Search - Various Artists :: Don't Mourn - Organize!: Songs Of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill

Inconsistent....but when it's good it's great!

Tribe | Toledo, Ohio United States | 08/12/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"While historically interesting, this is an inconsistent collection where the minuses are greater than the plusses. For the most part, the songs on this collection are boring, sixties era folk-songs which just don't have any energy. Fortunately, this is all made worthwhile by two cuts: Billy Bragg's "Joe Hill" and Hazel Dicken's "Rebel Girl"....two bluegrass ravers that'll make you wanna get up and head to the picket lines. An interesting cut is a mini-interview with Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock, who knew Joe Hill and was a Wob. For any fans of the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack, Haywire Mac did the original recording of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." But the Haywire Mac selection, as interesting as it might be, doesn't make up for a lackluster collection. On the other hand, if you're a Hazel Dickens fan, "Rebel Girl" will make you want to have this."

Passionate music and poetry, although based on a myth...

William E. Adams | Midland, Texas USA | 01/17/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have to give this Smithsonian project the highest rating, because it captures one of the enduring myths of the Folk Revival, the Labor Movement, and American leftist politics. And I say all that as a folk music fan, the son of a union member, and a now moderate Democrat who was more radical thirty years ago. Joe Hill was a real person, but good songs, even about real people, do not have to tell the truth to be good songs. The truth seems to be that Mr. Hill probably did shoot down a grocer and his son in a botched robbery, and although he might have been executed partly because of his labor organizing, and his seemingly anarchist politics, that does not mean he was innocent of the crime. A comprehensive biography, "Joe Hill" by Gibbs M. Smith, is pretty convincing in its thesis that Joe got a fair trial, and a fair appeal, in Utah in 1915. Surprisingly, neither the judge nor the majority of the jurors were even Mormons, whose culture one might think was indeed at variance with Joe's politics. Joe was his own worst witness at the trial, and was pretty much begged to explain how he got a bullet wound at the same moment the grocer died with a discharged weapon in his hands, and why Joe had a handgun and threw it away in that same hour. The book is an eye-opener for those of us who want Joe to be a foul victim of capitalism. That aside, Earl Robinson's song "Joe Hill", adapted from a poem about him, has been a staple of left-leaning songfests for 70 years or so. Paul Robeson's version is on here (one of many he recorded) and to my ears, his was always the best. The disc also gives us Earl Robinson's own rendition. From the '30's to 1989, various aspects of Joe Hill's life, from his songs to his famous last will, to songs about him, and stories about him, are collected here for those who have a soft spot for the labor movement, or the famous song, or the man himself. Not every moment is compelling, but as other reviewers have noted, the good stuff on here is really great stuff."