Dave, John, Hank and Sunny – better known as The Kronos Quartet (and that’s David Harrington, violin; John Sherba, violin; Hank Dutt, viola; Sunny Yang, cello) – are, thankfully, fully in-step craftily avoiding any of those annoying “Paul is dead” style rumours. Not that there is a Paul, obviously. Today we offer up for your listening enjoyment the Quartet’s take on the Pete Seeger classic ‘Which Side are You On?’
It features Lee Knight on vocals, and comes from the new album ‘Long Time Passing: Kronos Quartet & Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger‘, which will be out on October 9th on Smithsonian Folkways. Originally written in 1931 for the United Mine Workers, it has become a political perennial – wherever there’s a choice one side can usually be identified as being for the working man against the vested interests of the wealthy minority and the other side…well, they are those with the vested interests intent on holding onto as much as they can and if a few folk have to be clubbed down, well, so be it. So: “which side are you on ?”
An excellent taster for what should be one of the albums of the year. If you haven’t tried the Kronos Quartet don’t be put off by the supposed classical tag. They are superb at every genre they dip their toe in.