Checklist of Recorded Songs To July, 1940
[The three volumes are attached to this page; click to open]
THREE VOLUMES:
VOLUME I- Alphabetical List A-K
VOLUME II- Alphabetical List L-Z
VOLUME III- Index: Geographical List
The Library of Congress; Music Division
Check-list of recorded songs in the English language in the Archive of American Folk Song
to July, 1940
Alphabetical list with geographical index
Washington, D. C. 1942
FOREWORD
The songs whose titles are listed here represent part of the Archive of American Folk Song in the Division of Music in the Library of Congress. These songs were gathered in thirty-three states of our union and in certain parts of the West Indies. Many hard-working and expert folklorists cooperated in the accumulation of this material, but in the main the development of the Archive of American Folk Song represents the work of two men, John and Alan Lomax. Starting in 1933, the Lomaxes, father and son, traveled tens of thousands of miles, endured many hardships, exercised great patience and tact to win the confidence and friendship of hundreds of singers in order to bring to the Library of Congress records of the voices of the countless interesting people they met on the way. Very much still remains to be done to make our Archive truly representative of all the people, but the country owes a debt of gratitude to these two men for the excellent foundation laid for future work in this field. The evidence that this foundation is of enormous significance lies in the hundreds of pages which follow in this book. The Lomaxes received much help in their expeditions from many interested folklorists, some of whom have made important contributions to the Archive as a result of independent expeditions of their own. To these the Library wishes to take this opportunity to express its deep gratitude. They include Gordon Barnes, Mary E. Barnicle, E. C. Beals, Barbara Bell, Paul Brewster, Genevieve Chandler, Richard Chase, Fletcher Collins, Carita D. Corse, Sidney Robertson Cowell, Dr. E. K. Davis, Kay Dealy, Seamus Doyle, Charles Draves, Marjorie Edgar, John Faulk, Richard Fenton, Helen Hartness Flanders, Frank Goodwyn, Percy Grainger, Herbert Halpert, Melville Herskovitz, Zora Mealc Hurst on, Myra Hull, George Pullen Jackson, Stetson Kennedy, Bess Lomax, Elizabeth Lomax, Ruby Terrill Lomax, Eloise Linscott, Bascom L. Lunsford, Walter McClintock, Alton Morris, Juan B. Rael, Vance Randolph, Helen Roberts, Domingo Santa Cruz, Charles Seeger, Mrs. Nicol Smith, Robert Sonkin, Ruby Pickens Tartt, Joan Thomas, Charles Todd, Margaret Valliant, Ivan Walton, Irene Whitfield, John Woods and John Work.
This checklist has been prepared as a result of the countless requests for such a catalog of the contents of the Archive of American Folk Song. Its appearance at this time is indeed appropriate since it is natural for a nation at war to try to evaluate and exploit to the fullest its own cultural heritage. In our folk song may be found some of the well-springs of national feeling and many of the profoundest currents that have run through American history. A mere glance at the titles listed here will be sufficient to show the variety and complexity of the democratic life of our country. The Library hopes that this catalog will prove useful to the many who are interested in utilizing the folkloristic resources of our nation.
Harold Spivacke
Chief, Division of Music
Library of Congress
March, 1942
INTRODUCTION TO CHECKLIST
I. Composition of the List
This checklist includes all the songs and stories in English that were recorded for the Archive of American Folk Song between 1933 and August, 1940. The Archive also contains many recordings of folk songs in foreign languages which are not included in the list.
Each entry in the alphabetical index includes the title of the song, the name of the singer (s) or (and) performer (s), the place and date of the recording, the name of the collector (s) and the call number of the disk on which the song is recorded. In addition to this alphabetical listing, each title appears again in the geographical index under its proper state and county. This list does not include nearly all the American folk songs that exist, but it does include representative variants of most of the important types. The titles that appear here are those given by the singers, themselves in almost every case.
All the records in this collection were made in the field, some on very primitive types of instantaneous recording machines, others under poor acoustical conditions, many by singers or performers who were very old or whose voices were barken. Most of the songs are unaccompanied and were sung without regard for any but the singer's own local ideas of what was musically acceptable. Those who wish to order the records must not expect, therefore, either standard commercial acoustical excellence or conventionally pleasing performances. Nevertheless, for the person interested in genuine folk song, all the recordings have much that is interesting and many often possess delightful originality and considerable musical value.
II HOW TO ORDER COPIES
The records in this collection are not available for loan and cannot be sent out of the building for duplication. For this reason, a duplication service has been set up in the form of a recording laboratory in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. Such duplicates are available on order from the Archive of American Folk Song.
Most of the songs that, appear in this list are freely available for personal, non-commercial or educational use to those who wish to order copies. Those interested in using this material for commercial purposes will be referred to the interested parties- involved in the preparation of the recordings before the disks will be released from the Archive for purposes of duplication. The Library will produce copies of records in its collection available for research use but reserves the right to decline to make the duplicates requested. In order to obtain copies of any of the disks, it is necessary first to write to the Archive of American Folk Song, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C, for an estimate of the cost of duplication, giving the entire entry for each song as it appears in the alphabetical index. WARNING: All prices are subject to change without notice. All duplicates will be of glass base acetate, easily breakable, and will wear quickly if not played with a light tone arm or pick-up.
III. HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION
These records were made in the field, that is, where the singers lived or worked. Fiddlers, evangelists, cotton pickers, housewives, convicts, school children, miners, hoboes, lumber jacks, old-timers, - a cross-section of America sang into our field microphone and were recorded on- our aluminum or acetate disks. They told us stories, gave whatever songs they knew or could remember, - songs that in many cases came out of the past 50, 100 years, even 300 years ago, - songs that were made up yesterday and others which may be the folk stuff of the future. One old Irishman sang 200 Come-All-Ye ballads. One country fiddler played 100 tunes. Collectively we found that the American people have a repertory of thousands of songs
and that America is a singing country.
The field work that has gone into building our collection was made possible by the development of portable instantaneous recording equipment that would operate on a storage battery. This machine could be carried from the collector ' s automobile to the singer's home, to the church or to the scene of the work song, there to make records. John A. Lomax and I first used a machine of this sort in the summer of 1933 when we made a collecting trip through the Negro prisons of the South to record the rhythmical work songs which had been forgotten, in the main, outside the prisons. Even though the records were of aluminum and, by present standards, of poor quality, the records were so interesting that during 1934 and 1935 the Carnegie Foundation furnished funds for the continuation of this collection. John A. Lomax, with myself as an occasional assistant, traveled back and forth across the South recording the secular and religious songs of the Negroes, the traditional white folk song of the Southwest and the music of the Texas Mexicans and the Louisiana French. All those records were deposited in the Archive of American Folk Song, a section of the Music Division of the Library of Congress. A summer's trip through Georgia, Florida and to the Bahama Islands in '35 brought in another body of interesting songs and stories.
After a collecting trip to Haiti in 1936 and 1937, I was appointed Assistant in Charge of the Archive of American Folk Song and subsequently, during '37, '38 and '39, made collections in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Vermont where, in most cases, the material was collected in collaboration with local scholars such as Ivan Walton, Paul Brewster, and Helen Hartness Flanders. During this period John A. Lomax acted as folk lore editor for the Writers' Project of the WPA and in that capacity recorded much of the best material located by the local projects throughout the South. WPA field workers who contributed much to this enterprise were Ruby Pickens Tartt and Genevieve Chandler. The Joint Committee on Folk Arts of the WPA sent Herbert Halpert on an extended trip across the South in '39. This trip brought a large addition to the collection. The Florida Writers' Project under Carita Doggett Corse and the California Music Project with Sidney Robertson as supervisor sponsored important local collecting programs using material furnished by the Library of Congress and sending their records to the Archive. During the whole period John A. Lomax continued his work in the South. Reference to the geographical index will give an impression of the geographical scope of the collection.
Interest in obtaining copies of this collection of records grew steadily. At the same time other collectors at wqrk throughout the country were accumulating records and it appeared desirable for scientific purposes to draw all this material together into one central depository so that it would be subject to comparative study, safeguarded from wear and gradually made available for educational use.
Application was made to the Carnegie Foundation and in 1940 the Foundation granted funds for the construction of a recording laboratory in the Music Division of the Library of Congress for the duplication of this collection. Additional field equipment for loan to collectors outside the Library was also provided.
Since the establishment of the recording laboratory the Archive has grown rapidly through the duplication of other collections and especially because of more extensive field work. Material and (or) equipment has been loaned to John Faulk, Rosenwald Fellow at the University of Texas, Fletcher Collins, University of Worth Carolina, Charles Johnson and John Work at Fisk University, Leland B. Coon and Charles Draves, University of Wisconsin, Eloise Linscott, Boston, Mass., Vance Randolph of the Ozark Region and Seamus Doyle for recording in South America.
Through the duplication facilities of the recording laboratory, it was possible to copy the Fercy Grainger cylinders recorded in England and Denmark in the first years of this century and to duplicate many other valuable collections. On the other hand, sets of records from the Archive's files have been duplicated for the University of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, the University of California, the University of Texas, for the Pan American Union and many another institution and private individual. The entire collection has been in large part catalogued by title, place and singer and work is in progress on a system of classification.
We have made a good beginning toward the documentation of the oral tradition of the United States which will, we believe, be of great service to scientists, educators and eventually a source of pleasure and pride to the American people to whom this singing tradition belongs.'
IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This checklist and geographical index are the collaborative handiwork of the Library of Congress and the Library of Congress Project of the Works Projects Administration, ' which was a unit of the Public Activities Program of the Community Service Programs of the Works Projects Administration for the District of Columbia, sponsored by the Library of Congress. The original catalog was made by untrained workers under the supervision of Charles Seeger, B. A. Botkin, Leonard Ellenwood, Helen Bush, Francesco Bianco, Mary Nan Gamble, G'ortaam B. Muns on and G. M. White. The whole operation was under the general direction of Dr. Harold Spivacke, Chief of the Music Division. Stencils were cut by the WPA Music Project under the direction of Dr. Charles Seeger. The mimeographing was done in the Supply Office of the Library of Congress under George Morgan and the final assembling of the list was completed by the District NYA workers. To the above persons and to the many earnest and diligent workers who made this list possible, my thanks and those of the Library of Congress are due .
ALAN LOMAX
Assistant in Charge,
Archive of American Folk Song
March, 1942