The Big Red Songbook: 250+ IWW Songs!

Description

In 1905, radical labour groups came together to form the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies). The union was a huge presence in the labour movement, and wherever they went, they sang. These songs helped to recruit new memebers to the Wobblies' cause. Originally published in pocket size in The Little Red Songbook, these traditional labour songs are now brought together in their entirety, along with additional songs, rare artwork, personal recollections, discographies and more into this all-embracing Big Red Songbook!

Archie Green was an American folklorist specializing in laborlore (defined as the special folklore of workers) and American folk music. Tom Morello is an original member of the rock bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Utah Phillips was a labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet, and the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest." David Roediger is Kendrick Babcock Chair of History at the University of Illinois. Franklin Rosemont was an editor of many works and with Penelope Rosemont helmed the venerable radical publishing house the Charles H. Kerr Co. Salvatore Salerno is an author and a professor on the Community Faculty staff of Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"This engaging anthology features the lyrics to 250 or so Wobbly songs, rich with references to job sharks, shovel stiffs, capitalist tools, and plutocratic parasites. Wobbly wordsmiths such as the fabled Joe Hill, T-Bone Slim, Haywire Mac, and Richard Brazier set their fighting words to popular tunes of the day, gospel hymns, old ballads and patriotic anthems." --San Francisco Chronicle "This collection, the last major work both of the late 'laborlorist' Archie Green and of the late surrealist poet and labor publisher Franklin Rosemont, should be of great value to folklorists, activists, and singers alike." --Journal of American Folklore "In The Big Red Songbook, the editors have thoughtfully documented twentieth-century Wobbly song in all of its foot-stompin' glory." --International Labor and Working-Class History