"It's now almost twenty-five years since I first began working as an organizer and musician," says Si Kahn. "My work in the civil rights movement led me through the coal camps and cotton mill towns of the South to the Brookside strike in Harlan county, Kentucky; the brown lung movement and the J. P. Stevens campaign in the Carolinas, and the critical work of organizing and coalition-building among black and white, women and men, rural and urban. The people I've met and worked with, their words and songs, their stories and jokes, have been the stuff out of which the songs have been woven. My hope is that these songs will help us find the strength in ourselves that we need to keep on keeping on." Si is one of the finest and most prolific folk music composers at work today. His songs have been widely recorded and are sung throughout the world wherever people gather around a cause or just for a good time. His newest album, Been a Long Time (Sliced Bread), is a special collection of songs for and about some of his closest friends. His originals include folk and bluegrass standards, "Aragon Mill," "Spinning Mills of Home," and "Wild Rose of the Mountain." Si and Ronnie Gilbert are the creators of Ronnie's one-woman show, Mother Jones. Si is the author of several books on grass roots organizing, most recently, How People Get Power (NASW). |