Reviewed by Tony Cummings

An odd compilation, this one. As well as two tracks from the Umbrian Glee Club, a 30-voice male choir who offer a black pride song "Swing Along" and a cringeworthy "Ma Honey" complete with dialect pronunciations like "dat", "chillun" and "gwine"; six tracks by The Five Blazes, a hot Chicago jive group who had an R&B hit in 1952 with "Mary Jo"; and nine tracks by the Five Red Caps who offer smoochy romantic ballads with light jazz accompaniments, there are also nine tracks by The Almanac Singers. As any aficionado of folk music will tell you, The Almanacs were a hugely important multi-racial group who featured blues man Josh White on guitar and Pete Seeger on lead vocals. Leftist lyrics put to traditional folk songs abound with "Liza Jane" and "Billy Boy" standing out while "All I Want" champions the Farmers Labor Party while proclaiming "I don't want your millions/Rolls Royce/pleasure yacht, mister." All in all, a fascinating social document though the only gospel song is "Get Thee Behind Me Satan", a 12-bar blues full of White's bluesy riffs and vocals describing the boss trying to get you drunk and a red-headed woman offering sexual favours to convince you to betray the Union.

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