New releases from The Mountains Goats, Ed O’Brien, and YHWH Nailgun
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A timely warning from an ominous past
This is a pertinent reminder of what the government is capable of doing to those who popularise a vision that runs counter to a capitalist economy, its wars and its racism, writes ROB JACOBS
BITTER RIFT: Burl Ives (right) was castigated by Pete Seeger (left) for collaborating with Joseph McCarthy
[Library of Congress/Creative Commons]
ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
The Folk Singers and the Bureau: The FBI, the Folk Artists and the Suppression of the Communist Party USA, 1939-1956
by Aaron J Leonard (Repeater Books, £10.99)
MY dad played music a lot when I was a young child. He would come home from work and put an album on his record player, change out of his uniform and drink a beer while he listened.
Usually, his listening fare was show tunes or big band music. On occasion, he would play a Nat King Cole record or something from the Ink Spots. Sometimes, he would put on a record by the folk singer Burl Ives.
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GLENN FOSBRAEY recommends a biography worth reading for both existing George Michael fans and those yet to be converted
RON JACOBS recommends a book that charts the disparate circumstances that defined the lives of two prominent black Afro-Americans — one a communist, the other an anti-communist
RON JACOBS is enthralled by an account of the surveillance and political repression on the left in the US
TONY BURKE revels in the publication of previously unreleased tracks by the great US folksinger