"All new songs, all new people," proclaims the booklet accompanying this seventh volume in
Folkways Records
' varied series of albums drawn from recordings associated with Broadside magazine, which is devoted to topical songwriting. Many people may associate Broadside with its support of singer/songwriters of the early '60s like
Bob Dylan
and
Phil Ochs
, but the publication has gone right on with its mission of addressing issues of the day from a left-wing perspective. (An unsigned note in the booklet refers to the need for "a socialist revolution in the United States.") The all-new people singing the all-new songs are
Larry Estridge
,
Gary Paris
Paul Kaplan
Danny & Judy Rose-Redwood
, and
Ron Turner
, and the contemporary issues include the American Indian Movement's uprising at Wounded Knee, the ever-spreading scandals of the Nixon Administration, and the ongoing war in Vietnam.
Estridge
is allowed five of the LP's 11 tracks, and he proves a philosophical songwriter, leading off the disc with a statement of purpose in
"Let It Roar Like a Flood."
There and on the next song,
"Spirits of the Revolution,"
speaks in general terms, but also in strong rhetoric, declaring that he will not compromise.
Paris
lightens the mood with his one song,
"The Ballad of Mrs. Martha Mitchell,"
which recounts the loose-canon exploits of the wife of the former Attorney General. Another songwriter taking a humorous look at the overall subject known as Watergate is
, whose
"The Ballad of Frank Wills"
tells the story of the security guard who caught the Watergate burglars.
Turner
is far more serious on
"The Ballad of Frank Clearwater,"
which is the song about Wounded Knee. It might seem at this point that there is nothing new to be said about the Vietnam War, but
Kaplan
comes up with a different angle in
"Vietnam,"
a song that, like
's
"Blowin' in the Wind"
(published in the first issue of Broadside) asks a series of philosophical questions, but unlike the
Dylan
song, provides an answer with its final couplet. It's not clear that any of these songs will live much beyond the newspaper accounts of the stories they document, but they show that topical songwriting didn't stop ten years ago, by any means. ~ William Ruhlmann