Out! political climate was changing, with Irwin Silber, in “Notes from an anti-communism and anti-everyone- Editor’s Diary,” recalls he borrowed who-is-differentism on the rise. the name Sing Out! from the third On the plus side, this fueled the verse of the “The Hammer Song” advent of an active folk song and written by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, topical song movement. But on the which incidentally was printed on the negative side, the bulletin grew ever cover of issue number one. It seemed more estranged from the labor unions to the publishers an appropriate aim for which People’s Songs originally to “sing out danger ... sing out a warn- dedicated its efforts. Redbaiting ing ... sing out love between all my swept though the labor unions, which brothers (and my sisters) all over this sought to distance themselves from land.” Over the years, Sing Out! has folk musicians and the like for fear proved as apt a name as could have of appearing “disloyal.” applied to the impudent publication Increasingly, the publication that squarely aimed its songs at op- and its participants were on the de- pression, and encouraged an army of fensive against the fierce witch hunt- singers to do the same. ing that lumped all liberals, leftists, Alongside the advent of Sing socialists and communists together Out!, the folk song movement was 20 taking hold. For the most part, it started writing his “Johnny Appleseed, seemed that young people were the Jr.” column. ones who were hungry to assimilate Other songs would follow: old and new folk songs. Now, they “Roll On Columbia,” “Putting on the could spend a quarter and pick up an Style,” “Michael Row The Boat issue of Sing Out! to find all manner Ashore,” “House Of The Rising Sun,” of songs by the likes of Malvina “All My Trials,” “Bells Of Reynolds, Pete Seeger and Woody Rhymney,” “Cotton Fields At Home” Guthrie. and “The MTA Song.” This is a brief With a war on in Korea called a sampling of songs that Sing Out! “police action,” anti-communist hys- helped bring to the public. The flood- teria deepened, resulting in so much gates were opened for decades of new repression around and about. In spite and old songs to follow. of that, this new publication managed to establish itself. Whenever Pete eanwhile, there was a curious Seeger, Woody Guthrie or Cisco Mstirring of commercialism in Houston came to town, they’d sing for folk music as major labels and book the cause and pick up a few dollars for publishers began to exploit the the Sing Out! coffers. Hootenannies genre. As the music became more ac- continued to help pay the printer who, cessible, it reached more listeners. it is remembered by Silber and the oth- Yet, they weren’t just buying the mu- ers, was most patient when the sic, they were taking the music to bills were due. heart, and these During the first people were be- decade of publication, coming Sing Out! Sing Out! printed readers. many important songs Oddly that otherwise might enough, the “re- have had a hard time vival” of interest in catching on. Ed folk music, which McCurdy’s “Strang- was gaining momen- est Dream” was one tum throughout the of the more notable early years of publi- songs found in the cation, was not com- early years, along ing from the working with Lead Belly’s class, but from pre- “Rock Island Line.” dominantly college- Other songs, never educated young men before published and women whose col- such as “Sixteen lective energy would Tons” and “Pretty soon be aimed for so- Boy Floyd” got cial change and hu- their first inking in manitarian causes.

Load more