Customer Reviews
Great collection of great songs - By: vesahjr, 09 Jun 2006 
Some people, including Seeger himself, claim that Seeger never had any hits. Where Have All The Flowers gone was a hit for Peter, Paul And Mary, Turn Turn Turn was a hit for The Byrds & Wimoweh was a hit for The Weavers.
Pete Seeger got a singlein the top ten chart only one time. That song was Little Boxes which is the opening number for this collection.
Maybe these songs never were 'hits' but they are a fine collection of folk songs, old & new. This album was originally publishedin the late sixties & the CD version has a couple of extra tracks.
But I still recommend that you start your Pete Seeger collection somewhere else. American Favorite Ballads 1-4 are fine collections of old American folk music. Anyone of them is more interesting than this collection. As for Seeger's political songs I recommed Smithsonian Folkways' If I Had A Hammer - Songs of Hope Struggle.
A Big surprise - By: The BlackFerret, 07 Oct 2004 
Somewherein this CD, Peter Seeger, who recorded most of this before a live audiencein 1966, talks about camping out wild with folk singers like Cisco Houstonin 1942.
I detest live re-recordings of old hits & this guy seemed like a geriatric then, so why am I always playing this, you ask? Couldn't be the fact you're 52 yourself now, you say?
Don't think so-Seeger is a consumate professional musician, for starters & the fact that this was actually recorded at one of his peace/summer camps,in front of a pretty young audience, doesn't see him lower his musical standards, nor talk down to the audience.
Few people before or since have managed to sign from the Left without becoming diatribal or polemic. Seeger rarely loses his easy charm & Little Boxes is the most obvious example of a cutting satirical commentary disguisedin a virtual kid's song.
You also learn from whence Seeger learned these songs, or got the influence for them, Guantamera coming from an 1898 Spanish/Cuban original & Turn, Turn, Turn virtually straight from Ecclesiasticus.
I will admit I only got it originally for one vaguely remembered track, but came to find there are jewels throughout this coalfield or industrial landscape, which is probably how Pete Seeger felt it ought to be, as it isin real life.
And yes, that one track, The Bells Of Rhymney, is worth it alone. For all I've said about polemics, no other song you'll ever meet about Capitalism/Materilalism will raise YOUR hackles as this does, assisted by Seeger's flawless delivery.
In conclusion, a quite thrilling, enchanting experience.
