Tag Archives: huac

We open the show with “The Purest Kind of Guy,” performed by Paul Robeson, a song from Marc Blitzstein’s 1941 opera No For An Answer which concerns the life and fate of members of a social club of Greek-American waiters, hotel-workers, restaurant-workers, chefs, laundresses, chambermaids, taxi-drivers, who are out-of-work. In 1958, Blitzstein was subpoenaed to appear before the U.S. House …

We open with music composed by Sol Kaplan for the film Salt of the Earth. Kaplan was blacklisted in the 1950s for being “uncooperative” to HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee. The rest of our music will feature the work of other blacklisted artists and performers; Hazel Scott, Yip Harburg, Marc Blitzstein, and Lena Horne. Salt of the Earth is …