 Together the trio began to sing at left-wing functions and to call themselves the Almanac Singers.It was a somewhat fluid group that included Josh White and Sam Gary and later Sis Cunningham (a fellow Commonwealth College alumna), Woody Guthrie (with whom Hays collaborated on his 1940 debut album, "Dust Bowl Ballads"), and Bess Lomax Hawes, among others.The Almanac's first album, issued in May 1941, was the controversial "Songs for John Doe", comprising six pacifist songs, two of them co-written by Hays and Seeger and four by Lampell.