The Weavers - Goodnight Irene (1950)

US Pop Charts No. 1 (08.07.1950 ) 25 weeks
GB No. 1 (16.09.1950) 20 weeks

The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based out of the Greenwich Village area in New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and sold millions of records at the height of their popularity. Their style inspired the commercial "folk boom" that followed them in the 1950s and 1960s,[citation needed] including such performers as The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Rooftop Singers, The Seekers, and Bob Dylan.
In 1940, Lee Hays and Pete Seeger co-founded the Almanac Singers, which promoted peace and isolationism during World War II, working with the American Peace Mobilization (APM). It featured many songs opposing entry into the war by the U.S. In June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the APM changed its name to the American People's Mobilization and altered its focus to supporting U.S. entry into the war. The Almanacs supported the change and produced many pro-war songs urging the U.S. to fight on the side of the Allies. The Almanac Singers disbanded after the U.S. entered the war.

The Weavers were formed in November 1948 by Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Pete Seeger. At Hellerman's suggestion,[4] The group took its name from a play by Gerhart Hauptmann, Die Weber (The Weavers 1892), a powerful work depicting the uprising of the Silesian weavers in 1844 which contains the lines, "I'll stand it no more, come what may".
After a period of being unable to find much paid work, they landed a steady and successful engagement at the Village Vanguard jazz club. This led to their discovery by arranger-bandleader Gordon Jenkins and their signing with Decca Records. The group had a big hit in 1950 with Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", backed with the 1941 song "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena", which in turn became a best seller.[3] The recording stayed at number one on the charts for 13 weeks. "Goodnight, Irene" sold one million copies in 1950.[5] In keeping with the audience expectations of the time, these and other early Weavers' releases had violins and orchestration added behind the group's own string-band instruments. Because of the deepening Red Scare of the early 1950s, their manager, Pete Cameron, advised them not to sing their most explicitly political songs and to avoid performing at "progressive" venues and events. Because of this, some folk song fans criticized them for watering down their beliefs and commercializing their singing style. But the Weavers felt it was worth it to get their songs before the public, and to avoid the explicit type of commitment which had led to the demise of the Almanacs. The new approach proved a success, leading to many bookings and increased demand for the group's recordings.
Film footage of the Weavers is relatively scarce. The group appeared as a specialty act in a B-movie musical, Disc Jockey (1951), and filmed five of their record hits that same year for TV producer Lou Snader: "Goodnight, Irene", "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena", "So Long", "Around the World", and "The Roving Kind".

Die Weavers waren eine US-amerikanische Folk-Gruppe aus New York, die 1948 u. a. von Pete Seeger gegründet wurde. Sie sangen traditionelle Folksongs aus aller Welt, aber auch Blues-, Gospel- und Worksongs und Kinderlieder. Zu ihren bekanntesten Songs gehörten Wimoweh, ein Song aus Südafrika, und Good Night Irene (geschrieben von Leadbelly). Auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer Popularität verkauften sie Millionen von Platten.
Die Band wurde in der Tradition und Nachfolge von The Almanac Singers im November 1948 von Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Fred Hellermann und Ronnie Gilbert in Greenwich Village, New York gegründet.

1950 erhielt die Gruppe einen Vertrag bei Decca und spielte in Folge mit dem Stück Goodnight Irene von Leadbelly einen Hit ein, der dreizehn Wochen lang auf Platz eins der amerikanischen Charts stand und zwei Millionen Mal verkauft wurde. Weitere Chartplatzierungen erreichte die Gruppe mit dem von Woody Guthrie geschriebenen Lied So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You und On Top of Old Smokey. Damit waren die Weavers die erste Folk-Band, der es gelang, über Insiderkreise hinaus ein breites Publikum anzusprechen.

Mitte 1950 wurde ihnen auf Grund ihrer großen Popularität eine eigene Fernsehshow angeboten, die aber von offizieller Seite verhindert wurde. Da die Mitglieder der Kommunistischen Partei sehr nahestanden bzw. Mitglieder waren, wurden sie im antikommunistischen Klima der McCarthy-Ära auf die Schwarze Liste gesetzt, was einem Auftrittsverbot gleichkam, da sich Veranstalter o. Ä. selber gefährdeten. So löste sich die Band 1952 auf.

1955 brachte Harold Leventhal die Weavers für ein Weihnachtskonzert in der New Yorker Carnegie Hall wieder zusammen.
1958 verließ Pete Seeger die Gruppe. Es folgten Neubesetzungen mit Bernie Krause, Erik Darling und Frank Hamilton.