John McCutcheon Presents Joe Hill’s Last Will

CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED FOLK MUSICIAN JOHN McCUTCHEON’S NEW RECORDING JOE HILL’S LAST WILL OUT NOW

ALBUM PAYS TRIBUTE TO THE INFLUENTIAL LABOR ACTIVIST MUSICIAN WHO DIED 100 YEARS AGO

Six-time Grammy™ nominated John McCutcheon has been delighting audiences for over 40 years with his inventive folk music and exceptional storytelling abilities. The late Pete Seeger said that “John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction.” Additionally, the late Johnny Cash referred to McCutcheon as “The most impressive instrumentalist I’ve ever heard.” Joe Hill’s Last Will is McCutcheon’s just released 37th recording and it is available now at Amazon, iTunes, CD Baby and John’s website at http://www.folkmusic.com/store/john-mccutcheon-recordings.

2015 marks the centenary of Swedish-American labor organizer and musician Joe Hill‘s death. Hill channeled his experiences into songs — the first written for the American working class. Those songs helped galvanize the union movement, specifically the Industrial Workers of the World — the fabled “Wobblies,” whose activism triggered violent opposition from the wealthy class we now refer to as “the 1 percent.” John wanted to honor Hill’s commitment to music and vision with an album solely dedicated to reinventing Hill’s songs.

The album’s roots go back to 2011 when McCutcheon performed a one man play about Hill’s life written by his friend Si Kahn. The play, also titled Joe Hill’s Last Will, depicted the labor balladeer alone in his prison cell on the night before his death. Inspired after premiering it in Sebastopol, California, McCutcheon went to work on the album. He will perform the play in its entirety in select markets as well as perform at numerous shows and festivals this year (full details at http://www.folkmusic.com/shows/upcoming). McCutcheon funded the album via a successful Kickstarter campaign.

With regards to song selections for the album, McCutcheon notes that “Hill’s extant catalog is maybe 30 songs, tops. There are a few songs that are well-known enough in folk and labor circles and I also chose the ones I thought represented his skills, the campaigns he worked on, that afforded the most variety, and that, frankly, I liked and thought would be fun to flesh out. Plus, many of the issues he wrote about a century ago (immigration, workers’ rights, war, religion, women’s leadership) are still things we’re struggling with today.”

In terms of Hill’s significance, McCutcheon notes that he was “a guy who influenced Woody Guthrie, who, in turn, influenced Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Phil Ochs, Utah Phillips, Billy Bragg, ani difranco, and so many more. And me. Who knows? Maybe somebody will hear what Joe Hill did with re-writes of popular songs and be inspired to write songs about their own lives and concerns.”