Sampling The Alan Lomax Collection
by David Gregory
Most readers of Canadian Folk Music are likely to have seen by now the sampler CD issued five years commitment to release at least one hundred albums in The Alan Lomax Collection. The accompanying booklet made it clear that the Collection would be divided into a number of series: Southern Journey, Prison Songs, The Caribbean Collection, The English, Scottish and Irish Recordings, The Spanish Collection, The Italian Collection, The Columbia World Library, Deep River of Song: Portraits, and The Ballad Operas.
Five years on, it is time to review what progress has been made in issuing Alan's field recordings, and to what extent the original plan has been modified, if at all. When one consults the Rounder website to see which volumes in the Collection are currently listed as available in the USA, one finds that implementation of the grand plan has been far from even. Good progress has been made in some areas whereas in others the release of long-awaited material has been frustratingly slow. It is obvious that certain series have been given priority. For example, thirteen CDs have been issued in the Southern Journey series and it is probably complete, although this is not entirely clear. Similarly Deep River of Song has received privileged treatment, perhaps because Alan had already selected the material for twelve volumes, although it appears that additional volumes are now envisaged. The Caribbean collection, now retitled Caribbean Voyage, has also reached double figures. All of which is very impressive.
Rounder has been less prolific with the remaining series, however. To be sure, there is now quite a number of CDs to choose ITom in the Portraits series. The number of volumes reissued in the slightly retitled World Library of Folk and Primitive Music is also steadily growing, although there is still quite a long way to go. And a good start has been made on each of The Spanish Recordings and The Italian Recordings. On the other hand, less has been achieved with regard to Folk songs of England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales, since as yet only three volumes are available. The title of the series on ballad operas has been expanded in scope - it is now The Concert & Radio Series - but apparently only a couple of items have so far been issued under this rubric. Two CDs of Prison Songs have so far been released and it is unclear whether there will be more. There are also two volumes in a new series, The Classic Louisiana Recordings, and it sounds as though there will be others coming. And there is at least one orphan, a selection of Christmas songs.
One thing that those of us living north of the 49th parallel have learned with great regret is that Rounder's Canadian distributor has not seen fit to release in Canada all the CDs apparently available in the USA. To be sure, we Canadians can buy them on-line direct ITom Rounder, but then we suffer - as ever - from the ridiculously low value of our currency versus the American dollar, we are charged exorbitant shipping and handling fees, and we run the risk of Canada Customs slapping on duty and/or
GST and PST. All of which makes the CDs nearly twice as expensive as normal discs. That renders purchasing them direct less than attractive.
Since there are so many items in the collection and our funds are limited, your editors have decided for now to make do with those CDs actually available in Canada at our local (well, Edmonton) record store. Our review of the treasures in the Collection is therefore limited to a selection of those you may actually fmd in Canada.
THE LOUISIANA RECORDINGS
The Classic Louisiana Recordings: Cajun & Creole Music 1934/1937, Volumes I & II. Rounder 11661- 1842-2 & Rounder 11661-1843-2 [1999]
These two CDs include some of the earliest field recordings so far available in the Collection, so readers will naturally be curious about the sound quality. It is a little harsh - I recommend a severe treble cut - and slightly metallic, but remarkably
clear. Surface noise ITom the original discs is noticeable but not too obtrusive, and the Rounder engineers have apparently done an excellent job in balancing the competing demands of noise filtering and fidelity to the source.
CAJUN & CREOLE MUSIC
No lover of francophone traditional music will want to be without this material. Nor will any lover of authentic Cajun and zydeco, for here we find the roots of the genre, undefiled by the corrupting impact of rock and commercial country & western music. About half of the first volume is devoted to performances by members of the Hoffpauir family - Elita, Mary, Ella and Julian - from New Iberia. One of the most remarkable is "La Belle et Ie capitaine", a ballad about a girl who feigns death for three days
to avoid rape by the military. The rest of the disc includes songs -some humorous, others sorrowful - and fine fiddle, accordion and harmonica music by (among others) Wayne Perry, the Segura Brothers, and Paul Junious Malveaux and Ernest Lafitte.
The second disc begins with more ballads, laments, and drinking songs by a variety of performers, including Davous Berard from New Iberia, Fenelus, Isaac and Cleveland Sonnier from Erath, and the duo of Lanese Vincent and Sidney Richard who by good fortune happened to be visiting Kaplan the very day Alan was recording there. The second half of the CD is bluesier, consisting mainly of early zydeco songs and dance music. Two of the standout tracks are Joseph Jones' "Blues de la prison" and "La-bas chez Moreau", a blues lament by black Creoles Cleveland Benoit and Darby Hicks. Although Lomax was not the only one to capture jure songs and zydeco on disc before World War II - a handful of commercial 78s were made, for example, by
Amade Ardoin - these performances are rare andprecious recordings. This is highly distinctiveregional music at its frnest and most authentic. Essential.
CONCERT AND RADIO SERIES
Concert & Radio Series: The Martins and the Coys.
Rounder 11661-1819-2 [2000]
The "Concert & Radio Series" segment of theCollection brings together live concerts produced by Alan at New York Town Hall and Carnegie Hall and radio programs made for.CBS and the BBC. The earliest recording so far available in this series was
made in June 1944: the musIcal play The Martins and the Coys, written by Alan's wife, Elizabeth Harold. It is of interest mainly because the cast included Burl Ives, Will Geer, and Woody Guthrie, and because Pete Seeger, Holly Wood, Lily May Ledford and Fiddlin' Arthur Smith and Alan himself were among the featured musicians. From a melodic point-of-view the stand-out tracks are Burl Ives' "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" and Woody Guthrie's "Nine Hundred Miles", while of historical interest are Woody's wartime anthems "You Better Get Ready", "All of You Fascists Born to Lose" and "Round and Round Hitler's Grave", and Seeger's "Deliver the Goods". A bonus on the CD is a set of four unissued performances by Lily May Ledford recorded by Alan around much the same time: "East Virginia Blues", "Sugar Babe", "Gypsy Davy" and "The Girls in This Neighborhood".
Concert & Radio Series: Sing Christmas and the Turn of the Year. Rounder 11661-1850-2 [2000]
The BBC unfortunately failed to keep copies of the
many radio or TV programs that Alan Lomax made
for it in the 1950s, although scripts for most are on
microfilm at the BBC Written Records Archive at
Caversham, near Reading. In the case of "Sing
Christmas and the Turn of the Year" one complete
copy was found on 78 rpm discs in the Lomax
Archive in New York. We are fortunate to have it,
because the program - broadcast on Christmas Day
1957 -was an innovative experiment by one of the
most talented British radio producers of the time,
Charles Parker, the man also responsible for the
series of ballad operas on which Ewan MacColl and
Peggy Seeger cooperated in the early sixties.
Sing Christmas linked together live various regions
of the British Isles and explored different kinds of
Christmas music, ranging trom traditional wassails
to a skiflle version of "Good King Wenceslas". It
was all very jolly, and Lomax's role was to act as
host and switch the action back and forth between
Belfast, Birmingham, Bangor (North Wales),
Castleton (in the Peak District), London, Plymouth
(in the South West) and an unidentified location in
Scotland. He also had a few purple passages to
deliver about old-time troubadours linking "the ivy
of mysticism and meditation with the fat-cheeked
holly of firelight and mendliness", which he did
with appropriate Texan chutzpah.
So why should we want to listen to this stuff nearly
fifty years later? The short answer is that there is
some good music here. For example, Peter
Kennedy's section trom Plymouth included a
"Padstow Wassail" sung by Charlie Bate, a
"Boscastle Breakdown" played by Bate and fellow
accordionist Bob Rundle, and a lesser-known carol
"I Wonder As I Wander" sung by Petty Officer Cyril
Tawney, on leave trom the H.M.S. Murray. From
Scotland came a Gaelic version of "The Christ Child
Lullaby" sung by Flora MacNeil and a metrical
psalm (also in Gaelic) performed by the precentor
and congregation on the Hebridean island of Lewis.
Belfast contributed Dominic Behan's "'Twas Mary
Conceived" and the McPeake Family's rendition of
"The Jug of Punch". Then there was Bert Lloyd's
"The Derby Ram" and Peggy Seeger's "Pretty Little
Baby". And not to be missed is Shirley Collins
singing with a skiflle group, not to mention Ewan
MacColl's "Ballad of Jesus Christ" . Yes, with
McCarthyism much in mind, he was deadly serious
when he wrote it but, forgive me, forty-five years
later I had a hard time keeping a straight face when I
heard those earnestly political lines about cops and
stool pigeons. Somehow, agit-prop and carols don't
mix too well. O.K., so maybe those last two items
are primarily of interest to historians, but the CD
does include much excellent Christmas music, and
the fast pace of Charles Parker's production makes it
easy listening. A curiosity, to be sure, but a fun one.
Songs of Christmas from the Alan Lomax Collection.
Rounder 11661-1719-2.
Not to be confused with the previous CD, this one
doesn't seem to belong to any series. It is really a
sampler of almost all the different kinds of
Christmas music that Alan ever recorded. It begins
and ends with excerpts trom a Symondsbury
Mummer's Play and it includes a fair number of
British wassails and carols, some sung by Bob &
Ron Copper, others by Charlie Bate, Tom Everieigh,
Margaretta Thomas, Seamus Ennis, Ewan MacColl,
and a group of Scottish crofters. But it ranges much
farther afield than the British Isles. Spain and Italy
are well represented, there is a "Dutch Midwinter
Horn" solo, and a "Rumanian Midwinter Carol".
Crossing the Atlantic we fmd performances by
Trinidadian Cantique singers, a couple of tracks
from the Georgia Sea Islands, and, of course, an
example of the Sacred Harp Singers at their best.
The longest track is by Vera Ward Hall, a retelling
of the birth of Jesus for a Sunday school class in the
rural Alabama community of Tuscaloosa, fi-amedby
two spirituals. In a way this CD does on a larger
canvas much the same as Alan and Charles Parker
did on BBC Radio for the British Isles on Christmas
Day 1957. The message is that the Christmas story is
universal, but best celebrated by ordinary people in
their own ways, tree trom the trappings of
commercialism.
PRISON SONGS
Prison Songs, Volume 1: Murderous Home. Rounder CD.1714 [1997]
Prison Songs, Volume 2: Don'tcha Hear Poor Mother Calling? Rounder CD 1715 [1997]
These two CDs, which consist of recordings made, mainly in 1947, by Alan at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman Farm, were among the first released as part of The Alan Lomax Collection about five years ago. It is not surprising that they were accorded priority, given the emotional quality and power of the performances.
Historical Recordings from Parchman Farm
1947-48
VOLUME ONE, Murderous Home
The first of the two discs presents the material issued on LP by Tradition in the USA and by Pye in the UK in the late 1950s, but the original record title Murderers' Home has been replaced by the politically correct Murderous Home. Actually both titles are accurate enough: the vicious treatment of inmates by sadistic guards did result in deaths as well as misery, while some of the inmates were selfconfessed killers and, in any case, "The Murderer's Home" was their own name for the place (the phrase
appears in the first song on Volume I). Anyway, it's good to have such classic performances as "Old Alabama", "Rosie", "Early in the Mornin"', "Stackerlee" and the amazing "Tangle Eye Blues" available again on CD (my old vinyl copy is decidedly worn by now), and even better to have another hour's worth of material that didn't make it are heard for the first time, although a few of the best performers on Volume I, such as Bama, Tangle Eye, and "22", do reappear. The newcomers include Dobie Red, Curry Childless, Percy Wilson, George Johnson, and "88", while the extra songs include "John Henry", "I'm Goin' Home", "Stewball", "Katy Left Memphis" and the ubiquitous "O 'Berta". Although Alan's original sleeve notes (written in 1957) are reprinted in the booklet and commentaries on the tracks (with lyrics) are provided by Matthew Barton, the difficult task of identifying the best singers by their real names rather than by their prison numbers or nicknames has been shirked. That's a pity, but these two CDs are nonetheless well worth obtaining. Indeed, this is quintessential Lomax.
WORLD LIBRARY OF FOLK & PRIMITIVE MUSIC
So, how many of the Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music LPs have been reissued by Rounder in CD format, albeit with "Columbia" removed from the title and the volumes now confusingly renumbered? The short answer is: not
as many as I would have hoped. I tried ordering them all from the Canadian distributor and wound up with only five: England, Scotland, Ireland, Yugoslavia, and Rumania. Additional volumes apparently available in the US include India and Spain, but not, as far as I can tell, the one for which I am most eagerly waiting. What's that? Canada, of course, but it would also be really nice to have the two Italian volumes back again.
In reissuing on CD a historic set of LPs such as this, the record company has a choice. They can either reproduce the originals exactly as they were, warts and all, or they can spruce up the new discs with additional material and an informative booklet. In
the latter case, what was (and was not) on the LP should be made clear, and the original liner notes should be reproduced photographically as part of the new print material. The second option is, of course, the better one since otherwise one gets a CD with something between forty and fifty minutes of music, which is a waste of space and a bit of a rip-off to boot.
Record companies often go the first and easy route. Others, more reasonably, double up the vinyl, spread three LPs over two CDs, or add bonus tracks, usually out-takes from the original recording session. Unfortunately, for the WorldLibrary series
Rounder has not made a clear and consistent choice between these alternatives. In some cases (Yugoslavia and Romania are exceptions) the CDs contain only the music on the original LPs. This is hardly generous, although Alan did squeeze the
maximum possible on to each of his original releases. The excuse given is that Rounder didn't want to tamper with these venerable pieces of history. But that argument could apply equally to the other volumes where changes have been permitted.
And if you are that concerned with historical veracity, why muck around with the liner notes in such a way as to make it impossible for the reader to know exactly what Alan and/or his collaborators actually wrote? I think the problem was that some
of those old liner notes seemed a little embarrassing in these days of political correctness. But rather than try to surreptitiously correct (and thereby distort) the past, the honest practice would have been to have treated the notes the same way as the recordings. Both could have been left intact, and then supplemented. This policy actually seems to have been followed in the case of the Yugoslavia volume, which now comprises two CDs instead of one LP. But why on earth wasn't it followed in the other cases?
World Library of Folk & Primitive Music, Vol V:
Yugoslavia. Rounder 11661-1745-2.
The Historic Series
Because the decision was made not to truncate Peter Kennedy's historic recordings (made at the 1951 Opatija folk festival), the Yugoslavia volume is perhaps the most successful of these reissues, with over two hours of music. One of the legitimate
criticisms of the original LP was that in their effort to include "a bit of everything" (as Alan put it), Lomax and Kennedy cut many of the items too short. Thankfully, that is no longer a problem since they are now given in full. The original notes were
written by Albert Lord, the author of The Singer of Tales, a pioneering study of oral composition in the Balkans, and I am glad to see that they have not been dumped as outdated. Ankica Petrovic and Rajna Laser have sensibly opted to provide
additional notes in italics, sometimes quarrelling with Lord's interpretations, sometimes simply supplementing them with extra information about the instruments used and the singing styles. A good decision. As for the recordings, Alan recognised in
his original liner notes that they were not perfect, given the conditions under which they were made ("full of noise and occasionally off-mike" were the way he put it), and also that some of the performances appeared rather polished ("too well
prepared and too special to seem completely natural to the critical folklorist"). That remains true, but they are well worth having anyway. And they make an interesting comparison with the field recordings collected in Yugoslavia by Martin Koenig in the sixties and by Herman C. Vuylsteke in the seventies.
World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol XVII: Romania. Rounder 11661-1759-2.
The editorial approach taken to this volume is quite different to that adopted for Yugoslavia. In this case, too, the CD is not merely a reproduction of the original LP since nearly twenty minutes of extra music has been added. The old items have also been re-sequenced to allow the additions to be fitted in the most suitable places. That's fine; the problem is that five items on the original LP have been omitted. The excuse given is that they were "played by folk orchestras [and] gave a distorted image of musical life in Romania between 1930 and 1960" and that their removal has "improved [the compilation] from the artistic viewpoint so dear to its authors". Well, that is a matter of aesthetic opinion, and the fact remains that buyers of the CD are unable to hear all
of what A. L. Lloyd and Tiberiu Alexandru, rightly
or wrongly, considered worth including on the
original LP. That is very regrettable in a CD reissue,
the consequence of a poor editorial decision by
Speranta Radulescu. And since no different type
face distinguishes them, it is impossible to tell what
passages in the song notes were written by
Alexandru and what are Radulescu's additions.
That is also regrettable.
The net result of these additions, subtractions and
modifications is that the original LP has almost
disappeared from view. The new CD is a fme
collection of Romanian folk music, and I know of no
better introductory survey of the subject. But with a
little more care and sensitivity it could have also
preserved a valuable historical document in a more
authentic manner.
World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume I: England. Rounder CD 1741.
In the case of England we get a faithful audio reproduction of the original LP but no additional tracks and no replacement of verses missing from the original performances. That explains why this CD clocks in at only 48 minutes. On the other hand,
the accompanying booklet does not reproduce the LP sleeve, but includes a new introduction written by Bob Copper. The song notes appear to have been rewritten by Peter Kennedy, who I believe did the original ones. While I'm grateful to have this
pioneering set of recordings available again, I do think it was a shame that the opportunity to restore various performances to their original lengths was missed. And I do not see the logic of preserving faithfully the audio part of a historical document if
you are not going to do the same with the printed part of the same document. A strange editorial decision.
The Historic: Series
The music, incidentally, is a mix of Kennedy's and E. 1. Moeran's field recordings of traditional singers and instrumentalists (Stanley Slade, Fred Perrier, Bert Pidgeon, Charger Salmons, Walter Lucas, Bunny Palmer, Jumbo Brightwell and Cyril Biddick
among others) with Alan's (and the BBC's) recordings of such revival singers as Isla Cameron, Bert Lloyd and Ewan MacColl. Only seven of the tracks (by Cameron, MacColl and Jack Armstrong) were actually recorded by Alan, and he apparently
left most of the item selection to Kennedy. One could argue that the result was a bit of a mishmash - it would have been more logical to stick to performances by source singers -but there is still plenty of good traditional music here. Two of my
favourites are Bunny Palmer's "The Mallard" and
Walter Lucas' "The Prickle Holly Bush", both fme
examples of a cappella singing supported by rousing
choruses by local villagers, no doubt swinging their
beer mugs in time to the music. Too bad these tracks
remain truncated.
By the way, since all this dates from 1951 or before,
it was still early days and Bert and Ewan were
caught very close to their best. If you don't believe
me, check out Ewan's "Four Loom Weaver" and
Bert's "Polly Vaughan". Isla Cameron died young
and didn't record much, so it is good to have three
examples of her singing here: "My Bonny Lad",
"Brigg Fair" and "Died for Love". And, yes, she
does seem to have been the stylistic missing link
between Joseph Taylor and Anne Briggs.
World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume
II: Ireland. Rounder 1742.
World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume
III: Scotland. Rounder 1743.
These two albums were the product of Alan's
collaboration with Seamus Ennis and Hamish
Henderson respectively. They were - and remain -
fme collections that for decades stood as the best
single-record overview of their respective region's
folksong. The CD versions employ the same
editiorial approach as the English volume, i.e., no
new material, and even no lengthening of songs by
including verses that were cut because of spacelimitations.
That is a pity since there was room for
an additional twenty-five minutes of music on each
volume. Again it is curious that although the LP
tracks have been reproduced faithfully, the old liner
notes have not, even if most of Alan's remarks have
been incorporated in the booklets. Quite why it was
felt impossible or unnecessary to make a photoreproduction
of the LP back-covers is beyond me.
For Ireland we have a new introduction by Nicholas
Carolan, who has also revised the song notes. To his
credit, he has placed his additional comments in
square brackets, although he also admits to doing
some "silent correction of typographical errors and
light editing for clarity and accuracy". The ~eland
booklet also includes a delightful and informative
memoire by Robin Roberts, Alan's companion on his
first Irish expedition. The music is excellent of
course, a mix of Gaelic and English-language
ballads and songs, with a leavening of fiddle tunes,
reels played on the uilleann pipes, and band
instrumentals. From among many exceptional tracks
I'll mention only Maire O'Sullivan's "An Cailin
Areach", Colm Keane's "Bean Phaidon", Margaret
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Barry's "She Moved Through the Fair", and Kitty
Gallagher's "Keen for a Dead Child". When the LP
was released Alan was criticised for including nine
performances by Seamus Ennis, who at the time was
regarded by some as a singer of folksongs but not a
genuine folksinger. In retrospect it seems a
tendentious quibble.
For Scotland we have a new introduction by Hamish
Henderson, and Alan's original song notes have also
been revised by Hamish and Margaret Bennett.
Unfortunately they have failed to make clear what is
original text, what has been "corrected", and what is
new. As before, the album is divided into the music
of the Highlands and Islands and the music of the
Lowlands. The Gaelic material was -and is -
magnificent: from authentic waulking songs to
haunting laments such as "Cairistiona". The best of
the English language performances, such as Jimmy
MacBeath's "MacPherson's Lament" and "Tramps
and Hawkers", are equally fme, but oddly enough
Ewan MacCoU's contributions are not as compelling
as his English ones, and, despite her name, Isla
Cameron hailed from Newcastle. Alan's decision to
include revival singers thus seems even more
questionable than with the English volume.
FOLK SONGS OF ENGLAND, IRELAND,
SCOTLAND & WALES
Classic Ballads of Britain and Ireland, Volumes J &
2. Rounder 11661-1775-2 & 11661-1776-2.
These are the CD equivalents of the two volumes of
Child ballads (actually Vols 4 & 5) in the old
Caedmon/Topic LP series called The Folk Songs of
Britain. With only the occasional exception, all the
material on those discs has been retained, and, I am
glad to report, more has been added to bring the
running time of the CDs to over 75 minutes each.
Extensive scholarly notes are provided by Peter
Kennedy, although he too has failed to distinguish
clearly between his and Alan's original
commentaries and the new matter.
Given the wealth of good recordings of fme singers
performing the cream of the crop of traditional
ballads on these two volumes, it may seem churlish
to say I was a little disappointed by them. Yet I was,
and I must hasten to explain why.
On the old LPs Kennedy and Lomax, faced with an
abundance of available field recordings (their own,
and the BBC's) and the time limitations imposed by
vinyl, chose to illustrate the provenance of an oftcollected
ballad by stringing together excerpts from
a number of different singers performing their own
variants of the same song. So, for example, the track
titled "Edward" was actually a composite of verses
sung by Jeannie Robertson, Paddy Tunney, and
Angela Brasil. Now I had hoped that instead of
giving us fragments, the new CDs would provide the
entire rendition by each singer. That would have
necessitated going to two CDs for each of the
original LPs, but why not? After all, that was
precisely the solution chosen for a similar dilemma
with Kennedy's 1951 Yugoslav recordings.
What we have instead is the old practice of making
up rather artificial composites. This time around
"Edward" is a somewhat different creation,
comprising versions by Mary Ellen Connors,
Jeannie Robertson, Thomas Moran, and Angela
Brasil. Although we have gained two versions, we
have lost another, and Angela Brasil's is still
incomplete.
I could multiply examples of this kind of thing, but
that might be tedious. The bottom line is that
Kennedy (or whoever made the editorial decisions)
has given us more of the old recordings but many of
the performances remain truncated and a few of the
original items have actually been omitted. That
seems a great shame. To be fair, one must recognise
that Kennedy has done as much as he possibly could
with the space available, and I'm sure he hated
. cutting verses just as much as I hate seeing them left
out. The fundamental mistake was the earlier
decision (Rounder's?) not to allow a doubling of the
number of CDs available for these exceptionally
important field recordings.
32
But buy these two CDs of Child ballads anyway.
There are so many wonderful performances of many
of the frnest big ballads here that it is impossible in a
few lines to do justice to them. I'll just mention four
to whet your appetite: Elizabeth Cronin's "Lord
Gregory" (recorded by Alan in County Cork in
1951), Jeannie Robertson's "Matty Groves"
(recorded by Peter in London in 1958), George
Fosbury's "False Lamkin" (recorded by Bob Copper
in Hampshire in 1955) and Carolyne Hughes' "The
Famous Flower of Servingmen" (recorded by Peter
in Dorset in 1968). No lover of narrative song can
afford to be without these quite exceptionally
important releases. This is the mother lode.
Songs of Seduction. Rounder 11661-1778-2.
"Songs of Seduction" was Vol 2 in the old Caedmon
series. It too has been reworked for CD, with some
previously unreleased tracks added, including Dickie
Lashbrook's "Blackbirds and Thrushes", William
Rew's "The New-Mown Hay", Harry Cox's
"Fire lock Stile" and "The Knife in the Window",
Belle Stewart's "The Overgate" and Jeannie
Robertson's "She is a Rum One". Not much has been
lost, although I looked in vain for Harry Cox's
"Cruising Round Yarmouth", the last song on the
original LP.
Once again, though, the opportunity to provide full
versions of the songs, exactly as recorded in the
field, has sometimes been missed. For instance, Lal
Smith's "The Bold English Navy" has eight verses,
but we only get four. And, unfortunately, examples
of this kind of trimming could be multiplied.
Although I sympathise with Kennedy's desire to
squeeze in as many songs and performers as
possible, I cannot agree that this sampling method is
the best way to go. I do hope that when "Songs of
Courtship", the original first volume in the Caedmon
set, appears in the new format we will be given the
luxury of complete performances and a tWo CD set.
PORTRAITS
Harry Cox: What Will Become of England?
Rounder 11661-1839-2
Lomax on more than one occasion remarked that his
greatest talent was for getting people to be
themselves in front of a microphone. Peter Kennedy
also had that talent, and this CD brings together the
fiuits of both of their interviews with Harry Cox in
the fifties. Anyone buying it should be aware that
quite a lot of this disc therefore consists of Cox
talking about his upbringing, his life as a farm
labourer and as a fisherman, and the songs he
learned from his father. It reproduces in part
material already available on Kennedy's Folktrax
album The Barley Straw: Documentary of an
English Folksinger (Songs and Stories of Country
Life) (Folktrax FSA 034).
Yet there are a lot of good songs too, including
.
several that we have come to associate especially
with Harry, such as "The Spotted Cow", "The Barley
Straw", "Rap Tap Tap", "Jack Tar on Shore",
"Blackberry Fold" and "Adieu to Old England".
Also included are his versions of "Up to the Rigs of
London Town" (perhaps better known as sung by
Charlie Wills), "The Foggy, Foggy Dew" (usually
33
linked to another Norfolk singer, Phil Hammond)
and "Windy Old Weather" (popularized by Bob
Roberts). In all, there are 46 tracks, and the CD runs
for 78 minutes, so you can see there is a feast here
for Harry Cox aficionados, and I admit I'm one. One
of the most important traditional musicians to be
rediscovered in East Anglia in the fifties, he was a
fine singer and he had a huge repertoire.
This CD may include all Alan's recordings of Harry,
but more of Peter's can be found on the Folktrax
albums Harry Cox: English Love Songs (FSA 032)
and Harry Cox: English Sea Songs (FSA 033). And
there is also a recent 2-CD collection, Harry Cox:
The Bonny Labouring Boy, on which Paul Marsh has
pulled together recordings made by a variety of
other collectors, including E. J. Moeran, Ewan
MacColl, Charles Parker, Frank Purslow, Mervyn
Plunkett and Leslie Shepard (Topic TSCD 512D),
which we must review on another occasion. So there
is a lot of Harry Cox to choose from, but I . .
recommend What Will Become of England? as the
best place to start for anyone who is about to begin
exploring Harry's recorded legacy.
Margaret Barry: I Sang Through the Fairs.
Rounder 11661-1774-2
Alan probably met Margaret Barry on his first Irish
collecting trip in 1951 since the World Library
volume on Ireland includes a fragment of "She
Moved Through the Fair". Anyone annoyed by the
way that beautiful performance is faded out after
two verses will find two versions on this CD: one
recorded as part of an interview Alan did with the
"Queen of the Tinkers" in London in 1953, and the
other (the longest, with all four verses) by Peter
Kennedy in Dundalk, County Louth, in 1952.
The CD also has two performances of another song
that will always be associated with Margaret Barry,
the 'broken token' ballad "Her Mantle So Green",
one a solo version and the other a live performance
(with Michael Gorman playing fiddle) at the
Bedford Arms in Camden Town, made for Alan's
BBC radio program" A Ballad Hunter Looks at
Ireland". Other highlights of the CD include "The
Blarney Stone", "The Factory Girl", the patriot song
"Gra Machree", and two songs with particularly
beautiful melodies, "Ballyjamesduff" and "My
Lagan Love". On listening for the first time to
Margaret's clanking banjo and piercing voice,
someone once said to me that her music was an
acquired taste. Maybe, but if you've already
succumbed you will not want to be without this
"Portrait". And if you haven't, you're missing
something unique.
Jeannie Robertson: The Queen Among the Heather.
Rounder 11661-1720-2.
One of the most striking omissions from the World
Library volume on Scotland was the voice of
Jeannie Robertson. The reason was simple: Hamish
Henderson only discovered her in Aberdeen in 1953,
two years after he first introduced Alan to the
varieties of Scottish folksong. It only took one
appearance at the People's Festival Ceilidh in
Edinburgh in 1953 for Hamish's account of the
majesty of her singing and the depth and breath of
her repertoire to be widely believed. Alan brought
her to London to appear on his BBC TV series, Song
34
Hunter: Alan Lomax, later that year, but a sudden
illness prevented her participation. Released from
hospital, she spent several weeks recuperating in
Alan'sLondon apartment and it was then (November
1953) that these recordings were made, most likely
the fIrst time ever that Jeannie talked and sang
extensively into a microphone.
Truth to tell, she wasn't always at her best, but there
are some gems here, some of them previously
unreleased. One example is "The Battle ofHarlaw"
(Child # 163) which I had never previously heard
sung by anyone other than Ewan MacColl. There are
also her versions of Child # 13, which she called
"My Son David", Child # 75, "Lord Lovatt", and
Child #233, "Bonnie Annie and Andrew Lammie".
Other songs include "The Handsome Cabin Boy",
the feminist "Wi' My Rovin' Eye", the ever-popular
"Never Wed an Old Man", and the title track, "The
Queen Among the Heather". Given the singer and
the material, this is hardly a CD that needs my
recommendation, but of course it's another one that
falls into the "essential" category.
John Strachan: Songs from Aberdeenshire. Rounder
82161-1835-2.
Although they missed Jeannie Robertson in 1951,
Hamish did introduce Alan to another singer from
the North East of Scotland, Aberdeenshire farmer
John Strachan. He had been one of James Madison
Carpenter's informants in 1930. In July of that year
they spent several days recording him at Turriff and
on his farm near Fyvie. Although three of Strachan's
performances were included in the Scottish volume
of the World Library, most of the rest were never
released on vinyl. Listening to this CD is therefore a
voyage of discovery. One fmds a mix ofbothy
ballads, such as "The Hairst of Rettie" and "The
Guise 0' Tough" and songs such as "MacPherson's
Rant", "The Bonny Lass ofFyvie" and "The Beggar
Man". There are also many Child ballads, including
"Binnorie" (# 10), "The Knight and the Shepherd's
Daughter" (#110), "Clyde's Water" (# 216), "The
Laird 0' Drum" (# 236), "Johnnie 0' Braidislie" (#
114), "Lang Johnnie More" (# 251), and even
"Robin Hood and Little John" (# 125). Enough
said?
Jimmy MacBeath: Tramps and Hawkers.
Rounder 82161-1834-2.
"Come All Ye Tramps and Hawkers", long one of
my favourite vernacular ballads, was the signature
tune of traveller Jimmy MacBeath, a wandering
minstrel who roamed Britain and Ireland, and even
strayed as far west as Canada. Alan and Hamish fIrst
recorded him in Elgin (Moray) and Turriff
(Aberdeenshire) in July 1951, and his versions of
"Tramps and Hawkers" and "MacPherson's Lament"
appeared on the Scottish volume of the World
Library. Naturally both songs are included in this
"Portrait", with "Tramps and Hawkers" appearing
twice: from that fIrst recording session, and from
Jimmy's performance at the Edinburgh People's
Festival ceilidh later that summer. Other recordings
on the CD date from November 1953 when
MacBeath visited London to take part in Alan's BBC
television series. Maybe a third of the disc consists
of Alan interviewing Jimmy about his life and
songs. The songs themselves include "Drumdelgie",
"The Moss 0' Burreldale", "The Muckin of Geordie's
Byre", "The Dowie Dens 0' Yarrow", "McCafferty",
"Mormond Braes", and Bums' "John Anderson, My
Jo". Strongly recommended.
Davie Stewart: Go On, Sing Another Song.
Rounder 82161-1833-2.
Discovered living in Dundee in 1955 by Hamish
Henderson and Canadian anthropologist Frank
Valee, Davie Stewart was a member of the traveller
community that wandered back and forth from Banff
to Blairgowrie in eastern Scotland. A friend of
Jeannie Robertson, he was also a sometime
travelling companion of Jimmy MacBeath and there
was some overlap in their repertoires. The two men's
35
styles make an interesting contrast: MacBeath was
the more forceful singer, Stewart the more subtle,
with an obvious love for soaring melody. On this
CD we find Davie's versions of "Tramps and
Hawkers", "MacPherson's Rant", "The Dowie Dens
of Yarrow", and "Mormond Braes", so direct
comparison with Jimmy is easy. But there is plenty
of other good material on the CD, for example the
transportation ballad "Jamie Raeburn", the ribald
ditties "Maggie the Milkmaid" and "The HigWand
Tinker", and the bothy ballads "McGinty's Meal and
Ale" and "Bruce 0' the Fornet". Recommended.
Fred McDowell: The First Recordings.
Rounder CD 1718.
I
~A.f<a ~ ~
,
.
~ ti i
' I!
PORTRAITS
It was in Como, Mississippi, in September 1959 that
Alan and Shirley Collins made perhaps the most
remarkable discovery of a higWy successful field
trip: a truly masterful bottleneck blues guitarist who
had never before been recorded. Mississippi Fred
McDowell would go on to make several LPs for
Testament and Arhoolie in the early sixties and in
1964 he played the Newport Folk Festival before
going to Europe to perform at various blues
festivals. He even had one of his songs, "You Got to
Move", covered by the Rolling Stones. In 1959, of
course, all this was in the future, and what we have
on this CD are his very first recordings. And what
stunning recordings! If you don't believe me, just
take a listen to "Worried Mind". Other tracks include
"Going Down the River"," 6 1 Highway Blues",
"Shake 'Em On Down", "Good Morning Little
Schoolgirl" and three gospel songs, "Woke Up this
Morning With My Mind on Jesus","I Want Jesus to
Walk With Me" and "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed
and Burning". My only complaint about this CD is
that there is only 50 minutes of music. Essential for
blues fans.
Neville Marcano: The Growling Tiger of Calypso.
Rounder CD 1717.
The Growling Tiger was the only professional
calypsonian that Alan recorded on his 1962
Caribbean field trip, although he did tape large
numbers of stick-fighting songs,joropos, and
calypsos by unpaid performers in rural areas. Lomax
made an exception to his policy of recording only
amateurs because of the way Marcano, who grew up
speaking French patois, had retained elements of his
Creole roots, and had also incorporated Latin
American and African rhythms into his songs. He
seemed to personify Alan's theory that the folk
music of the Caribbean was a blend of Amcan,
Spanish, French and English elements. Calypso was
in any case an improvised and humorous music of
grassroots expression and popular protest, qualities
that Alan found attractive. In such Growling Tiger
performances as "War", "Money Is King" and
"Atomic Energy Calypso" self-deprecating comedy
and serious political comment are mixed together in
about equal quantities. It's interesting stuff, but
personally I don't fmd this style has much in the way
of melodic beauty or emotional power. But you can
see the roots of rap in Marcano's rhymes.
SOUTHERN JOURNEY
Alan's field trips during 1959-60 resulted in the
gathering of over eighty hours of recordings from
disparate cultural traditions located in a variety of
regions stretching from Arkansas to Alabama and
from Mississippi to the Georgia Sea Islands via the
Southern Appalachian mountains. A good selection
from his field tapes appeared on seven Atlantic LPs
entitled Sounds of the South and twelve Prestige LPs
entitled Southern Journey. This set of 13 Rounder
CDs contains all the performances on the Prestige
albums (expanded to full length if they had been
shortened), plus additional unreleased material. On
the other hand, it does not incorporate any music
from the Atlantic LPs since these have been reissued
separately as a 4 CD set. To obtain a complete sense
of what Alan and Shirley Collins found on their
southern travels one must therefore listen not only to
these thirteen CDs but also to the four Atlantic ones.
Moreover, various CDs in the "Portraits" series will
36
draw heavily on the same field tapes. The Fred
McDowell album, First Recordings, is a case in
point. But the obvious place to start is with the CDs
in the new Southern Journey.
Southern Journey, Volume 1: Voicesfrom the
American South. Rounder CD 1701.
This first volume is a sampler - Matthew Barton
calls it a "road map" - of the many artists and styles
represented on the other twelve CDs. Since the
material on those twelve is grouped by style or
region, it would have been helpful to organize this
sampler chronologically, retracing Alan's steps as he
journeyed from place to place. No such luck! The
CD begins with one of his last recordings, made in
April 1960, on St. Simon's Island, Georgia. It is
difficult to discern any logic in the track arrangment
but it may be that Barton was trying to place the '
stylistically most primitive perforinances first.
The earliest tracks date from August 1959: "Criple
Creek", an instrumental by a Virginia hillbilly
group, the Buck Mountain Band, and the murder
ballad "Pretty Polly", sung by Estil C. Ball, surely a
candidate for a future CD of his own in the
"Portraits" series. Highlights include two traditional
ballads by Ozarks singers: Ollie Gilbert's "The Diver
Boy" (a variant of "Edwin in the Lowlands Low"),
and "The Lass of Loch Royale" by Neil Morris.
Other stand-outs are Fred McDowell's "Wished I
Was in Heaven Sitting Down", "Sweet Roseanne"
by the Bright Light Quartet, a hillbilly version of
"Three Nights Drunk" by J.E. Mainer's
Mountaineers, and "Pharaoh", a superb example of
unaccompanied singing by Mrs. Sidney Carter of
Senatobia, Mississippi. No question, the CD
succeeds in making one eager to explore the other
twelve volumes in the series.
Southern Journey, Volume 2: Ballads and
Breakdowns. Rounder CD 1702.
This is a fine collection of instrumental and vocal
music in the style that is usually called 'old timey'.
The CD conjures up the sounds of music-making in
the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains in
southwestern Virginia. The main performers are
singers Estil Ball, Texas Gladden, Spencer Moore,
Hobart Smith, Ruby Vass, banjo-players George
Stoneman and Wade Ward, and a galaxy of fiddlers
including Glen Stoneman, Norman Edmonds and '
Charlie Higgins. The music is a characteristic
mixture of fiddle and banjo tunes, songs such as
"The Girl I Left Behind Me" and "Peg an 'Awl", and
traditional ballads. The latter include Texas
Gladden's "Three Little Babes" (a variant of "The
Wife of Usher's Well"), and Hobart Smith's "The
Little Schoolboy" (a variant of "The Twa Brothers").
Also deserving of special mention is Ruby Vass'
version of the well known American murder ballad
"The Banks of the Ohio". '
Southern Journey, Volume 3: 61 Highway
Mississippi. Rounder CD 1703.
This CD has a mixture of country blues, rural dance
music, spirituals, and work songs, all recorded in
Mississippi in September and October of 1959.
Lomax visited two penitentiaries: Parchman Farm
and 'Camp B' at Lambert, and found prisoners who
still sang both worksongs and blues. One of his
discoveries, John Dudley, had been a travelling
bluesman in the late twenties and performed
"Clarksdale Mill Blues" in a style redolent of
Charlie Patton and Tommy Johnson. Also included
is "Soon One Mornin"', one of several fme
bottleneck style performances by Fred McDowell, a
song that echoes Blind Willie Johnson's classic "You
Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond". The Delta
blues tradition was clearly still alive and well in the
Mississippi bottomlands. Also surviving, although
perhaps only barely, was a form of instrumental
music still occasionally to be found at country
dances, that dated from at least the time of the Civil
War if not earlier: it came in different forms but the
37
core instruments were quills or fife backed by
drums. The Young Brothers band perform one
version of this style on the CD, Sid Hemphill and
Lucius Smith another. Fascinating material that
makes very enjoyable listening.
Southern Journey, Volume 4: Brethren, We Meet
Again. Rounder CD 1704.
There is a great deal of religious music on these
Southern Journey CDs. This is the first volume of
several to be devoted primarily to white hymns and
spirituals. Some of the performances are by the
Virginian 'old timey' musicians heard on Volume 2,
including Texas Gladden, Hobart Smith, Ollie
Gilbert, and Ruby Vass. Others were recorded in
Old Regular Baptist churches, in Blackey and
Mayking, Kentucky, the congregations led by,
respectively, Elder I. D. Beck and George Spengler.
This kind of traditional psalm and hymn singing,
although often of great beauty, was much simpler in
form than the New England tradition of three- or
four-part Sacred Harp singing using 'shape-note'
hymnals. The examples of the latter style on this CD
are by the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers. Impressive
as this polyphony may be, my favourite
performances come from the mountains: Ozark
ballad singer Almeda Riddle's a cappella "Poor
Wayfaring Stranger" and Hobart Smith's version of
"See that My Grave Is Kept Clean" (associated,
incidentally, with Blind Lemon Jefferson, who .
recorded it in 1928,andnot with Blind Willie
Johnson, as the booklet erroneously states).
Southern Journey, Volume 5: Bad Man Ballads.
Rounder CD 1705
From the picture of a convict wielding an axe on the
cover of this volume I thought it might consist
entirely of worksongs recorded in penitentiaries, but
such is not the case. There are four songs by prison
gangs, "John Henry", "Early in the Mornin"', "Tom
Devil" and "Po' Lazarus", and there is one blues by
Parchman inmate Floyd Batts, but this CD contains
a surprisingly large number of ballads. They include
Neil Morris' "Willie Brennan" (yes, an Ozarks
version of "Brennan on the Moor"), Almeda Riddle's
"Hangman Tree" (aka "the Maid Freed from the
Gallows" or "The Prickly Bush"), Estil Ball's "Pretty
Polly", Oscar Gilbert's "Cole Younger", and Spencer
Moore's "The Lawson Murder". So we see plenty of
evidence of how British broadside ballads were
adapted to fit local circumstances. There are also
songs, such as the 1. E. Mainer Band's "Columbus
Stockade" and Hobart Smith's "Claude Allen" that
show sympathy for the prisoner, guilty or innocent,
trapped behind bars and separated from his (or her)
lover. It is interesting, too, to compare the three
quite different versions of "Po' Lazarus" on this CD,
one performed by a close harmony group from
Virginia, the Bright Light Quartet, the second an a
cappella version by St. Simon's Island tavern keeper
Henry Morrison, and the third a bluesy work song
led by inmate James Carter (yes, the recently
rediscovered James Carter of "0 Brother Where Art
Thou?" fame).
Southern Journey, Volume 6: Sheep, Sheep,
Don'tcha Know the Road. Rounder CD 1706.
With Volume 6 we move from the sinners to the
righteous, although many of the songs on this CD
tell the stories of men and women who strayed from
the straight and narrow. Alcohol, seen as the juice of
forbidden fruit, and Eve, the temptress, are two
themes that appear and reappear in these songs, with
the hills of Hell the inevitable destination of the
fallen. There is plenty of stylistic variety on this CD,
since it draws on Alan's recordings in the Georgia
Sea Islands, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, and the
Ozarks. The stand-out tracks include Hobart Smith's
hiccuping fiddle accompaniment to his version of a
well known lament on the consequences of
combining whisky and gambling ("Jack of
Diamonds"), Neil Morris' satirical barb against
hypocritical preachers of various stripes ("Corn
38
Dodgers"), and, above ;lil, Almeda Riddle's
impressive, full-length interpretation of "The House
Carpenter" .
Southern Journey, Volume 7: Ozark Frontier.
Rounder CD 1707.
Now we are back to Arkansas for more ballads and
old timey music from the Ozarks. Almeda Riddle
and Ollie Gilbert are the stars of this set, so you
know there is plenty of unaccompanied ballad
singing of high quality. Almeda's songs include
"Bury Me Beneath the Willow" (usually associated
with the Carter Family), "Merry Golden Tree" (aka
"The Golden Vanity"), "The Titanic" and "Alan
Bain" (an Australian 'rescue from the gallows'
ballad). The subjects of Ollie's ballads include wifebeating
("Willow Green"), a lover locked-up by her
parents ("Once I Courted a Lady Beauty Bright"), a
Jewish ritual murder (a version of "Little Sir Hugh"
called "It Rained a Mist"), a "Lord Bateman" who
has migrated to Georgia, and a deserted maid turned
soldier ("Pretty Polly Oliver"). Another highlight of
the CD is Neil Morris' account of the seduction
ballad "The Nightingale", here titled "The Irish
Soldier and the English Lady". Interspersed between
the ballads are numerous banjo and fiddle
instrumentals, but I think you need to be an
aficionado of a cappella ballad singing to really
enjoy this disc. Highly recommended to lovers of
vernacular narrative song.
Southern Journey, Volume 8: Velvet Voices.
Rounder CD 1708.
The next four CDs in the series are predominantly
religious music. Apart from two tracks from St.
Simon's Island, Georgia, the material on Volume 8
was recorded in Virginia during April and May
1960. In response to a request from the
Williamsburg Museum to recreate the authentic
sound of African-American plantation music.in
Virginia for a film about life in the colonial era,
Alan assembled an "orchestra" that included singers
from the Georgia Sea Islands, cane fife player Ed
Young from Mississippi, Bahamian drummer Nat
Rahmings, and Blue Ridge banjo player and vocalist
Hobart Smith. Several tracks by members of this
ensemble are included on the CD, for example
Young and Smith's "Joe Turner" and "The Titanic"
performed by Bessie Jones and her Sea Island
singers to Smith's guitar accompaniment.
The remainder of the disc consists of performances
by a number of black vocal groups, mainly singing
spirituals and gospel numbers: the Silver Leaf
Quartet, the Bright Light Quartet, the Belleville A
Cappella Choir, and the Peerless Four. There is a
noticeable difference between the smooth, close
harmonies of the older style Bright Light Quartet
and the looser, more vigorous, gospel singing of the
eight young members of the Peerless Four,
accompanied by electric guitar, piano and drums.
The CD thus covers several centuries of stylistic
development in Afro-American religious music.
Southern Journey, Volume 9: Harp of a Thousand
Strings. Rounder CD 1709.
Southern Journey, Volume 10: And Glory Shone
Around. Rounder CD 1710.
These are two volumes of vigorous, polyphonic
shape-note hymn singing recorded at the annual
United Sacred Harp Musical Association Singing
Convention, held on September 12th, 1959, in Fyffe,
Alabama. The tunes fall into four categories: folk
melodies, psalms, revivalist hymns, and fuguing
tunes. The words, of course, reflect biblical stories
and Protestant theology. It is powerful and often
beautiful choral music, and I liked it more than I
expected.
In a way listening to this kind of choral singing is an
acquired art, rather like listening to a mass by
Guillaume Dufay or a late Elizabethan madrigal.
You have to keep several musical lines in mind
simultaneously and abandon modem notions of
39
hannony. It works better when one is already
familiar with the main tune since it is then easier to
separate the melodic line from the other parts. I also
found that it helped a great deal to follow the words
as I listened. The accompanying booklets do provide
all the words, and also the four-part scores for
selected examples of each of the four types of tune.
Nonetheless, interesting as this was, I can only take
Sacred Harp singing in small doses. For me one CD
would have been enough; two was gilding the lily.
Southern Journey, Volume 11: Honor the Lamb.
Rounder CD 1711.
I was afraid that this was going to be a third CD of
Sacred Harp singing, but, thankfully, such is not the
case. This disc consists entirely of performances by
a Virginia black gospel group, the Belleville A
Cappella Choir of the Church of God and Saints of
Christ. The choir used no written music and learned
its spirituals, hymns and other gospel songs by ear,
yet it was highly trained, its arrangements complex,
and its performances polished. Its style combined
the controlled approach of the Fisk Jubilee Singers
with some of the techniques of more modem gospel
groups. The choir's repertoire was a mix of
traditional spirituals ("Swing Low", "Steal Away",
"Golden Slippers") with hymns ("The Lord Is My
Strength and Song" and "The House of the Lord")
and a few swinging gospel numbers like "Gospel
Train" and "What a Time". Lomax was highly
impressed when he heard the group and quickly
decided that it warranted an album of its own in the
Prestige series. This CD is an expanded version of
that LP.
Southern Journey, Volume 12: Georgia Sea Islands.
Rounder CD 1712.
Southern Journey, Volume 13: Earliest Times.
Rounder CD 1713.
Most of the material on the fmal two CDs was
recorded on St. Simon's Island, Georgia, in either
October 1959 or April 1960. The only exceptions
are more of the tracks made by the pick-up
"orchestra" assembled by Alan to record colonialstyle
performances for the Williamsburg Museum
movie. The CDs are expanded versions of two LPs:
the second volume in the Prestige Southern Journey
set, and another LP of Georgia Sea Island Songs
subsequently released on New World records.
Lomax had fIrst visited the island in 1935, and he
remembered it as the place above all others where
old performance styles had persisted into the
twentieth century. Much of the material he recorded
was religious in nature: spirituals and other biblical
songs, performed by groups of singers usually led by
Bessie Jones, John Davis or William Proctor. The
songs were often about fIgures in the Old Testament:
Adam, Moses, Daniel, and David, but some, such as
"John (the Baptist)" and "Rock in a Weary Land"
reflected New Testament texts. The best known of
all Bessie Jones' religious songs, however, was "0
Death", learned in North Georgia before she married
into the Sea Islands community.
Volume 13, Earliest Times, has the subheading
"Georgia Sea Island Songs for Everyday Living".
These are worksongs and playsongs of various
kinds: music for working in the rice fIelds, for log
rolling, for rowing, for fishing, for dancing, and for
prayer meetings. The playsongs include "The
Buzzard Lope", "See Aunt Dinah" and "East Coast
Line", the worksongs "Ain't I Right?" (sung while
working in the fields), "Row the Boat, Child", "You
Got My Letter" (a hauling shanty), and "Riley" and
"Old Tar River" (both timber-loading shanties).
All of this older Sea Islands music retained many of
the stylistic characteristics of West African song and
dance, but the islanders also performed more recent
songs in a more contemporary 'quartet' style, and a
few examples of this ("You Better Mind" and
"Everybody Talking About Heaven") are included.
However, the oldest chants, such as "Live Humble",
"Carrie Belle" and "Rollin' Under", were almost
certainly slave songs dating back to well before the
Civil War. The unique nature of this material makes
it an essential listening experience for anyone
interested in Afro-American history and culture.