Song Genre Experts working on Rise Again

We have had a large team of volunteers with special expertide in a given song genre.  Some of these same musicians (John Roberts, Sol Weber, Sarah Pirtle) also helped us out earlier with Rise Up Singing.

Daryl Davis: blues selection and editing. He is a blues musician, author, lecturer, actor and expert in race relations.

Mary Dean of Boston played a huge role in helping us select songs from Latin America, drawing heavily on traditions of nueva cancion political songs in the region.

Mary Flower: this consummate blues performer helped us select the best possible songs for the blues chapter.

Paul Baker Hernandez and Jesse Greist edited the lyrics of our songs in Spanish.

Linda Hirschhorn has been our key resource on the Hebrew songs in Rise Again.  She is a cantor, composer & leads life-cycle ceremonies in the Bay Area.  Rabbi Minna Bromberg & Reb Ezra Weinberg also helped us select great Jewish songs for the new book.

Yosl Kurland of Greenfield MA, a member of the Wholesale Klezmer Band, edited our songs in Yiddish.

Dot Patterson Lin was our main resource person for songs in French, German & Russian. She is a lawyer living in Bethesda MD.  She was a Russian major at McGill University.

Bonnie Lockhart and Nancy Schimmel: Occupy songs.  Lockhart is a feminist singer with a couple of songs in Rise Up Singing. She created Occupella devoted to this new song genre of songs challenging the current economic system with Betsy Rose & Leslie Hassberg. Nancy is Malvina Reynolds' daughter and a fine singer & songwriter in her own right. 

Monique Palomares: lyrics of French, Spanish & Italian songs.

Velvel Pasternak of Tara Music Publications (now Jewish Music.com) and Susan Colin of OySongs helped us track down permissions for songs in Hebrew.

Bill Quern & Sarah Gowan: selection of old-timey songs

Eduardo Reyes of Shutesbury MA is a fine performer of Hispanic song material. He helped with selection of Hispanic songs and played the key role in chording these songs.

Kathy & Marv Rietz: jazz, country, blues, older popular songs

John Roberts is fine performer (often with Tony Barrand) of English traditional music living in Schenectady NY. Peter worked with John on Pete Seeger's autobiography Where Have All the Flowers Gone (Peter as editor, John as music transcriber).  John is one of the foursome that puts on Nowell Sing We Clear concerts through out the northeastern US during the holiday season.  He was our main point person with British traditional material for the two books.

Sally Rogers and Sarah Pirtle played a big role in helping us select children's songs for the new songbook.  Sally teaches music at the Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley MA.  Sarah leads programs & camps for children to help empower them and grow into being peacemakers. She was a founder of Chidren's Music Network.

Jacqui Wallace helped us select gospel songs.  She is director of the Amherst Area Gospel Choir.  

Sol Weber & Evy Mayer were our main resource in selecting and proofing rounds for the new book.  Sol and Evy are the creators of Rounds Galore, a series of songbooks and accompanying CDs.  They have encouraged a whole movement of rounds singers.