Folk Songs for Young People
There's a reason why Pete Seeger--despite a lifetime of good deeds on behalf of the environment, the workingman, and other worthy causes--is best known for his renditions of children's folk songs. This album, originally released in 1959, goes a long way to explaining why. Starting with "Skip to My Lou," winding southward toward "Wood-Chopping Song," "Way Down Yonder in the Cornfield," and "On Top of Old Smoky," and ending with the wistful "It Could Be a Wonderful World,"Young Peoplegrabs hold from the opening syllable. Seeger introduces his crop of preserved treasures as "just ordinary songs which one person teaches to another," and guides us ever reassuringly toward sepia-toned landscapes of lost America. There, channeled through a warm voice and a plunking banjo, we encounter sailors ("Blow the Man Down"), factory workers ("Weave-Room Blues"), farmers ("The Farmer Is the Man"), babysitters ("Vigndig a Fremd Kind"), and heroes ("John Henry") with sad or celebratory or silly tales to tell. It's part history lesson, part boomer nostalgia trip. Given the renewed appreciation in the U.S. for folks who roll up their sleeves in 2002, the timing couldn't be better.--Tammy La Gorce