* Eleanor Sings the Blues, heard over CBUT on Tuesdays at

6.30 p.m,,

is the latest radio program featuring Eleanor

Collins (above), talented Vancouver singer and actress.

RECORDS

New company off to fine start
with Irish Songs of Rebellion

£ pera nee RECORDS, a

new American company
specializing in folk music, has
made an excellent beginning,
judging by its first releases in
Vancouver. Music and artists
are well chosen and recorded
under editorship of the reli-
able Kenneth Goldstein. Two
examples are:

The Rising of the Moon
(Irish Songs of Rebellion) —
Tradition 1006 (36% minutes).

Many Irish folk songs have
been recorded, particularly in
the past three years. Every-
thing considered, none are bet-
ter than this new Tradition re-
cording.

The collection is confined to
rebel songs, the richest and
dominating trend in Irish
music. It brilliantly demon-
strates the poetic and melodic
riches, the biting wit of Irish
folk music.

The singers (three Clancy
brothers — Liam, Tom, Pat-
rick — and Tommy Makem)
go through a selection ranging
from a Gaelic song about Edo-
mond O‘Ryan, early 18th Cen-
tury Irish rebel, to the ballad
of Kevin Barry, the 18-year-
old martyr executed by the

Facts about Middle East oi
used for unproven. conclusions

TANT oil companies make
profits out of the Middle
East. They jack up prices
through cartel schemes. The
people of the Middle East are
poverty-stricken. There and in
Venezuela, unions and strikes
are brutally suppressed. U.S.
Companies have been winning
Out from the British in the
Undercover struggle for Mid-
dle Eastern oil. Oil companies
are very -influential in U.S.
Politics.

A pamphlet by Morden La-
zarus restates these well-
known facts, drawing liberally
from such writers as Harvey
O'Connor, Robert A. Engler,
and Benjamin Schwardran.

But the main villain in this
Pamphlet, entitled Oil and
Turmoil and published for the
Ontario Woodworth Memorial

Oundation, by Across-Canada

ress, Toronto, is not the oil
Companies. It is the Soviet

nion; allegedly pursuing the
‘8ge-old expansionist aims of
the Czars and threatening to
“add the whole Arabian pen-
insula to its claim of satellite
States,”

The oil workers of the Mid-
le East “are dupes for Com-
Munist propaganda — by the
very fact they can see with
heir own eyes the extent of

foreign domination of the. re-
sources of their countries.”

Thus Lazarus uses the fact-
ual presentation as a scientific
background for conclusions
which have no relation to the
evidence presented, and which
happen to coincide with the
general cold war propaganda
line of the oil companies and
the imperialist governments.

The secondary villain of this
pamphlet, written in he midst
of the invasion of Egypt, from
a pro-Israel viewpoint, — is
President Nasser of Egypt.
There is no mention of the
role of U.S. military bases in
the area nor of U.S. diplomatic
intervention to achieve the
overthrow ‘of Premier Mossa-
degh of Iran, so advantageous
to the U.S. oil monopolies.

Basically, the pamphlet fails
to recognise the role of the
oil companies as merely the
outstanding example of the
drive of modern. monopoly
capital to grab the “free”
world’s raw materials, and to
obtain super-profits through
the export of capital.

Lazarus concedes that the
threat of the Arab countries to
nationalize oil is the real issue
behind the Suez Canal contro-
versy. But nowhere does he
recognise the right of countries

to control their own resources.

He accepts the assumption
that the developed capitalist
countries require for their
economies a monopoly of Mid-
dle Eastern oil, and presents
sympathetically the Interna-
tiona] Cooperative Alliance
resolution of 1946, which pro-
poses to achieve that objective
more discretely through the
device of “United Nations con-
trol.” The implication is that
nationalization moves by the
countries concerned would be
part of a “Soviet plot.”

As for practical program,
Lazarus limits himself to pro-
posing a “néw and compre-
hensive study” under UN aus-
pices — the classical reaction-
ary device for quieting the op-
position while maintaining the
status quo.

British in 1921. Known in
Canada in a close variant, one
verse of Tom Clancy’s version
of Kevin Barry is interesting-
ly different:

“Another martyr for old Erin

Another martyr for the
Crown.

The British laws may crush
the Irish

But cannot keep their spirits
down.”

‘Singing or even whistling

of many of these songs was a
punishable offence until after
1922. This often led to the
use of code names, like The
Croppy Boy and Nell Flaber-
ty’s Drake. “Croppy” was a
folk nickname for rebels of

‘Wexford. Nell Flaherty’s Drake

was named for Robert Emmet
who was hanged in 1803. The
careful sarcasm of Whack Fol
The Diddle illustrates a mock
serious method of skirting
censorship:

“O Vl tell you a tale of peace’

and love
Of a land that reigns all
lands above.

peace and plenty be
her share,

Who kept our homes from

want and care —

God bless England is our

prayer.”

But the bulk of the songs
are forcefully direct, like The
Rising Of The Moon about the
1798 Rebellion. The phrase
itself has become proverbial
in describing any Irish up-
rising.

The Foggy Dew (entirely
different from Burl Ives’) has
modern words describing the
Easter Rebellion of 1916 set
to the hauntingly beautiful
tune of an old love song of
the same name. On the other
hand, The Wind That Shakes
The Barley preserves its sig-
nificance both as a love lyric
and a rebel song.

Here is the music of an in-
dominatable people who have
never surrendered since the
first English army invaded re-
land in 1169, illustrating the
real popular significance of

May

a people’s music.
tt xt xt
Ed McCurdy: A_ Ballad
Singer’s Choice — Tradition
1003 (41% mins.) ,
Nineteen songs from the

United States, Canada and the
British Isles; most of them
familiar or variants of famil-
iar songs. Now that McCur-
dy’s Newfoundland collection

337 West Pender St.

JUST ARRIVED
“The Weavers at Carnegie Hall’

(20 outstanding folk songs)
with
PETE SEEGER, RONNY
LEE HAYES & FRED. HELLERMAN
on Vanguard 12” Long Playing record
$5.95 plus tax — 25 cents postage

PEOPLE’S CO-OP BOOKSTORE

GILBERT,

MArine 5836

on Whitehall is out of circula-
tion, this is his best to come
this way.

Of four Canadian songs —
Back Bay Hill, A Great Big
Sea Hove In Long Beach, Lu-
key’s Boat, The Star of Logy

Bay — the first three were
in the Whitehall collection.

They are sung every bit as

well and better recorded.
The exquisite Irish

song,

Pretty Saro, gets
treatment, tender bi
the cloying sweetness

other versions.
Most of the B
songs are given in

variants. Batbar
(known in mere than
dred varianis) and
Dove get “mountain”
ments with a nostalg
to the melodies — a
ing variatio’ of well
and. always weleome fa’
The Lovely Ohio, The
Black Hills, 3nd othe
more deeply mndigenot
the US. Finally, ;
who has three children
own, includes Hush ©
Baby and The Birds’

ship. for the small fry, the sec-

ond a mountain variant of the
better known Birds’ Song.

McCurdy’s voice has never
sounded better. Particularly
noteworthy is the honest lack
of affectation of his style and
his mastery of humor, as in
the ridiculous Peter Gray with
its appropriate guitar and
banjo accompaniment.

These recordings are avail-
able here at the People’s Co-
op Bookstore, 337 West Pen-
der Street, Vancouver 3, price
$5.95 each.

N. E. STORY

Let’s All Go to the
CLINTON HALL

Saturday, May 4
8:00 p.m.
to see and hear
© LITTLE FOLK SINGERS
® ONE ACT COMEDY

@® DISTINGUISHED
GUESTS

® DANCING
Admission - 75¢
Proceeds to ‘PT’ Drive

MAY 3, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 13