Free Republic

Judith Durham, the lead singer of The Seekers whose song "Georgy Girl" was an international hit, has died. The Seekers were a huge hit in the '60s, racking up big hits like "I'll Never Find Another You," and "A World of Our Own." But, "Georgy Girl" was a monster ... the title song to the movie with the same name that also became a blockbuster. Universal Music Australia announced her death, saying she had a brief stay in a hospital and ultimately died from a chronic lung disease. The company said in tribute, “Our lives are changed forever losing our...

Fred Hellerman, a singer, guitarist and songwriter and the last surviving member of the Weavers, the quartet that in the 1950s helped usher in the folk music revival, died on Thursday at his home in Weston, Conn. He was 89... With songs like “If I Had a Hammer,” “Goodnight Irene” and “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine,” the Weavers brought folk music to a mass audience, paving the way for singers like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary, who galvanized a young, politically conscious audience in the 1960s. Mr. Hellerman’s mellow baritone, rock-steady guitar and songwriting talent made him...

NEW YORK – Pete Seeger, the banjo-picking troubadour who sang for migrant workers, college students and star-struck presidents in a career that introduced generations of Americans to their folk music heritage, died Monday at the age of 94.

<p>By the 1990s, no longer a party member but still styling himself a communist with a small C, Seeger was heaped with national honors.</p> <p>Official Washington sang along - the audience must sing, was the rule at a Seeger concert - when it lionized him at the Kennedy Center in 1994. President Clinton hailed him as "an inconvenient artist who dared to sing things as he saw them."</p>

Pete Seeger, the singer, folk-song collector and songwriter who spearheaded an American folk revival and spent a long career championing folk music as both a vital heritage and a catalyst for social change, died Monday. He was 94 and lived in Beacon, N.Y. Mr. Seeger’s career carried him from singing at labor rallies to the Top 10 to college auditoriums to folk festivals, and from a conviction for contempt of Congress (after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s) to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama. In his hearty...

Obscure 1960s folk singer Janet Greene sings about fascism, communism, and poor left wingers. These are priceless.

Rightwingbob (the best commentator on all things Bob Dylan - imo) links from his blog to a great read in First Things. Good stuff.

Please get this some play around - it will drive the libs nuts. I've said it before - you know the libs are in trouble when conservatives start an artistic movement. Anne Harpen is a conservative songwriter from Cincinnati, Ohio. Visit her site here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVhBAI9a66s Joe Bethancourt, an Arizona minstrel, sings Lock & Load, (which can be found on an album be found on an album of the same name by another Arizonan - Leslie Fish). I find the song chilling, given current events. Another song, Me and My .30-06 is also on You-tube.

Here’s some fun for the weekend, if you enjoy reading about left-wing hypocrisy. Saturday’s New York Times has two stories. The first is about the performance in the South Village in New York City by Steve Earle and his wife Allison Moorer. The folk/country duo sang at a new high class venue, The City Winery. It seems we’ve come a long, long way since that day in the early 40’s when Woody Guthrie walked out of the Rainbow Room on the eve of his scheduled performance, and sang in front of the NBC Building on the street for free, strumming...

Waist Deep In The Big Media by: Justin Benedict, March 26, 2008 Schools are his favorite venue but media darling Pete Seeger may want to pass on more than folk songs to the next generation. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation pursued Pete Seeger until the only job he could get was singing to kids,” said David King Dunaway, author of How Can I Keep Him From Singing: Pete Seeger. “They never thought there’d be a problem with Pete Seeger singing to six-year-olds.” “Little did they know that out of that came not a subversive movement, but an American folk music...

"As I sat and watched the horror unfold on 9/11, I could smell the acrid smoke drifting south from the Pentagon. There was a never ending line of cars heading away from Washington. With the rest of the world I watched the towers come down and among the victims were 343 New York firemen. I'll never be able to look at a fireman or woman again without knowing that he or she would lay down their lives for me without ever knowing my name. We can never thank them enough." The first plane hit the other tower Right after I...

THE MUSIC OF WAR By Ann Powers Is Chamillionaire's hit song "Ridin' " a political anthem? What about Shakira and Wyclef Jean's "Hips Don't Lie"? When seeking anthems for a new political age, should those critical of the Bush administration be turning toward a Dirty South rapper mad at the cops for disturbing his cruising game or a belly-bared dance music queen who slips a line about immigrant rights into a nightclub seduction? Or does today's climate demand voices raised with urgency that can be inspired only by old-fashioned protest music of the kind country stars like Toby Keith have...

I've spent the last three or four days drowning myself in websites filled with Celtic music midis and learning to play O'Carolan's Ramble to Cashel. My music library is a strange collection of 80s compilation albums, collections of Celtic music, works by Steel Eye Span, Moya Brennan, Pentangle, Clannad, Dougie McClean, and Bluegrass. I can sometimes tell you which Child Ballad a song is a variation of, and might know how to sing two or three different major variations. Tis a sickness. Wonder if anybody else had picked up this bug besides me....And I am logged in, my beeper is...

For people with a particular taste in music, Pete Seeger is still a cultural icon. For too many others, mentioning his name gets a blank look and a question: "Is he related to Bob?" Well, no. Pete (he insists on being called Pete) was one of the creators of modern folk music. He's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Songs that he wrote, helped write or helped make famous include "If I Had a Hammer," "We Shall Overcome," "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" Music is not Pete's only legacy, though. As he puts...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Singer Mary Travers, 68, of Peter, Paul & Mary fame, is undergoing chemotherapy for a form of leukemia, but she is expected to be in full remission within a few months, her publicist said on Tuesday. "Mary looks forward to touring again with the trio soon, and is grateful for the well wishes that have come to her from all over the world," the statement said. No other details were released. The folk trio, which also includes Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, is known for such hits as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Puff The...

Is folk music getting its political hackles up? It has often been the soundtrack of American protest, from the labor movement of the early 20th century through the civil rights and antiwar movements of the '50s and '60s. Now, in the midst of our longest and most controversial war since Vietnam, is history repeating itself? There are definite signs that this summer's folk-festival crowds may hear more political songs than they have in many years.

<p>Bob Dylan appears in a new series of commercials for Victoria's Secret, his grizzled face intercut with shots of model Adriana Lima cavorting through Venice in a bra, panties and spike heels.</p> <p>Don't worry. The 62-year-old Dylan keeps his clothes on.</p>

There's a great scene in 1978's Animal House. Bluto Blutarsky (John Belushi) is walking down the stairway at his fraternity house when he encounters someone sitting on the stairwell while singing a folk song to a bunch of admiring coeds. Bluto, without missing a beat, grabs the folk singer's guitar and smashes it to pieces as the sound of "Louie, Louie" in the background overwhelms them. The smashing of the folk singer's guitar was a seminal scene in American cinema that acknowledged what most of us already knew but dare not publicly admit---almost everybody HATES folk music. The humor...

NEW BRUNSWICK: The Old Bay Restaurant's owner lashed out at France on Friday -- flushing nearly $1,000 in French wine and champagne down a toilet to protest the country's lack of support for the United State's position on Iraq. In response, local folk singer Spook Handy is spearheading an Old Bay Boycott. "The Old Bay is for the war and is apparently willing to attack any party that disagrees," he wrote in a mass e-mail distributed yesterday. Owner Anthony Tola had no comment yesterday about the proposed boycott. Handy of Cranbury urged bands and patrons alike in his e-mail to...