Alan Lomax's "Southern Journey" 1959-1960
[Attached to this page (left hand column) are some of the recordings that have been issued from the this recording trip. Issued first were seven LPs for Atlantic, which were released as the “Southern Folk Heritage Series.” There was much music left over, however, and Lomax ultimately made an arrangement with Prestige Records to issue another series entirely – twelve LP volumes under the title “Southern Journey.” Now there's a five CD series for Global Jukebox. There's also Deep River Of Song:
The Alan Lomax Collection by Rounder Records.
Below is Alan Lomax's "Southern Journey": A Review-Essay by Joseph Hickerson in 1965]
[Global Jukebox's first releases commemorate the 50th anniversary of Lomax's "Southern Journey" in the American South, the first stereo field recordings made of traditional music. The inaugural releases are: "Wave the Ocean, Wave the Sea";"Worried Now, Won't Be Worried Long"; "I'll Meet You On That Other Shore"; and "I'll Be So Glad When the Sun Goes Down." Compiled and annotated by Nathan Salsburg, the albums feature remastered audio from transfers of the original tapes, and include considerable previously unreleased material and extensive booklets of photos and notes.
In 1959 and 1960, at the height of the Folk Revival, Alan Lomax ventured through the American South to document its still thriving vernacular musical culture. He traveled through Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina, making over 70 hours of recordings. The trip came to be known as Lomax's "Southern Journey," and its recordings were first issued for the Atlantic and Prestige labels in the early '60s.
The "Southern Journey" releases comprise five titles:
Wave The Ocean, Wave The Sea (Catalog ID: GJ1001 / UPC: 847108063731), released on December 14, 2010, features recordings of Fred McDowell, Forrest City Joe and His Three Aces, Young Brothers' Mississippi Hill Country fife and drum ensemble, work songs and field hollers from Mississippi's Parchman Farm, the Silver Leaf Quartet from Virginia's Eastern Shores, Blue Ridge musical siblings Texas Gladden and Hobart Smith, Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, the 1959 United Sacred Harp Convention, and WEUP Huntsville's Daddy Cool.
Worried Now, Won't Be Worried Long (Catalog ID: GJ1002 / UPC: 847108077318), released on December 21, 2010, collects recordings of Blue Ridge fiddler Norman Edmonds; blueswoman Rosalie Hill performing on Fred McDowell's porch; electric gospel from Ishman Williams and the William Singers; the United Sacred Harp Convention in Fyffe, Alabama; fife and drum music of the Mississippi Hill Country; the Bright Light Quartet, a group of menhaden fishermen of the Eastern Shores of Virginia; and Almeda "Granny" Riddle, the great balladress of the Ozarks.
I'll Meet You On That Other Shore (Catalog ID: GJ1003 / UPC: 847108057211), released on December 28, 2010, presents recordings of John Davis and the Georgia Sea Island Singers; Tidewater Virginia's Union Choir of the Church of God and Saints of Christ; Old Regular Baptist lining hymns from Eastern Kentucky; Ozark balladeer Neal Morris; work songs from Parchman Farm (the Mississippi State Penitentiary); octogenarian Charles Barnett on vocal and washtub; fiddler Carlos "Bookmiller" Shannon's rendition of "The Eighth of January"; Hobart Smith's performance of "Railroad Bill" - a formative influence on the 1960s Folk Revival; and one of the debut recordings of bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell.
I'll Be So Glad When The Sun Goes Down (Catalog ID: GJ1004 / UPC: 847108076212), released on January 18, 2011, collects recordings of Blue Ridge banjo legend Wade Ward alongside eighty-one-year old fiddler Charlie Higgins; Mississippi Hill Country church singers James Shorter and Viola James; early bluegrass from Hillsville, Virginia's Mountain Ramblers; John Dudley's blues from the Parchman Farm dairy camp; shape-note singing from the United Sacred Harp Convention; St. Simons' Georgia Sea Island Singers; and one of the debut recordings of bluesman Fred McDowell.
I'm Gonna Live Anyhow Until I Die (Catalog ID: GJ1005 / UPC: 847108024497), released on January 25, 2011, features Bluebird hillbilly recording artists J.E. Mainer and his Mountaineers; menhaden fishermen chanties of the Bright Light Quartet; Blue Ridge country gospel composer and bus driver E.C. Ball; Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers; Pentecostal Holiness congregational singing from Memphis; the Mississippi Hill Country dance music of the Pratcher brothers; and one of the debut recordings of bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell.]
----------------------------------
Alan Lomax's "Southern Journey": A Review-Essay
by Joseph Hickerson
Ethnomusicology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Sep., 1965), pp. 313-322
ALAN LOMAX'S "SOUTHERN JOURNEY": A REVIEW-ESSAY
Joseph Hickerson
In 1959, Alan Lomax made an extensive collecting trip through Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky. A portion of the recordings made on this trip appeared in 1960 as the seven volume Atlantic record set, # HS 1, SOUTHERN FOLK HERITAGE. More recently, Prestige Records, Inc., released twelve additional albums in its International Documentary Series: #l's Int 25001-25012, SOUTHERN JOURNEY (edited by Carlo Rotolo, produced by Kenneth S. Goldstein, notes by Lomax). This series employs materials from the same 1959 collection, together with some recordings made in Virginia and Georgia in 1960. The notes, both external and internal to the jackets, are by Lomax, as are the majority of photographs. During the original "journey," Lomax was assisted by Shirley Elizabeth Collins; Anne Lomax provided the assistance for the 1960 venture. The Prestige series was edited with the assistance of Carlo Rotolo and was produced by Kenneth S. Goldstein. Most of the songs are copyrighted by Lochrae Music, Inc. This review will feature comments on each individual album of the Prestige series, followed by some general remarks on the collection as a whole.
Int 25001 and 25002, GEORGIA SEA ISLANDS, Volumes I and II, document the consciously retained repertoire and musical styles of a group of Negro singers from St. Simon's Island, augmented by Bessie Jones, a native of northern Georgia. The group is a derivative of the "Spiritual Singers of Georgia" which Mrs. Maxfield Parrish instigated around 1915. "This group was led by the older people, who constantly instructed the members in the oldest and finest style of singing and dancing. The chorus performed for the visitors and tourists who had by then begun to stream into St. Simon's...." (from the jacket notes of Int 25001). Among the present singers, at least two, Willis Proctor and Henry Morrison, were members of the original group.
These recordings were made on three separate occasions. In 1959, Lomax recorded eight singers on the island. In 1960, he rerecorded five of them. Later that year, he gathered three of them and two others in Williamsburg, Virginia, for a film on Colonial music. This last group of five was then joined by Nat Rahmings, a drummer from the Bahamas, and Ed Young, a cane fife player from northern Mississippi; these accompanists can be heard in four selections on these two recordings. In addition, Hobart Smith, a versatile white singer and instrumentalist from Virginia, was obtained to accompany the group on a 4-string fretless banjo (fashioned for the film by Frank Proffitt of Vilas, North Carolina). On these two recordings, Smith provides banjo accompaniments on two selections and guitar backing on one. There are no other instruments used; the singers themselves provide clapping for the shouts and two of the spirituals, as well as sticks-on-wood percussion for a dance song.
Of the songs themselves, 20 (of 29) seem to be from the Islands tradition. Of these, eight are shouts, characterized by short, quick lines and highly syncopated clapping. These shouts or "dances of praise" were once used as vehicles for dancing and combined secular and sacred textual materials. Of the nine spirituals, seven are from Mrs. Jones' north Georgia grandparents, who learned them in slavery. Only one is a solo performance: Bessie Jones' rendition of "Oh Death." There are nine work songs, five from the Islands and four from mainland work gangs. Only one, "Row the Boat, Child,' was apparently used for rowing. "Raggy Levee" and "Pay Me My Money Down" were loading chanteys; "You Got My Letter" and "The Old Tar River" were probably used for hauling. Of the four other work songs, one is from Mrs. Jones' tradition and one, "Hard Times in 01' Virginia," appears to be from early slavery days. The two volumes are rounded out by a north Georgian ring play, a dance version of "Raggy Levee," and a Georgian shoutlike song taken from the Journal of American Folklore, 42:114, 1929.
[Photographs on the two albums are of Bessie Jones, John Davis, Peter
Davis, and a group of rowers.]
Int 25003, BALLADS AND BREAKDOWNS FROM THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS, and Int 25004, BANJO SONGS, BALLADS AND REELS FROM THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS, can be considered as a two volume set containing a variety of ballad singing and instrumental styles of white musicians from Virginia and Arkansas. There are seven ballads of British origin on the first album (Child 49, 76, 155, 243, 274 and Laws M13) and three on the second (Child 79 and Laws N14 and P1B). There are, in addition, three American ballads and ballad-like pieces, three comic lyrics, a set of square dance calls, and a Negro-derived blues. Also, there are nine instrumental pieces, mainly solo fiddle and solo 5-string banjo, with two guitar-banjo-fiddle string band ensembles.
About half of the artists presented on the two discs are from the immediate vicinity of Galax, Virginia. This has become an especially well known region, due in part to the Galax Old Folk Fiddlers' Convention, which for more than twenty years has served to strengthen the musical traditions of the area and to publicize them to a wide audience. Best represented is the banjo player and fiddler, Wade Ward, of Independence, whose instrumentals have graced a Library of Congress recording and two recent Folkways Records releases. Ward, along with his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, was recorded between 1937 and 1941 by John A. and Alan Lomax and appeared with other musicians on occasional hillbilly recordings of that period. Here Ward demonstrates his clear, precise "clawhammer" techniques on the well known banjo pieces "Old Joe Clark," "Cluck Old Hen" and "The Fox Chase." He joins old-time fiddler Uncle Charlie Higgins and guitarists Bob Carpenter and Dale Poe for three lesser known pieces: "June Apple," "Piney Woods Gal" and "Uncle Charlie's Breakdown"; and for an instrumental version of "Down in the Willow Garden" (Laws F6). On the last three items, Ward departs from his melodic clawhammer technique in favor of a backing style exemplified and largely perpetuated in the late 1920's by the North Carolina string band leader, Charley Poole.
A further example of the Grayson and Carroll County instrumental styles is presented by Norman and Paul Edmonds (fiddle and guitar) and Rufus Quesinbery (banjo) on "Breaking Up Christmas." Here, as in "June Apple," the banjo and fiddle are in their more traditional roles, as joint purveyors of the melody. An additional banjo piece from the area, "Cindy" (? titled "Sally Anne"), is supplied by George Stoneman, a member of the family which produced the widely recorded hillbilly artist Ernest V. "Pop" Stoneman.
The singers from the Galax region display marked influence from hillbilly recording artists of the 1920's and 1930's. Bob Carpenter's "Burglar Man" (Laws H23) is barely removed from recorded versions. The Carter Family's vocal and guitar styles can be heard in Ruby Vass's "Banks of the Ohio" (Laws FS). Apparently the Vass and Carter families were closely associated
through the years, and Ruby, especially, carries on many songs of the widely recorded Carters. The guitar-mandolin accompaniment styles of the Shelton Brothers, the Monroe Brothers and the Blue Sky Boys are evident in Spencer Moore and
Roy Everett Birns' rendition of "The Girl I Left Behind" (Laws P1B), a ballad found on several hillbilly recordings under such titles as "The Roving Cowboy" and "Maggie Walker Blues." Their instrumental "breaks" show the affinity of the tune to the bluegrass piece, "Pike County Breakdown." Estil C. Ball's singing and especially guitar playing are likewise very much influenced by the hillbilly tradition, as can readily be discerned by comparing his recent recordings with those made for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song in the early 1940's. Ball here sings only "Poor Ellen Smith" (Laws Fll) but is much better represented, with his wife and gospel quartet, on the Atlantic series.
From neighboring Smyth County come six songs by the late Hobart Smith. Smith is eclectic in his variegated approach to instruments and songs. He sings and plays guitar on the Negro "Graveyard Blues," a local balladlike piece "Parson Burrs," an up-tempoed Child ballad "The Little Schoolboy" (49), and the hillbilly piece "Peg and Awl," with his fiddle doubling the vocal melodic line. Smith's "Drunken Hiccups" ("Rye Whiskey") is quite similar to Fiddlin' John Carson's late 1920's commercial release of the song. Finally, he bangs out a uniquely styled "Fly Around My Blue-Eyed Gal" on the piano. Hobart Smith has been commercially recorded before, both on Library of Congress recordings and on a Disc 78 RPM album in the 1940's. His sister,
Texas Gladden, who has been heralded by many as one of the finest traditional ballad singers in America, is also well represented on the earlier releases, but appears only twice on the present set, here with a rendition of "The Three Little Babes" (Child 7a). We wonder whether the secular repertoire of Texas Gladden, as that of the E. C. Balls, has become largely inoperative in favor of religious pieces. This might be due to a loss of the cultural situation in which the secular songs were once performed. Certainly, the churches have provided numerous opportunities for singers to maintain their traditional song styles through religious singing.
Over the border in North Carolina, Lomax recorded the family musical aggregation of J. E. Mainer, who recorded extensively in the 1930's, both with his own string band and with his brother Wade. Mainer, represented by several selections on the Atlantic set, here gives a standard hillbilly treatment to "Three Nights Drunk" (Child 274), a treatment ultimately derived from the
1926 Okeh recording by Earl Johnson and his Dixie Entertainers from Georgia. The remaining items on these two albums are from five Ozark mountain musicians: Almeda Riddle, a traditional-styled ballad innovator; Neil Morris, father of commercial singer Jimmy Driftwood; Charles Everidge, a mouth bow player; Ollie Gilbert, a traditional ballad singer; and Absy Morrison, a
fiddler. Most of these people are better represented on the Ozark volume later in this series, and will be discussed in that connection. The photographs on the two albums are of Ward, Higgins, Carpenter and Smith.
Int 25005, DEEP SOUTH.. .SACRED AND SINFUL, presents a sample of Negro music from today's south. As such, it is the most widely ranging, and perhaps the most tenuous and least satisfying album of the series. All but one of the artists featured are found on other albums of the set. Side one contains secular songs: a "pop" song by the Bright Light Quartet, a lullaby sung by Library of Congress and Folkways recorded artist Vera Hall, a ring game and a loading chantey by the Georgia group, a dance tune by Miles and Bob Pratcher, guitarist and fiddler, an ax-chopping song from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Lambert, a blues by Fred McDowell, and a contemporary rhythm and blues piece by Willie Jones, Roland Hayes and Joe B. "Forest
City Joe" Pugh of Hughes, Arkansas. Of the songs on this side, "Mama's Gonna Buy" ("Come Up Horsey" or "Lap Dog Lullaby") and "Riley" have already become well known outside of their milieu through the singing and recordings of Peggy Seeger and Leadbelly. Side two covers religious material. TheSt. Simon's group supplies a spiritual and a shout, the former with vocal and guitar assistance by Hobart Smith. Fred McDowell supplies guitar background in the style of Blind Willie Johnson for two songs, one by James Shorty and one by Denise and Mattie Gardner, all of Como, Mississippi. Vera Hall renders two Christmas
spirituals together with a recitation of her own version of the Christmas story, the only extensive non-musical piece on the series. The record concludes with two arranged spirituals by the Silver Leaf Quartet and the Bright Light Quartet of Virginia.
Photographs are of Ed Young (not heard on the album) and "Forest City" Joe.
Int 25006, FOLK SONGS FROM THE OZARKS, constitutes the only regionally delimited white collection in the series. The songs range from three British ballads (Child 286, Laws P14 and Q6), two local ballads, two 19th century "parlor" songs, and a religious ballad-like piece, to three banjo tunes and two fiddle melodies. Almeda Riddle renders "Merry Golden Tree,"
"Alan Bain" and "Lonesome Dove" in fine ballad singing style, with a degree of innovation rare among traditional singers. She frequently adds or alters textual and melodie lines in a fairly conscious manner, so that her ballads are more interesting and "complete" to herself and to her audience. By contrast, Ollie Gilbert's "Willow Green" is very straightforward and conservative
from the standpoint of innovation, vocal style and melodic ornamentation. Innovation is also strong in the singing of Neil Morris, father of the bynow famous "folk" singer and composer, Jimmy Driftwood. Morris sings "The Soldier and the Lady" with several textual embellishments and elaborates on a local piece, "Turnip Greens." He also contributes two moralistic pieces, "Juice of the Forbidden Fruit," and "Rock All the Babies to Sleep." His singing style is of more recent vintage then those of the two ladies, but
is certainly not as influenced by hillbilly recordings as the Virginia singers. Morris also supplies simple guitar chordings as accompaniments to his songs. Morris supplies some square dance patter to the accompaniment of Charles Everidge's mouth bow or "picking bow" on one band. Everidge (and thence Driftwood) may not be unique in their use of this instrument, ubiquitous in other parts of the world, for Lomax hints at a substantial tradition, at least in the Ozarks, as indicated by several old-timers' recollections of its use. Carlos Shannon competently frails three widespread pieces, "Buffalo Gals," "Eighth of January" and "Cotton Eye Joe" on this album, while Absy Morrison fiddles the lesser known "My Pretty Little Gal is Gone" and "Nancy's Got a Purty Dress On." Morrison, like Riddle and Morris (and Driftwood), evinces an eclectic approach to his music. While less influenced by the fiddlers' conventions and hillbilly traditions which fostered so much diffusion of repertoire and styles further east, these musicians nonetheless have sought their material from an area wider than their immediate musical communities. This seems well in keeping with the approach of the late Emma Dusenberry from Mena, Arkansas, who, during one of her several recording experiences, admitted that at one time she had set out to learn all the songs in the world. The diversity of the musical tradition resulting from such eclectic acquisition is well portrayed on this album. Charles Everidge and
Almeda Riddle are depicted on the accompanying photographs.
Int 25007, ALL DAY SINGING FROM "THE SACRED HARP," was recorded during the summer of 1959 at an all-day meeting of the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers at Fyffe. All but one of the 18 songs presented here involve the entire group: "David's Lamentation" is provided by a "Special Group" of the Singers. Each song at these gatherings is led by a number of the congregation. Thus, on this record, only two persons, Maud Quinn and Velma Johnson, lead more than one song; there are 15 song leaders in all. In addition to the songs, two brief announcements and a closing prayer are included.
The shape note hymns performed by the Alabama group are taken from
the Original Sacred Harp: 1960 Supplement (Coleman, Alabama: Sacred Harp
Publishing Co., Inc., 1960). Included are the well known pieces "Wondrous
Love," "Windham" and "Greenwich," as well as other one- to three-century
old texts by such writers and religious revivalists as William Billings, Daniel
Reed, Isaac Watts and CharlesWesley. The tunes, as has been aptly demonstrated
by George Pullen Jackson, are generally of folk origin or background,
although the specific "authors" of the musical arrangements (and
texts) are given in the hymn books. The unconventional 4-part harmonies and
fuguing arrangements, the high degree of ornamentation, and the emotionally
charged, tensely pitched vocal style are still found among these singing
groups from Georgia to Texas, and are well represented on this album.
Int 25008, THE EASTERN SHORES, presents five organized groups of
Negro singers, four from Virginia and one from the Georgia Sea Islands. The
Georgia group, described above, presents two songs, "The Titanic" (Laws
dI27; see also dD41) and "Walk, Billy Abbot." The shipwreck ballad is led
by Bessie Jones and accompanied by Hobart Smith on guitar. "Walk, Billy
Abbot" is a completely secular shout from the islands. It is sung, interestingly
enough, by "charter" members of Mrs. Parish's original singing group.
The Virginia groups include the Silver Leaf Quartet, the Bright Light
Quartet (actually a quintet), the Peerless Four (an octet), and the Belleville
Choir. The first two groups perform in the style of the professional gospel
quartets of the 1930's, a style first made popular in Virginia by the Norfolk
Jubilee Quartet and throughout the country by the Golden Gate Quartet. The
Silver Leaf group from Ark, Virginia, sings the ante-bellum narrative spiritual
"Witness for my Lord" and the recent local composition "Dark Day." The
Bright Lights are young fishermen on the famous Menhadin fishing fleets;
they present arrangements of four net hauling songs (all employing the same
melody) which were used on the fleets until recently, and two recent religious
numbers, "I'm Tired" and "Christian Automobile." Both of these groups use
guitar accompaniment.
317
HICKERSON: ALAN LOMAX'S SOUTHERN JOURNEY
The Peerless Four of Norfolk style their songs after contemporary commercial
Negro gospel groups. They are joined by various instruments including
piano and electric guitar, as well as an audience of young Negro women,
in a spiritual "I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord," a 1930's composition
by Willie Johnson of the Golden Gate Quartet, "Noah," and two current gospel
favorites, "How Could I Live" and "Trouble in My Way." The Belleville
Choir represents the tradition of Western art music arrangements of Negro
religion songs. This group, to which the last album in this series is devoted.
here renders the widely sung and commercially recorded "John the Revelator."
Photos are of singers from the Georgia and Bright Lights groups.
Int 25009, BAD MAN BALLADS, is the only album of the series limited
in terms of the content of the songs. It contains only twelve selections, eight
by white singers. The conception of "bad man" in the album is admittedly
broad. Outlaws described in ballads range from the ubiquitous "Maid Freed
From the Gallows" (Child 95), the Irish-derived and Ozark-elaborated highwayman,
"Willie Brennan" (Laws L7), and the largely New World slayer of
"Pretty Polly" (Laws P36B), to Negro bad men, "Railroad Bill" (Laws 113)
and "Po' Laz'rus" (Laws 112: two versions are given on this album, as well
as one on the first of the Georgia Sea Islands volumes). Southern Mountain
tragic figures are depicted in "Claude Allen (Laws E6) and "The Larson
Murder" (Laws F35), Lyric songs include a local Tennessee-Virginia border
piece, "Hawkins County Jail"; a hillbilly "Broken Engagement" rewrite, "Columbus
Stockade"; a Negro holler, "Dangerous Blues"; and a chain gang song,
"Early in the Mornin'." Singers on this album range from the widely represented
E. C. Ball, Bright Lights, Hobart Smith, Almeda Riddle, Spencer
Moore, Neil Morris and the J. E. Mainer family, to a group of prisoners at
the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Lambert, and Floyd Batts at the Parchman,
Mississippi, Prison.
Moore and a group of prisoners are represented in the album's two
photographs.
Int 25010, YAZOO DELTA.. BLUES AND SPIRITUALS, appears as the only regional survey in the series that approaches comprehensiveness. Here is a survey in depth of some of the secular and sacred musical traditions of a small area in northern Mississippi. In these contemporary musical forms are found several temporal substrata of Negro traditions. The ante-bellum
practice of "quill" or panpipe playing is carried on in Sid Hemphill's rendition (with Lucius Smith on drums) of "Old Devil's Dream." The white fife and drum music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries was adapted by southern and eastern Negroes, as exemplified here by Ed Young's "Jim and John" on the cane fife, accompanied by Lonnie Young, Jr. and Sr., on drums. White country dance music was widely played by Negroes and is captured here by the Pratcher Brothers' "I'm Gonna Live Anyhow 'Till I Die" on fiddle and guitar. The Negro adaptations of European children's game songs is also represented here by "Little Sally Walker," sung by three women of the area.
During the 1920's and 1930's, the Delta area produced several widely popular and prolific blues artists, including Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, K. C. Douglas, and Shiley Griffith. This blues tradition, manifested by the thousands of "Race" recordings made during that period, is represented here by non-professionals Fred McDowell ("61 Highway Blues" and "Fred McDowell's Blues") and John Dudley ("Po' Boy Blues"). Five selections on the album are from the Penitentiaries at Parchman
and Lambert. Leader-response work songs include "Stewball" (Laws Q22), "Berta Berta" and "I'm Goin' Home." This last piece appears to be one of the few recently composed numbers in an otherwise moribund tradition. Two "hollers" are also given, both from the Parchman pen. The two spiritual traditions depicted on this album are of recent provenience. The Negro Baptist congregational singing style is represented by "God's Unchanging Hand" and "Tryin' to Make Heaven My Home," both of
20th century origin. The guitar accompanied spiritual, especially employing the early and largely rudimentary "knife" or "bottleneck" techniques of Blind Willie Johnson and other recording artists of the 1920's, is represented by Fred McDowell's "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning" (the only performance repeated from the Atlantic series) and "Soon One Morning."
McDowell is pictured on the back cover, with Sid Hemphill and an accompanist in the front photo.
Int 25011, SOUTHERN WHITE SPIRITUALS, offers 14 examples of white
religious music of the Southern Mountains. Several types of white "spirituals"
are represented here, ranging from European derived hymns and song
styles to the recent hillbilly-based gospel and sacred songs. The centuriesold
"lining out" style of religious song delivery, rarely encountered in today's
Negro and white churches, is rendered by two Kentucky Regular Baptist
Church Congregations, those of Blackey and Mayking. The inveterate
hymns 'When Jesus Christ was here on Earth," "Brethren, We Meet Again,"
and "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" are lined out by Reverends George
Spangler and I. D. Black, and sung in fully ornamented rubato unison by the
mountain congregations. Quite similar ornamentation and emotional vocal
tension appears also in the two selections by the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers,
though to the strict meters and elaborate, prescribed harmonies characteristic
of these shape note hymn singing organizations. Their two songs,
"Sardinia" and "I'm On My Journey Home" originated in the 18th and 19th
centuries respectively.
In addition to these once widespread ensemble traditions of religious
singing, there has been a less common tradition of solo performance of religious
songs, a tradition which has thrived somewhat removed from the organized
churches and revival movements. The Ozark singer, Ollie Gilbert,
sings a common American "carol" or religious ballad, "The Little Family"
(Laws H7). Mrs. Texas Gladden renders the early 19th century "Hick's
Farewell." A more recent class of first person singular religious ballads is
represented here by Almeda Riddle's "I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger."
Negro influence is clearly seen in Hobart Smith's guitar and vocal styling
of "See That My Grave is Kept Clean," much in the manner of the widely
recorded Texas street musician, Blind Lemon Jefferson. Smith, with his
brother Preston and sister Mrs. Texas Gladden, also sings the Negro derived
spiritual, "When the Stars Begin to Fall." Smith's guitar playing is as much
Negro influenced as hillbilly, as is seen also in the Smith family's rendition
of a traditional Baptist hymn, "Lonely Tombs," and a modern hillbilly piece,
"Jim and Me." The vocal treatment of these songs, however, is closer to
earlier white styles.
The commercial hillbilly singers of the '20's widely perpetrated certain
styles of accompaniment and harmonization of religious songs, and groups
like the Carter Family, of Scott and Wise Counties, Virginia, introduced numerous
modern gospel and sacred numbers to the mountain people. The
319
HICKERSON: ALAN LOMAX'S SOUTHERN JOURNEY
Carter Family influence is especially strong in Ruby Vass's "Old Gospel
Ship" on this album. The most recent blossoming of this hillbilly (later
called "Country and Western") sacred song tradition has been among the
"Bluegrass" groups of the past two decades. This contemporary approach is
exemplified here by "My Lord Keeps a Record," sung by the Galax Mountain
Ramblers, a group presented more extensively on the SOUTHERN FOLK
HERITAGE series.
Pictured on the cover are the late Hobart Smith and one of the Kentucky
Baptist congregations.
The SOUTHERN JOURNEY series began with two albums by a single group, the Georgia Sea Island singers, and it terminates with another group, the Belleville A Capella Choir, on Int 25012, HONOR THE LAMB. This latter group, schooled in the century old tradition of Western fine art music arrangements of Negro spirituals, represents a faith called the Church of God and Saints of Christ, which claims that the African (and thence American) Negro people are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel. On this album, they sing the traditional "Gospel Train," together with a medley arrangement of spirituals supplied to them by Lomax. On the remainder of the album, however, they sing ten songs more recently composed and arranged by members of their church. The themes and phrases of the songs are largely traditional. Their musical arrangements, often including unsyncopated hand clapping, are learned entirely by rote, and proceed according to well established harmonic and mildly antiphonic principles, first employed by the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, and widely amplified by Negro college and church choirs since. Four members of the Belleville Choir are featured in the album's two photographs.
The SOUTHERN JOURNEY series, taken as a whole, presents certain problems to the ethnomusicologist who has occasion to use commercial "field" recordings of American white and Negro folk music. The first problem has to do with the nature of the phrases "field recordings" and "recorded in the field" prevalent on such albums. To this reviewer, such terms can mean little more than "not recorded in the studio." By no means can they be equated with the anthropologist's (and thence ethnomusicologist's) term, "field work," with its implications of hypothesis, method and technique. Lomax's "field recordings" are closer in intent to the work done by Ralph Peer and the other traveling A&R-recording men employed by the major
record companies in the 1920's and early 1930's. The result of both groups of commercial recordings has been a great deal of valuable material geared to the tastes of the market, and destined to have some (perhaps marked) effect on traditional music. But one must always realize that the recording situations involved, though not done in the studio, are generally removed
from the situations demanded by today's ethnomusicologists.
Numerous hypotheses present themselves to the mind of the ethnomusicologist
upon hearing these records: changes in style and repertoire for a
number of singers recorded recently and in the 1930's; the influence of commercial
recordings; the increased eclecticism on the part of many singers
in terms of where they learn their songs; the influence of folk festivals,
fiddler's conventions and the folksong revival; and even the changes in taste
and responsiveness of folk music collectors during that time. On the other
hand, Lomax seems mainly interested in obtaining stereophonic high fidelity recordings of the musicians, so that the lay listener and folksong enthusiast
can hear the music as it "really" is. His gauge, therefore, is the nature of
the market for his recordings. These are certainly not the gauges of the
scholar. Though certain aspects of these albums (e.g., notes, the music itself,
availability) make them somewhat useful to the ethnomusicologist, we
must understand that their main raison d'etre lies elsewhere.
Perhaps the fault of this misdirected function of the recordings (or, more
correctly, the frustration on the part of the ethnomusicologist in need of
more contextual documentation) lies not so much in these specific albums
themselves, but rather in the general trend which has been established for
the commercial releases of "authentic field" recordings. Even in the cases
where commercial companies (occasionally aided in editing by ethnomusicologists)
use materials which were obtained for purely scholarly purposes and
in a scholarly fashion, the criteria of selection for the commercial records
is generally vastly removed from the criteria of selection for a scholarly
investigation of the music. Albums programmed in this "commercial" manner,
but billed as "authentic" or "ethnic," are therefore of little use in usual
ethnomusicological investigations. These recordings certainly can be useful,
however, for purposes of demonstration and educational radio programming,
and perhaps for such summarial projects (but always in conjunction with supplementary
material) as cantometrics.
A word should be said concerning the scope of these recordings. Twelve albums and 172 songs hardly constitute a "Southern Folk Heritage"; more aptly, they may be said to highlight a "Southern Journey." The Prestige series as a whole is certainly representative, but that's as far as it goes. The individual albums themselves are quite uneven in terms of presentation of
particular regions, styles and repertoires. As might be expected from a field trip like this, the regions covered are quite limited. Excluding the four albums by specific groups, well over half of the selections are from three small regions centering around Mountain View, Arkansas; Senatobia, Mississippi; and Galax, Virginia.
Finally, a few remarks must be made concerning the notes. The 12 albums are placed in Prestige/International's "Documentary" series. This apparently means two things: 1) they are what the commercial record business currently regards as "authentic folk music" "recorded in the field," and 2) notes are included inside the album as well as on the back cover. In this
particular case, the notes inside contain brief comments (not annotations) on the individual songs, together with a transcription of their texts. The jacket
notes are attempts to define the realm set forth by the album title and the
songs. In both these functions, the notes are generally brief and minimal,
even more so than the Atlantic series (although the Atlantic fliers give no
text transcriptions).
There are certain high points in the documentation. The jacket notes for 25004 contain a fine, albeit brief, summary of the conventional folk instruments of the southern whites, and their appearance and use in the mountains. Those for 25007 are the most extensive of the series in their description of the shape note Sacred Harp singing tradition. On 25010, Lomax succinctly
outlines the temporal layers in the Negro musical culture of the Yazoo Delta region of northern Mississippi. He is also successful in suggesting similar layers in the white religious musical styles, in connection with 25011. The notes to the songs are generally quite brief. Where they are more extensive, as in 25005 and 25006, Lomax is describing the musicians in a sympathetic manner. The unevenness of the notes is further muddled (and enlivened?) by occasional hints at psychocultural undertones for particular songs (e.g., 25002A2 "Turkle Dove," 25003A3 "House Carpenter," 25006A4 "Willow Green," and 25009A4 "Hangman Tree"), as well as puzzling, completely subjective remarks like "one of those lucky recordings" (25002A1 "Moses") and
"a new piece which has the recognizable quality of a new national song"
(25005A1 "Sweet Roseanne"). Concerning this last-mentioned quality, this reviewer
failed to recognize it.
Let it be said in conclusion that Alan Lomax has long since proven himself capable of producing perfectly adequate samplings of musical cultures on commercial LP's. This series is no exception and it should be welcomed as such. It affords a readily available opportunity to sample certain aspects of the folk music of the American South. Each ethnomusicologist must now decide for what purposes such a record series is best suited, and then use it accordingly. Perhaps one day we shall begin to have truly useful commercial recordings of folk music, suitable for valuable and productive investigations into the materials and contexts of the music within the discipline of ethnomusicology.
Library of Congress