Joe Glazer

Folksinger and labor activist Joe Glazer was born in New York City in 1918. As a child he often sang in synagogues, and inspired by Hollywood's singing cowboys he bought a guitar from the Sears Roebuck catalog, taking his first lesson through the Works Progress Administration program. Though his Polish-born father was a member of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, politics were never a subject at home, and Glazer was not directly exposed to labor activism until he arrived at Brooklyn College in 1936. Though friendly with members of the radical groups on campus, he largely steered clear of their efforts, and upon graduating pursued a career in songwriting, placing only the novelty tune "Yogi, Yogi the Fakir Man" with singer Reggie Childs. After briefly aligning with the Theater Arts Committee, sponsors of the political revue Cabaret T.A.C., Glazer in 1944 accepted the assistant education director position for the New York City Textile Workers Union, an experience that launched his interest in labor songs and lore. While visiting Southern textile communities to conduct educational meetings, he was introduced to countless labor hymns, and in 1950 recorded the LP Eight New Songs for Labor for a private label operated by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Later that same year Glazer relocated to Akron, OH, when he was named education director of the United Rubber Workers-CIO. At this time he met Bill Friedland, a self-taught singer and guitarist then serving as the assistant to Bill Kemsley, education director of the Michigan State CIO. Like Glazer, Friedland was a walking encyclopedia of labor songs, most of his of the anti-Communist persuasion. Together they recorded an album entitled Ballads for Sectarians, released in 1952 on Kemsley's...