1950 Singles: Goodnight Irene / Tzena, Tzena, Tzena - The Weavers

 Goodnight Irene / Tzena, Tzena, Tzena - The Weavers

Why included: Best Sellers In Stores Billboard #1 hit in Aug-Nov 1950 for 13 weeks, making it the best-selling single of 1950

A-side: Goodnight Irene

Naturally, somebody like Pete Seeger was going to cover this monumental Lead Belly classic. After all, Lead Belly's version of "Goodnight Irene" does not just contain his signature melody, it's one of the most tear-inducingly beautiful recordings of pre-war blues/folk. The song is one of Lead Belly's most obvious attempts at bringing tenderness and affection into his catalog, an intimate, soothing lullaby for his lover. Yet, a life of genuine suffering, toil, and hardship could never be fully shaken off, and a guy like Lead Belly was practically unable to produce a totally soft-edged folk tune. Beneath the superficial fluffy surface of this song lies his bleeding soul, all of the pain and frustration concealed within him seeping out over the course of 2-3 minutes. You can hear it in each bated breath, in each elongated phrase, in each brief moment where he belts it out from the depths of his heart. It is so emotionally rich I could sit all day and analyze the profound sub-moods conveyed in every lyric while still feeling it forms a complete picture of a man. The beautiful waltzing melody is wonderful, but it really comes down to the subtlety and sheer expressivity in his voice, the complex emotional palette that you can only get from authentic pre-war performers. At least, I feel more alive and human every time I hear it, no matter which version of his I hear. Lead Belly has a plethora of tunes I can give this sort of praise to, but this song (along with "Cotton Fields" and "Midnight Special") displays to me more than anything why his music has stood the test of time so beautifully. 

It's only with this context one can truly grasp the butchering done in the biggest hit of 1950. See, I get that Pete Seeger genuinely found the old folk tradition interesting and inspiring and was not solely responsible for this, but it is absolutely inexcusable all the same. What they do here is not just go against the spirit of the original, they smother it with tepid vocals and drown it in Jenkins's tasteless, sappy string arrangements. Of course, the melody is still nice, but without a single trace of humanity left here, I have no idea how such a recording was such a smash success in the charts. Sadly, this is unquestionably a textbook case of "stealing and watering down the black man's music" that just gets sourer and sourer every time I hear Huddie's original. The chance that some royalties from this success went to Lead Belly's estate (I hope, at least) makes this not entirely deplorable, but I cannot imagine a regular, emotion-feeling human being seriously preferring this to the moving original.

B-side: Tzena, Tzena, Tzena

Well, I like this more than the A-side because it's got a bit more energy, but still, if the idea of combining grittier, traditional genres with big, bombastic arrangements wasn't always tremendously successful for a genius like Ray Charles, what can I say about these (justly) forgotten folk interpreters? Jenkins's arrangement might be well made and the quartet tries to make it entertaining, but it just comes across as quite dated and manufactured today. If you're into this kind of sound, it might be a bit somewhat listenable, but it's not something to go out and search for.

Verdict: Not Recommended

Although this certainly is not the cream of the crop when it comes to American folk revival or Pete Seeger's career in general, I do find this song to still fundamentally convey my issue with most of this scene. Unless they can present a serious amount of their own charisma (like Odetta or Bob Dylan) or fundamentally deconstruct the style (like John Fahey and other American primitivists), I find most of the stuff I've heard way too stiff, tributary, and intellectualized to be enjoyed with my heart and soul. Many of them were deeply moved by the grand tradition of folk music and were blown away by what they heard in the famous Anthology of American Folk Music, but unfortunately, most of them were unable to truly recreate that spirit within themselves, which is why it is (rightly) considered a predecessor to the true greats to emerge from the scene rather than present artists with mindblowing original visions of their own. This may be a seriously poor example of this problem, but it is fairly indicative of the issues of the scene to come.