A sing-along concert will be held at the Concord Community Music School on Saturday, at 7 p.m. The concert is being held to celebrate the release of a long-awaited companion book to the widely known and loved songbook, Rise Up Singing. The concert will feature Annie Patterson and Peter Blood, the creators of Rise Up Singing, teaching and leading songs out of their new book, Rise Again.
They will be joined by Bill Harley, Charley King and Magpie – all of whom have songs in this new collection.
This concert is a benefit for the American Friends Service Committee and its work for social justice.
Following in the tradition of Pete Seeger, Patterson and Blood have been using group singing for many years to build community and promote peace and justice across North America and abroad. Thirty years ago, they approached Sing Out!, a folk song magazine founded by Seeger in 1950, asking them to publish a unique kind of songbook. The idea was to create a book with words, chords and sources (but no music) to 1,200 well-known songs from a wide variety of genres for use by lay musicians and in group singing. Pete and Toshi Seeger persuaded Sing Out! to take on this project, and Seeger’s manager helped secure the song licenses from major publishers. Over 200 musicians including Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Judy Collins, James Taylor and Bruce Springsteen donated the use of their songs for the book.
That book, Rise Up Singing, came out in 1988 and quickly became an underground best seller, selling nearly a million copies by word of mouth. Studs Terkel (the author of Working) called it “the best, most exhilarating and glorious history of the United States: a singing history. It is more than a lovely songbook – it is a play-work-fight-freedom hymnal.”
Seeger said “it is making a qualitative difference in music in America.”
Well-known musicians from Canadian folksinger Eric Anderson to English folk rocker Billy Bragg carry the book with them when they tour. The book has helped to spur a renaissance of group singing, with hundreds of groups holding monthly or even weekly sing-alongs and song circles in churches, synagogues, libraries and pubs across North America.
In appreciation of his work on Rise Up Singing, Seeger asked Blood to edit his musical autobiography, Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Singalong Memoir. He continually urged Patterson and Blood to create a second similar book, often sending them names of songs missing from Rise Up Singing.
Now, 25 years later, Patterson and Blood have just completed Rise Again, with words and chords to 1,200 more songs. The book was released by Hal Leonard Music on Sept. 1.
In addition to containing lots of great songs written since 1985, the new book contains a much stronger array of songs from genres that were not heavily represented in Rise Up Singing, including whole chapters devoted to blues, old-timey and bluegrass, country, Broadway, early rock ’n’ roll, “British Invasion,” Motown, alternative/indie artists and “pub songs.”
Nonetheless, as with their original book, Patterson emphasizes that Rise Again “continues to include a rich variety of songs that inspire hope, teach us about social justice and tell stories our history books leave out.”
This concert is sponsored by Concord Friends Meeting (Quaker), ConcordFriendsMeeting.org.
Tickets and information are available at riseupandsing.org/events/rise-again-concord. Cost is $20 for adults, $10 for children. Only 150 tickets are available so order early. For more info, contact Sara Smith at 485-4231. See also riseupandsing.org. Songbooks can be purchased in advance to pick up at the concert. They can also be borrowed or bought, while supplies last, at the concert itself.
Ruth Heath
