This Land Is Your Land - Songs Of FreedomVarious ArtistsGenre: FolkDescription: EDITORIAL REVIEWS Throughout America's history these songs have unified and strengthened us in times of personal loss or struggle. Drawn from Vanguard's folk catalog they will lift your spirits and inspire you to sing along. Lyrics are included. Includes The Times They Are A-Changin' Joan Baez; Blowing In The Wind Judy Collins; The Circle Game Ian & Sylvia; All My Sorrows Kingston Trio and more. AMAZON Woody Guthrie composed This Land Is Your Land in 1940 as an answer to Kate Smith's version of God Bless America which he had heard countless times on car radios and on café jukeboxes during a cross-country hitchhiking trip. Now that numerous versions of God Bless America have been released since September 11 it's fitting that Guthrie's song should be resurrected as well. This Land Is Your Land: Songs of Freedom is a collection of folk songs drawn from the vaults of Vanguard Records and includes Cisco Houston's version of This Land Is Your Land along with selections by performers like the Weavers Ian & Sylvia Judy Collins and Odetta. Two of the tracks--Joan Baez's live version of The Times They Are a-Changin' and the Chambers Brothers' somber take on Curtis Mayfield's People Get Ready--are released here for the first time. Most of the songs were composed during the urban folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s and even though tracks like Get Together and The Universal Soldier seem embarrassingly naive today on balance the selections exhibit a blend of compassion and complexity. --Michael Simmons
