THE ARTIST’S EDIT: May Day

Gavin Brown’s enterprise presents…
“MAY DAY” by LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER

Paul Robeson sings “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night” for miners in the canteen. Credit: Mining Review 2nd Year No. 11, Data Film Productions, 1949.

This playlist is dedicated to all the essential workers, healthcare workers, the poor, working-class people of this nation and all around the world, to the uninsured, disabled, detained, to the prisoners, to the sick who can’t get their medication because politicians and pharmaceutical companies would rather line their pockets, to the elderly abandoned in nursing homes, to all the teachers who have died, to the unclaimed bodies being buried in mass graves, to all those who mourn loved ones taken out by this virus, to the farmworkers that fascist capitalists proclaim that this is not your land when history tells us it rightfully is your land — thank you for feeding this nation during this pandemic and ensuing famine, to the homeless and people in the nation who have no clean water access, or access to water in order to wash your hands, to the climate activists, first nations and indigenous people that continue to take a stand with their bodies on the line against fossil fuel companies that keep polluting and contaminating the earth and water thank you. To the 26.5 million U.S. workers that have filed for unemployment, It is never too late for the people to unite and fight for a more equal, just, humane, and sustainable life.

With unwavering Solidarity and Love,
LaToya Ruby Frazier

Click to listen to LaToya Ruby Frazier’s MAY DAY playlist on YouTube…

  1. Elizabeth Cotten – Freight Train
  2. Pete Seeger – Solidarity Forever
  3. Rhiannon Giddens – Shake Sugaree
  4. Elizabeth Cotten – Shake Sugaree
  5. Paul Robeson – I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night
  6. Branford Marsalis – Berta, Berta
  7. Skip James – Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues
  8. Sam Cooke – Chain Gang
  9. Nina Simone – Work Song
  10. C.B. And Ten Others with Axes – Rosie (Recorded at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman work camp in 1947)
  11. Ed Lewis – I Be So Glad When the Sun Goes Down
  12. Gary Clark Jr. – This Land
  13. Billy Bragg – Which Side Are You On?
  14. Billy Bragg – There is Power in a Union
  15. GmacCash – On Strike
  16. Jimmy Joe Lee – The Coal Miner Song
  17. Gil Scott-Heron – Three Miles Down
  18. Sweet Honey in the Rock – More Than a Pay Check
  19. Big Bill Broonzy – Black, Brown and White
  20. Lightnin’ Hopkins – It’s A Sin to Be Rich, It’s A Low-Down Shame to Be Poor
  21. Almanac Singers – I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister
  22. Almanac Singers – Roll the Union On
  23. Joe Glazer – Union Buster
  24. Dorsey Dixon – Babies in the Mill
  25. Pete Seeger – Eight Hour Day
  26. Ross Altman – Haymarket Square
  27. Bobbie McGee – Ballad of a Working Mother
  28. Pete Seeger – Homestead Strike Song
  29. Billy Bragg, Mike & Ruthy Merenda, Dar Williams and New York City Labor Chorus – Union Maid
  30. Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard – Working Girl Blues
  31. Ben Grosscup – Union Nurse
  32. Jasiri X – People Over Profits
  33. Barbara Dane – Unemployment Compensation Blues
  34. Billy Joel – Allentown
  35. Dolly Parton – 9 to 5
  36. Bruce Springsteen – Youngstown
  37. Marlene Dietrich – Sag mir wo die Blumen sind (Tell me where the flowers are)
  38. Bruce Springsteen – Factory
  39. Joan Baez – Bread and Roses
  40. Look for the Union Label television ad featuring members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union
  41. John Lennon and Plastic Ono Band – Working Class Hero
  42. Green Day – Working Class Hero
  43. Strawbs – Part of the Union
  44. The Kinks – Get Back in the Line
  45. Prince & The New Power Generation – Money Don’t Matter 2 Night
  46. Nina Simone – Backlash Blues
  47. John Lee Hooker – Hard Times
  48. The Stylistics – People Make the World Go Round
  49. Joe Glazer – Farm Workers’ Song
  50. 1960s Farm Worker Protests and Strikes
  51. Pete Seeger – The Farmer is the Man
  52. Joan Baez – De Colores
  53. Woody Guthrie – Deportee (Plane Crash at Los Gatos)
  54. Teatro Campesino – El Picket Sign
  55. Los Perros del Pueblo Nuevo – Corrido de Cesar Chavez
  56. Los Lobos – Corrido De Dolores Huerta #39
  57. Pete Seeger – This Land is Your Land
  58. Taboo – Stand Up / Stand N Rock #NoDAPL
  59. Amber Hasan – NO FILTER
  60. Georgia Anne Muldrow – New Orleans
  61. Georgia Anne Muldrow – Roses Pt. 2
  62. Jimi Hendrix – The Star-Spangled Banner
  63. Joan Baez – Forever Young (Bob Dylan cover)
  64. Woody Guthrie – All You Fascists
  65. Tracy Chapman – Talkin’ Bout a Revolution