The musical value of the archetypal American labor song is easy to describe: The tune is quickly grasped and internalized, and the text stirs the listener to hit the picket line with renewed vigor and conviction. An indisputable master of this genre was Larry Penn. He was during his working life a truck driver. He was also a rare spirit who was able to turn the wheels of his truck into strummed chords and the pistons of its motor into poetry.
Sunday night at Anodyne Coffee’s Walkers Point home (a venue only a few serendipitous blocks away from where Milwaukee’s proud labor tradition had its struggling start), the inimitable Lil’ Rev honored Penn’s twofold achievement by applying his prodigious and remarkable chops to the artist’s work. Rev’s captivating musicianship and conviviality was superseded by a more important achievement: he does the best thing one can do with labor music, not only to play it beautifully, but to preach and preserve it with a conviction located in a region beyond musical gestures. That is what happened at this concert. Penn’s songs were made into sermons for secularists.
On stage with Rev was a congregation of Penn’s musical collaborators and friends. Patty Stevenson and Craig Siemsen sang together in a way that displayed a lifetime of musical collaboration. Stevenson’s voice is sweet beyond measure. Their poignant rendition of “Old Time Airplane” with the recurring choral answer of “Gone Away” touched on and hinted at another question: What other things have disappeared from our lives?
The venerable and crusty David Drake sang of shipwrecks in the coldness of Lake Huron and of warm patchwork quilts made from the artifacts of family life. The appearance of Andy Cohen, a brilliantly energetic 12-string picker from Memphis, was a fine addition to the roster. He managed to sway the house to righteous anger at where we are now. No doubt he was “preaching to the choir,” but it felt good all the same. That’s what protest songs are meant to do. He also contributed a spellbinding version of “Casey Jones” vacillating between spoken narrative and vocal ululations, all the while accompanying himself with spectacular 12 string work.
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Brett Kemnitz showed a wise voice, informed by history and an awareness of what has been lost. How could train songs be left out of this occasion? The Suckiel Duo made sure they weren’t. Bob Suckiel had a knack for telling stories that would evolve into poems and then into song. His art is based on first-hand knowledge; he worked on the railroad in his past. He knows how to sing about it. Diane Suckiel honored this personal history with a sweet and clarion voice.
Back in the distant ’60s, the irreverent Tom Lehrer wrote:
Remember the war against Franco?
That’s the kind where each of us belongs.
He might have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs.
Prescient words. At this juncture it is hard to argue.
The ironic sadness about American labor music is that the worse things are, the more significant it is and the more it resonates. In these times, the lessons this music teaches are neglected at our peril.
All the more reason to honor Larry Penn and keep singing his songs.
