Jobie Reviews Music 170: I Dreamed I Heard Joe Hill Last Night...A Century of... (cont. in Article)

(requested by F63)

I Dreamed I Heard Joe Hill Last Night...A Century of IWW Song is a 2005 country album by John Pietaro & the Flames of Discontent. It is 10 tracks long, spanning 27 minutes and 15 seconds. As well as containing country songs, the album also contains 3 spoken word tracks that have instrumentation in the background. These spoken word tracks are readings of notable Wobblies speeches, with texts by notable figures like Joe Hill being featured on the album.

Some of you may remember that, back in Jobie Reviews Music 36, I reviewed I Will Win: Songs of the Wobblies by Joe Hill. This album deals with the same subject matter that that album does (Wobblies/the IWW), with some of the songs from that album also being on this one. Making use of country melodies, John Pietaro & the Flames of Discontent offer up a fresh new take on some rather old songs, which is always an interesting thing to see.

As mentioned earlier, the spoken word speeches that are contained on this album have instrumentation playing in the background as the speeches are delivered. This instrumentation attempts to soundtrack the pace and rhythm of the person talking, which sometimes works (“spoken word: Joe Hill’s Last Will (Joe Hill”), and other times has mixed results (“spoken word: Industrial Democracy Arrives (Justus Ebert)”. Despite this, listening to these speeches is actually quite intriguing, the reading of “spoken word: Industrial Democracy Arrives” being particularly enjoyable due to the speaker’s enthusiasm when reading off the speech.

Though I don’t usually criticize the production quality of an album, I must say that some tracks on the album suffer from low audio quality (possibly due to them being old recordings?), which dulls out many of the instruments that comprise the country tunes that are featured throughout the album. However, this isn’t detrimental to the album’s overall quality, instead being nothing more than a minor annoyance.

My favorite tracks from the album are “The Preacher and the Slave (Joe Hill)”, “Workingfolk Unite (Joe Hill)”, “Where the Fraser River Flows (Joe HIll)”, and “Bread and Roses (James Oppenheim/Caroline Kohlsaat)”.

Overall, I Dreamed I Heard Joe Hill Last Night...A Century of IWW Song is a decent country album that injects new life into old songs such as “The Preacher and the Slave” and “Where the Fraser River Flows”. The spoken word tracks included on the album are surprisingly enjoyable to listen to, though some tracks have rather messy instrumentation backing up the speeches.

Overall rating:

7.8/10

LINK TO ALBUM:

https://open.spotify.com/album/6MP8CRhcRO9TJZpKzpvKVc