The Songs of Pete Seeger, Vol. 2: If I Had a Song...

Political militancy so rarely results in more than topical art; thus it's amazing how well Pete Seeger's talking blues, kiddie jingles, angry anthems, and fragile adages to peace have aged. This single-disc successor to Appleseed's double disc Where Have All the Flowers Gone boasts a finer musical diversity, but is ultimately as uneven as the previous tribute. Even after 50 years, performers haven't begun to exhaust Seeger's catalog, and so it's puzzling that Moxy Früvous would waste tape on the forgettable "Maple Syrup Time," that Billy Bragg and Eliza Carthy would see any point to another version of "If I Had a Hammer," or that Kim and Reggie Harris (with Magpie) would push the sing-along folksiness of "Old Devil Time" to the point of parody. The better the song, however, the better the performance. John Wesley Harding (backed by Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey) rocks "Words, Words, Words" straight into the psychedelic garage, Jackson Browne and Joan Baez surround themselves with Cuban musicians for a memorable "Guantanamera," Steve Earle casts his bitter, bloodshot eye deep into the heart of "Walking Down Death Row," and Eric Andersen, his voice an icy whisper, turns the pure lyricism of "Snow Snow" into the album's most harrowing and memorable moment. --Roy Kasten