LABOR SONG OF THE WEEK: What Will I Leave - Laurel Blaydes
Chris Garlock | Published on 10/17/2025
LAUREL BLAYDES (1952-2022) sings "What Will I Leave" at the Great Labor Arts Exchange in 2004. (This recording is featured on this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour). For 13 years Laurel directed the Labor Heritage Foundation during its early days when it struggled to establish itself as a non-profit arts organization.
Laurel supported labor singers, songwriters and artists by promoting their work to union audiences and to the public. She helped build the Great Labor Arts Exchange into an annual event and organized similar labor culture programs around the country. Laurel performed in a variety of bands – the Mountain Laurel Band, Sassparilla and Groundwork.
On Solidarity Day - September 19, 1981 - she sang for an audience of hundreds of thousands on the national mall.
Laurel died from ovarian cancer in 2022; she would have celebrated her 73rd birthday on October 20.
What Will I Leave was composed by Si Kahn (c. 1993). Accompaniment by Joe Jencks. Photograph: Laurel Blaydes & Julie McCall. Live recording by Ellis Boal. Posted to YouTube by Saul Schniderman.