Thursday January 5, 2023
5:30-7:30pm
398 Eddy St, San Francisco, CA 94102
Free!
Inspired by the “People’s Songs Branch” gatherings at the California Labor School, San Francisco’s radical workers’ school with roots in the TL, Tenderloin Museum presents an inclusive group sing-a-long exploring labor songs, work songs, and more.
To celebrate the opening of the special exhibit Education for Action: California Labor School, 1942 - 1957 (in collaboration with The Labor Archives and Research Center), Tenderloin Museum is hosting a sing-a-long in lieu of a reception so as to capture the participatory & inquisitive spirit of CLS, explore a wide-open repertoire with of labor songs, and gather with the purpose of singing together.
This event will utilize the In Song Sing On songbook, an ever growing collection of well loved and newly loved songs selected by a wide cast of contributors and compiled by artists David Wilson and Colter Jacobsen. Books will be passed around with lyrics, some guitar strummers will help hold the tune, and we will open up our voices toward one another. All are welcome and encouraged to sing and to bring a song to share!
In addition to the accumulated repertoire of this ongoing and beloved Bay Area sing-a-long project, this iteration of In Song Sing On will have a focus on labor songs, in particular from the CLS published “Song in My Pocket: Songs by Malvina Reynolds” (of “Little Boxes” fame) as well as the broader compendium of I.W.W. songs, The Big Red Songbook, assembled by legendary San Francisco labor historian and shipwright Archie Green. Attendees are welcome to bring any song to sing (but songs with themes of work/labor are encouraged!).
The phrase “People’s Songs Branch” is in reference to a national organization contemporary to CLS called People's Songs, founded by Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, and others in 1945 to create, promote, and distribute songs of labor and the American people. The People’s Songs activities spread throughout the various workers schools cropping up around America post WWII, and indeed, the California Labor School hosted a branch of these musical happenings. We are fortunate to have stunning photographic documentation of the CLS’ People’s Songs Branch in action, part of the California Labor School Negatives Collection at LARC (and now on view as part of the CLS exhibit at TLM), and these photos were a major inspiration for celebrating the CLS special exhibition by gathering together in song.
Join the Tenderloin Museum, artists David Wilson and Raphael Villet, along with a handful of local musicians to sing together and to celebrate the opening of the California Labor School special exhibit.
The special exhibit Education for Action and this related programming is made possible thanks to grants from California Humanities and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.