Nominated as ''Best Historical Album'' for the 2019 Grammy Awards!
4-CD deluxe boxed set with 160-page hardcover book, 121 tracks.
Rarely heard documentary audio material, including patriotic public service announcements, field news reports and even
a plea for blood donations from Howdy Doody! A richly illustrated, colorfully illustrated book with detailed artist and
song notes as well as a history of the Korean War. Audio mastering and the layout for ''Battleground Korea'' is a
''Collector's Dream Set''. The bound book is in a sturdy slipcase (approx. 28 x 28 cm) similar to the current Woody
Guthrie 'Tribute Concerts' set. There is detailed background information on each of the approximately 100 songs included
in the edition, as well as artist biographies and extra chapters with transcriptions of the texts, illustrated with
photos of that time, advertisements, flyers, magazines, record sleeves, book covers and other memorabilia. Among the
book's special chapters are an interview with Frankie Miller, recalling his time in Korea, and a nine-page section with
photos and newspaper headlines describing Marilyn Monroe's visit to the troops. At the time of the 1953 ceasefire
agreement, which ended the war, some 327,000 US soldiers were still in Korea. In the course of 1954, this number was
reduced by more than 30% to just over 225,000. Many of these troops were fortunate enough to see Marilyn Monroe during
her four-day USO tour of the bases in February of 54. Many of the photos of Marilyn, who fulfilled her
''patriotic duty'' in Korea for thousands of grateful soldiers, were only recently found in the archives of the US Army
and have rarely been seen before.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOX SETS OF 2018 BY PASTE MAGAZINE
While terming the Korean Conflict ''America's forgotten war'' hardly seems appropriate given the recent wave of
headlines spawned from that faraway peninsula, starting with the sabre rattling shared by Trump and Kim to the
unexpected rapprochement that promised a big breakthrough. This superb box set gives that dark and dire post World War
II conflict a new view, thanks to four CDs of archival music and commentary, and a definitive op book that brings
the war and its effect on the home front into perspective. Consider this a fascinating treat for both historians and
archivists alike.
Lee Zimmerman PASTE MAGAZINE
Review
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After its epic Next Stop Is Vietnam collection, Germany's Bear Family Records and producer Hugo A. Keesing
quickly came up with their next collection of war music.
Battleground Korea: Songs And Sounds Of America's Forgotten War comes out March 23, with its four CDs offering a
genre-spanning gathering of 121 tracks about or inspired by the war, ranging from the likes of blues and R&B stalwarts
John Lee Hooker, s Domino. Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Lightnin' Hopkins to country artists such as Ernest Tubb, Gene
Autry, Merle Travis and Jimmie Osborne, whose 1953 song 'The Korean Story,' which Keesing calls 'a three-minute summary
of the war,' is below.
'I think of pop music up through the Vietnam Era as what bloggers are doing today; It's an rtunity for people to
write down their thoughts and share them,' Keesing, a historian who taught Popular Music in American Society classes for
the University of Maryland and worked as an instructor for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency before retiring in 2006,
explains to Billboard. 'Korea, I thought, was a very legitimate topic. At the time I began this Trump was not in office
so Korea was in the news for its intercontinental missiles and nuclear tests, but right now it's big in the headlines,
front page, above the fold. And with the Olympics in Korea this year the timing is good for this to come out, and I hope
it can serve as a history lesson.
'Besides the wide range of genres, Battleground Korea -- which also includes spoken-word audio and news reports as well
as a book by Keesing and package executive producer Bill Geerhart - also traces a gamut of viewpoints about the war that
reflect attitudes back on U.S. soil. There are tongue-in-cheek songs making fun of North Korea as well as patriotic
anthems and protest songs. Keesing notes that the bulk of the war-related music came from outside the pop mainstream.
'Pop music largely stayed away from it,' he says. 'Country music, which was labeled Western, was either tongue-in-cheek
or patriotic. Blues or 'race music' artists were complaining about getting their message from Uncle Sam that they were
being recalled (for service) or were getting their draft notices. There was certainly a racial divide in how
the early, beginning of the war was put into musical terms.' And after studying the Billboard charts of the time,
Keesing learned that war 'hits' -- such as 1953's 'Dear John'- were few and far between.
'The record-buying public was not much interested in the war,' Keesing says. 'These are not songs that became huge hits.
And back in those days Billboard rated records that came out on a 0-100 scale, and most of the ratings for these songs
were in the 60s or 70s -- mostly OK, but nothing stood out.'
Osborne, meanwhile, was among the prolific artists addressing the war, several songs both during and after. He
was one of several performers who recorded 'Missing In Action,' which charted for Tubb, while The Korean Story' came out
shortly after the armistice during August of 1953. Keesing also discovered another Osborne song, 'Come Back To Your
Loved Ones, My Prodigal Son' - addressed to a small group of soldiers who remained in Korea and eventually went to China
-- that isn't included on Battleground Korea but that he would like to make part of a follow-up compilation of songs
from the immediate post-war wake.
'There were a number of records from August 1953 through the middle of 1954, some compelling material that post-dated
the war and offers more perspective about how the war was viewed and what the mindset of the country was,'' Keesing
says. 'It's interesting to hear them in the context of how other wars were viewed after they ended, so I'm hoping if the
reception is good for (Battleground Korea) we can put together a good one or two CDs of music that reveal even more
about the Korean War.' --Gary Graff --Billboard Magazine
New boxed set ''Battleground Korea'' documents music from ''forgotten'' war
As long as human beings have engaged in conflict, there have likely been songs to document them.
At least as far back as Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, music has emerged to ease the pain of combatants, to provide
comfort and solace for worried loved ones, to urge those in power to find the way to peace, or, of course, to protest.
Here in the U.S., many are still introduced to the Revolutionary War through ''Yankee Doodle,'' the Civil War with
''Battle Hymn of the Republic'' and ''Dixie,'' World War I with ''Over There'' and ''The Colonel Bogey March.''
World War II produced its own trove of hit songs, including ''Don t Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else But
Me),'' ''Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy'' and ''I'll Be Home for Christmas.''
And who can think of the Vietnam War without summoning memories of Barry Sadler s ''The Ballad of the Green Berets,''
Pete Seeger's ''Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,'' The Doors' apocalyptic ''The End'' or Country Joe & the Fish's ''I Feel
Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag.''
The Korean War, however, is something of an anomaly in that regard, one that is addressed in an expansive new four-CD
box set, ''Battleground Korea: Songs and Sounds of America's Forgotten War,'' just released by the wondrously obsessive
German label Bear Family Records.
About three years ago long before Donald Trump was considered a serious candidate for president and well before his
Twitter war with current North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un propelled the country back onto center stage of world affairs
co-producers Bill Geerhart and Hugo Keesing went to work on culling music of the Korean conflict.
But they had no idea how timely the set would be when they started working on it.
''As we were writing the liner notes last year,'' Geerhart said, ''Donald Trump was talking about 'fire and fury' and
it was all very frightening. And just recently as the box set was being prepared for release, there's this promise of
maybe a summit in Singapore. It's amazing we've gone from that one extreme to the other.''
Together, they oversaw the assembly of a wealth of s most of them from Keesing's private collection along with
photos, memorabilia and other documentation gathered in a 160-page book. The CDs contain nearly 100 songs and excerpts
of news broadcasts about the Korean civil war that erupted after the fledgling North Korean government sent an invading
force across the border that had split the country in two after World War II.
Added Geerhart, ''I think people younger people particularly who are mystified about the back story of why North Korea
is such a problem today we hope they can listen to this music, read the book and understand what got us to this point,
why we still have troops there 60 to 70 years later on the DMZ, and why the Kim dynasty is now in its third iteration.''
Unlike other major contemporary wars, ''There was really only one bona fide hit song to come out of the Korean
conflict,'' said Geerhart.
That song was ''A Dear John Letter,'' a country tearjerker duet by singers Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky, which reached
No. 1 on Billboard's country singles chart in 1953. It channeled the sad reality soldiers sometimes faced when wives or
girlfriends back home were unable to wait for them to return, and found new love elsewhere.
''It was No. 1 for six weeks and inspired all sorts of answer songs,'' Geerhart said. ''That's kind of unique to the
whole genre to Korean War songs.''
Indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects of ''Battleground Korea'' is that it doesn't promote nostalgia through
vicarious exposure to songs that dominated radio airwaves the way so much music did during World War II, Vietnam and
other wars.
Review continues below: --The Los Angeles Times
...Instead, the set illuminates various facets of the war experience as expressed by singers as well known as Gene
Autry, B.B. King, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Vic Damone and Ernest Tubb, and as obscure as country singer
Jackie Doll & His Pickled Peppers, R&B singer-pianist E McGriff and blues singer Max Bailey.
''These were artists who just wanted to tell a story,'' Geerhart said. ''African Americans, blues singers, country
singers. It's got a lot of blues, a lot of country, a lot of spoken word. It tells the story of the war, from [the U.S.]
getting in to getting out.''
The s largely fall into the two camps of blues and country rather than mainstream pop, reflective of how the
U.S. armed forces at the time skewed heavily toward lower income African Americans and white soldiers from the South.
The four discs are organized with distinct themes: ''Disc 1 Going to War Again'' with songs rooted in the return of war
so soon after the end of WWII; ''Disc 2 Somewhere in Korea,'' documenting soldiers hopes and fears about their
involvement in a civil war thousands of miles from their homes; ''Disc 3 On the Homefront,'' how the war affected family
members and friends back in the states; and ''Disc 4 Peace and Its Legacies,'' with songs delving into the challenges
for soldiers who survived and returned home.
Among the spoken-word s are the first news announcement of the North Korean incursion that drew United Nations
and therefore U.S. forces into the conflict in 1950; President Harry Truman's speech explaining U.S. involvement; Gen.
Douglas MacArthur's celebrated ''Old soldier s never die'' speech after Truman fired him in 1951 for insubordination;
and President Dwight D. Eisenhower's announcement of the armistice that was reached in 1953.
Geerhart and Keesing met more than a dozen years ago when Bear Family commissioned a box set featuring music released
during and inspired by the Cold War of the 1950s and '60s. It's the label that has issued massive box sets showcasing
artists from yodeling country singer Slim Whitman to a recent 18-CD set containing every moment Jerry Lee Lewis recorded
at Memphis' Sun Records.
The six-disc ''Atomic Platters: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security'' box in 2005 was followed
about five years later by the 14-disc set ''... Next Stop is Vietnam: The War on Record 1961-2008.'' Musical sentiments
on ''Battleground Korea'' run from the patriotic spirit of Paul Mims ''My New Career Is in Korea'' to the conscriptees'
concerns voiced in ''Draft Board Blues'' (a title used by many different writers), to Jackie Doll's ultra-hawkish ''When
They Drop the Atomic Bomb'' to Roscoe Hawkins' more pacifist-minded ''I'm Praying For the Day (When Peace Will Come).''
There's even a song referencing the case of about a dozen soldiers who chose to go to China, which had backed North
Korea, after U.S. involvement ended. They were labeled ''turncoats,'' a theme that fuels Texas singer singer Eddie
Hill's song ''I Changed My Mind (And I'll Go Home Again).''
''It's fascinating to me,'' Geerhart said, ''because it kind of presages The Manchurian Candidate.' ''
He added, ''The subtext is brainwashing that went on after the armistice. I think ''The Manchurian Candidate'' must
have found some of its material in those cases. It's an interesting subgenre.''
Randy Lewis --The Los Angeles Times