Various - Voice & Vision [CD]

The GFTU approached Topic Records with a view to reconnecting trade unions with a long-standing song tradition and a truly independent label with its political roots. This collaboration has resulted in a wonderful collection of songs highlighting Topic's long-standing commitment to 'Political' song, with material linked to social justice, democracy and the resistance of class oppression. Legendary artists who have recorded for Topic Records including Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy, Pete Seeger, Louis Killen and Anne Briggs feature alongside newer voices like Fran Morter and Adam Rees, Kiti Theobald, Jack Forbes, and 17 year old Piers Haslam. The songs selected here are mostly from a tiny cross-section of material from Topic's vast back-catalogue which describe events across hundreds of years of struggle for social fairness, respect and collective will. Dick Gaughan's version of 'The World Turned Upside Down', a reflection on the Diggers and Levellers of the mid-seventeenth century, is the opening track. 'The Internationale', sung by the Topic Singers & Band, which as the B-side of 'The Man That Waters the Worker's Beer', was on the first ever release by the label. The plight of the miners in the 1980s is represented by Norma Waterson with her moving rendition of the poem by miner's wife Kay Sutcliffe, 'Coal Not Dole'. A collection of songs that form a history of dissent, collaboration and the collective drive for social justice, 'Voice & Vision' is a double CD set of music and words that speak across generations and boundaries of the basic human right to dignity.