Smithsonian Folkways The Best of Broadside 1962-1988: Anthems of the American Underground from the Pages of Broadside Magazine

Amazon.co.uk Historically, a broadside was a song (without music) or poem printed on one side of paper, dealing with a topical issue, usually of a political nature. Broadsides were peddled by itinerant writers for a few cents, and their message served to spread the news or perhaps create a controversy about a current event. In 1962, Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen, began publication of Broadside, a topical song magazine that would quickly help start a national movement in the US. After the Eisenhower Cold War 1950s, a social, cultural, and political revolution was in the air. Broadside began publishing hundreds of songs of social dissatisfaction by musicians who later became the leading lights of the folk and protest movements. Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Paxton, Pete Seeger and dozens more all had their songs first published in Broadside. This five-CD set is a marvellously comprehensive document of the magazine's songs and songwriters, all of whom were recorded by Folkways Records. The lyric of each is printed and extensive information given about the context in which the song was created. Background material is provided on all the songwriters, as well. The discs are compiled primarily around the main topics: Labour, Nuclear Weapons, Social Injustice, Vietnam, and Civil Rights. Eighty-nine songs in all are featured, most of which could loosely be termed "folk music" in style: basic rhythms, acoustic instruments, spirited singers. Listening to the songs and following the annotation are reminders of an era of potent protest in this country when music really mattered, and the songs themselves were the primary means of expressing dissatisfaction and disillusionment. Broadside was a small publication, primarily a labour of love, but its historic legacy looms large when all its material is brought together in a well-researched, well-presented compilation such as this one. --Wally Shoup Product Description The Best of Broadside, Anthems of the American Underground from the Pages of Broadside Magazine. Eighty-nine songs, including some never commercially released. Compiled and annotated by Jeff Place and Ronald D. Cohen. A five CD boxed set. It was a small underground magazine smuggled out of a New York City housing project in a baby carriage, filled with new songs by artists who were too creative for the folkies and too radical for the establishment. A still-underground Bob Dylan, Janis Ian, Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Phil Ochs, Malvina Reynolds, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Pete Seeger, and dozens of others first published songs like "Blowin' in the Wind," "Little Boxes," and "Society's Child," in Broadside. The Best of Broadside features 89 songs from the Folkways collection, tapes from the Broadside magazine office, and some tracks released on other labels. The set contains a variety of performers, topics, and musical styles that tell tales spanning the 25 years of the Broadside era (1962-1988), but many of them address contemporary issues as well, since the new millennium has not see the end of warfare, nuclear threat, ethnic conflict, immigrants' suffering, women's unequal rights, ecological devastation, and social injustice. This is the underground music that fueled the innocent-sounding Folk Revival on the one hand and the explosions of angry rock and rap on the other. The Best of Broadside brings an era, its musicians, and its many stories to a new audience. The extensive notes feature the graphics of the original Broadside magazine and provide information on the careers of its many musicians with extensive discographies, the stories behind most of the songs as well as their full texts. They also describe the dramatic history of the magazine itselfa remarkable achievement of dedicated musicians and social activists. This recording received a 2001 GRAMMY Award Nominee for Best Historical Album and Best Liner Notes (Jeff Place).