Wasn't That a Time

Starred review from October 8, 2018
The Weavers, the chart-topping American folk music quartet whose populist politics made them a target for jingoist McCarthyites, are recast as a crucial fulcrum in America’s postwar culture battles in this dramatic, raucous account from Jarnow (Big Day Coming). In 1940, Arkansas songwriter and bass singer Lee Hays teamed up with folk scholar and banjo picker Pete Seeger to perform rediscovered folk ditties and protest songs, which they amassed as the Almanac Singers during WWII. Later, the duo added the rich voice of utopian socialist Ronnie Gilbert and the pop-attuned sensibilities of guitarist Fred Hellerman to form the Weavers in 1948. The group built a deep repertoire in New York City’s bubbling folk scene, jamming at impromptu “hootenannies” and various political fund-raisers. Jarnow tracks their ascent on the charts with hits such as “Goodnight, Irene” and “Wimoweh” that “would continue to float through the American folk ether” and inspire groups as different as the Kingston Trio and the Grateful Dead. Despite’s Seeger forceful stand against HUAC questioning, political harassment forced the members to disband in 1961. Detailed and smartly reported, this work marvelously captures the four voices in a complex era that influenced pop-folk bands that followed.

October 15, 2018
The story of the Weavers, "America's most popular folk singers."It's not exactly an untold story, given that one member of the group was Pete Seeger and on the fringes of the tale lurks legendary singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie, not to mention the coverage the group received in the popular 1982 documentary The Weavers: Wasn't that a Time! Nevertheless, longtime music journalist Jarnow (Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, 2016, etc.) delivers a by-the-numbers biography of a band whose popular songs and covers earned them plenty of attention during the Red Scare and a place on the blacklist. Most readers think of folk groups as particularly tightknit, but the author reflects equally on the tensions within the group. "The band was a slow-functioning democracy under the best of circumstances," he writes. On display, too, are the very different personalities of each member: Lee Hays, the contentious bass singer who co-wrote "If I Had a Hammer"; Fred Hellerman, the band's unsung producer and arranger of songs; Seeger, the driven, multitalented banjo picker whose songs would go on to be huge hits for the next generation of artists like Peter, Paul and Mary and The Byrds; and Ronnie Gilbert, so popular at the time she was simply known as "The Voice." The author also ably recounts dramatic scenes in the nation's courtrooms--e.g., Seeger demanding, "do I have a right to sing these songs? Do I have a right to sing them anywhere?" There are also interesting cameos sprinkled throughout this colorful tale, from Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. organizing for civil rights to Bob Dylan--about whom Hellerman exclaimed, "he can't sing, and he can barely play, and he doesn't know much about music at all."A well-researched music biography best read with some traditional American folk songs playing in the background.

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November 1, 2018

As with founding Weaver Ronnie Gilbert's recent memoir, A Radical Life in Song, this book structures itself after the folk quartet it profiles. There is no single thread winding its way through Jarnow's (Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America) study of the Weavers, but many. The author examines the evolution of American folk music from prior to World War II through the advent of rock and roll and beyond. Jarnow also explores the evolving understanding of what it meant to collect and rework traditional songs (methods deemed acceptable back then would likely now be considered appropriative) and the creative, idiosyncratic, difficult personalities who briefly bottled lightning and subsequently transformed American music from Bob Dylan's output to schoolhouse sing-alongs. One of the most powerful themes is the anticommunist paranoia that seized the United States during the 1950s and the consequences of the blacklist and the House Un-American Activities Committee on the Weavers' visibility and careers. VERDICT For fans of the Weavers and those they influenced, as well as lovers of 20th-century American folk music.{amp}mdash;Genevieve Williams, Pacific Lutheran Univ. Lib., Tacoma

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2018
Anyone who has ever belted out If I Had Hammer on a bus or crooned Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) around a campfire has sung a Weavers song. Drawing on rich folk, traditional, and global musical influences, songs created or recreated by Pete Seeger and his fellow musicians Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Ronnie Gilbert made their way into the American musical lexicon through often controversial routes. These were the original modern protest songs, advocating for workers' rights and other progressive themes at a time when the country was mired in the Red Scare. Indeed, all four members appeared before the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and the increased public scrutiny took its toll, leading to the group's break up. Fortunately, they reunited in time to influence a new generation of Americans concerned with civil rights and the escalating war in Vietnam. Extensively researched, Jarnow's deep and accomplished portrait of these iconic musicians reverberates with a mastery that will appeal to both fans and everyone interested in the history of music.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)