North Carolina singer/songwriter Si Kahn channels the spirit of political songwriters Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton, and Phil Ochs through his own compositions. Although his romantic material proves nearly as potent, his most notable advances appear in verses that address unemployment, racial mistreatment, sexual harassment, and the struggles of the working class. Several of his pieces, among them “Go to Work on Monday” and “Aragon Mill,” have turned into anthems for labor unions. Alongside fellow songwriter John McCutcheon, Kahn has created numerous family-centered and topical numbers; the pair issued the joint album Sign of the Times in 1986. That same year he joined Pete Seeger and Jane Sapp for the trio recording Carry It On: Songs of America’s Working People.
Born at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to the son of a rabbi who also presided over the national Hillel organization, Kahn grew up in the small Pennsylvania community of Upstate College, home to eight thousand residents. Music filled the household: his father performed on violin, his mother on piano, and the family regularly sang selections from the Jewish Liturgy. Although he sampled a few piano lessons, the instrument never captured his interest.
Kahn’s engagement with American folk traditions began after his family relocated to Washington, D.C., in 1959. While researching an eleventh-grade term paper at the Smithsonian Institution, he encountered the Archive of Folk Music and became captivated by its tapes. Previously drawn to the blues of Muddy Waters and the bluegrass of the Stanley Brothers, he now embraced the narrative power of folk balladry. During his freshman year of college he journeyed southward with friends to trace their musical origins; the trip ended at a folk festival in Asheville, North Carolina, where he acquired an inexpensive guitar.
At Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Kahn resided in a dormitory half a block from the renowned folk venue Club 47 and became a regular listener there. Although he tried several open-mike nights, political concerns remained paramount; in 1965 he traveled south once more to support the civil-rights movement, where he recognized the link between freedom songs and the folk material he had discovered at the Smithsonian.
Kahn composed his earliest songs in 1970 and soon amassed enough material to produce a cassette distributed among acquaintances. When one copy reached Jackie Wright, who was launching the folk label June Apple, Kahn was invited to record his debut album, New Wood, backed by the Mountain Music Cooperative, whose members included his future collaborator John McCutcheon. Shortly after his first major appearance at the University of Chicago Folk Festival in 1979, he signed with the Chicago-based imprint Flying Fish and over the following eleven years completed six albums for the company.
Beyond recordings, Kahn’s output encompasses three stage works, one of which, Mother Jones—drawn from the life of the pioneering union organizer—featured Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers in the leading role during its early-1990s production. He has also published two volumes on political strategy, How People Get Power and Organizing. The concert recording In My Heart: Live in Holland, captured in 1993 to mark the twentieth anniversary of his first album, showcased several of his best-known compositions. Proceeds from his performances continue to support Grassroots Leadership, the advocacy group he established in the mid-1970s.
