Dear friends:

I am researching a discography of the song, "Follow the Drinking Gourd". It does NOT appear on Folkways FH 5591, "We shall overcome: Songs of the Freedom Riders and the Sit-Ins." But there was evidently a Scholastic release of that LP, with different songs -- including FTDG. I believe the Scholastic LP had the following songs:

Let us break bread together, This little light of mine, Hold on, Follow the drinking gourd, Rock my soul, Your dog, I need your embrace, I hope we'll meet again, We shall overcome, I'm so glad, Oh freedom, We are soldiers in the army, There's a meeting here tonight.

I checked with one of the artists, Guy Carawan, and he wrote:

"Apparently Folkways then released a Folkways/Scholastic LP with a different listing of songs."

"It would be interesting to know what recording of that song was used on the Scholastic recording. I have the album cover, but not the album. So...That will not help you much, but is interesting."

If anyone knows about this Scholastic recording or its contents, please let me hear from you! How many of the Folkways recordings were re-released?

Best,

Joel Bresler
joel.br@verizon.net