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If the East Coast primarily nurtured the contemporary folk scene, Los Angeles and
San Francisco were parallel hubs of the folk music revival. In late 1945 Pete Seeger
established People’s Songs, Inc., to use folk and topical songs to further postwar
progressive political and social issues. Within months composer/folksinger Earl
Robinson opened the NewYork operation’s first branch office in LosAngeles, attracting
labor organizer and journalist Vern Partlow, and film industry professionals like actor
Will Geer and arranger Sonny Vale. Its members included Richard Dehr and Frank
Miller, who performed folk songs as The Easy Riders.
LosAngeles was also the original home of Charter Records, a label that served People’s
Songs members with recordings by Seeger, Morry Goodson and Sonny Vale, and
calypsonian Sir Lancelot. It also encouraged events up north in San Francisco, where
