Press Archive - Battleground Korea - Songs and Sounds of America’s Forgotten War - Los Angeles Times Print Edition
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 — coproducers Bill Geerhart and Hugo Keesing went to work on culling music of the Korean conflict.