Ronnie Gilbert, the lone female voice in the folk singing legends the Weavers, died on Saturday at a retirement home in Mill Valley, CA. She was 88.
Gilbert was born to Eastern European immigrants and grew up in a working class background. In November 1948, she joined Pete Seeger, Lee Hayes and Fred Hellerman to form the Weavers. Seeger and Hayes had already been involved in the folk and protest song movement during World War II with the Almanac Singers and met Hellerman and Gilbert through the activist group People’s Songs which met in Seeger’s Greenwich Village basement.
The group was initially formed to sing and support progressive causes but the late-40’s brought a backlash against anyone who supported left-wing causes and the group found it hard to find places to perform. It wasn’t until late 1949 that the group finally was able to establish themselves when they played at the Vanguard in New York. While normally a jazz club, the owner was impressed with the quartet as were the people who attended their initial shows and they soon found themselves with six months worth of bookings at the venue.
In 1950, the group signed to Decca Records where their first release, a Christmas record, didn’t sell well but their second, which included the traditional song Goodnight Irene, became a hit and the song went to number 1 in the country for thirteen weeks.
With their popularity at a high, the group did their best to downplay their previous political leanings but, in the summer of 1950, the anti-communist publication Red Channels exposed their pasts. At first, the public did not catch on and the group had further hits including Kisses Sweeter Than Wine but the FBI was soon on their case and, by the summer of 1952, they were unable to book any performances. By the end of the year, they were forced to break up.
In 1955, Harold Leventhal with whom they had worked extensively proposed a reunion concert and rented Carnegie Hall. The recordings from that concert were released by Vanguard and led to a new recording contract for the group. Their new success kicked off the folk revival of the 50’s.
Even after Pete Seeger left the group, the rest continued with replacement members until 1964 when they finally went their separate ways. Gilbert went on to get a degree in psychology and she worked for many years as a therapist. She also continued her activism, participating in the Parisian protests of 1968.
In the 80’s, Gilbert returned to recording, making three album Holly Near. The duo also made a quartet album in 1984 with Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. She also wrote and appeared in a one-woman play based on the life of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones.
Gilbert is survived by a daughter, Lisa, and her partner of thirty years, Donna Korones.
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