Holly Near Early Warnings CD

With Holly Near's Redwood label having gone bust, putting all her early albums out of print, Appleseed culls tracks from two of her 1980s releases, Watch Out! and Sky Dances, and adds the version of Pete Seeger's "Quiet Early Morning" from its 1998 Seeger tribute, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, to construct this compilation. Near adds a sleeve note under the word "context," pointing out that most of the songs derive from the Reagan era and represent early warnings for political storms that are here today. The compilation doesn't do any favors for Watch Out!, which was a timely collection of topical songwriting set to a folk/bluegrass/acoustic new age musical palette contributed by the likes of John McCutcheon, Barbara Higbie, Michael Manring, Darol Anger, and others. But Sky Dances marked the beginning of Near's apparent writing block, and excerpting her own compositions from an album largely made up of cover tunes, while dropping some of the lesser tracks from Watch Out! makes for a stronger collection than either album separately. Near fans, of course, will want the original albums, but they're hard to find, and this is a reasonable selection from them. ~ William Ruhlmann

Long before the events of September 11, 2001, reminded Americans of their vulnerable status as potential casualties of our troubled world, Holly Near was singing and writing songs about war - the battles of insensitivity and ignorance, the crimes of cruelty and suppression, the daily struggles at home and abroad. "Early Warnings" is a thematic collection of songs selected by Holly from two of her previous recordings, "Watch Out!" (1984) and "Sky Dances" (1989), which reflect on war, abuse and the indomitable spirit required to rise above these human dysfunctions.Many of the fourteen songs on "Early Warnings" were written or co-written by Holly, who has been a pioneering musical activist for peace and human rights for almost thirty years. Both "Watch Out!" and "Sky Dances" were originally released on her much-missed Redwoods Records, one of the first independent artist-owned record labels, and have been unavailable for the past decade. The nine songs taken from "Watch Out!" are making their CD debut here. Along with four songs from "Sky Dances," "Early Warnings" also includes the version of Pete Seeger's "Quiet Early Morning" that Holly contributed to Appleseed's award-winning 1998 release, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger, Volume 1."As Holly describes the contents of "Early Warnings," "Most of the songs included in this reissue were written in the 1980s. Reagan was president...Fear-based thinking and fundamentalism were on the rise. There were many early warnings...and the storms just keep on coming." The song "Watch Out," from 1983, warns that "there's the rumble of war in the air," pointing a finger at the Reagan administration's militarism. In response, the political "death machine" and the religious right wing are put on notice that "the meek are ready, armed with a loving hand," on "The Meek Are Getting Ready." "War of the Flea" is about the battle of the small against the large; "Child" recounts the abuse by the large of the small. Holly's strong feminist beliefs are the basis of "She," which Holly calls "a mythological song about the rise of women in the face of oppression, "Step It Out Nancy," in which a woman rejects an arranged marriage, and "The Train Song," described by Holly as "the lament of a poor woman who can't seem to get out of her situation of bad times and hard knocks."Not all of "Early Warnings'" songs are of confrontation. "Sky Dances," which has become a signature song for Holly, is a Native American paean to nature. "Couple of Friends" and "West Virginia Friend" are tranquil reflections on friendship, and "Sun Won't Stop" is about Holly's father, "who had a wonderful clarity about death and its inevitability." Holly's rendition of "Quiet Early Morning" ends the CD on a hymnlike note, reminding us "We c