Hannes Wader – Singt Arbeiterlieder

German political folk singer Hannes Wader was born in Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia in 1942. Wader repertoire consists of traditional German folk songs (volksmusik), provocative social commentaries, blue-collar ballads and songs based around the works of poets and classical composers. He still tours regularly in Germany.

He was an important figure in German leftist circles from the 1970s on, with his songs covering such themes as socialist and communist resistance to oppression in Europe and other places like Latin America. He both wrote new songs and played versions of older historical works.

Tracklist:

01 Dem Morgenrot entgegen
02 Auf, auf zum Kampf
03 Der kleine Trompeter
04 Bella ciao
05 Mamita mia
06 Die Thaelmann-Kolonne
07 El pueblo unido
08 Trotz alledem (Dass sich die F
09 Das Einheitsfrontlied
10 Solidaritaetslied
11 Die Moorsoldaten
12 Lied vom Knueppelchen
13 Die Internationale

Hannes Wader – Singt Arbeiterlieder
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Allen Ginsberg – Howl And Other Poems (1959)

Allen Ginsberg wrote his epic poem “Howl” in mid-‘50s San Francisco and Berkeley, and the rest is literary history. The work, first read in public in 1955 and published in 1956 before emerging victorious in a 1957 court ruling that it was not obscene, has been hailed as one of the most important poems of the 20th century, and it inspired a wave of Beat poetry.

Fantasy Records became the unofficial audio home of the movement, documenting not only Ginsberg but several other poets of the day.

Allen Ginsberg´s poetry broke so many social taboos that copies were impounded as obscene, and the publisher, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was arrested. The court case that followed found for Ginsberg and his publisher, and the publicity made both the poet and the book famous. Ginsberg went on from this beginning to become a cultural icon of sixties radicalism. This works seminal place in the culture is indicated in Czeslaw Milosz’s poetic tribute to Ginsberg: “Your blasphemous howl still resounds in a neon desert where the human tribe wanders, sentenced to unreality”.

The “Howl and Other Poems” vinyl LP was first released in 1959, repackaged for the burgeoning hippie generation in 1969, and remained in print until 1985, when the company ran out of vinyl LPs. In 1998 there was a cd reissue.

Tracks:
1. Howl
2. Footnote to Howl
3. A Supermarket in California
4. Transcription of Organ Music
5. America
6. In the Back of the Real
7. Strange New Cottage in Berkeley
8. Europe! Europe!
9. Kaddish (part 1)
10. The Sunflower Sutra

Allen Ginsberg – Howl And Other Poems (1959)
(128 kbps)

Allen Ginsberg – Howl And Other Poems (1959)

Allen Ginsberg wrote his epic poem “Howl” in mid-‘50s San Francisco and Berkeley, and the rest is literary history. The work, first read in public in 1955 and published in 1956 before emerging victorious in a 1957 court ruling that it was not obscene, has been hailed as one of the most important poems of the 20th century, and it inspired a wave of Beat poetry.

Fantasy Records became the unofficial audio home of the movement, documenting not only Ginsberg but several other poets of the day.

Allen Ginsberg´s poetry broke so many social taboos that copies were impounded as obscene, and the publisher, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was arrested. The court case that followed found for Ginsberg and his publisher, and the publicity made both the poet and the book famous. Ginsberg went on from this beginning to become a cultural icon of sixties radicalism. This works seminal place in the culture is indicated in Czeslaw Milosz’s poetic tribute to Ginsberg: “Your blasphemous howl still resounds in a neon desert where the human tribe wanders, sentenced to unreality”.

The “Howl and Other Poems” vinyl LP was first released in 1959, repackaged for the burgeoning hippie generation in 1969, and remained in print until 1985, when the company ran out of vinyl LPs. In 1998 there was a cd reissue.

Tracks:
1. Howl
2. Footnote to Howl
3. A Supermarket in California
4. Transcription of Organ Music
5. America
6. In the Back of the Real
7. Strange New Cottage in Berkeley
8. Europe! Europe!
9. Kaddish (part 1)
10. The Sunflower Sutra

Allen Ginsberg – Howl And Other Poems (1959)
(128 kbps)

Franz Josef Degenhardt – Junge Paare auf Bänken – Franz Josef Degenhardt singt Georges Brassens (1986)

The songs on Degenhardt’s 1986 album “Junge Paare Auf Den Bänken” (“Young Couples on the Benches”) are his translations into German of chansons by the French singer-songwriter Georges Brassens, spiritually perhaps one of Degenhardts closest musical allies.

Georges Brassens ( 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981), was a French singer-songwriter and poet.
Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier.
Now an iconic figure in France, he achieved fame through his elegant songs with their harmonically complex music for voice and guitar and articulate, diverse lyrics; indeed, he is considered one of France’s most accomplished postwar poets.
He has also set to music poems by both well-known and relatively obscure poets, including Louis Aragon (Il n’y a pas d’amour heureux), Victor Hugo (La Légende de la Nonne, Gastibelza), Jean Richepin, François Villon (La Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis), and Guillaume Apollinaire, Antoine Pol (Les Passantes).

During World War II, he was forced by the Germans to work in a labor camp at a BMW aircraft engine plant in Basdorf near Berlin in Germany (March 1943). Here Brassens met some of his future friends, such as Pierre Onténiente, whom he called Gibraltar because he was “steady as a rock.” They would later become close friends.
After being given ten days’ leave in France, he decided not to return to the labour camp. Brassens took refuge in a slum called “Impasse Florimont,” in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, where he lived for several years with Jeanne Planche, a friend of his aunt. Planche lived with her husband Marcel in relative poverty: without gas, running water, or electricity. Brassens remained hidden there until the end of the war five months later, but ended up staying for 22 years.

This album was recorded january 1986 in ‘Musikstudio M 1, Studio Hamburg’, Germany, with
Franz Josef Degenhardt (translation of the George Brassens lyrics, lyrics track 10, vocals,guitar), Lech Wieleba (bass), Jan Reimer (guitar), Steve Baker (harp), produced by Jimmy Bowien, engineered by Gert Hauke.

Tracklisting:

1. Junge Paare auf Bänken (Les amoureux des bancs publics)
2. Marinette
3. Ich mach mich ganz klein (Je me suis fait tout petit)
4. Mit einer Hacke auf der Schulter (Pauvre Martin)
5. Das Testament (Le Testament)
6. Margot (Brave Margot)
7. Vorsicht Gorilla (Le Gorille)
8. König Großkotz (Le Roi)
9. Weltkrieg Nr. 1 (La guerre de 14 – 18)
10. Au pere eternel (für George Brassens)

Franz Josef Degenhardt – Paar auf Bänken  
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Kurt Tucholsky – Opposition! Oppostion! (Hanns Ernst Jäger, 1969)

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“Nothing is more difficult and nothing requires more character than to find oneself in open opposition to one’s time (and those one loves) and to say loudly: No!” – Kurt Tucholsky

Kurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He´s regarded as one of the most powerful satirists of the 20th century. He wrote eassays, political and cultural commentaries, drama criticism, book reviews, poems and novels. His ardent criticism was directed at German nationalism and militarism and at the growing nazi movement.

After 1929 Tucholsky lived in Sweden. In 1933 he was deprived of his German citizenship by the nazis and his books were burnt. Possibly in a deep depression over the situation in Germany, he committed suicide in Hindås, a village a few miles from Gotenburg, in 1935. He was buried in Mariefred, a town situated near the medieval castle Gripsholm. Since world war II Tucholsky’s works have been widely reprinted in Germany.
Here´s an album with Kurt Tucholsky songs and poems interpreted by Kurt Hanns Ernst Jäger with music by Hanns Eisler and Friedrich Meyer, recorded in August, 1969, accompanied by the Orchester Heinz Hötter.

Tracklist:

01 – Was darf die Satire
02 – Publikum
03 – Über Deutschland
04 – Der Mensch
05 – Frauen von Freunden
06 – Ein Wort
07 – Rosen auf den Weg gestreut
08 – Jubiläum
09 – Die brennende Lampe
10 – Über Krieg
11 – Hitler und Goethe
12 – Kritik
13 – Der Geschlechtslose
14 – Rückkehr zur Natur
15 – Sommerlied
16 – Opposition
17 – Über Sozialdemokratie
18 – Kleines Glockenspiel
19 – Wir Negativen
20 – Über Marxismus
21 – Gebet nach dem Schlachten
22 – Über Wirtschaft

Kurt Tucholsky – Opposition! Oppostion! (1969)
(128 kbps, front cover & cover text included)

You will find the cover text in the comment section!

Kurt Tucholsky – Opposition! Oppostion! (Hanns Ernst Jäger, 1969)

.

“Nothing is more difficult and nothing requires more character than to find oneself in open opposition to one’s time (and those one loves) and to say loudly: No!” – Kurt Tucholsky

Kurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He´s regarded as one of the most powerful satirists of the 20th century. He wrote eassays, political and cultural commentaries, drama criticism, book reviews, poems and novels. His ardent criticism was directed at German nationalism and militarism and at the growing nazi movement.

After 1929 Tucholsky lived in Sweden. In 1933 he was deprived of his German citizenship by the nazis and his books were burnt. Possibly in a deep depression over the situation in Germany, he committed suicide in Hindås, a village a few miles from Gotenburg, in 1935. He was buried in Mariefred, a town situated near the medieval castle Gripsholm. Since world war II Tucholsky’s works have been widely reprinted in Germany.
Here´s an album with Kurt Tucholsky songs and poems interpreted by Kurt Hanns Ernst Jäger with music by Hanns Eisler and Friedrich Meyer, recorded in August, 1969, accompanied by the Orchester Heinz Hötter.

Tracklist:

01 – Was darf die Satire
02 – Publikum
03 – Über Deutschland
04 – Der Mensch
05 – Frauen von Freunden
06 – Ein Wort
07 – Rosen auf den Weg gestreut
08 – Jubiläum
09 – Die brennende Lampe
10 – Über Krieg
11 – Hitler und Goethe
12 – Kritik
13 – Der Geschlechtslose
14 – Rückkehr zur Natur
15 – Sommerlied
16 – Opposition
17 – Über Sozialdemokratie
18 – Kleines Glockenspiel
19 – Wir Negativen
20 – Über Marxismus
21 – Gebet nach dem Schlachten
22 – Über Wirtschaft

Kurt Tucholsky – Opposition! Oppostion! (1969)
(128 kbps, front cover & cover text included)

You will find the cover text in the comment section!

The Voices of the Civil Rights Movement – Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966

This double-CD reissue documents a central aspect of the cultural environment of the Civil Rights Movement, acknowledging songs as the language that focused people’s energy. These 43 tracks are a series of musical images, of a people in coversation about their determination to be free. Many of the songs were recorded live in mass meetings held in churches, where people from different life experiences, predominantly black, with a few white supporters, came together in a common struggle. These freedom songs draw from spirituals, gospel, rhythm and blues, football chants, blues and calypso forms.

“The Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966” documents the importance of songs in the Civil Rights Movement. The first disc features songs from mass meetings, where a singer or core of singers leads the people in the singing of the songs, while the second focuses on ensemble works by the SNCC Freedom Singers and other groups.

Chances are that unless you were involved in the Civil Rights Movement you will not especially recognize many of these songs, with “This Little Light of Mine,” “Go Tell It On the Mountain,” and “We Shall Overcome” being the obvious exceptions. But you will be surprised at some of the popular songs that were appropriate for the cause, such as “Calypso Freedom,” based on Harry Belafonte’s “The Banana Boat Song,” and “Get Your Rights, Jack,” based on the Ray Charles hit “Hit the Road, Jack.” For me the song that stood out was “In the Mississippi River,” written by Marshall Jones after the disappearance of three Civil Rights workers in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. As local rivers were dragged in search of the men, many other bodies were discovered, a chilling fact that certainly needs to be more than a historic footnote to that tragic event. There is also a lengthy segment from a sermon by Rev. Lawrence Campbell, which illustrates the song-sermons that were an integral part of the movement and its traditions. The result is a historical document of immense value.

Folkways Records was founded by Moses Asch and Marian Distler in 1948 to document music and spoken word from around the world. The Smithsonian Institution acquired Folkways from the Asch estate and has succeeded in preserving the best of the label’s 2,200 albums. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has continued this grand tradition. Their releases are superb, especially in terms of providing the historical context by which we can best appreciate these songs from another place and another time.
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The Voices Of The Civil Rights Movement pt.1

The Voices Of The Civil Rights Movement pt. 2

Sarah Gorby – Les Inoubliables Chants Du Ghetto (1976)

Today is the Holocaust Memorial Day, dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. The chosen date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Army in 1945.
This is an opportunity to show our respect for the survivors of Nazi persecution and mass murder, and to listen to what they can tell us about the best and the worst of human behaviour.

So here is Sarah Gorby with the album”Les Inoubliables Chants Du Ghetto”. In choosing these twelve songs amongst hundreds of others, Sarah Gorby wished to immortalize the poets and musicians who died in the concentration camps during the Nazi dictatorship. She interprets these unforgettable songs of her people with a quivering exaltation; she follows the jagged rhythms of their bewailing and their lamentations. This record is an extraordinary document, rendered yet more intense by the orchestral arrangements of Jacques Lasry.

Tracks:

01. Geyne Zey in Shvartse Reyen [Black Columns Are Moving]
02. Mach Ye Deine Eiguelekh Tzu [Close Your Eyes Radio Cut]
03. Dos Yingele Ligt Farbrent [The Burned Child Lies There]
04. Zog Nit Keynmol [Never Say]
05. Rivkele, Di Shabesdike [Tragic Event in the Ghetto of Bialistock …]
06. Tsien Zikh Makhnes Fartribene [DePortation]
07. Undzer Shtetl Brent [Our Town Is on Fire]
08. Moyde Ani
09. Dayn Mame Kumt Nit Tzurik [Your Mother Will Never Be Returning]
10. Yiddish Kind Fun Poyln [A Jewish Child of Poland]
11. Kinderlekh, Kleyninke [Children, Little Ones]
12. Es Hot Zikh Der Krig Shoyn Geendikt (The War Is Over)

Sarah Gorby – Les Inoubliables Chants Du Ghetto (1976)

(192 kbps, cover art included)

John Spencer´s Louts – The Last LP (1978, vinyl rip)

John B. Spencer (1944 – 2002) was a british songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, novelist and occasional record producer.

From 1978 onwards, over more than a dozen albums and a handful of singles released on a variety of British and European labels, Spencer threw himself into the recording business. His music never sold anything like the numbers that his old shelf-stacking workmate’s group would, but Spencer made his mark on the British music scene, though Jerry Williams took Cruisin’ (On A Saturday Night) into the Swedish Top 10. As John Collis wrote in 1996, Spencer retained “a faithful constituency of followers” but increasingly that following included name musicians. The scene that nurtured and sustained his songwriting blurred folk, blues, R&B, punk and pub rock. His songs were grounded in the sterling examples of Woody Guthrie, John Lee Hooker, Leadbelly and any number of people who had dealt a good three-chord trick. Interpreters such as Home Service, Augie Meyers, Martin Simpson, Norma Waterson and Jerry Williams took his songs into the wider world. Likewise, the actress Susan Penhaligon, with whom he did poetry and music performances that brought his name to still different audiences. Fast Lane Roogalator – sons Syd and Tom with a little bit of Will Spencer – made an album of twelve of their father’s songs, including Drive-In Movies (about his love-hate relationship with the USA), Only Dancing (power chords reign) and One More Whiskey (one of Spencer’s great parting glasses). Fast Lane Roogalator (2004) was produced by Graeme Taylor, incidentally.

Between 1974 and 1978 he gigged and recorded with his group, the Louts, with Chas Ambler, Johnny G. (Gotting) and Dave Thorne. “It was a pretty anarchic band, but the LP doesn’t reflect that: it’s full of pretty songs. The live gigs were something else. It preceded punk by about four years. In fact just as we were breaking up we were starting to get a few punks arriving at our gigs figuring that as we were called the Louts we were a punk band. We weren’t a punk band: we were an anarchic band. Each gig was either diabolical or fantastic. There was no middle ground.” Spencer later fondly remembered an incident at a Louts’ gig at the Half Moon at Putney as defining the band’s attitude. He had it on tape. “You hear this American voice keep calling out, ‘Haul ass, Spencer! Haul ass!’ Eventually Johnny G. behind the drums shouts back – he didn’t have to shout because he had a mike – ‘We got your money, fuck off!’ To which this American from the back cries out, ‘You didn’t get all my money. I got in for half-price.’ To which Johnny G. shouts back, ‘Then you should have fucked off half an hour ago!’ That summed up the Louts live.” The Half Moon of yore also saw the soon-to-be Elvis Costello open for him. Or maybe it was them – the Louts – because that is what the passage of the years does to people’s memories and I can’t check with Spencer now and Costello isn’t answering my calls.

“The Last LP” was – and that is no joke – the first album I ever owned. Won it on a radio prize game some month before I bought my first record player. And then it was really on heavy rotation…
It´s an album with some very good reggae influenced pub rock from the late 70’s with the very underrated John Gotting (Johnny G) on guitar. Still like that tunes…

John Spencer´s Louts – The Last LP (1978, vinyl rip)
(320 kbps, front & back cover included)

You find more information about Jon Spencer via http://en.world.freemusic.cz/index.php/john-b-spencer-1944-2002/.

John Spencer´s Louts – The Last LP (1978, vinyl rip)

John B. Spencer (1944 – 2002) was a british songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, novelist and occasional record producer.

From 1978 onwards, over more than a dozen albums and a handful of singles released on a variety of British and European labels, Spencer threw himself into the recording business. His music never sold anything like the numbers that his old shelf-stacking workmate’s group would, but Spencer made his mark on the British music scene, though Jerry Williams took Cruisin’ (On A Saturday Night) into the Swedish Top 10. As John Collis wrote in 1996, Spencer retained “a faithful constituency of followers” but increasingly that following included name musicians. The scene that nurtured and sustained his songwriting blurred folk, blues, R&B, punk and pub rock. His songs were grounded in the sterling examples of Woody Guthrie, John Lee Hooker, Leadbelly and any number of people who had dealt a good three-chord trick. Interpreters such as Home Service, Augie Meyers, Martin Simpson, Norma Waterson and Jerry Williams took his songs into the wider world. Likewise, the actress Susan Penhaligon, with whom he did poetry and music performances that brought his name to still different audiences. Fast Lane Roogalator – sons Syd and Tom with a little bit of Will Spencer – made an album of twelve of their father’s songs, including Drive-In Movies (about his love-hate relationship with the USA), Only Dancing (power chords reign) and One More Whiskey (one of Spencer’s great parting glasses). Fast Lane Roogalator (2004) was produced by Graeme Taylor, incidentally.

Between 1974 and 1978 he gigged and recorded with his group, the Louts, with Chas Ambler, Johnny G. (Gotting) and Dave Thorne. “It was a pretty anarchic band, but the LP doesn’t reflect that: it’s full of pretty songs. The live gigs were something else. It preceded punk by about four years. In fact just as we were breaking up we were starting to get a few punks arriving at our gigs figuring that as we were called the Louts we were a punk band. We weren’t a punk band: we were an anarchic band. Each gig was either diabolical or fantastic. There was no middle ground.” Spencer later fondly remembered an incident at a Louts’ gig at the Half Moon at Putney as defining the band’s attitude. He had it on tape. “You hear this American voice keep calling out, ‘Haul ass, Spencer! Haul ass!’ Eventually Johnny G. behind the drums shouts back – he didn’t have to shout because he had a mike – ‘We got your money, fuck off!’ To which this American from the back cries out, ‘You didn’t get all my money. I got in for half-price.’ To which Johnny G. shouts back, ‘Then you should have fucked off half an hour ago!’ That summed up the Louts live.” The Half Moon of yore also saw the soon-to-be Elvis Costello open for him. Or maybe it was them – the Louts – because that is what the passage of the years does to people’s memories and I can’t check with Spencer now and Costello isn’t answering my calls.

“The Last LP” was – and that is no joke – the first album I ever owned. Won it on a radio prize game some month before I bought my first record player. And then it was really on heavy rotation…
It´s an album with some very good reggae influenced pub rock from the late 70’s with the very underrated John Gotting (Johnny G) on guitar. Still like that tunes…

John Spencer´s Louts – The Last LP (1978, vinyl rip)
(320 kbps, front & back cover included)

You find more information about Jon Spencer via http://en.world.freemusic.cz/index.php/john-b-spencer-1944-2002/.