Various - Protest! (American Protest Songs 1928-1953)

  by Maarten Schiethart

published: 29 / 11 / 2006

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Over a span of just a couple of years Liverpool's the Viper Label has become one of Britain's main archivists within the music industry. Their out-of-time packaging does very much look like it comes from the pre-digital era. On top of that many long forgotten tracks get included 'one on one' and thus Viper Label compilations feature an excellent amount of surface noise and scratches. This adds nicely to the sense of this compilation's authenticity. Plus I love the idea of refraining from the use of new technology on what after all would be changing the sound from older recordings. We're not talking of remastering the Beatles here, but instead the type of genuine, swampy and even epic country and western and blues music that Lennon took as an inspiration. Buying '!Protest!' will, therefore, show you new horizons whereas the 'new' Beatles CD only offers a different soundscape. One may argue that it needless to say that, yet today a standard, different from the one held on the Viper Label, is what most would expect. As it captures the spirit from the era of 1928 until 1953, '!Protest!'offers further exploration into the roots of rock'n roll which incidently were documented in, so far, two volumes in the same Viper Label's series 'Out There: Wild and Wonderous Roots of Rock'n Roll'. The '!Protest!' compilation is great proof of those typically American objections and Protest is quite strong a word, if one takes into accounts some of the rather funny and cynical remarks made on the album on subjects such as the Marshall Plan and sales tax. History has caught up with, for example, the loans to Europe after WW2, mentioned by Harry McClintock in 'Fifty Years From Now' and assumed to not be paid back in time. A couple of tracks build on the confusion brought by the atom age. These deliver plenty of wacky lyrics with weird rocking twang; as the birth to rock'n roll somehow coincided with this, the age of the atomic threat. The majority of the tracks though focuses on legends and tales of suppression from American ground. This particular side of '!Protest!' ranges from Bessie Smith's 'Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out' - the first decent copy of a track I've been on the lookout for, for at least two decades - to Gene Autry's 'The Death of Mother Jones' and furthermore includes: Billie Holiday, Furry Lewis, the Monroe Brothers, Big Bill Broonzy and Woody Guthrie's '1913 Massacre' which rounds off a damn fine retrospective.

Track Listing:-

1 The Sons Of The Pioneers- Old Man Atom
2 Texas Jim Robertson- The Last Page Of Mein Kampf
3 Lee Hayes- With The Almanac Singers The Dodger Song
4 Bessie Smith- Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
5 Uncle Dave Macon- We're Up Against It Now
6 Big Bill Broonzy- Black, Brown And White
7 Slim Smith- Bread Line Blues
8 The Golden Gate Quartet- Atom And Evil
9 Monroe Brothers- The Forgotten Soldier Boy
10 Memphis Minnie- Hustlin' Woman Blues
11 Harry McClintock- Fifty Years From Now
12 Mississippi Sheiks- Sales Tax
13 Josh White, Millard Lampell With The Almanac Singers- Billy Boy
14 Billy Hughes And The Rhythm Buckeroos- Atomic Sermon
15 David McCarn- Poor Man, Rich Man
16 Gene Autry- The Death Of Mother Jones
17 Billie Holiday- Strange Fruit
18 Furry Lewis- Judge Harsh Blues
19 Ernest V. Stoneman & His Dixie Mountaineers- All I've Got Is Gone
20 Woody Guthrie- 1913 Massacre

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