Today I’m going to talk at length about bass singers. As most of us know, the bass is by far the best vocal part, and today I will prove it. Specifically, I’m going to talk about my favorite singer of all time, Paul Robeson.

Robeson wore many hats throughout his life: he was a star football player (he played in the NFL and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame); a lawyer; an actor; a committed anti-fascist who sang for Republican soldiers during the Spanish Civil War; a civil rights activist who worked closely with Du Bois and met with Truman; a frequent target of the FBI and HUAC (please watch that video; it’s James Earl Jones reading Robeson’s actual testimony before HUAC); a trade unionist; an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist; a communist; and an incredibly gifted singer.

Early in his career, Robeson gained fame for his version of Ol’ Man River, though he would later turn that song on its head. After his ideological awakening, Robeson started changing around the words, scrapping lyrics that degraded Black people and glorified plantation owners and replacing them with powerful statements expressing a desire for justice and hope for the future. Here’s a later recording of him singing the song, with a bit of commentary from Sidney Poitier.

Robeson was also a committed trade unionist; here’s him singing the classic Wobbly song “Joe Hill” for miners in Edinburgh.

Robeson spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union; he once said that “in Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being.” The Soviet Union would later prove a blind spot of his, particularly with respect to Stalinism and the Soviet invasion of Hungary, but Robeson did genuinely find a welcoming audience in the Soviet Union. He learned to sing a variety of Russian folk songs, including that classic, the Song of the Volga Boatmen. His recording is one of my favorites; take a listen.

To take a momentary detour from Robeson: this is my all-time favorite recording of the Song of the Volga Boatmen, by a group known as Kovcheg. It ends with the basso profondo Pavel Myakotin singing a G#1 with the aid of subharmonics. The song gets really good at 1:12, but if you just want to hear the really low notes, watch from 3:29 to 3:50. Here it is.

Because of his communist ties and sympathies, Robeson was blacklisted from working or leaving the country for almost 10 years. That didn’t stop him from speaking out, even when faced with the prospect of physical violence. Like I said, he’s my favorite singer of all time.

Best,

Lev “wishes he were a bass but is really just a sad baritone” Bernstein

Secretary, Quiz Bowl at NYU, 1898-1976