Phil Ochs

War, social injustice, personal plaints, and calls for action have long fueled musical creation and performance. In Classic Protest Songs, Mark Gustafson and Jeff Place tap the historic Smithsonian audio collections to compile 22 songs favored by leaders of antiwar, civil rights, industrial labor, farm worker, and other struggles to air their grievances. Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Janis Ian, Big Bill Broonzy, Pete Seeger, Barbara Dane, Guy Carawan, Phil Ochs, and other marquee artists let their voices ring out with calls for peace and justice.

When Latin Quarter disbanded in 1990, they left behind three fine studio albums and a compilation of hits, and odds and ends. Three years later, out of the blue, came this new release by the band, now slimmed down to guitarist/vocalist Steve Skaith, guitarist Richard Wright, and lyricist Mike Jones. Unfortunately, the spark that seemed to ignite the band in the past had left with the former band members. Skaith's melodies aren't as memorable, and the overall mood of the album is darker. It doesn't help that some of the nicer moments on the album resemble their past glories. Jones' lyrics are as biting as ever, and there are some gems to be found here, including "Bitter To The South," "Phil Ochs," and "Desert Rose" (featuring a guest appearance from former member Yona Dunsford).

Well into his 30th year of recording, Eric Andersen picks up where his 1989 masterpiece Ghosts upon the Road left off. His 15th album was eight years in the making, pieced together from collaborations with Rick Danko, Richard Thompson, Benmont Tench, Howie Epstein, and Bob Dylan bassist Tony Garnier. It demonstrates the virtues of patient songwriting in sensual love lyrics, sprawling wanderer's laments, and Beat-poetry-inspired litanies of sins and ecstasies. "He thought of his mother / He thought of the automat / The space shuttle / Jersey cows and poison lollipops / As the dry heaves rose in his chest," he intones over a smoky, funky groove. Of all the folksingers to find their way out of the '60s, only Dylan and Joni Mitchell have remained as restless and provocative as Andersen. His imagination has grown ever more sure, his voice has become an unearthly, stately whisper, and his songs are still shapes by a singular, exceptional artistic will.

In early 1971, Marianne Faithfull – whose personal life was not in the best shape and whose commercial prospects were idle as she had released just one single since early 1967 – recorded an album's worth of material with producer Mike Leander, who had worked with Faithfull in the 1960s. Leander hoped to place the album with Bell Records, but despite some initial positive feedback, Bell rejected the record after it was completed.