These are challenging times for folks who are trying to get by. The gap between the super-rich and the middle class widens every day. People who struggle to make ends meet live on dreams and false promises. You would think that with so much on the line, someone would be writing songs about it all, documenting the hopes, fears and fury shared by so many. Someone did just that -- more than a hundred years ago. And John McCutcheon is bringing those tunes back to life. 2015 marks the centenary of Joe Hill's death. Weathering hardship and injustice as an immigrant worker, the Swedish-born balladeer channeled his experiences into songs that helped galvanize the labor movement. These songs also triggered violent opposition that led to Hill's arrest, conviction and execution for a crime he did not commit. What made Joe Hill’s lyrics and music so powerful? And why do they matter more than ever today? Hailed by Pete Seeger as “one of the best musicians in the USA” and by Johnny Cash as “the most impressive instrumentalist I’ve ever heard,” McCutcheon takes us back to the wellspring of this music and the social conscience he champions on Joe Hill’s Last Will. A renowned storyteller and matchless entertainer, he has celebrated the power of peace in the midst of war with his classic “Christmas in the Trenches,” recorded albums for children as well as lovers of baseball and performed for audiences throughout the United States and deep in the Russian countryside. And here, he presents an array of Joe Hill songs that feel surprisingly current. With broad humor and a showman’s theatricality, McCutcheon turns “Mr. Block” into a satire of self-satisfied corporate employees. The trials of military life, hidden from prospective enlistees, are spelled out with a Gilbert and Sullivan swagger on “Stung Right.” Hypocritical church leaders, living on largesse from their parishioners, were as familiar in Hill’s time as in ours; McCutcheon targets them all the way through a rousing gospel finale on “The Preacher and the Slave.” There are more personal moments in the Joe Hill catalog too. He wrote "The Rebel Girl" partly to urge women to get involved with the IWW. It's often been recorded as "a rabble-rousing, clap-your-hands, stamp-your-feet anthem," in McCutcheon's words. But here it's a dreamy, almost mystical idealization -- an interpretation that arose from a deeper examination of Hill's intention. Then there's the title track, based on a fragmentary poem that Hill wrote hours before his death. "He never put a melody to it," McCutcheon says. "So I wrote this one." Beautifully and quietly performed, this is a self-penned elegy, bequeathing to the world his wish that "the merry breezes blow my dust to where some flower grows," where "perhaps some fading flower then would spring to life and bloom again." A poor soul tries vainly to find a job only to be dismissed as a "Tramp Tramp Tramp," performed as a raw blues with a rocking horn section. To the tune of a bagpipe drone and the sway of an Irish waltz, disgruntled laborers decide that they're tired of slaving away for "Overalls and Snuff." A breezy jazz feel frames revelations of an American legend as a scab who deserved his grisly end on "Casey Jones." On these and every other song in this collection, McCutcheon goes beyond delivering yet another milestone album or even celebrating a giant in American history and arts overlooked for too long. "I want people to listen to these songs and connect the dots in ways that they wouldn't if it was just me and a guitar, like, 'Oh, I thought this was all going to be historical stuff. Hmm … maybe not? It's actually happening now. Let's listen … and let's all sing!"