Subtitled ‘A Tribute to Hard Working People Everywhere’, this 80th birthday celebration to Si Kahn is both exhaustive and exhausting, if mostly worth the effort.

Release Date: 13th September 2024

Label: Strictly Country

Format: CD / digital

anyone familiar?

Si Kahn may not be a name that well known, at least on this side of the pond, George Mann probably a good deal less. Like me, you may recall Mississippi, opener on the first June Tabor/Oysterband collab, Freedom And Rain, it being by Kahn, but it is probably only hardcore who will recall Dick Gaughan covering a couple of his songs, with Roy Bailey also covering one of those, Gone Gonna Rise Again.

That doughty pair might give due warning as to Kahn’s main focus, which encompasses the knotty world of labo(u)r relations and, more specifically, the power of a/the union. George Mann required a google, revealing him to be a union activist turned folk singer. This set is to celebrate Kahn’s 80th birthday, and brings together a groups of his old buds, and a selection of songs, some old, some new and some borrowed. Rather than blue, most are defiantly red.

a mixed bag

A very mixed bag of styles and singers, the feature that stands out most collectively is the near religious fervour of it all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the cause, but, at times, it can all get a bit too wholesome. Outside gospel music, which isn’t that odd a compare, even with the likely overt non-denominational, undenominational even, stance of the contributors, where else do songs praise the worth and value of the working man (and woman), rising early for work on a Monday? Most popular music: rock, folk, blues, country, tends to accentuate the joy of the down time, the night and the weekend, work usually only mentioned as a drudge or a burden. Not here they don’t.

colours nailed to the mast

It is Kahn and his own song which starts the 21 song set, Back When Times Were Hard. Already the singer is nailing his colours to the mast, with no gentle run-in, but it is a good song with a good arrangement, his voice a deceptively frail vessel, more than capable of carrying most the notes. Indeed, he sounds a little like Warren Zevon, towards the end of that singer’s career and life, the tune a little reminiscent of Martin Simpson’s Never Any Good. Previously unrecorded, it is a good start, as is the next, Solidarity Day, featuring both Kahn and Mann, the latter taking lead vocal, in a Bruce-lite anthem, with attractive piano and slide guitar. With Vivien Nesbitt and John Dillon then tackling the jug band jam of Jail Can’t Hold My Body Down, this opening salvo is promising.

welcoming billy bragg

The aforementioned Gone Gonna Rise Again reveals itself to be an attractive song, a fingerpicked guitar and banjo ballad that evokes peak Townes Van Zandt, especially within Michael Johnathon’s dustbowl voice. Somewhat bizarre vocal interpolations from Odetta, yes, this is an old track,the singer long deceased, take your ear off the ball a little, however, spoiling the run thus far. But, just as an idle thought might have you thinking of our very own Billy Bragg, lo, here he is, abrasive electric strums and Essex caterwaul his calling cards. And very welcome they are, too. Attractive Sally Army style brass then ushers in what might be the same tune, for Mann and the somewhat preachy Were You There, a hymn with overly true to life 1960s bvs, just a little too earnest.

Long Way To Harlan, Kahn and Laurie Lewis, is just too folksy for me, however much I like the arrangement. Maybe I need to know better the artists featured, or, indeed, the songs, but Kathy Mattea I am familiar with, her tones perfect for Lawrence Jones, a (true) story song that raises the mood. Likewise Peggy Seeger who gives some sense of perspective, historically, the Seeger name better known than either Kahn or Mann, and her rendition of the Long Black Veil-like Aragon is controlled and measured.

well sung and worthy

A short run of songs then fall back into the same risk of well sung and worthy, if a little dull, the sentiments expressed becoming a little relentless. (My problem, what could I otherwise expect from the brief given by the project.) My languor is then kicked into touch by Cathy Fink, who, in cahoots with a Marcy Marxer, for Truck Driving Woman, that might, in another world, be an applicably feminist riposte to Truck Drivin’ Man, the song, and may well be supposed to be. It gets a rollicking country rock arrangement that is worth jumping to. But don’t bother with mawk of In The Family, not Kahn’s apogee. Mann then chimes up with a maudlin They All Sang Bread And Roses, a litany of song titles from the movement, as far away from edgy as were the Kingston Trio.

John McCutcheon’s tackling of Go To Work On Monday ought to be awful, but, actually, it works well, the irony of the lyric at odds the determinism of the acapella delivery. Kahn follows this with We’re Not Leaving, which proves his gift, however variable, is here intact, a pleasingly downhome declaration, over a subdued fiddle and slide backdrop. It is as good a song as any here, even with the by now mandatory rhetoric.

union power

The Power Of The Union seems not to be the same (Joe Hill) song that Billy Bragg still champions, even if a similar jangle of guitar seems to introduce it. (Bragg/Hill’s is There Is Power In The Union.) That similarity, however, gives the song a lift. Which keeps the mood up for the autoharp drenched Hold Our Ground Together, at least to start, which also has the benefit of names known, in Tom Chapin, brother of the late Harry, and the Chapin Sisters, Tom’s daughters. That promise soon sinks in the marshmallow reality, however well-intentioned.

dip and and cherry pick

You Are The ‘U’ In Union, the concluding song by Kahn, sounds as it ought to be another clunker, but isn’t, being rather a quirky ragtime band arrangement of brass and piano. Sure, it’s as kitsch as can be, but succeeds on quirky charm, as does Mann’s closing salvo, People Like You, mournful piano and fiddle reprising the, too, Zevon-esque nature of his vocal. It is sentimental hogwash, of course, but hogwash I can subscribe to. Which sort of sums up, broadly, the whole of this exercise. Squeakily clean and toothsome, the message is undeniable in importance, if, groan, somewhat laboured, with as many high water moments as those that sink. Maybe one to dip into, or to cherry pick from. If nothing else it is a good primer into these two lesser sung singers and champions of working people everywhere.

Truck Drivin’ woman, anyone?

Si Kahn online: Website / Facebook / Instagram

George Mann online: Website / Facebook