THE WEAVERS: WASN'T THAT A TIME!
D: Jim Brown (1982) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
A tuneful documentary centered around a reunion concert by the Weavers at Carnegie Hall in 1980. With a string of hits that included "Good Night, Irene" and "On Top of Old Smokey", the Weavers - Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman - were the premier folk act in the country in the early 1950s, till the blacklist caught up with them. Their influence on other socially conscious folk musicians was enormous. Any one of them could anchor a song and hold the stage, but the commanding presence here is Hays, the group's bass and resident storyteller. Confined to a wheelchair after losing his lower legs to diabetes, Hays talks jokingly about being laid to rest in his compost pile, and in a bit of inspired gallows humor, gets a ride to New York for the Carnegie Hall gig in a limo borrowed from a funeral home. Hays gives the concert and the film a resonance they wouldn't otherwise have: the realization, unspoken but all too clear, that this isn't just another chance to sing the old songs and try out a few new ones. It's the last go-round, the last time these folks would sing together, ever, and there's a sense of joy and fun and affection in every fleeting second of it. Hays died eight months later. His ashes were scattered on his compost pile.
Pete Seeger
(1919-2014)
