In 1950 the Weavers were the biggest vocal group in the country. “Goodnight, Irene” sat at number one for thirteen weeks. They were also unabashedly left-wing, and within three years they could not get a booking anywhere in America. Jesse Jarnow - author of “Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America” - joins host Nate Wilcox to tell the story of one of America’s unlikeliest million-selling pop combos, and their collision with the paranoid American right.
Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman took the songs Alan Lomax had been collecting and put them on the pop charts. Then the lists came out.
Songs in this episode
“Goodnight, Irene”
Nate: “one of two songs that broke the Weavers through to a pop audience.”“Wimoweh”
From South Africa; became “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”“So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You”
Woody Guthrie, in the Weavers’ rewritten version. Nate: “I hate that version.”“Wasn’t That a Time”
The song they were investigated for, and the book’s title.
This episode originally dropped in 2019.
Let It Roll is dedicated to the memory of Ed Ward, Russell Thomas, and Danny Park.
