Jesse Jarnow

This book suffers from a case of sub-title-itis.

The subtitle is "The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America." And, yes, it does talk about that -- or, at least, the musical group The Weavers and the blacklisting they suffered in the 1950s. (I'm not sure how you even describe a "Battle for the Soul of America!") But this is only a part of the book. By the time we're half way through the text, The Weavers are performing again and the book becomes mostly a chronicle of their struggles to function as a performing group.

In a way, the book's confusion over what it covers reflects the group's own confusion over what they were. Were they a folk-preservation group, like band member Pete Seeger's brother's group The New Lost City Ramblers? Were they a pop group that used folk songs, like the Kingston Trio? Or were they a political group, like their forerunner The Almanac Singers?

The truth is, The Weavers weren't really any of these. They sang traditional folk songs, but they messed with them more than a little, and they sang plenty of modern songs, too; they were not preservationists or tradition-bearers. They topped the pop charts in a way no other folk group ever did (that statement requires some footnotes, but you probably don't want to read them...), but they didn't pander the way a true pop group would. And while they were all cutting-edge political leftists, the songs they recorded were generally not extremely leftist.

But Pete Seeger and Lee Hays had both been members of the Communist Almanac Singers before they became Weavers, and the two younger Weavers, Fred Helleman and Ronnie Gilbert, had also been involved in left-wing politics. The FBI had its eyes on them. And hence the blacklist. That is the political message of this book, or at least of its first half, and it is a genuinely frightening reminder of what happens when we let only part of the political spectrum control the conversation. (This should be a warning to both left and right wings!)

But the persecution faded, and the rest of the book becomes almost the story of a family quarrel, as everybody tries to figure out what to do with Old Grand Uncle Lee who is always kvetching, and who to invite to dinner now that Brother Pete has moved out of the house.

Which makes me wonder who this book is really for (I note that one of the other LibraryThing reviews is by someone who didn't even know who The Weavers were). I'm almost sixty, and even so, The Weavers were before my time. I heard their records, yes, since my parents owned one or two. But they never defined my music -- my parents played a lot more Peter Paul and Mary than The Weavers, and by the time I was making my own musical choices, I moved far more toward the folk-preservation end of things. There just aren't that many people left who really had a direct involvement with The Weavers. And with folk music almost dead as a popular form, the attempt at the end to connect The Weavers with Rock and Roll seems almost pathetic -- yes, there were rockers like Jerry Garcia who were folk fans, but as a genre, it didn't derive at all from The Weavers -- indeed, Rock perhaps helped relieve the pressure on all those radical lefty folkies, because Rock became the bigger cultural influence.

None of that makes this a bad book. It reads well. It's well researched. It reminds us of a bad but important time. And I learned a lot that I didn't know about The Weavers, since it is one of the few writings about them compiled after all four of them were dead. People who still know the name of The Weavers will surely benefit from reading it. But I didn't find any particular reason, in this book, to bring their music back to life.… (plus d'informations)

Marking this one did-not-finish at page 124.

The premise sounded interesting: a very popular musical group whose socialist ideals ran afoul of the government during the Red Scare at the beginning of the Cold War. It’s what I call a ‘social or cultural history.’ Unfortunately this seems to be a borderline-hagiography of The Weavers.

It might not be so bad except it’s clearly written with fans of the group in mind. I knew nothing of them to begin with. I’d heard of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie (I think), but didn’t know anything about them. The book isn’t a good introduction to them (except there seems to be some hero-worship, especially toward Guthrie). In fact, it’s not a good introduction to the topics of folk music or anti-communism either. I wasn’t even exactly sure what constituted “folk music” and had to look it up, and same with “hootenanny,” because neither are ever really defined in the book. But it was the writing style that most turned me off. It pretty much glosses over all the unpalatable aspects of the members of the group, often twisting itself into knots explaining how they “technically” weren’t lying when they made various statements. But when it started mixing in modern terms such as “fake news” and “marginalized,” I decided I’d had enough. It’s just not for me.… (plus d'informations)