The Bitter and the Sweet

Pete Seeger

  • AllMusic Rating
    8
  • User Ratings (0)
  • Your Rating

The Bitter and the Sweet Review

by Richie Unterberger

Recorded live at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, this LP is most notable for the first appearance of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" In its original version, it's a spare performance, accompanied only by Seeger's guitar, delivered in a manner encouraging the audience to sing along. It's not as musically interesting as the Byrds' famous hit cover, or for that matter the version that Judy Collins would do a year or so after the appearance of this one by Seeger, but it is nonetheless historically important. The rest of the album, though, is a better-than-average Seeger outing, with more energy and guts than some of his work. There's also an intimacy that doesn't come through as strongly on some of his other live recordings, which were sometimes for bigger crowds. He plays more guitar than banjo during the set, putting effective 12-string guitar to use on a cover of Leadbelly's "Mr. Tom Hughes Town," hum-singing movingly on "Juanita," and offering some then-current topicality with the Seeger-Malvina Reynolds collaboration "Andorra." "Ram of Darby" has more rowdy thrust than most Seeger performances, and "We Shall Overcome," which leads off the album in a singalong version, is one of the songs with which he's most identified. So is "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," but this a cappella version is disappointing, as the song simply sounds better with guitar or banjo backing.

Track Listing

Title/Composer Performer Time Stream
1
We Shall Overcome
Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger 04:42 SpotifyAmazon
2
Living in the Country
Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger 02:04 SpotifyAmazon
3
Mr. Tom Hughes Town
Lead Belly / Alan Lomax
Pete Seeger 02:32 SpotifyAmazon
4
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger 01:54 SpotifyAmazon
5
Barbara Allen
Pete Seeger 04:27 SpotifyAmazon
6
Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)
Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger 03:08 SpotifyAmazon
7
Around and Around Old Joe Clark
Pete Seeger 03:38 SpotifyAmazon
8
Windy Old Weather
Pete Seeger 04:08 SpotifyAmazon
9
Ram of Darby
Pete Seeger 02:24 SpotifyAmazon
10
Jaunita
Pete Seeger SpotifyAmazon
11
Andora
Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger 02:47 SpotifyAmazon
12
False Knight Upon the Road
Pete Seeger SpotifyAmazon
blue highlight denotes track pick
The Bitter and the Sweet

Pete Seeger Discography Browser