Earl Robinson and Tony Kraber

From time to time I've presented some of the early folksingers who first came to prominence in the 1940s - the Weavers, Josh White, Woody Guthrie and others. Today we have a record by two singers who are lesser known but nonetheless important in their own right. They are Earl Robinson - the better known of the two - and Tony Kraber. (Although Kraber's name does not appear on the cover of this early Mercury LP, half the record is devoted to him.)

This album is a reissue of 78 sets that Robinson and Kraber made for Keynote records circa 1941-43, when that label was primarily an outlet for politically committed leftist music - issuing music from the Spanish Republican Army Chorus and the Red Army Choir, among others. Keynote also published the superb Almanac Singers, which you can hear via my friend Larry's blog, Vinyl Fatigue. The Almanac Singers' set, Talking Union (which is urgently recommended), was dedicated to the memory of union organizer Joe Hill, who was executed for murder in 1915 on what many people considered to be scant evidence. And that brings us back to Earl Robinson, who wrote the music for the famous labor song Joe Hill, most familiar today in the Joan Baez recording.

Earl Robinson

Although Joe Hill is not on this LP, it does contain Robinson's greatest hit, The House I Live In, in its first recording. This was a few years before Frank Sinatra took it up, made it a hit and appeared in an Academy Award-winning short film based on it. Robinson wrote the music for the song; the lyrics were by Abel Meeropol, who wrote under the pen name Lewis Allan. Meeropol also is known for writing the words and music to Strange Fruit.

The screenplay for the film of The House I Live In was written by Albert Maltz. He, like Robinson and Meeropol (and Tony Kraber, for that matter), was later blacklisted. All had been members of the Communist Party.

Robinson was an excellent composer and singer. His version of The House I Live In is certainly in a different style from Sinatra's, but they are equally earnest. This album also contains what would become some of the best known traditional songs, such as Drill Ye Tarriers, with an ironic labor message that was perfectly suited to Robinson's repertoire.

Robinson's other well-known composition (not included here) was Ballad for Americans, which had words by lyricist John Latouche at the beginning of his career.

Cover of Keynote 78 set

Tony Kraber was not as well known as Robinson, but he did have a notable career as actor, singer and director in New York. He was a founding member of the Group Theater and made other folk albums besides this one, which almost certainly was his first. He was an enthusiastic and convincing singer, again dealing primarily with material that has become familiar, such as The Old Chisholm Trail and the Boll Weevil Song (which he likely picked up from Leadbelly's version).

As mentioned, Kraber was blacklisted after being denounced as a Communist. He was one of the people infamously named by Elia Kazan before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The download includes cover scans from Kraber's Keynote album, which I recently acquired. The liner notes include the singer's commentary on each of the songs.

More Josef Marais

I am indebted to reader JohnnyUSA who has graciously provided Josef Marais' first recordings, in response to my recent posting of Marais' second album.

Johnny has provided a very nice transfer that I have cleaned up a bit. There are a few brief passages of groove damage, so please be warned. [August 2019 note: I've replaced the defective sides with new transfers.]

I hope Johnny doesn't mind but I am using the cover of the 78 album above (his transfer is from the 10-inch LP). That's because, as often happened, the graphics on the 78 album were much better than the LP. I have included the LP's front and back cover in the download.

Those of you who have heard the later collection will know what to expect, so it only remains for me to thank Johnny once again for his contribution!

Josef Marais

I had a request for music by Marais and Miranda, and while I do not have any records by that early folk duo, I do have this record made by Josef Marais before he met Rosa de Miranda.

The rustic cover image is deceiving. Marais was a well-trained South African violinist who started singing folk songs almost by accident. He had settled in London, and somehow was engaged to record folk songs in Africaans for HMV to sell in South Africa. This led to BBC work, with Marais later moving his base of operations to New York.

Marais made his first recordings for American Decca in 1941; this is a 10-inch LP version of his second set, which dates from shortly thereafter. His popularity was deserved; these songs can be very charming, although I have to say that Siembamba has one of the most bizarre lyrics I have ever heard. "Twist his neck and hit him on the head; throw him in the ditch and he'll be dead!" And this is a lullaby? Pleasant dreams!

[August 2019 update: newly available discographical information shows that Marias' first recordings were in 1939. This set was recorded in 1941.]

If Marching to Pretoria sounds familiar, it was a staple of the Smothers Brothers repertoire. If I remember correctly, it was generally the jumping off point for the folk duo's comedy act.

See this detailed site for more on Marais and Miranda and some of their recordings together.

Jo Stafford, Part 2

In the previous post on Jo Stafford, I mentioned that I thought that gospel music evoked her some of her best singing. This record of folk songs is even better done than Garden of Faith.

These sides were made in the late 1940s, when folk songs and folk singers were newly popular both because of a search for novelty in music and a post-war interest in Americana. Pop singers of all types gave folk songs a shot, especially after the Weavers had a hit with Goodnight Irene. Even Sinatra did that one, in his most obscure LP, Songs for Swinging Convicts. (OK, I made up the album - but not the recording of Irene.)

This cross-genre mixing usually resulted in a level of stylistic incongruity that was not to be surpassed until Sammy Davis Jr. donned love beads. But this is different. Jo's involvement and the superb arrangements by Paul Weston are just right - and just gorgeous. I should mention that these recordings predate the popularity of Goodnight Irene, which Jo recorded but which is not to be found here.

Capitol reissued some of these recordings (I think they are the same recordings, but I'm not sure) during the 60s folk boom along with other pieces with folk-style instrumentation.

One side note - this album also was apparently issued in a 45-rpm box. Capitol printed just one color cover for the 10-inch and 7-inch formats. For the 10-inch albums, it framed the 7-inch cover in lace. Many records that were offered in both formats framed the 7-inch cover in just that - a frame - for the 10-inch issue.

Woody Guthrie

It's been some time since we visited the folk/blues/early jazz category, and what better way to add to that collection than with a Woody Guthrie album.

This is a Folkways LP that came out in 1950, but it collects some of the first commercial recordings that Guthrie made - for RCA Victor in 1940. On the A side you will find four classic dust bowl ballads; on the flip side, songs about the migrants who were chased from the southwest by the storms of the 1930s. These include a piece that Guthrie based on John Steinbeck's Tom Joad character.

It's interesting that Guthrie, thought of as a true folk artist, was influenced by Steinbeck's novel and (according to the notes to this album) even the film of the Grapes of Wrath. His work in turn became part of the collective consciousness, in a sense - I remember singing So Long and This Land Is Your Land in elementary school in the 1950s, well before I ever heard of Woody himself.

Guthrie's RCA session was tremendously successful artistically - this record doesn't include Do Re Mi, Vigilante Man, and Pretty Boy Floyd, all of which he recorded at the same session.

The cover of this album, by an artist named Carlis, is perfect for its contents. A great record and great package.

Josh White

Josh White had a remarkable career and life fully equal to his remarkable talents. The story goes that he began his career as a boy dancing and singing as a sort of side attraction for blues singers such as Blind Lemon Jefferson. He became a recording star himself as a singer and guitarist in a number of genres while still quite young. By the time these records were made in the mid-1940s, he had moved on to become one of the first (if not the first) crossover stars of sorts, playing now-familiar folk and blues tunes in New York cabarets.

With his good looks, magnetic stage presence, and superb musicianship, he must have been an impressive act.

Moe Asch recorded these eight items for an Asch Records 78 album and later released them on 10-inch LP on both the Stinson and Folksay labels.

The cover is by the great David Stone Martin, one of his earliest ones, I believe, because it was used for the album of 78s. It isn't one of his best compositions, but the rendering of White's head is exceptional.

NEW LINK - MARCH 2015