1970 folk music (with audio)

Back in autumn 1970, I was a freshman at Garrigan H.S.  One of our teachers - English class, I'm thinking - required a small-group project.  This involved a class presentation of some sort in addition to written material.

Our little group decided to work an anti-war song into the presentation.  (And why not:  the Vietnam war was much in the news, and not in a positive way; we 14/15-year-olds probably felt pretty grown-up grabbing onto the theme.)

Garrigan HS "Coffee House", spring 1974.  
Playing bass guitar here.

That's all I remember about the project topic.  There was a girl named Shelly Nichols in our group.  I didn't know it when we started the project, but she actually had a very good voice, certainly the best singer in our entire class (of 104).  And then there was me:  earnestly trying to learn the guitar (as many of us did in those days); and much taken with folk performers like Peter, Paul and Mary (that last part hasn't changed).

For inclusion in the class presentation, we recorded a Civil War-era song that was then widely performed in the antiwar (or was it, in large part, the anti-draft?) movement.  The name of the song (still widely known) was "The Cruel War."

I recall we struggled to record it on a reel-to-reel tape machine; how it ever was preserved at all (if in poor quality), I don't know.  I was playing the guitar accompaniment and also trying to provide a vocal harmony line.  As far as I can recall, this is the only recording of any performance from my youthful days (no, supporting roles in burp tapes don't count).  (And no, however it sounds, I don't recall feeling ill that day.)

With that said:  here's what remains of the version that Ms. Nichols and I recorded over 40 years ago:



Prior to the recording I had spent a ton of time listening to the Peter, Paul and Mary version of this song, and we were trying to imitate it as closely as possible.  (Well, as closely as possible considering we were missing a few key things:  talent level, studio musicians, we only had two of the three voices, etc.)  We did mimic the humming approach for the guy part at 2:20 (and the humming for all parts at 2:58).

Here's what we were trying to imitate (and yes, I still really like Peter, Paul and Mary recordings):