The people who were subjected to the persecution of the era were not officially members of the Communist Party but those who had been former members or what they called "Fellow Travelers". The idea that these people who I knew well were taking orders from the Kremlin is ridiculous. McCarthy was wrong and an alcoholic bully. He was a power-hungry politician who like Rush Limbaugh found a way to capitalize on his persecution.

Ron Cohen and Dave Samuelson has covered this period and the one preceding pretty well. Check out the role of Harvey Matisow.


I remember that many of the people who were associated with the Left Wing were enamored of the issues of social justice,civil rights,labor, anti-war and other now mainstream issues that have always been reviled by Republicans. The corporate media has replaced the HUAC and McCarthy and the Weavers would have as much trouble today as they had in their heyday. They would find little support from the contemporary Senate and House today. They would find negative airtime on Fox News. As now, the Republicans were responsible for the McCarthyism of the time.

In many ways, what is going on today is worse than what happened under McCarthy.
Pre-emptive war, destruction of the labor movement, persecution of detainees at Guantanamo, open admission and encouragement of torture, Wall Street crooks, cronies robbing the American taxpayer, the rise of the Corporatocracy, endless skirmishes in the Middle-East, and open season on the US Constitution though wire-tapping. J Edgar
would be proud. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If a group like the Weavers emerged today with a sense of appealing to the public on issues of social justice etc. they would again be blacklisted and not given media exposure.
The reason for this is simple. There is still a Right-Wing cabal who is interested in suppressing free speech and controversial ideas.

Look at what happened to Amy Goodman in Minneapolis. That's right out of the McCarthy playbook. McCarthy has morphed into Karl Rove. (Check out the Siegelman story).

Nowadays, it's not "communist" but it has now been changed to "terrorist". (Again by Republicans).

The idea behind Pete wanting to reach out to the public's conscience by the Weavers
becoming "pop" was not about making money or being big stars. Pete saw this as
an inroad to reaching the public. The public liked the sincerity. The schism in the Weavers occurred when Lee and Freddie started to like getting the commericial gigs. Erik also. Pete wanted out. He arranged with Paul Endicott of Detroit to open a college market.

The raison d'etre behind the Weavers were to speak out publicly against McCarthy and
his ilk. Pete Cameron who was their first manager was afraid of the McCarthy publicity and put the kibosh on doing anything controversial. By that time, Red Channels had taken place and the horses escaped after the barn door was closed. I met the Weavers originally at the home of Will Geer when they were picketed at Ciros, the Hollywood nightclub.
Harold Leventhal eventually rescued their career from the trepidation of Pete Cameron. I think it might have been a surprise (as it usually is) when an alternative-style act finds its way into the pop field.

There is no chance that the Weavers would become a standard pop group. They had a chance to "sell-out" but there was a split in the group. Pete would never have gone for it though ironically a couple of Pete's songs became popular all over the world.

There were certain songs that were Weaver's songs and they did not include the standard pop fare. Many of these songs that were deemed to be commercially acceptable by the music merchants of the time were rejected by at least Pete if not Lee.

The rationale for being the Weavers under McCarthy was to fight back against the Republican ideology responsible for undermining social issues of the time. That would never be corrupted with Pete in the group. The Weavers would have had to eventually call it a day on the pop circuit.

The style of singing was a "militant" one, not the smooth gloss of the pop crooners of the time. This was the singing on picket lines, labor rallies and the Henry Wallace campaign.
It was a carryover from the Alamanc singers and the Weaver's former name, The Priority Ramblers. This singing style would be offensive to the interests of the popular music moguls of the time who had Republican leanings and corporate sympathies. Ironically,
the public liked it and bought the recordings.

I think that Gordon Jenkins was a fine musician who actually helped the sales of Weaver's recordings by tasteful arrangements that folk-snobs will undoubtably find offensive.
There was no way at that time that a straight version of folk music by untrained voices
was going to find a way onto the pop charts. It had to be made "acceptable". Remember that Burl Ives had a trained voice.

If it wasn't for the Weavers, there would not have been a Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary. They blazed the trail for the "folk scare".

Frank Hamilton