The Little Red Album, Vol. 1: A conversation with Bryan Bingold

In Portland, Oregon, workers at Powell’s Books are represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers, Local 5. In 2000, Powell’s employees secured their first contract after a prolonged organizing campaign that received quite a bit of media attention. Last year, ILWU Local 5 released an album entitled The Little Red Album, Vol. 1 to commemorate the local’s ten year anniversary. The songs on the album, many of which were written by the legendary Swedish immigrant and IWW member Joe Hill, are almost all performed by rank and file members of Local 5. The array of talent showcased on The Little Red Album, Vol. 1 is impressive, and the songs are performed in unique, unorthodox ways. You won’t find the folk-styles that usually accompany labor songs on The Little Red Album, but you will hear indie-rock, punk, and electronica versions of “Should I Ever Be a Solider,” “Casey Jones, The Union Scab,” “Mr. Block,” and other classic songs of labor and protest. Recently, I posed a few questions about The Little Red Album, Vol. 1 to the album’s producer, Bryan Bingold, a rank and file member of ILWU Local 5.

First of all, how did you personally become interested in labor songs?

After working for a big unionized grocery chain for years and then moving to Powell’s, I was struck by how many co-workers were generally more interested in the union and it rubbed off on me. I had already decided that my focus, lyrically, with music would be to promote social change. After reading some Emma Goldman, some Noam Chomsky and hearing the Billy Bragg/Wilco Mermaid Avenue albums, it just made sense. Then there was the PBS documentary, Peter Seeger: The Power of Song. Soon after that, I found the Little Red Songbook and it all sort of clicked.

Can you talk a bit about the history behind The Little Red Album Vol. 1? What inspired you to produce this album?

A couple of years ago, I was researching the IWW and Woody Guthrie and came across the Wobblies’ Little Red Songbook. A couple of minutes later I came across a book published in 2007 called the Big Red Songbook, containing over 250 IWW songs collected by Archie Green. When I was able to get my hands on a copy, it became pretty clear that there was no copyright on any of the lyrics. At first this was going to be an EP that I was thinking about putting out. But I soon went to a house show in Portland, where all three bands contained a coworker of mine. It became clear that the unionized work force at Powell’s books had in it’s rank and file more than enough musical talent to have an entire album. A couple of weeks after the house concert, I approached the ILWU Local 5 and asked them if they would be interested in putting it out as a fund-raiser for the Local’s strike fund. It was perfect timing, as our Local was coming up on it’s 10th Anniversary, and a concert was already being planned to celebrate. We made it so that the album’s release was the night of Local 5’s 10th Anniversary, and had a benefit concert called The Rock Out To Walk Out.

Are most of the musicians on the album ILWU members? How did they become involved in the project?

Every musical act on the album (with the exception of Caius) contains at least one ILWU member, many of them are JUST ILWU members playing multiple instruments. Once I knew that the Local was behind the project, all it took was asking co-workers either in person or through email if they would be interested. After confirming at least enough people to express interest, we then opened it up to the Local’s general membership and received a bunch of interest. Over time, some people had to excuse themselves from participating just because of life, and what remained is on the album.

One of the most unique aspects of The Little Red Album Vol. 1 is that the songs are played in a wide variety of contemporary styles. Many singers perform labor songs in a folk style, but on this album, one can hear the influences of indie-rock, punk rock, and electronica music. Was this a conscious decision? How have listeners reacted to these modern interpretations of classic labor songs?

From the beginning, I wanted to have newly composed music to all of the songs. I thought it would grab a wider audience if the music was contemporary, and, hopefully, fans of the music might pay attention to the lyrics. A lot of the lyrical themes on the album are as prevalent today as the day they were penned. Also as a songwriter, it’s an interesting challenge to compose a song with the limitations of the lyrics already written, especially if the rhyme scheme lends itself to folk tradition. Myself and other contributors to the album struggled with trying to NOT write a Woody Guthrie or Johnny Cash-style of song.

How did the musicians choose which songs to record for the album? More than half of the songs were written by legendary songwriter and IWW member Joe Hill. Is there a connection between some of the musicians and the Portland branch of the IWW?

I left my copy of the Big Red Songbook at the Local’s office and was eventually able to donate it to them and there was a website with the contents of the 1916 Little Red Songbook. The artists had their choice in picking their songs, on a first come first served basis. I think only two had to choose another song, but the benefit of asking the musical acts to write their own music to these lyrics is that you could have 10 completely different tracks that all use the lyrics to “The Tramp,” and it could be pretty fantastic. The fact that most of the lyrics were written by Joe Hill was a happy accident, and a confirmation of his great lyrical ability that so many songwriters would choose his words for their music. The only overt Wobbly connection was that the album was mastered by a friend who had connections to the Wobbly music scene, Max Skewes. The individual bands may have Wobbly connections, but there wasn’t a straight connection.

The liner notes are written by the well-known British folk-punker Billy Bragg. How did that come about?

Mary Winzig, Local 5’s first president and driving force behind the unionizing of Powell’s workers, had connections and a history with Billy Bragg. We simply asked her if it would be possible to ask him if he would. There’s a great article about Mary and she tells of meeting Billy in a Powell’s store in 1998 here: http://www.ilwu.org/?p=2826.

Will there be a Little Red Album Vol. 2?

We hope to get started getting one together sometime in 2012. As well as having more Rock Out To Walk Out benefit concerts. We have a lot of ideas and more than enough lyrics in the Big Red Songbook to make numerous volumes of the Little Red Album. The idea that excites us most is inspiring enough musical acts to write their own contemporary labor songs with no help from the Big Red Songbook and put out an album of entirely original labor songs. A lot of that depends on the sales of the first Little Red Album, though!

Tracks featured on The Little Red Album, Vol. 1:

1. Should I Ever Be A Soldier-lyrics: Joe Hill, performed by Michael Ford

2. The Banner of Labor-lyrics: unknown, performed by Lovejoy

3. Ta-Ra-Ra Boom De-Ay-lyrics: Joe Hill, performed by ¡Ay, Claudia!

4. The White Slave-lyrics: Joe Hill, performed by Nate Ashley and The Picknicking Friends

5. My Wandering Boy-lyrics: unknown, performed by The Legendary Black Mark Savage

6. The Hope of the Ages-lyrics: Edith Nesbit, performed by Caius

7. Casey Jones, the Union Scab-lyrics: Joe Hill, performed by The Mysterie Play

8. Mr. Block-lyrics: Joe Hill, performed by The Middle Ages

9. The Tramp-lyrics: Joe Hill, performed by Michael Ford

10. The Rebel Girl-lyrics: Joe Hill, performed by The High Divide

11. Hark! The Battle is Ringing-lyrics: H.S. Salt, performed by L’Acephale

To purchase The Little Red Album, Vol. 1, visit Local 5’s website at: http://www.ilwulocal5.com/buy-local-5-merchandise

An Interview with Bucky Halker, Labor Songster and Scholar

Bucky Halker is a critically-acclaimed scholar, songwriter, and professional musician.  Drawing on his love of labor songs and his Midwestern roots, Halker has produced a number of fantastic albums including Welcome to Labor Land, Don’t Want Your Millions, and Passion Politics Love.  He has also produced a 4-CD set of songs from Illinois and written a well-received book on labor song-poems of the late 19th century entitled “For Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor Song-Poems and Protest, 1865-95.”  He continues to teach, write, and perform throughout the Midwest and beyond.

Recently, I asked Bucky Halker a number of questions about labor songs, his involvement in the labor movement, and his thoughts about the future of the labor song tradition:

1.)  How did you originally become involved in the labor movement, and what led to your interest in studying and performing labor songs?

My first serious involvement with labor started while I was in graduate school at the University of Minnesota. I’d been politically involved even in high school, but my only direct experience as a teenager was supporting local teachers in their struggles in my hometown of Ashland, Wisconsin. In grad school I started getting calls to perform labor music, which I had just started to study and perform, and then it went from there. Music has been a kind of back door entry for me into political activity ever since I was a teenager, so this direct move toward labor was very natural for me. Also, I came from a family that was always talking politics and involved in politics in an old-school mainstream way. Discussions of labor were part of our family dinner and news-hour conversations. My grandfather was a stockyard worker from Chicago and he and his wife had a very New Deal outlook on politics and they had a huge influence on me. My dad, by contrast, had been pro-labor and then went to the other side and that too had an influence as well.

As for studying and performing labor songs, that was really the result of me trying to find something I had a passion for while I was in graduate school. I had been interested in the intersection of music and politics ever since I had a rock band in high school and began writing political music. I also got interested in folk music as a teenager, in part because of the politics of many in the folk revival and also because I liked the idea of performing as a solo acoustic artist and not relying on a band. I played all through high school and college and when I got to grad school I just organically moved toward studying labor and the role of poetry and music in the movement. I have to say I was wandering in the dark and on my own in doing this. Nobody in the history department knew anything about it and the folklorist on staff could have cared less about working-class culture and music. In addition, other than Archie Green, nobody was really researching labor music. The labor historians were turning toward working-class culture, but music and poetry was off their radar for some reason. For that matter, those subjects are still off their radar.  Of course, it didn’t take long before I just started adding some of these labor songs to my set lists for gigs and, well, I’ve been doing that now for thirty five years!

2.  In your well-received book “For Democracy, Workers, and God,” you investigate labor song-poems of the 19^th century and the cultural, political, and religious influences on that genre of working class expression. What led to your interest in this area of study, and why do you think 19^th century labor songs have not been studied more?

I took on the Gilded Age labor music and poetry because I was looking for the origins of labor music in the labor movement. I started with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and just kept digging deeper and pretty soon I was back in the nineteenth century. Of course, you can actually go back to the colonial period if you want, but it’s really about the time of the Civil War and Reconstruction that labor song and poetry blossoms, at least in my mind. I would never call the New Deal era the high point of working-class protest music and poetry, though that is clearly the image most people have, including historians. I’m not sure why other historians haven’t taken up the cause exactly, but I think there’s a bias for what you might term more muscular subjects in labor history, even among female labor historians. Folklorists, generally have stayed away from the working-class throughout the history of the field and I think that bias continues to the present. Whatever the reasons, it’s most unfortunate. There are some great books waiting to be written about working-class music and poetry and other art.   

3.  Much of your recorded music blends contemporary rock and roll and country sounds with traditional folk music structures. What artists and/or musical experiences prompted this creative melding of genres that is prominent in albums such as “Passion Politics and Love” and “Welcome to Labor land”?

I’ve always been a very eclectic songwriter and performer. I don’t like boundaries in my subject areas or my music. Good music is good music, period, and I don’t care if it’s country, jazz, blues, folk, or Tin Pan Alley. Labor music was popularized by a group of professional musicians in the New Deal era who saw folk music as a political tool. I don’t want to argue with that ideological position, but I think the unfortunate result is that folk music, or what gets called folk music, is the genre where you’re supposed to go if you play or write labor music. I think that’s a bunch of fucking bullshit. Yip Harbug wrote great Broadway and Tin-Pan Alley music and he was never afraid of political lyrics. Listen to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with your left-wing ears on and tell me that isn’t a brilliant piece of melody meets chords meet utopian sentiment. I love Pete Seeger, but on most any given day I’d rather put on the Clash or the Ramones and listen to them. Ditto for Coltrane or Monk or Hendrix or Broonzy. For my money, they offer us other musical models. I grew up listening to country, polka, big bands, rock and roll, blues, and folk. Writing and performing material that is influenced by those genres and carries a political message seems natural to me. If you can get a labor or progressive message out to people by non-folk music styles, then why not do that? Labor and political music isn’t meant to be a private club for folkies.   

4.  One of your best albums (in this writer’s humble opinion) is “Welcome to Labor Land,” which includes some great modern renditions of little known labor songs from Illinois. A refreshing aspect of this album is that there are a number of wonderful blues tunes about working-class issues. Can you talk a little bit about how the blues has influenced labor song writing and your own playing?

Blues? Oh, I love blues so much as an art form. I always say that America has given the world two great things. First, the promise and template of democracy outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Second, the blues and its offspring, jazz and rock and roll. I listened to all kinds of blues and still do, from Otis Spann to Robert Johnson to B.B. King to Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith. For my money, it’s a beautiful form for understanding life itself—dissonance-resolution-dissonance-resolution and so on. You can’t win in the end, but you can “swing” through life as long as possible. In particular, I can’t say enough about Mississippi John Hurt and his influence on my acoustic finger-picking and B.B. King and the Chicago players like Albert Collins and Buddy Guy on my electric playing. Truthfully, I can tell when guitar players are not influenced by blues and I generally don’t care for them all that much. There’s no life without the blues, so how can you play music without including the blues? If you don’t, there’s some emotion that will be absent from your work.

5.  Recently, you performed in Chicago with Jon Langford from the Mekons as part of the Celebration of May Day and the Haymarket Affair’s 125^th anniversary. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of May Day to you?

In Chicago, May Day has a special importance because of Haymarket, the Eight-Hour Movement, and the call for May Day as a day for workers to rise up against injustice in 1885-86. I think it’s important to remember Haymarket and the role of the Eight-Hour movement in world history. That said, I try to do something every May Day. This year was especially important because of the 125th, so I felt we ought to do something bigger. My role was to put together the concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music, but lots of people joined together in special events to commemorate. It was great to be part of this.  

6.  The last year has seen some prominent musicians come out in public support of union labor. From Steve Earle and the Dropkick Murphys to Jon Langford and yourself, there seems to be a host of pro-union musicians writing contemporary songs about the struggles of working class people. Do you think we are going to see more musicians singing “labor songs”? What do you hope for the future of labor music?  

I do think we will see more people doing labor music and they will be doing a variety of styles, which is great. In my perfect world, we’d see jazz, hip hop, electronica, punk, speed metal, emo, folk, bluegrass, jazz, polka, Mexican son, tamburitza, salsa, spoken word and a host of styles from around the world all serving as stylistic vehicles for labor music. That would make me very happy and that would be my hope for the future.

 7.  Are you working on any new albums or current projects that might be of interest to people reading this blog?  

I’m going to be recording a double CD this fall that will feature songs that have some relation to Woody Guthrie. It may include a couple of Woody’s songs, but the rest will be originals. It’s going to be a very-stripped down recording that I’m doing with a friend who toured Europe with me last year. I’ve been running around with Woody Guthrie in my head since I was in grade school, so I figure it was time to finally take him on as a subject. I know everyone else is running to the archives to get a set of lyrics of his to write a song, but I decided to just write original material that has some analytic thread that connects to Mr. Woodrow Wilson Guthrie. I’m also working on a Volume 5 in the “Folksongs of Illinois” CD series I’ve been producing. These CDs document the history of folk and ethnic music in the state and really highlight the contribution of Illinois musicians to our nation’s music history. To be honest, it’s a tribute to workers and working-class communities in the state. They produced the vast majority of songs on the CDs.Volume 5 is on Chicago since 1970. I’m also hoping to start the actual writing in 2012 for a book on Woody Guthrie. I’ve done a lot of the research, but finding the blocks of time is hard to do when you are a musician and have to constantly hustle a buck to stay alive. Finally, I’m currently documenting ironworkers from locals 1, 63, and 136 of the Iron Workers Union here in Chicago. It’s a mix of photographs, recordings, and film that will end up at the Library of Congress on their website. I was fortunate to get the Archie Green Fellowship from the Library of Congress-American Folklife Center to do this. There are other projects, but that’s enough. Yup, I’m keepin’ busy and I never get enough sleep.     

To find out more about Bucky Halker’s music and scholarship, visit his website at: http://www.buckyhalker.com/

Harry Stamper, ILWU Songwriter

This is a short film that I made about Harry Stamper, a labor songwriter and ILWU member from Coos Bay, Oregon.  Enjoy!

Harry Stamper, Coos Bay’s labor songwriter

Harry Stamper is a retired longshoreman, union activist, and songwriter who resides in Coos Bay, Oregon.  For decades, Harry has been writing songs about occupational safety, union organizing, and working on the docks in Southern Oregon.  Many of his songs have been sung by folksingers and activists throughout the Pacific Northwest, and some of his songs have entered the labor music canon.  “We Just Come to Work Here,” an infectious tune about workplace safety, is probably Stamper’s most famous song, and it is featured on the Smithsonian Folkways Collection “Classic Labor Songs.”

Harry continues to write and record songs.  He records them himself, and sends them out to anyone who is interested in his lyrics and message.  Some of his new songs focus on the environmental issues that his community faces.  For the past few years, Coos Bay has been the proposed site of a liquid natural gas terminal and an associated pipeline to move the gas inland.  Not only have Harry and his wife Holly become active in the movement to oppose this potentially devastating development, but Harry has written some great tunes about the issue.  For a great example, check out “Jordan Cove Rock,” a satirical exploration of the possible consequences of putting a natural gas terminal in a subduction zone: http://mgx.com/blogs/2011/03/21/bleve-on-the-north-spit-why-jordan-cove-lng-is-a-bad-idea/.

I’ll be visiting Harry Stamper next weekend, and I’m looking forward to meeting him.  Stay tuned for pics, and a report…

Here’s the fantastic cover of the “Rebel Song Book,” compiled by Samuel H. Friedman, Socialist Party Vice Presidential Candidate, 1952 and 1956.   This book contains 87 labor and socialist songs for voice and piano.  You can download free MP3s of three tracks in the songbook at: http://media.lib.ecu.edu/spclcoll/staffpick.cfm?id=16.  According to musician and cultural activist John Pietaro, ” The Rebel Song Book remains an important historic document and stands as a powerful reminder of the breadth of the Socialist Party during its own second stage. It bears a closer examination.” Pietaro has written an in-depth analysis of the collection and it can be read on his website “The Cultural Worker” (http://theculturalworker.blogspot.com/2010/12/brief-study-of-art-and-culture-of.html).

If there’s anyone out there who can tell me who created the cover art, I would appreciate it.  I’ve searched around and haven’t been able to pinpoint the artist.  The “Rebel Song Book,” however, is part of the Tim Davenport Collection (http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt6t1nf0hb/).  Perhaps there is a sleuth out there who will solve the mystery for us?  To be continued…

Mini-Review: Steve Towson’s “The Beginning, The Struggle, and The Reward”

If you’re looking for a blend of contemporary and traditional labor music, then check out folk-punker Steve Towson’s newest release “The Beginning, The Struggle, and The Reward.”  It is a 5 song E.P. that includes such classics as Joe Hill’s “Preacher and the Slave” and Florence Reece’s “Which Side Are You On?” Hailing from Australia, Towson also presents the “Ballad of 1891” by Helen Palmer and Doreen Jacobs (a song about the first great Australian shearer’s strike) and his own composition about labor martyr Tom Edwards.  The E.P. may be short, but it’s powerful.  Highly recommended.  Great guitar playing, too!

To check learn more about Steve Towson and his music, visit:http://www.stevetowson.com/

Welcome!

Welcome to “Don’t Mourn, Harmonize,” a blog dedicated to examining and promoting the music of the labor movement. For hundreds of years, workers have written songs about their working conditions, struggles for justice, and union victories and losses. Many of these songs have become famous, while others have faded into obscurity. One thing is certain, though: as long as workers struggle for their rights, they will create songs–on the picket lines, in the office, and in the fields. With this site, I hope to examine a powerful tradition that continues to this day.

Hello world!