| American Industrial Ballads | |
|---|---|
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| Studio album by | |
| Released | 1956 |
| Genre | |
| Length | 49:25 |
| Label | Folkways Records |
| Producer | Moses Asch |
| Alternative Cover | |
The 1992 reissue album cover.
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American Industrial Ballads is a studio album by American folk singer Pete Seeger. It was released in 1956 by Folkways Records. It was reissued in 1992 by Smithsonian Folkways.
Seeger sings songs of struggle which emerged from the coal mines, textile mills and acres of farmland, and spoke of issues important to the American laborer. There are twenty-four songs, written about the unprecedented industrialization of the 19th century, including "Peg and Awl", "The Farmer is the Man", and "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues". Irwin Silber's notes provide a history of labor folk song and its role in American popular music.[1] The cover design for the 1992 reissue was done by Carol Hardy.[2]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [3] |
Writing for Allmusic William Ruhlman wrote "Seeger presents the songs straightforwardly with only occasional flourishes, intent on getting the meanings across." He continued, "Taken together, they chronicle a century and a half of the efforts of farmers, textile workers, and miners, primarily, to get what they deserve from increasingly rich and powerful captains of industry."[4]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Peg and Awl" | 2:29 |
| 2. | "The Blind Fiddler" | 1:17 |
| 3. | "Buffalo Skinners" | 2:44 |
| 4. | "Eight-Hour Day" | 1:00 |
| 5. | "Hard Times in the Mill" | 2:16 |
| 6. | "Roll Down the Line" | 3:15 |
| 7. | "A Hayseed Like Me" | 1:16 |
| 8. | "The Farmer is the Man (Who Feeds Us All)" | 1:43 |
| 9. | "Come All You Hardy Miners" | 2:00 |
| 10. | "He Lies in the American Land" | 2:01 |
| 11. | "Casey Jones" | 2:20 |
| 12. | "Let Them Wear Their Watches Fine" | 3:41 |
| 13. | "Cotton Mill Colic" | 1:41 |
| 14. | "Seven Cent Cotton and Forty Cent Meat" | 1:58 |
| 15. | "Mill Mother's Lament" | 1:37 |
| 16. | "Fare Ye Well, Old Ely Branch" | 2:11 |
| 17. | "Beans, Bacon, and Gravy" | 2:56 |
| 18. | "The Death of Harry Simms" | 2:14 |
| 19. | "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" | 1:09 |
| 20. | "The Ballad of Barney Graham" | 1:48 |
| 21. | "My Children are Seven in Number" | 3:59 |
| 22. | "Raggedy" | 2:32 |
| 23. | "Pittsburgh Town" | 1:30 |
| 24. | "Sixty Percent" | 1:00 |
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| Almanac Singers |
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| The Weavers |
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