Si Kahn

The political balladry of Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs is reflected in the songs of North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Si Kahn. Although his love songs are nearly as effective, Kahn's greatest strides have come with his lyrical looks at the unemployed, the racially abused, the sexually harassed and the working class oppressed. Kahn's songs, including "Go to Work on Monday" and "Aragon Mill," have become labor union anthems. Together with singer-songwriter, John McCutcheon, Kahn has written a number of family-oriented and topical tunes. Kahn and McCutcheon collaborated on an album, Sign of the Times, in 1986. Kahn joined Pete Seeger and Jane Sapp on a trio album, Carry It On: Songs of America's Working People, the same year. The son of a rabbi and president of the national Hillel organization, Kahn was born in Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and raised in Upstate College, a small Pennsylvania (population: 8,000). Music played a strong role in the Kahn household. Kahn's father played violin while his mother played piano. The family often gathered together to sing songs of the Jewish Liturgy. Although he briefly took piano lessons, Kahn had little interest in the instrument. Kahn's involvement with American folk music was sparked shortly after moving, with his family, to Washington, D.C. in 1959. Discovering the Archive of Folk Music while researching an eleventh grade term paper at the Smithsonian Institute, Kahn was hooked by what he heard on the Archive's tapes. Although he had previously preferred the blues of Muddy Waters and the bluegrass of The Stanley Brothers, Kahn became enchanted by folk music's balladry. During his college freshman year, he traveled South, with some friends, to search for their musical roots. The experience...