Songs of Free Men
1943 studio album by Paul Robeson
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Songs of Free Men is a studio album by Paul Robeson, recorded in early 1942 and released on Columbia Masterworks in 1943.
| Songs of Free Men | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
CD reissue cover | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1943 | |||
| Recorded | 1942 | |||
| Label | Columbia Masterworks | |||
| Paul Robeson chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Billboard |  [2] |
Track listing
The album was originally issued in 1943 as a set of four 10-inch 78-r.p.m. records, catalog number MM 543.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Comments | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "From Border to Border" (from Quiet Flows the Don) | Dzerzhinky | Sung in English and Russian | |
| 2. | "Oh, How Proud Our Quiet Don" (from Quiet Flows the Don) | Dzerzhinky | Sung in English and Russian | |
| 3. | "The Purest Kind of a Guy" ("Joe's Birthday Song" from No for an Answer) | Blitzstein | Sung in English | |
| 4. | "Joe Hill" | Sung in English | ||
| 5. | "The Peat-Bog Soldiers" ("Moorsoldaten": song from a German concentration camp) | Sung in English and German | ||
| 6. | "The Four Insurgent Generals" (Spanish loyalist song) | Arr. Eisler | Sung in English and Spanish | |
| 7. | "Native Land" | Dunayevsky | Sung in Russian and English | |
| 8. | "Song of the Plains" | Arr. Knipper | Sung in English and Russian ("Polyushko-pole") |
Charts
In 1997, the album had a re-release on CD with 17 additional tracks including "Ol' Man River" from Showboat. It charted on Billboard's classical albums chart at number 47.[4] Later, in the critics' poll published at the end of the year, the magazine's editor-in-chief Timothy White would list it among the best albums of 1998, at number 10 (tied with another Robeson's album, The Peace Arc Concerts).[5]
| Chart (1998) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| US Top Classical Albums (Billboard)[4] | 47 |
