Refreshed

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Freedom: Songs From the Heart of America
(Columbia/Legacy)
As I write this, it is early morning in the American Midwest. Halfway around the globe, Allied armies advance haltingly on Baghdad. Iraqi families are huddled in shelters as smart bombs rain down upon their cities. Halfway around the globe people are dying to topple Saddam Hussein from power or to remove his weapons of mass destruction or to liberate Iraq or to bring democracy to the Middle East or to safeguard Iraqi oil or a whole host of other, sometimes conflicting, reasons. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" has begun.

Here on the campus of Purdue University, many students are camped out on our Memorial Mall, fasting to protest the war. They huddle in the early spring chill under the shelter of pup tents in the shadow of Purdue's gigantic American flag, originally erected in a burst of patriotism during World War I. Ironically, these "peace campers" have suffered cruel harassment in the name of patriotism. They've been pelted with eggs and rocks. They've been kicked viciously while they sleep. One night they awoke to a noose swaying ominously in a nearby tree. "Iraqi Freedom" and the responses to it raise a lot of questions about the relationship between freedom and patriotism in a time of war. Some in Washington suggest that criticizing the government in a time of national crisis is tantamount to treason. Others respond that fair criticism of an unjust war isn't treason, but a duty in a democracy. Words like "patriotism" and "freedom" are tossed about like handfuls of feathers. But really, we may ask ourselves, what do these words mean?

Recently, PBS premiered Freedom: A History of Us, an eight-hour series based on Joy Hakim's popular series of children's history books that covers the American story from the early republic up to the shocking and awful events of September 11th. At the same time, Columbia/Legacy released a three-CD companion set called Freedom: Songs From the Heart of America, a collection of music from the series as well as what the album's producers call "additional songs inspired by the narrative of the series." According to Hakim, this compilation demonstrates that "We are a singing nation…our musical heritage is found in the voices of ordinary Americans who sing their woes and triumphs and hopes. If you want to understand who we are, listen up. This is US—singing and trumpeting our saga." This assertion might be true if the soundtrack consisted only of music from the PBS series. But in actuality, the supplemental material was harvested—seemingly haphazardly—from Sony's immense archives, resulting in an eclectic, sometimes aesthetically uneven jumble that confuses the average listener. The more conscientious, however, may consider the many conflicting ways that we Americans have understood the nature of freedom over time and how we understand that freedom today in a time of war. Freedom, then, is less a national saga and more of a national debate.

To capture America's musical heritage, Freedom broadly samples the myriad of musical styles that this nation has produced over the centuries. Beginning with the American Revolution (but sadly, including nothing from the days of colonization by various European powers such as England, France or Spain and only one Native American track) and continuing to the present day, this box set offers nearly everything from roots music to country to pop, from gospel and blues to jazz and big band to soul, from campy Broadway to high classical. Freedom also presents an equally dizzying diversity of top-drawer artists: Bob Dylan, Keb' Mo', Peter, Paul and Mary, Kay Kyser, Leadbelly, the Pied Pipers, Simon & Garfunkel, the Harlem Boys Choir, Gene Autry, Paul Robeson, Bruce Springsteen, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Mahalia Jackson, to name only a very few. (more)

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