Josh White was one of the most popular and influential folksingers in America in the mid-20th century. His most famous song, “One Meat Ball,” is about a poor man who has little money to buy dinner and who gets little sympathy from the waiter serving him. The folk music genre has often had a strong social and political foundation, and White’s career is a clear example of that; he sang for President Franklin Roosevelt at the White House in the 1940s, he suffered from the effects of McCarthyism in the 1950s, and he was a featured performer at the 1963 March on Washington.
