#not Seeger but I’m still haunted by the depression ballads album I found last year with a THICK booklet about life during the depression

[maelwife]

Hii, could you share your pete seeger album colletion? And what are your favourites? I'd like to get some and I know it's totally up to personal taste... but there's so many different albums and compilations that my brain just shuts down when I have to choose one to buy

(Also i just want to see some more pete seeger love on this website)

I’D LOVE TO. Ok so I was in a very similar situation when I got into Seeger cause god it’s true he has so many albums. My collection is about half and half records I specifically sought out because I knew I liked them (I jumped around his discography on Spotify when I first started listening to him), and albums I find in the dollar bins at record stores (lol).

These are my 8 fave albums of his in my collection!

From his 70s stuff; Waist Deep in the Big Muddy and Rainbow Race are Vietnam era anti-war albums, and Banks Of Marble is a pretty straightforward collection of political songs if you want something that’s got a little of everything.

My favorite album in the first image is With Voices Together We Sing which was recorded in the mid 50s at the MOMA to an audience of like 500 college kids wherein he led everyone in a sing along of folk songs from around the world- including one where he uses an axe and log to keep time. So fun.

The two Gazette albums are topical songs mostly pulled from Sing Out! Magazine in the late 50s and early 60s. It’s a really interesting window into the politics of the era and touches on Jim Crow era voting policies, the benefits of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s hydroelectric power plants, nuclear testing in the American Southwest, etc.

Sing Out! Hootenanny and Talking Union are the collections with the most union/labor material. Hootenanny also has some comical songs about being questioned before the House Un-American Activities Committee which is why I like this one so much.

This is the rest of my collection mostly picked up from dollar bins. I really like Seeger’s live stuff, so I tend to go for that over other types of material. I do want to hunt down more American Ballads albums though cause they have such varied subject matter.

Also!! If you’re looking to collect Seeger albums I recommend looking for his releases on the Folkways label! Folkways releases usually included multi-page booklets with lyrics and context behind each track, and it’s great if you’re wanting to know more of the history surrounding a song. Even secondhand the booklets are often still right there in the sleeve🌜✨