Search - Various Artists :: This Land Is Your Land - Songs Of Freedom

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