Looking at the title of the current Vanguard Visionaries CD retrospective series, a part of me couldn't help wondering if that "visionary" label isn't even more appropriately applied to Maynard Solomon, the co-founder/producer of Vanguard Records. It was Solomon's label, after all, which had the foresight to go against commercial wisdom and sign the Weavers to a new recording contract in the mid-fifties. The legendary folk quartet, though it had a small string of hit folk singles in the late forties/early fifties on Decca, were commercially blacklisted in the McCarthy Era for their openly left-wing allegiances. Though little in the group's actual recorded repertoire ("Goodnight Irene," "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," "Rock Island Line") reflected their political affiliations, that hadn't stopped timid record companies and reactionary radio programmers from steering far away from the group.
Vanguard helped change that with a recording of their 1955 reunion concert, At Carnegie Hall, and a second volume from the same performance. In so doing, the label helped to usher in the folk music boom of the sixties. The rediscovered Weavers paved the way for the commercial pop success of groups like the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul & Mary – and also helped expand Vanguard's repertoire beyond its original classical music catalog. Though the original quartet (Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman & Pete Seeger) splintered with Seeger's decision to go solo in 1958, vocalist Eric Darling proved an effective replacement. He, too, would ultimately leave the group to form the Rooftop Singers, but in later years both Seeger and Darling variously showed up at Weavers reunion concerts.
Given this history, though, perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the current ten-track Vanguard Visionaries retrospective disc is the absence of any liner notes explaining when each track was recorded, so we might have a better idea of the personnel involved. Since the band did a second big concert at Carnegie Hall in 1963 before their second full dissolution in 1964, attempting to gauge the guilty parties by doing a studio vs. concert comparison is no help either. This is really the first time where the absence of liner notes in these Vanguard Visionaries releases bugged me, primarily because I have less of a handle on these folkies' recorded output than I do, say, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, which itself had its share of personnel changes over the years.
Article comments