Bear Family
1990
At Town Hall
About This Album
This recording is probably the best existing representation of Hester's work, capturing her voice in all of its natural vibrancy, in a setting where spontaneity matters more than control. The repertory may also explain -- along with Hester's Southern/Texas twang -- why she never quite caught on with folk audiences nationwide. By 1965, Hester was already falling behind the times -- she does some topical songs like Phil Ochs' "What's That I Hear" and Gil Turner's "Carry It On," and her own haunting and ominous "Three Young Men," a tribute to murdered civil rights workers Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney; her choice of a Dylan song, "Playboys and Playgirls," however, and her Kennedy tribute "Captain, My Captain" (an old poem set to her own music, which works beautifully) were both just archaic enough by 1965 standards to show more thoughtfulness than the burgeoning, ever-angrier, and more political folk/protest audience of the mid- to late '60s was looking for. And the presence of a lot of traditional songs such as "Water Is Wide" (beautifully sung) would've been ideal a year or two earlier, but by 1965 represented a period of the folk song revival that was already losing its edge with audiences and passing into history.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,22 and 23)

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