Si Kahn and George Mann
Labor Day: A Tribute to Hard Working People Everywhere
(Strictly Country)

SI KAHN is a long-standing US singer-songwriter and union activist performing songs devoted to the struggles of the working class in the tradition of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. 

To mark his 80th birthday recently his fellow singer and union organiser George Mann has put together an album of 21 songs devoted to Labour movement history relevant to both the US and internationally. 

The songs are all written by Kahn and include some new as well as older material. The album also features a number of guest artists including Billy Bragg, Peggy Seeger, Tom Chapin, Kathy Mattea and Odetta. 

Starting with Back When Times Were Hard, which celebrates the role of union organisers throughout history, the album is a roller-coaster of hope and inspiration and a celebration of achievements won through collective struggle. 

The theme of solidarity runs throughout. The song Solidarity Day was written in 1981 in support of a protest against the Reagan administration's sacking of 12,500 air traffic control workers. The Old Labor Hall celebrates the old US Socialist Party Labour Hall in Vermont and the historical figures who addressed meetings there, imagining debates and arguments between Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman.

Bragg sings We’re the Ones with reference to Thatcher’s Britain, pointing out that every right we have was fought for, and Peggy Seeger sings one of Kahn’s older songs, Aragon Mill, where an employee is lamenting the closure of a town’s main workplace.

Many of the old US union songs were influenced by church hymns and this is also present in songs like You Are The “U” In Union and Were You There?, songs that give a vision of the poor and meek inheriting the earth. The power of women workers is also celebrated in Truck Driving Woman, sung by Kathy Fink and Marcy Marxer.

Hold Our Ground sung by Tom Chapin and The Chapin Sisters stresses the need for workers to stick together, however difficult the circumstances, and The Power of the Union is an appeal to workers who may be undecided. 

But the essential theme of the album is summed up by They All Sang Bread and Roses. Linking past and present protest songs it emphasises that through Solidarity, Forever We Shall Overcome. 

Taking us to a better future while learning about the past, this is an album to listen to in those moments when you feel you need uplifting from any pessimistic thoughts about what we can achieve through the power of collective action.