10 p.m. to Midnight Host: Steve Winters
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A handful of recent album releases underline again the fact that there exist a select group of artists and songs in folk and acoustic music that endure — and will continue to endure for generations. The new releases feature the artistry of Woody Guthrie, Leonard Cohen, Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Loreena McKennitt. Vintage performances of the late Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor can be found on a wonderful new two-disc release from Greenpeace Canada (www.greenpeace.org) entitled “Amchitka/The 1970 Concert That Launched Greenpeace”, a group noted for its outspoken activist protection of the environment. Similarly, the Cohen release documents the singer-songwriter’s taming of a frenzied, fiery, rebellious audience of 600,000 at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and includes most of his memorable early songs. Close on the heels of the historic mid-1940s recordings of Woody Guthrie taken from newly discovered metal masters (programmed on the Sept. 4 Profiles) comes a repackaging of two albums into one set by Joel Raphael that’s entirely devoted to Guthrie’s songs. Amidst all this, we also offered two versions of “MTA” as a remembrance of folklorist, teacher and singer Bess Lomax Hawes, who died this week at age 88. Hawes co-wrote the song in 1949 with Jacqueline Steiner as a political campaign ditty, but it became one of contemporary music’s enduring songs after The Kingston Trio recorded it in 1959 and the release enjoyed long life on the pop music charts.
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