I was listening to Art Thiemes' CD "The Older I get, the Better I Was", specifically to the song about the fellow who heads up from Tennessee for a job at Willow Run during World War II, I think the title was "Way Down the Road". It got me thinking about one of my current projects. I am working on part of a new National Park being developed in Richmond, California to commemorate The Home Front activities during World War II. The site being considered is the old Kaiser shipyards where more ships were built and built faster than at any time in the history of the world. Next door is the old Ford plant (you saw it in "Tucker" as an automobile plant) that turned out tanks and half-tracks. However, the park will commemorate civilian war plants all over the country.

All this started me wondering if there are any specific songs about the experience of these workers. We are talking about huge numbers of people. Henry Kaiser alone had three hundred thousand people working for him. Like the guy in Art's song, many if not most of these people flooded in from rural America, where the effects of The Depression were still not only unemployment but general poverty and real hunger, to the jobs in the war plants. They would have brought with them their musical traditions so I am sure that there must have at least been traditional songs reworked for the new circumstances.

I would like to include this music. Anyone have any ideas?

Sourdough