All profits from the album's sales were divided equally between the non-profits, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and Sing Out!

Producer Gene Shay says that he never intended the project to be a tribute album: "It was coming up on the twentieth anniversary of Phil 's death.

For example, Rex Fowler of Aztec Two Step performs "There but for Fortune" with a reggae rhythm and updates the lyrics with references to the incident at Tiananmen Square.

[5] It ranked behind another major folk music tribute double album released the same week, Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger (Appleseed/Red House).

Writing for Allmusic, Bruce Eder said of the compilation: "The quality of the performances is uniformly first-rate, and it's astonishing to discover the full range of admirers that Ochs' songs attract, as well as the sheer selection of songs, some of which Ochs never got to record officially — few key bases are left untouched in the two-hour-plus collection, although it would have been nice if someone had covered released obscurities such as 'Basket in the Pool.'