So the other day I was watching an Instagram post from a young woman. She was listening to songs from her father’s album collection. He had see gently passed away.. Now whether or not that’s true or how long ago that was, I don’t know.Anyway. it started me thinking about all the new albums I’ve found at Goodwill and the Princeton Record Exchange over the last year and how I haven’t been listening to them!Then I read a post somewhere about collectors who rotate through their albums on a regular basis.
As a result, I’ve created a 30 day challenge for me to randomly listen to at least one album a day for my newest purchases. I have most of those albums in crates grouped by genre, with the albums in alphabetical order. So I picked a crate and then used a random number generator to pick the album. The number was 26 and the album was Home from Si Khan.
I must admit I don’t know mush about Si Khan. I always heard his music on The Gene Shay show in Philly. I liked what I heard but never sought out his music. The probably may be that the majority of his music was release after 1980. Which means it coincided with my parenting years! However,, from what I read about Si at AllMusic I should have….
The political balladry of Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton, and Phil Ochs is reflected in the songs of North Carolina-based singer/songwriter Si Kahn. Although his love songs are nearly as effective, Kahn’s greatest strides have come with his lyrical looks at the unemployed, the racially abused, the sexually harassed, and the working-class oppressed. Kahn’s songs, including “Go to Work on Monday” and “Aragon Mill,” have become labor union anthems
Si Kahn (born April 23, 1944) and has released 21 albums over the course of his career.
Si Khan is about more than just music….
Kahn’s prolific output includes more than music and songs. He has written three plays including, Mother Jones, based on the life of the early union organizer, which featured Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers in the title role when produced in the early ’90s. Kahn has also authored two books on political organizing: How People Get Power and Organizing.
Recorded during a 1993 concert, “In My Heart: Live in Holland” celebrated the 20th anniversary of Kahn’s first album and featured several of his best-known tunes. Profits from Kahn’s concerts continue to be donated to Grassroots Leadership, a political organization he founded in the mid-’70s.
About Grassroots Leadership
Grassroots Leadership founder Si Kahn gothis start as a young activist and organizer in the Southern Civil Rights Movement as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Si founded Grassroots Leadership in 1980 as a resource and training center for social justice organization building. Initially based in North Carolina, Grassroots Leadership worked throughout the South to help build progressive, multi-racial organizations to build power and create just organizations. Grassroots Leadership was one of the few organizations in the 1980s and 1990s to articulate in the board bylaws that no less than half of the board would be women and no less than half would be People of Color. Read More
My Bottom Line
The bottom line is I need to listen to the other Si Khan albums I bought and seek out more albums! So check out his music and his grassroots activism!
Links for the Further Exploration of the Music and More of Si Khan Read More
