Bluegrass Messengers

Negro Folk Expression: Spirituals, Seculars, Ballads and Work Songs
by Sterling Brown
Phylon (1940-1956), Vol. 14, No. 1 (1st Qtr., 1953), pp. 45-61

Negro Folk Expression: Spirituals, Seculars, Ballads and Work Songs The Spirituals
By STERLING BROWN

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, one of the very first to pay respectful attention to the Negro spiritual, called it a startling flower growing in dark soil. Using his figure, we might think of this flower as a hybrid, as the American Negro is a hybrid. And though flowers of its family grew in Africa, Europe, and other parts of America, this hybrid bloom is uniquely beautiful.

A large amount of recent scholarship has proved that the spirituals are not African, either in music or meaning (a claim made once with partisan zeal), that the American Negro was influenced by the religious music of rural America from the Great Awakening on, that at the frontier camp meetings he found to his liking many tunes both doleful and brisk, and that he took over both tunes and texts and refashioned them more to his taste. But careful musicologists, from studying phonograph records
of folk singing rather than, as earlier, inadequate, conventional notations of "art" spirituals, are coming around to the verdict of Alan Lomax that "no amount of scholarly analysis and discussion can ever make a Negro spiritual sound like a white spiritual."

A new music, yes. But what of the poetry? Scholars have discovered that many phrases, lines, couplets, and even whole stanzas and songs, once thought to be Negro spirituals, were popular in white camp meetings. A full comparison of the words of white and Negro spirituals is out of the question here. It might be said that some of the parallels turn out to be tangents. Thus, "At his table we'll sit down, Christ will gird himself and serve us with sweet manna all around" is supposed to be the white
source of "Gwine to sit down at the welcome table, gwine to feast off milk and honey," and "To hide yourself in the mountain top, to hide yourself from God" is supposed to have become "Went down to the rocks to hide my face, the rocks cried out no hiding place." Even when single lines were identical, the Negro made telling changes in the stanza.

Briefly, the differences seem to result from a looser line, less tyrannized over by meter and rhyme, with the accent shifted unpredictably, from a more liberal use of refrains, and from imagery that is terser and starker. The improvising imagination seems freer. Some of the changes of words arose from confusion: "Paul and Silas bound in jail" has been sung: "bounded Cyrus born in jail;" and "I want to cross over into campground" has been sung as "I want to cross over in a calm time." Some of the changes, however, result from the truly poetic imagination at work on material deeply felt and pondered: "Tone de bell easy, Jesus gonna make up my dying bed." "I'll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms, when I lay dis body down." "Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus. Steal away, steal away home; I ain't got long to stay here."

Many spirituals tell of the joys of Christian fellowship. "Ain't you glad you got out de wilderness?" "I been bawn of God, no condemnation; no condemnation in my soul." "I been down in the valley; Never turn back no mo.'"

I went down in the valley to pray
My soul got happy and I stayed all day.
"Just like a tree, planted by the waters, I shall not be moved."

Belonging to the glorious company, the slaves found comfort, protection. Sinners would find no hole in the ground, but those of the true faith had "a hiding place, around the throne of God." "I got a home in that rock, don't you see?" "In God's bosom gonna be my pillow." Their souls were witnesses for their Lord. "Done done my duty; Got on my travelin' shoes." "I done crossed the separatin' line; I done left the world behind."

The world could be left behind in visions.
I've got two wings for to veil my face
I've got two wings for to fly away....

Gabriel and his trumpet caught the imagination. "Where will you be when the first trumpet sounds; sounds so loud its gonna wake up the dead?" "O My Lord, what a morning, when the stars begin to fall!" "When the sun refuse to shine, when the moon goes down in blood!" In that great getting up morning, "you see the stars a falling, the forked lightning, the coffins bursting, the righteous marching." "The blind will see, the dumb will talk; the deaf will hear; the lame will walk." This apocalyptic imagery, clear to the initiated, is a release, a flight, a message in code, frequently used by oppressed people.

Then they'll cry out for cold water
While the Christians shout in glory
Saying Amen to their damnation
Fare you well, fare you well.

It was not only to the far-off future of Revelations that the dreams turned. Heaven was a refuge too. In contrast to the shacks of slave row and the slums of the cities, to the work clothes and the unsavory victuals, would be the throne of God, the streets of gold, the harps, the robes, the milk and honey.

A-settin' down with Jesus
Eatin' honey and drinkin' wine
Marchin' round de throne
Wid Peter, James, and John....

But the dream was not always so extravagant. Heaven promised simple satisfactions, but they were of great import to the slaves. Shoes for instance, as well as a harp. Heaven meant home: "I'm gonna feast at de welcome table." Heaven meant rest: just sitting down was one of the high privileges often mentioned. And acceptance as a person: "I'm going to walk and talk with Jesus." Moreover, the Heaven of escape is not a Heaven bringing forgetfulness of the past. The River Jordan is not Lethe.

I'm gonna tell God all my troubles,
When I get home ...
I'm gonna tell him the road was rocky
When I get home.

The makers of the spirituals, looking toward heaven, found their
triumphs there. But they did not blink their eyes to the troubles here.
As the best expression of the slaves' deepest thoughts and yearnings,
they speak with convincing finality against the legend of contented
slavery. This world was not their home. "Swing low, sweet chariot,
coming for to carry me home." They never tell of joy in the "good old
days." The only joy in the spirituals is in dreams of escape.
That the spirituals were otherworldly, then, is less than half-truth.
In more exact truth, they tell of this life, of "rollin' through an unfriendly
world." "Oh, bye and bye, bye and bye, I'm going to lay down this heavy
load." "My way is cloudy." "Oh, stand the storm, it won't be long,
we'll anchor by and by." "Lord keep me from sinking down." And there
is that couplet of tragic intensity:
Don't know what my mother wants to stay here fuh,
Dis ole world ain't been no friend to huh.
Out of the workaday life came figures of speech: "Keep a-inchin'
along lak a po' inch-worm"; such a couplet as:
Better mind that sun and see how she run
And mind! Don't let her catch you wid yo' work undone.
And such an allegory: "You hear de lambs a-crying; oh, shepherd, feed-a
my sheep." Out of folk wisdom came: "Oh de ole sheep, they know de
road; young lambs gotta find de way," and "Ole Satan is like a snake in
the grass."
Sister, you better watch how you walk on the cross
Yo' foot might slip, and' yo' soul git lost.
The spirituals make an anthology of Biblical heroes and tales, from
Genesis where Adam and Eve are in the Garden, picking up leaves,
to John's calling the roll in Revelations. There are numerous gaps, of
course, and many repetitions. Certain figures are seen in an unusual
light; Paul, for instance, is generally bound in jail with Silas, to the exclusion
of the rest of his busy career. Favored heroes are Noah, chosen
of God to ride down the flood; Samson, who tore those buildings down;
Joshua, who caused the walls of Jericho to fall (when the rams' lambs'
sheephorns began to blow); Jonah, symbol of hard luck changed at last;
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and Job, the man of tribulation who still would not curse his God. These
are victors over odds. But losers, the wretched and despised, also serve
as symbols. There is Lazarus, "poor as I, don't you see?" who went to
heaven, in contrast to "Rich man Dives, who lived so well; when he died
he found a home in hell." And finally there is Blind Barnabas, whose
tormented cry found echoes in slave cabins down through the long, dark
years:
Oh de blind man stood on de road an' cried
Cried, "Lord, oh, Lord, save-a po' me!"
In telling the story of Jesus, spirituals range from the tender "Mary
had a little baby" and "Little Boy, how old are you" to the awe-inspiring
"Were You There" and "He Never Said A Mumbalin' Word." Jesus
is friend and brother, loving counselor, redeemer, Lord and King. The
Negro slave's picturing of Calvary in such lines as
Dey whupped him up de hill ...
Dey crowned his head with thorns...
Dey pierced him in de side,
An' de blood come a-twinklin' down;
But he never said a mumbalin' word;
Not a word; not a word.
belongs with the greatest Christian poetry. It fused belief and experience;
it surged up from most passionate sympathy and understanding.
Some scholars who have found parallels between the words of Negro
and white spirituals would have us believe that when the Negro sang of
freedom, he meant only what the whites meant, namely freedom from
sin. Free, individualistic whites on the make in a prospering civilization,
nursing the American dream, could well have felt their only bondage to
be that of sin, and freedom to be religious salvation. But with the drudgery,
the hardships, the auction-block, the slave-mart, the shackles, and
the lash so literally present in the Negro's experience, it is hard to imagine
why for the Negro they would remain figurative. The scholars
certainly do not make it clear, but rather take refuge in such dicta as:
"The slave did not contemplate his low condition." Are we to believe
that the slave singing "I been rebuked, I been scorned; done had a hard
time sho's you bawn," referred to his being outside of the true religion?
Ex-slaves, of course, inform us differently. The spirituals speak up
strongly for freedom not only from sin (dear as that freedom was to the
true believer) but from physical bondage. Those attacking slavery as such
had to be as rare as anti-Hitler marching songs in occupied France.
But there were oblique references. Frederick Douglass has told us of
the double-talk of the spirituals: Canaan, for instance, stood for Canada;
and over and beyond hidden satire the songs also were grapevines for
communications. Harriet Tubman, herself called the Moses of her people,
has told us that Go Down, Moses was tabu in the slave states, but the
people sang it nonetheless.
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NEGRO FOLK EXPRESSION
Fairly easy allegories identified Egypt-land with the South, Pharaoh
with the masters, the Israelites with themselves and Moses with their
leader. "So Moses smote de water and the children all passed over;
Children, ain't you glad that they drowned that sinful army?"
Oh, Mary don't you weep, don't you moan;
Pharaoh's army got drownded,
Oh, Mary, don't you weep.
Some of the references were more direct:
Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel,
And why not every man?
In the wake of the Union army and in the contraband camps spirituals of
freedom sprang up suddenly. The dry grass was ready for the quickening
flame. Some celebrated the days of Jubilo: "O Freedom; O Freedom!,
And before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave! And go home to
my Lord and be free." Some summed up slavery starkly: "No more
driver's lash for me, no more, no more.... No more peck of corn for me;
Many thousand go." "Slavery's chain done broke at last; gonna praise
God till I die." And in all likelihood old spirituals got new meanings:
"Ain't you glad you got out the wilderness?" "In That Great Gittin' Up
Morning!" "And the moon went down in blood."
The best of the spirituals are, in W. E. B. DuBois's phrase, "the sorrowsongs
of slavery." In spite of indifference and resentment from many
educated and middle class Negroes, the spirituals are still sung, circulated,
altered and created by folk Negroes. Some of the new ones,
started in the backwoods, have a crude charm; for instance Joseph and
Mary in Jersualem "to pay their poll-taxes," find the little boy Jesus in
the temple confounding with his questions the county doctor, lawyer,
and judge. Some of them mix in more recent imagery: "Death's little
black train is coming!" "If I have my ticket, Lord, can I ride?" and a
chant of death in which the refrain "Same train. Same train" is repeated
with vivid effect:
Same train took my mother.
Same train. Same train.
Some use modern inventions with strained incongruity: "Jus' call up
Central in Heaven, tell Jesus to come to the phone," and "Jesus is my
aeroplane, He holds the whole world in his hands"; and "Standing in
the Safety Zone." But there is power in some of the new phrasing:
God's got your number; He knows where you live;
Death's got a warrant for you.
Instead of college choirs, as earlier, today it is groups closer to the
folk like the Golden Gates, the Silver Echoes, the Mitchell Christian
Singers, the Coleman Brothers, the Thrasher Wonders and the Original
Harmony Kings, who carry the spirituals over the land. These groups
and soloists like the Georgia Peach, Mahalia Jackson, Marie Knight and
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, once churched for worldly ways but now re-
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deemed, are extremely popular in churches, concert halls, and on records.
They swing the spirituals, using a more pronounced rhythm and jazz
voicing (some show-groups, alas, imitate even the Mills Brothers and
the Ink Spots). Even the more sincere singers, however, fight the devil
by using what have been considered the devil's weapons. Tambourines,
cymbals, trumpets and even trombones and bass fiddles are now accepted
in some churches. The devil has no right to all that fine rhythm,
so a joyful noise is made unto the Lord with bounce and swing.
The Gospel Songs, sung "out of the book" as signs of "progress," are
displacing the spirituals among the people. These are even more heavily
influenced by jazz and the blues. One of the most popular composers
of Gospel Songs is Thomas Dorsey, who once played barrelhouse piano
under the alias of Georgia Tom. Many lovers of the older spirituals disdain
the Gospel Songs as cheap and obvious. But this new urban religious
folk music should not be dismissed too lightly. It is vigorously
alive with its own musical values, and America turns no unwilling ear
to it. And to hear some fervent congregations sing "Just a Closer Walk
With Thee," "He Knows How Much You Can Bear," and "We Sure Do
Need Him Now" can be unforgettable musical experiences. In sincerity,
musical manner, and spirit, they are probably not so remote from the
old prayer songs in the brush arbors.
Seculars and Ballads
The slaves had many other moods and concerns than the religious;
indeed some of these ran counter to the spirituals. Irreverent parodies
of religious songs, whether coming from the black-face minstrelsy or
from tough-minded cynical slaves, passed current in the quarters.
Other-worldliness was mocked: "I don't want to ride no golden chariot;
I don't want no golden crown; I want to stay down here and be, Just as
I am without one plea." "Live a humble to the Lord" was changed to
"Live a humbug." Bible stories, especially the creation, the fall of Man,
and the flood, were spoofed. "Reign, Master Jesus, reign" became "Rain,
Mosser, rain hard! Rain flour and lard and a big hog head, Down in my
back yard." After couplets of nonsense and ribaldry, slaves sang with
their fingers crossed, or hopeless in defeat: "Po' mourner, you shall be
free, when de good Lord set you free."
Even without the sacrilege, many secular songs were considered "deviltunes."
Especially so were the briskly syncopated lines which, with the
clapping of hands and the patting of feet, set the beat for swift, gay
dancing. "Juba dis, Juba dat; Juba skin a yeller cat; Juba, Juba!"
Remnants of this syncopation are today in such children's play songs as
"Did you feed my cow?" "Yes, Maam."
"Will you tell-a me how?" "Yes, Maam."
"Oh, what did you give her?" "Cawn and hay."
"Oh, what did you give her?" "Cawn and hay."
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NEGRO FOLK EXPRESSION
Verses for reels made use of the favorite animals of the fables. "Brer
Rabbit, Brer Rabbit, yo' eare mighty long; Yes, My Lord, they're put on
wrong; Every little soul gonna shine; every little soul gonna shine!"
Often power and pomp in the guise of the bullfrog and bulldog have the
tables turned on them by the sassy blue-jay and crow:
A bullfrog dressed in soldier's clothes
Went in de field to shoot some crows,
De crows smell powder and fly away,
De bullfrog mighty mad dat day.
Even the easy going ox or sheep or hog acquired characteristics:
De ole sow say to de boar
I'll tell you what let's do,
Let's go and git dat broad-axe
And die in de pig-pen too.
Die in de pig-pen fighting,
Die wid a bitin' jaw!
Unlike Stephen Foster's sweet and sad 1 songs such as "Massa's in the
Cold, Cold Ground," the folk seculars looked at slavery ironically. And
where Foster saw comic nonsense, they added satiric point. Short comments
flash us back to social reality: "Ole Master bought a yaller gal,
He bought her from the South"; "My name's Ran, I wuks in de sand,
I'd rather be a nigger dan a po' white man." Frederick Douglass remembers
his fellow slaves singing "We raise de wheat, dey gib us de corn;
We sift de meal, de gib us de huss; We peel de meat, dey gib us de skin;
An dat's de way dey take us in." 2 Grousing about food is common: "Milk
in the dairy getting mighty old, Skippers and the mice working mighty
bold.... A long-tailed rat an' a bowl of souse, Jes' come down from de
white folk's house." With robust humor, they laughed even at the dread
patrollers:
Run, nigger, run, de patterollers will ketch you
Run, nigger, run; its almost day.
Dat nigger run, dat nigger flew;
Dat nigger tore his shirt in two.
The bitterest secular begins:
My ole Mistis promise me
Fo' she died, she'd set me free;
She lived so long dat her head got bald,
And she give out de notion dyin' at all.
Ole marster also failed his promise. Then, with the sharp surprise of the
best balladry: "A dose of poison helped him along, May de devil preach
his funeral song!"
Under a certain kind of protection the new freedmen took to heart
the songs of such an abolitionist as Henry C. Work, and sang exultantly
of jubilo. They sang his lines lampooning ole master, and turned out
their own:
1 Thomas Talley, Negro Folk Rhymes (New York, 1922), p. 39.
2 Frederick Douglass, Life and Times (Hartford, Conn., 1882), p. 39.
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Missus and mosser a-walkin' de street,
Deir hands in deir pockets and nothin' to eat.
She'd better be home a-washin' up de dishes,
An' a-cleanin' up de ole man's raggitty britches. . .3
But when the protection ran out, the freedmen found the following
parody too true:
Our father, who is in heaven,
White man owe me eleven and pay me seven,
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
And if I hadn't took that, I wouldn't had none.
Toward the end of the century, there was interplay between the folkseculars
and the vaudeville stage, and the accepted stereotypes appeared.
"Ain't no use my working so hard, I got a gal in the white folks yard."
From tent shows and roving guitar players, the folks accepted such
hits as the "Bully Song" and the "coon-songs." "Bill Bailey, Won't You
Please Come Home," and "Alabama Bound" shuttled back and forth
between the folk and vaudeville. In the honky-tonks ribald songs grew
up to become standbys of the early jazz: "Make Me a Pallet on The
Floor," "Bucket Got A Hole In It," "Don't you leave me here; if you
must go, baby, leave me a dime for beer." "Jelly Roll" Morton's autobiography,
now released from the Library of Congress Archives, proves
this close connection between the rising jazz and the old folk seculars.
In the honky-tonks, songs handled sex freely, even licentiously; and
obscenity and vituperation ran rampant in songs called the "dirty dozens."
One of the heroes of secular balladry is Uncle Bud, who was noted
for his sexual prowess, a combination Don Juan and John Henry. His
song is perhaps as uncollected as it is unprintable. Appreciative tales
are told of railroading, of crack trains like The Cannon Ball and The
Dixie Flyer, and The Rock Island Line, which is praised in rattling good
verses. Such folk delights as hunting with the yipping and baying of
the hounds and the yells and cheering of the hunters are vividly recreated.
"Old Dog Blue" has been memorialized over all of his lop-eared
kindred. The greatest trailer on earth, Old Blue keeps his unerring
sense in heaven; there he treed a possum in Noah's ark. When Old Dog
Blue died,
I dug his grave wid a silver spade
I let him down wid a golden chain
And every link I called his name;
Go on Blue, you good dog, you!
The above lines illustrate a feature of Negro folksong worth remarking.
Coming from an old sea-chantey "Stormalong," their presence in a
song about a hunting dog show the folk habit of lifting what they want
and using it how they will. Like southern white groups, the Negro has
retained many of the old Scotch-English ballads. Still to be found are
Negroes singing "In London town where I was born" and going on to tell
3 Talley, op. cit., p. 97.
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NEGRO FOLK EXPRESSION
of hard-hearted Barbara Allen. John Lomax found a Negro mixing up
"Bobby Allen" with the cowboy song "The Streets of Laredo," burying
"Miss Allen in a desert of New Mexico with six pretty maidens all dressed
in white for her pallbearers."4 But Negroes hand down fairly straight
versions of "Lord Lovel," "Pretty Polly," and "The Hangman's Tree,"
which has special point for them with its repetend: "Hangman, hangman,
slack on the line." The Elizabethan broadside "The Frog Went ACourtin'"
has long been a favorite Negro lullaby. From "The Lass of
Roch Royal" two stanzas beginning "Who's gonna shoe yo' little feet"
have found their way into the ballad of John Henry. The famous Irish
racehorse Stewball reappears in Negro balladry as Skewball and Kimball.
English nonsense refrains appear in songs like "Keemo-Kimo" and "Old
Bangum." Even the Gaelic "Schule Aroon" has been found among
Negroes, though the collector unwarily surmises it to be Guinea or Ebo.
Similarly the Negro folk singer lends to and borrows from American
balladry. "Casey Jones," though about an engineer, is part of the
repertory; it has been established that a Negro engine-wiper was the
first author of it. "Frankie and Johnnie," the most widely known tragedy
in America, is attributed to both white and Negro authorship. It could
come from either; it probably comes from both; the tenderloin cuts across
both sections. Current singers continue the trading of songs: Leadbelly
sings cowboy songs, yelling "Ki-yi-yippy-yippy-yay" with his own zest;
and Josh White sings "Molly Malone" and "Randall, My Son" with telling
power. But it is in narratives of their own heroes that Negro ballad
makers have done best.
Prominent among such heroes are fugitives who outtrick and outspeed
the law. "Travelin' Man" is more of a coon-song than authentically
folk, but the hero whom the cops chased from six in the morning till
seven the next afternoon has been warmly adopted by the people. Aboard
the Titanic he spied the iceberg and dove off, and "When the old Titanic
ship went down, he was shooting crap in Liverpool." More genuine is
"Long Gone, Lost John" in which the hero outmatches the sheriff, the
police, and the bloodhounds: "The hounds ain't caught me and they
never will." Fast enough to hop the Dixie Flyer - "he missed the cowcatcher
but he caught the blind" - Lost John can even dally briefly
with a girl friend, like Brer Rabbit waiting for Brer Tortoise. But when he
travels, he goes far: "the funniest thing I ever seen, was Lost John
comin' through Bowlin' Green," but "the last time I seed him he was
jumping into Mexico."
When Lost John "doubled up his fist and knocked the police down"
his deed wins approval from the audience as much as his winged heels do.
With bitter memories and suspicion of the law, many Negroes admire outlaws.
Some are just tough killers; one is "a bad, bad man from bad, bad
4 John Lomax, Adventure of A Ballad Hunter (New York, 1947), p. 179.
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land"; another is going to start "a graveyard all of his own"; another,
Roscoe Bill, who sleeps with one ear out because of the rounders about,
reports to the judge blandly that
I didn't quite kill him, but I fixed him so dis mornin'
He won't bodder wid me no mo'
Dis mornin', dis evenin', so soon.
But the favorites, like such western desperadoes as Jesse James, Billy
the Kid, and Sam Bass, stand up against the law. Railroad Bill (an actual
outlaw of southern Alabama) "shot all the buttons off the sheriff's coat."
On the manhunt, "the policemen dressed in blue, come down the street
two by two." It took a posse to bring him in dead. Po' Lazarus also
told the deputy to his face that he had never been arrested "by no one
man, Lawd, Lawd, by no one man." Unlike his Biblical namesake in
nature, Po' Lazarus broke into the commissary. The high sheriff sent the
deputy to bring him back, dead or alive. They found him "way out between
two mountains" and they "blowed him down."
They shot Po' Lazarus, shot him with a great big number
Number 45, Lawd, Lawd, number 45.
They laid Po' Lazarus on the commissary counter, and walked away.
His mother, always worrying over the trouble she had with Lazarus,
sees the body and cries.
Dat's my only son, Lawd, Lawd, dat's my only son.
In contrast "Stackolee" ends on a hard note. At Stack's murder trial,
his lawyer pleads for mercy because his aged mother is lying very low.
The prosecutor states that
Stackolee's aged mammy
Has been dead these 'leven years.
Starting from a murder in Memphis in a dice game (some say over a
Stetson Hat), Stackolee's saga has travelled from the Ohio River to the
Brazos; in a Texas version, Stack goes to hell, challenges the devil to a
duel - pitchfork versus forty-one revolver - and then takes over the
lower world.
One of America's greatest ballads tells of John Henry. Based on
the strength and courage of an actual hammer-swinging giant, though
in spite of what folk-singers say, his hammer cannot be seen decorating
the Big Bend Tunnel on the C. & O. Road, John Henry reflects the
struggle of manual labor against the displacing machine. The ballad
starts will ill omens. Even as a boy John Henry prophesies his death at
the Big Bend Tunnel. But he stays to face it out. Pitting his brawn and
stamina against the new-fangled steam drill, John Henry says to his
captain:
A man ain't nothing but a man.
But before I'll let that steam driver beat me down
I'll die with my hammer in my hand.
The heat of the contest makes him call for water (in one variant for
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tom-cat gin). When John Henry is momentarily overcome, his woman,
Polly Ann, spelled him, hammering "like a natural man." At one crucial
point, John Henry gave "a loud and lonesome cry," saying, "A hammer'll
be the death of me." But the general tone is self confidence. John Henry
throws the hammer from his hips on down, "Great gawd amighty how
she rings!" He warns his shaker (the holder of the drill) that if ever
he misses that piece of steel, "tomorrow'll be yo' burial day." His captain,
hearing the mighty rumbling, thinks the mountain must be caving
in. John Henry says to the captain: "It's my hammer swinging in the
wind." Finally he defeats the drill, but the strain kills him. The people
gather round, but all he asks is "a cool drink of water 'fo I die." Polly
Ann swears to be true to the memory (although in another version she
turns out to be as fickle as Mrs. Casey Jones). John Henry was buried
near the railroad where
Every locomotive come a-roarin' by
Says, "There lies a steel-drivin' man, Lawd, Lawd;
There lies a steel-drivin' man."
The topical nature of American balladry is seen in "Boll Weevil,"
a ballad that grew up almost as soon as the swarm of pests descended.
"Come up from Mexico, they say."
The first time I seed the boll weevil
He was sitting on the square -
(The folk poet puns on the "square" of the cotton boll, and the familiar
southern town square.) A tough little rascal is celebrated who, when
buried in the hot sand, says "I can stand it like a man"; when put into
ice, says: "This is mighty cool and nice," and thrives and breeds right
on, until finally he can take over:
You better leave me alone
I done et up all your cotton,
And now I'll start on your corn.
The ballad has grim side glances; the boll weevil didn't leave "the
farmer's wife but one old cotton dress"; made his nest in the farmer's
"best Sunday hat"; and closed the church doors since the farmer couldn't
pay the preacher.
Oh, de Farmer say to de Merchant
I ain't made but only one bale
An' befo' I bring you dat one
I'll fight an' go to jail
I'll have a home
I'll have a home.
The stanzaic forms and general structure of "John Henry" and "The
Boll Weevil" are fairly developed. One of the best folk ballads, however,
is in the simpler, unrhymed African leader-chorus design. This is "The
Grey Goose," a ballad about a seemingly ordinary fowl who becomes a
symbol of ability to take it. It is a song done with the highest spirits;
55
PHYLON
the "Lord, Lord, Lord" of the responding chorus expressing amazement,
flattery, and good-humored respect for the tough bird:
Well, last Monday mornin'
Lord, Lord, Lord!
Well, last Monday mornin'
Lord, Lord, Lord!
They went hunting for the grey goose. When shot "Boo-loom!" the grey
goose was six weeks a-falling. Then it was six weeks a-finding, and once
in the white house, was six weeks a-picking. Even after the great featherpicking
he was six months parboiling. And then on the table, the forks
couldn't stick him; the knife couldn't cut him. So they threw him in the
hog-pen where he broke the sow's jawbone. Even in the sawmill, he
broke the saw's teeth out. He was indestructible. Last seen the grey
goose was flying across the ocean, with a long string of goslings, all going
"Quank-quink-quank." Yessir, it was one hell of a gray goose. Lord,
Lord, Lord!
Work Songs and Social Protest
More work songs come from the Negro than from any other American
folk group. Rowing the cypress dug-outs in Carolina low-country,
slaves timed their singing to the long sweep of the oars. The leader, a
sort of coxswain, chanted verse after verse; the rowers rumbled a refrain.
On the docks Negroes sang sailors' chanteys as metronomes to their heaving
and hauling. Some chanteys, like "Old Stormy," they took over from
the white seamen; others they improvised. Along the Ohio and Mississippi
waterfronts Negro roustabouts created "coonjine" songs, so-called
after the shuffling dance over bucking gang-planks in and out of steamboat
holds. Unless the rhythm was just right a roustabout and his bale
or sack of cottonseed might be jolted into the brown waters. The singers
cheered the speed of the highballing paddlewheelers: "left Baton Rouge
at half pas' one, and got to Vicksburg at settin of de sun." But they
griped over the tough captains "workin' hell out of me" and sang
Ole Roustabout ain't got no home
Makes his livin' on his shoulder bone.
For release from the timber and the heavy sacks there was always some
city around the bend - Paducah, Cairo, Memphis, Natchez, and then
Alberta let yo' hair hang low ...
I'll give you mo' gold
Than yo' apron can hold ...
Alberta let yo' hair hang low.
These songs flourished in the hey-day of the packets; today they are
nearly lost.
Another type of work song was chanted as a gang unloaded steel
rails. Since these rails weighed over a ton apiece and were over ten
yards long, any break in the rhythm of lifting them from the flat cars
to the ground was a good way to get ruptured, maimed, or killed. So a
56
NEGRO FOLK EXPRESSION
chanter was employed to time the hoisting, lowering, and the getting
away from it. He was a coach, directing the teamwork, and in selfprotection
the men had to learn his rhythmic tricks. In track-lining, a
similar chanter functioned to keep the track straight in line. As he called,
the men jammed their bars under the rails and braced in unison:
Shove it over! Hey, hey, can't you line it!
Ah shack-a-lack-a-lack-a-lack-a-lack-a-lack-alack (Grunt)
Can't you move it? Hey, hey, can't you try.5
As they caught their breath and got a new purchase, he turned off a
couplet. Then came the shouted refrain as the men strained together.
More widely spread and known are the Negro work songs whose
rhythm is timed with the swing back and down and the blow of broadaxe,
pick, hammer, or tamper. The short lines are punctuated by a grunt
as the axe bites into the wood, or the hammer finds the spike-head.
Dis ole hammer- hunh
Ring like silver- hunh (3)
Shine like gold, baby - hunh
Shine like gold - hunh.
The leader rings countless changes in his words and melody over the
unchanging rhythm. When he grows dull or forgets, another singer takes
over. The song is consecutive, fluid; it is doubtful if any one version is
ever exactly repeated. Ballads, blues, even church-songs are levied on
for lines, a simple matter since the stanzas are unrhymed. Some lines
tell of the satisfaction of doing a man's work well:
I got a rainbow - hunh
Tied 'round my shoulder- hunh- (3)
Tain't gonna rain, baby - hunh
Tain't gonna rain.
(The rainbow is the arc of the hammer as the sunlight glints on the
moving metal.) Sometimes a singer boasts of being a "sun-down man,"
who can work the sun down without breaking down himself. Lines quite
as popular, however, oppose any speed-up stretch-out system:
Dis ole hammer- hunh
Killt John Henry - hunh - (3)
Twon't kill me, baby - hunh
Twon't kill me.
Some lines get close to the blues: "Every mail day / Gits a letter /
Son, come home, baby / Son, come home." Sometimes they tell of a
hard captain (boss)
Told my captain - hunh
Hands are cold - hunh - (3)
Damn yo' hands - hunh
Let de wheelin' roll.
The new-fangled machine killed John Henry; its numerous offspring
have killed the work songs of his buddies. No hammer song could com-
5 Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (Philadelphia, 1935), p. 322.
57
PHYLON
pete now with the staccato roaring drill even if the will to sing were
there. The steamboat is coming back to the Mississippi but the winches
and cranes do not call forth the old gang choruses. A few songs connected
with work survive such as the hollers of the lonely worker in the fields
and woods, or the call boy's chant to the glory-hole.
Sleeping good, sleeping good,
Give me them covers, I wish you would.
At ease from their work in their bunkhouses, the men may sing, but
their fancies ramble from the job oftener than they stay with it. Song
as a rhythmic accompaniment to work is declining. John and Alan
Lomax, whose bag of Negro work songs is the fullest, had to go to the
penitentiaries, where labor-saving devices were not yet numerous, in
order to find the art thriving. They found lively cotton-picking songs:
A-pick a bale, a-pick a bale
Pick a bale of cotton
A-pick a bale, a-pick a bale
Pick a bale a day.6
Slower songs came from gangs that were cutting cane or chopping weeds
or hewing timber. Prison work is of course mean and tough: "You
oughta come on de Brazo in nineteen-fo'; you could find a dead man on
every turn-row." So the convicts cry out to the taskmaster sun:
Go down, 01' Hannah, doncha rise no mo'
Ef you rise any mo' bring judgment day.
They grouse about the food: ever "the same damn thing," and at that
the cook isn't clean. An old evangelical stand-by, "Let the Light of the
Lighthouse Shine On Me," becomes a hymn of hope that the Midnight
Special, a fast train, will some day bring a pardon from the governor.
They sing of their long sentences:
Ninety-nine years so jumpin' long
To be here rollin' an' cain' go home.
If women aren't to be blamed for it all, they are still to be blamed for
a great deal:
Ain't but de one thing worries my min'
My cheating woman and my great long time.
One song, like the best balladry, throws a searchlight into the darkness:
"Little boy, what'd you do for to get so long?"
Said, "I killed my rider in the high sheriff's arms."
From these men - long-termers, lifers, three-time losers - come
songs brewed in bitterness. This is not the double-talk of the slave
seculars, but the naked truth of desperate men telling what is on their
brooding minds. Only to collectors who have won their trust - such
as the Lomaxes, Lawrence Gellert and Josh White - and only when
the white captain is far enough away, do the prisoners confide these songs.
6 The Library of Congress, Music Division. Archive of American Folk Song for this and the
following quotations.
58
NEGRO FOLK EXPRESSION
Then they sing not loudly but deeply their hatred of the brutality of the
chain-gang:
If I'd a had my weight in lime
I'd a whupped dat captain, till he went stone blind.
If you don't believe my buddy's dead
Just look at that hole in my buddy's head.7
A prisoner is told: "Don't you go worryin' about forty [the years of your
sentence], Cause in five years you'll be dead."
They glorify the man who makes a crazy dare for freedom; Jimbo,
for instance, who escapes almost under the nose of his captain, described
as "a big Goliath," who walks like Samson and "totes his talker." They
boast: "Ef ah git de drop / Ah'm goin' on / Dat same good way / Dat
Jimbo's gone / Lawd, Lawd, Lawd." 8 They reenact with graphic realism
the lashing of a fellow-prisoner; the man-hunting of 01' Rattler, "fastest
and smellingest bloodhound in the South"; and the power of Black Betty,
the ugly bull-whip. They make stark drama out of the pain, and hopelessness,
and shame.
All I wants is dese cold iron shackles off my leg.
It is not only in the prison songs that there is social protest. Where
there is some protection or guaranteed secrecy other verboten songs come
to light. Coal miners, fortified by a strong, truculent union, sing grimly
of the exorbitant company stores:
What's de use of me working any more, my baby? (2)
What's de use of me working any more,
When I have to take it up at de company store,
My baby? 9
Or they use the blues idiom with a new twist:
Operator will forsake you, he'll drive you from his do'...
No matter what you do, dis union gwine to stand by you
While de union growing strong in dis land.10
And the sharecroppers sharply phrase their plight:
Go in the store and the merchant would say,
'Your mortgage is due and I'm looking for my pay.'
Down in his pocket with a tremblin' hand
'Can't pay you all but I'll pay what I can,'
Then to the telephone the merchant made a call,
They'll put you on the chain-gang, an' you don't pay at all."
Big Bill Broonzy is best known as a blues singer, but in the cotton belt
of Arkansas he learned a great deal that sank deep. His sharp "Black,
Brown, and White Blues" has the new militancy built up on the sills of
the old folksong. In an employment office, Big Bill sings. "They called
7 Josh White, Chain Gang Songs (Bridgeport, Conn., Columbia Recording Corporation), Set
C-22.
8 Willis James, "Hyah Come De Cap'n," from Brown, Davis, and Lee, The Negro Caravan
(New York, 1948), p. 469.
9 John and Alan Lomax, Our Singing Country (New York, 1941), pp. 278-288.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
59
PHYLON
everybody's number / But they never did call mine." Then working
side by side with a white man:
He was getting a dollar an hour
When I was making fifty cents.
Onto this new protest he ties an old vaudeville chorus, deepening the
irony:
If you's black, ah brother,
Git back, git back, git back.12
Such songs, together with the blues composed by Waring Cuney and
Josh White on poverty, hardship, poor housing and jim crow military
service, come from conscious propagandists, not truly folk. They make
use of the folk idiom in both text and music, however, and the folk listen
and applaud. They know very well what Josh White is talking about in
such lines as:
Great gawdamighty, folks feelin' bad
Lost everything they ever had.
Prospect
It is evident that Negro folk culture is breaking up. Where Negro
met only with Negro in the black belt the old beliefs strengthened. But
when mud traps give way to gravel roads, and black tops and even concrete
highways with buses and jalopies and trucks lumbering over them,
the world comes closer. The churches and schools, such as they are,
struggle against some of the results of isolation, and the radio plays a
part. Even in the backwoods, aerials are mounted on shanties that seem
ready to collapse from the extra weight on the roof, or from a good burst
of static against the walls. The phonograph is common, the television
set is by no means unknown, and down at the four corners store, a jukebox
gives out the latest jive. Rural folk closer to towns and cities may
on Saturday jaunts even see an occasional movie, where a rootin'-tootin'
Western gangster film introduces them to the advancements of civilization.
Newspapers, especially the Negro press, give the people a sense
of belonging to a larger world. Letters from their boys in the army,
located in all corners of the world, and the tales of the returning veterans,
true Marco Polos, also prod the inert into curiosity. Brer Rabbit
and Old Jack no longer are enough. Increasingly in the churches the
spirituals lose favor to singing out of the books or from broadsides, and
city-born blues and jive take over the jook-joints.
The migration of the folk Negro to the cities, started by the hope
for better living and schooling, and greater self-respect, quickened by
the industrial demands of two world wars is sure to be increased by the
new cotton picker and other man-displacing machines. In the city the
folk become a submerged proletariat. Leisurely yarn-spinning, slowpaced
aphoristic conversation become lost arts; jazzed-up gospel hymns
12 People's Songs, Vol. 1, No. 10 (November, 1940), 9.
60
NEGRO FOLK EXPRESSION
provide a different sort of release from the old spirituals; the blues reflect
the distortions of the new way of life. Folk arts are no longer by the
folk for the folk; smart businessmen now put them up for sale. Gospel
songs often become show-pieces for radio slummers, and the blues become
the double-talk of the dives. And yet, in spite of the commercializing,
the folk roots often show a stubborn vitality. Just as the transplanted
folk may show the old credulity, though the sophisticated impulse
sends them to an American Indian for nostrums, or for fortunetelling
to an East Indian "madame" with a turban around her head rather
than to a mammy with a bandanna around her's; so the folk for all their
disorganization may keep something of the fine quality of their old tales
and songs. Assuredly even in the new gospel songs and blues much is
retained of the phrasing and the distinctive musical manner. Finally,
it should be pointed out that even in the transplanting, a certain kind of
isolation - class and racial - remains. What may come of it, if anything,
is unpredictable, but so far the vigor of the creative impulse has not
been snapped, even in the slums.
Whatever may be the future of the folk Negro, American literature
as well as American music is the richer because of his expression. Just
as Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer were fascinated by the immense
lore of their friend Jim, American authors have been drawn to Negro
folk life and character. With varying authenticity and understanding,
Joel Chandler Harris, Du Bose Heyward, Julia Peterkin, Roark Bradford,
Marc Connelly, E. C. L. Adams, Zora Neale Hurston and Langston
Hughes have all made rewarding use of this material. Folk Negroes have
themselves bequeathed a wealth of moving song, both religious and
secular, of pithy folk-say and entertaining and wise folk-tales. They
have settled characters in the gallery of American heroes; resourceful
Brer Rabbit and Old Jack, and indomitable John Henry. They have told
their own story so well that all men should be able to hear it and understand.

---------------------------------------

E. A. McIlhenny's Black Spiritual Collection from Avery Island, Louisiana
Author(s): Wallace McKenzieSource: American Music, Vol. 8, No. 1, Music of the Nineteenth Century (Spring, 1990), pp.95-110

PWALLACEM CKENZIE
E. A. McIlhenny's Black Spiritual
Collection from Avery Island,
Louisiana
Edward Avery McIlhenny (1872-1949) was born on Avery Island in
1872, during the Reconstruction period which followed the War Between
the States (Civil War, 1861-1865). His forebears, the McIlhenny,
Marsh, and Avery families, had owned Avery Island, located on the
central Louisiana Gulf, south of New Iberia, Louisiana, since 1813.
They operated a sugar cane plantation there until 1863, when the
island was taken over by Federal troops (Union forces). From 1863 to
1865, the McIlhennys and the Averys lived in San Antonio, Texas.
Avery Island is not really an island at all, but a raised area of 2,500
acres bounded by marshland, swamp, and Bayou Petit Anse. It sits on
a monumental salt dome (sometimes called a "salt plug") eight miles
deep and six miles in circumference.' In 1868, McIlhenny's father,
Edmund, formed the Tabasco Pepper Sauce Company. E. A. McIhenny
was president of the company from 1907 to 1947, but he is best known
for his activities and interest as a naturalist. In the 1890s he established
Avery Island as a wildlife refuge. Beginning in 1892 McIlhenny created
a bird sanctuary, which he called "Bird City," at Avery Island, thereby
evidently saving the snowy egret-whose plumes were at that time
in great demand for ornamental aigrettes-from extinction.2 Later he
developed the "Jungle Gardens,"' with plants from all over the world.
"Bird City" and "Jungle Gardens" have been operated for many years
by the family as a park, referred to simply as Avery Island. "McIlhenny's
greatest energies ... were, in fact, directed to promoting wild-life management;
his many contributions range from early Arctic exploration -
Wallace McKenzie is Associate Dean of the School of Music, Louisiana State
University. His publications include writings on Webern and other twentiethcentury
composers, and on Sacred Harp music.
American Music Spring 1990
@ 1990 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
96 McKenzie
first with Captain Frederick A. Cook, and again in 1897, when he led
his own expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska-to the tamer pursuits of
writing books and articles on wildlife and botanical subjects for both
scientific journals and popular magazines."3 Most of his publications
are related to his interests in wildlife, a partial list of which includes
the following: The Wild Turkey (New York: Doubleday, 1914); Bird City
(Boston: Christopher, [1934]); The Alligator's Life History, (Boston, [1935]);
The Autobiography of an Egret (New York: Hastings House [1939]).
McIlhenny's second book, however, was a book of black spirituals,
Befo'd e WarS piritualsW: ordas ndM elodiesp, ublishedi n December1 933.4
No evidence has been found to show that McIlhenny was a trained
musician. For the book of spirituals he secured the assistance of the
New Orleans violinist, organist, and composer, Henri Wehrmann (1871-
1956). Wehrmann, son of an eminent New Orleans music publisher,
established a reputation as violin virtuoso. He also composed a large
number of works before the turn of the century; some of his settings
of Creole songs are still performed. Wehrmann also taught at both
Tulane University and Louisiana State University (1932-35).5
An extensive introduction to Befo' de War Spirituals (pp. 11-33) contains
McIlhenny's account of his family history at Avery Island, his
own experience and interest in spirituals, the singers who helped with
the collection, and the procedure followed to ensure accuracy in the
musical notation of the songs. Wehrmann's one-page "Introduction to
Music; 'B-L-A-C-K G-E-M-S' " (p. 35) stresses the authenticity of the
spirituals as he notated them. Information about the actual operation
of the project to collect the spirituals comes from these introductions
and from a news story in the New Orleans States daily newspaper of
November 30, 1930 (Sect. 3, p. 1).
Following the introductions, 120 songs are set down in piano score,
with texts of the refrains and first verses set in the music and the
remainder of the verses following each piece. The piano accompaniments
are mostly quite simple, but some have occasional chromatic
chords (mostly secondary dominants) and arpeggios foreign to the style
of the songs (see ex. 1). No performance suggestions regarding solo
and chorus appear in the book; however, refrains are labeled. A few
short phrases are marked to be spoken, and some other phrases are
notated with a single-line melody, suggesting a solo.
McIlhenny tells us in his introductions that before the War Between
the States his family owned "several hundred" slaves (p. 12). He
describes carefully the "slave village" on Avery Island, located in a
"beautiful gently sloping valley" to the east of the owner's house
(p. 12). The village was built around an open square in several rows
of small brick and cypress houses. Two of the houses remain. A church
was located just east of the village. McIlhenny describes an idyllic life
E. A. MacIlhenny's Black Spiritual Collection 97
Example 1. "King Jesus Sittin' on de Water Side," Befo' de War Spirituals,
p. 167.
I I
Air r -6 1 -
Do Lord come show me de way Do Lord come show me dc way
Du Lord curne Sliuw Inc de wvy Jcsus sittin' un de water side.
Ole shcep you knuw ~lI w~y Ole shccp yuu knuw Je v._3y
- . I l 1oI i yiof I I I - I i
!- I I tI 1 Iw!I I I I
'• - '
I l
,i[ .., .,d.1
i
J
. ,d
l
.I
t
i
i MI MM
~lIMI1.? F•
Do Lord come shunw c dc way King Je sus on de water sidc.
.00 q W
,
-
.004
,
-
-,I* -,
N " - - -. I-MV•-T- !-r- II !.. I
--"
"! I ! ! | i i I I 1 AiM MI
sheep you know dc way Ole sheep you know de %ay
I-
1 ? l
-i
I
I
ff I] 1 1
!I A1 I'
.. .
!
I
--1 ?
I A N L - ?
I
-
• ! i 104 [ I
I i
I/-A
REFRAIN (Do Lord, etc.)
Young lamb come learn de way
Young lamb come learn de way
Young lamb come learn de way
King Jesus sittin' on de water side.
for the slaves, kindly provided for, with Saturday afternoons and Sundays
off, and a genuine desire on the part of his family for their wellbeing,
a nd on the parto f the slavest o adheret o the authorityo f the
plantationo rganization(p p. 12-13).
98 McKenzie
When his parents returned to Avery Island after the war (summer
1865), they found many of the former slaves still there-free, but
without money, goods, education, or jobs. Federal troops had taken the
horses and mules, but the family found a number of "half-wild" cows
roaming the island and a large quantity of sugar cane growing among
the weeds. They broke "the cattle to plow and wagon;' harvested the
cane for seeds, and repaired the sugar mills. "In a year's time,' as
McIlhenny tells it, all were "back at work, had enough to eat and were
happy" (pp. 14-15).
As a child, McIlhenny remembers going to church with his black
"mammy" every Sunday and enjoying the singing. He maintains that
by the time he was ten (1882) he knew all their songs. Later (ca. 1930),
when he got the idea to collect the spirituals, McIlhenny could remember
only about thirty tunes and only one or two verses of each,
so he set about to find singers who could remember more. Two elderly
women were located who knew many of the old songs. Both had been
born into slavery, one on Avery Island, the other nearby, and neither
had travelled more than a few miles from their places of birth. The
older, Rebecca Elzy, brought Alberta Bradford to serve as her "tone',"
as she said, to "second" her (p. 29), a function like that described in
Slave Songs of the United States and by Southern as "basers," who in
refrains "based" the leader.6 Alberta Bradford was born on Avery Island
in September 1861. The two women were accustomed to sing the
spirituals together in their homes-not in church-and thus remembered
them well. McIlhenny and Wehrmann, who spent many days
with these two singers (p. 30), praised their voices, their memories,
and their spirit as they sang and talked about the "old songs."'
The introduction stresses the care taken to get the songs down correctly.
Many of the songs were sung over and over again before they
were notated, and "no air was considered finished until it was sung
back to the original singers and approval given as to its correctness"
(p. 33), although McIlhenny acknowledged the impossibility of notating
all of the sounds made by the singers (p. 32). The perceived value of
these efforts may be called into question by a remark in the news story
referred to above, which reported that Wehrmann expected to spend
"several months" in polishing and "getting the numbers in finished
shape!" It would be desirable to see the songs in "unpolished" condition,
but no working notes by Wehrmann or McIlhenny have been
located at this time.
Nevertheless, the resulting collection contains a real treasure of black
spirituals. A comparison of songs in Befo' de War Spirituals with those
in other major collections shows that approximately one-fourth (28) of
the spirituals in the McIlhenny collection can be found in whole or in
E. A. MacIlhenny's Black Spiritual Collection 99
part in other collections.8 These include some fairly remote connections,
in which some parts of the songs are quite different while other parts
are similar, or identical. Variables of relationship among the spirituals
in the collections were found in melody refrain and verse and also in
text refrain and verse. In addition, there are common "wandering"
couplets and phrases, and some identical titles in which text and music
differ. Only four of the spirituals in Befo' de War Spirituals appear the
same in most respects in other collections: "W'en Israel was in Egypt
Lan' " ("Go Down, Moses,"' p. 235); "Do Lord, Remember Me" (p. 82);
"Free at Las' " (p. 95); "Little David, Play on yo' Harp" (p. 172). None
appears to have been copied. Allowing for a few other tunes that have
sources in white gospel hymnody, or in secular tunes, there still remain
approximately 80 songs that are essentialy different from any located
in the body of printed black spirituals-and more that are different
in part-suggesting that, indeed, the repertory of nineteenth-century
blacks in this remote part of Louisiana was distinctive and some of it
unique. Many spirituals that are well-known today in choral arrangements,
such as "Balm in Gilead," "Good News'," "Down by the Riverside',"
"Nobody Knows de Trouble I See," "Every Time I Feel the
Spirit," "Go Tell It on the Mountain'," "Were You There?" "In-a My
Heart,"' "Michael Row the Boat Ashore'," "My Lord, What a Morning,"
and "In that Great Getting-Up Morning,"' are absent from Befo' de War
Spirituals.The collection's ill-chosen title, Befo' de War Spirituals, cannot be taken
too literally; there is no way of ascertaining that these songs were
known before the Civil War. Some, whose texts carry imagery of armies
and soldiering, probably came into existence at the time of the war;
some others, having to do with trains and freedom, probably came
later (the first train did not reach New Iberia until August 28, 1879).'
Consistent with the large body of notated spirituals, most of the
songs in Befo' de War Spirituals are in simple duple meter and in major
keys. Only five ("Baptizin'," p. 57; "I Am de Truth an' de Light',"
p. 120; "Let Us Go Down to Jerden," p. 164; "Oh Lord Answer Ma
Prayer," p. 183; "Trubble Dun Bore Me Down,"' p. 238) are notated in
triple meter. None of the five appears in other spiritual collections; they
seem mostly to be derived from another repertory. For example, "Baptizin'
" (p. 57) has the simplicity and lilt of a Sunday School song (see
ex. 2).
Eleven tunes are in minor keys. Most are pentatonic or hexatonic,
lacking the sixth degree that would denote the Dorian or Aeolian mode.
One is in the Phrygian mode: "Two Wings" (p. 233), harmonized here
in the major with the third scale degree as the lowest and final note
(see ex. 3a).
Five spirituals are in Mixolydian: "Boun' for Canaan Lan' " (p. 42);
100 McKenzie
Example 2. "Baptizin',"B efo'd e WarS piritualsp, . 57.
Bap
-
tizin' be - gin B.ip tizin' be giin. Bap - tizin' be- gin Otl,
i I~I. - lu ii
hal 1 le - lu - lilt!
"Cross-er Me Over" (p. 75); "Give-er Me Jesus W'en I Die" (p. 115);
"Jesus Rollin' in-er His Arms" (p. 150); and "W'at Harm Has Jesus
Dun?" (p. 246). "Cross-er Me Over" sounds as though it were in major
with a blue-note seventh (see ex. 3b). The Lydian mode is represented
in two versions of the same tune: "Glory an' Honor" (p. 104), and
"Praise de Lamb" (p. 202), refrain only (see ex. 3c), but both sound
like major with a flatted fifth, rather than Lydian with a sharped fourth
degree.
Three-fourths of the tunes (all but thirty-three) have refrains, usually
of four lines. Most refrains are notated at the beginning, but a few
come at the end (e.g., "Little David," p. 58 and "Sen' dem Angels Down,"
p. 216)."o Many have one-line ("tag-line") refrains recurring throughout
both the verse and the refrain proper (e.g., "All Ober dis Worl',"
p. 51; "Dry Bones Goin' t' Rise Ag'in," p. 62; "Rock-er Ma Soul," p.
196). In many songs the same music serves for both verse and refrain
(e.g., "All-er Ma Sins Are Taken Away," p. 67; "Dere's a Mighty War
in de Hebben," p. 86; "Hail John's Army Ben' Down an' Die,' p. 99).
Many others are made up of verse lines alternating with one-line
refrains throughout in a call-and-response pattern, with no refrain
proper (e.g., "Arkangel," p. 49; "Hope I Jine de Ban' " [refrain-line:
"De New Buryin' Groun' "], p. 117; "I Am de Truth an' de Light"
[refrain-line: "O Bless Gawd"], p. 120).
One other important type of music found in many of these spirituals
is the recitation verse, in which two notes a third apart (scale degrees
3-5 [mi-sol], 1-3 [do-mi], or 6-1 [la-do]) are alternated for the presentation
of the text: "Aint Dat Good News" [do-mi], (p. 59); "Been
Wash in de Blood ob de Lamb" [mi-sol], (p. 61); and "Dun Found de
Way at Las' " [do-mi], (p. 92), of which the beginning of the verse is
given in example 4.
The texts of this collection of black spirituals present a rich variety
of subjects, imagery, and phraseology. While many texts are essentially
the same as those in other collections, many others combine familiar
E. A. MacIlhenny's Black Spiritual Collection 101
Example3 . Modal melodies in Befo'd e WarS piritualsP: hrygian," Two Wings/'
p. 233; Mixolydian, "Cross-er Me Over," p. 75; Lydian, "Praise de Lamb/'
p. 292.
IM
-
I
.T--I" I '
Got two wings, to veil yo' face Two wings fcrto sail away Got
|? .. I .• ., I
I
, I =H r•
l 11 L
two wings to veil yo' face Twowings fcr to sail away.
.. .
.I
a.PI
AK' C141 1 I |
i1MM ,
Cros-cr ir o veCr, cross-er me o . ver m lo.lrt
LIrr) j49Al i 1i J ! 1 ZZZ IZ7
I
F,-a =
I
I T
.i I ?
Goin' t' cross Jcrden in-cr dit morn - in'.
3 3
(;,,r
glory an' hon-or I"raise
Je.sus Gloryan'hon.orPraiusdeLamb(,ot
and unfamiliar phrases. Biblical phrases, characters, and events completely
dominate the texts. No fewer than thirty-one biblical characters
appear in these texts, most of them more than once. As might be
expected, the name of "Jesus" is the most prominent; his name appears
twenty-three times, and there are other references to "the Lamb" and
the "Son of God." But it may be surprising to learn that the next most
prominent name in these spirituals is "Satan'," with twelve appearances
(plus another two for the "devil"). Other popular characters are "angels"
(11, excluding "Arkangel"). "Mary" (6), "John,"' writer of the
Revelation (6), and "Joshua" (5); and two pairs, "Adam-Eve" and
"David-Goliath" (each appearing in four songs).
Thirty songs have as their primary concern death and the afterlife,
102 McKenzie
Example 4. Recitation melody, "Dun Foun' de Way at Las'," Befo' de War
Spirituals,p . 92.
ad,,
; ier dc mctirn' Jun brukc, I an' you mut' part;
P4r: in b
.
Jy B t nut in min' I love yuu
i--cr
h3art
with an attendant longing for--or anticipation of--deliverance and
heaven; in many others, individual lines or verses refer to death even
though the subject of the song does not. The nature of some of the
texts is such that the concept of conversion, or redemption, is conjoined,
then mixed up, with dying and going to heaven, on the one hand, and
deliverance from bondage-a common metaphor for both-on the
other. Not too many spirituals in this collection are without phrases
connected with this aggregate of concerns. The imagery put in service
of these concerns, as pointed out above, abounds in references to
biblical places, characters, and events. Thus, some examples:
Goin to walk Jerusalem jes' like John
[147-meaning the "New Jerusalem" of heaven]
Ole Satan t'ought he had me fas'
I broke his chains an' got free at las' [164]
I 'member de day, 'Member it well
W'en Jesus plucked me out ob Hell. [203]
Ef I had wings of Nora's [Noah's] dove
I'd fly away to hebben above. [69]
Oh, w'en I git to hebben
Gwine-er walk right in,
Choose ma seat,
An'er sit right down.
[73--"Ma Lord" follows each line]
Associated with the theme-complex of redemption-deliverancefreedom-
death-heaven are several sub-thematic images common to
spirituals in general. "Crossing" the Jordan River (spelled "Jerden" in
this collection) and "reaching" Canaan-land represent redemption and
deliverance, respectively (eights songs about "Jerden"). Several "trains"
(4) and "boats;' plus some additional "tickets" (p. 180), carry the sense
E. A. MacIlhenny's Black Spiritual Collection 103
of a conveyance to the promised land, or away from the bondage of
sin. References to armies and soldiering, particularly notable in this
collection (twelve, not counting others simply to fighting) always signify
the army of the Lord in which the singer is to serve as a soldier.
These texts are presented in a variety of structures, some of which
are mentioned above. Four-line verses predominate, sometimes with
identical second and fourth lines. Also common are verses whose first
three lines are the same, followed by a "tag-line" refrain, which is
itself the same for all verses and sometimes for the refrain as well: "I
Can't Stay Away" (p. 133); "I'm Mos' Done Travelin' " (p. 137--tagline:
"I'm boun' to carry ma soul to ma Lord"); "Sen'-er One Angel
Down," (p. 207), which, however, has five lines-the tag-line, "sen'
him in a-hurry," is repeated. Quite a few four-line verses have no
repeated lines while following the common rhyme scheme, abcb: "I
been a Listening" (p. 126). The same verse appears also in "Rollin' in
Jesus' Arms" (p. 224, vs. 1):
One day when I was walkin'
'Long dat lonesome road
Ma Savior spoke unto me
An' He filled ma heart wit' love.
(Remote rhymes like "road" and "love" are not uncommon in this
repertory.) A few spirituals have three-line verses, and many have
longer verses with various lines repeated. In truth, the variety of text
forms at the line-by-line level is more impressive than their consistency
in structure."
Some individual lines, couplets, and verses seem surprisingly inappropriate;
some others have connotations special to the place and
time of the singers; and some are humorous.
"Been Wash in de Blood ob de Lamb" (p. 61), has a rather profane
second verse-on a recitation melody (la-do):
Sinner jump f'om de bottom ob de well,
Swor' by Gawd he's jes f'om Hell.
Don't say he didn't an' I don't say he did
But I say ef he did,
He did dam' well.
"Why Don't You Cum Along?" (p. 242) refers to gambling in verse
two:
Sinners goin' t'hell rollin' seben en leben
Why don't you cum along
In "Halleluiah to be Lamb" (p. 110) a familiar nursery rhyme is
anomalously brought into the first verse:
104 McKenzie
Sister Mary had a little Lamb, Little Lamb
It was born in Bethlehem
An' every where sister Mary went
Dat Lamb would sho'ly go.'2
The clearest reference to place, i.e., the verdant semi-tropic marshland
of Avery Island, is found in "Gospel Train" (p. 107), verse one (a tagline
refrain, "O Lord, Hallelujah;' alternates with the lines):
Dar was a camp meetin' way down in de swamp
Got so dark dat dey had to git-er lamp
De preacher he was long an' de preacher he was loud
'Long came an alligater Skered away de crowd.'3
The conditions of slavery are reflected in the next verse of this song:
Said de black bird to de crow
W'at makes de farmer hate us so
Eber since Adam an' Eve was made
Pullin up de corn am jes our trade.
The only other particular references that may suggest location in
these spirituals are references to the weather, especially to rainstorms,
so common in southern Louisiana. For example, in "Run Mo'ner Run"
(p. 213), verse four, we see:
Oh, ain't dem angels swift an' strong
Move like light'nin in Gawd's storm.
Another example is found in "Ain't Dat Good News?" (p. 59), verse
two. After two lines of normal expectation, "Gawd dun made dis
'ligion/Fer to praise His holy name,' the focus changes: "De clouds
er hangin' heavy/Dats sho de sign ob rain;' as if, whilst in the midst
of the song the singer looked up, noticed the clouds, and thought up
the rhyme. The next verse follows the theme:
One ob dese mornin'
An' it won't be long
I'll go away to hebben
An' I'm gwine in de storm.
A sense of humor, already noted above in the case of the "alligator,"'
informs a number of the spirituals in this collection. An example is
found in "Comin' Down the Line" (p. 71), verse five (a tag-line refrain,
"Ma Lord;' follows each line):
Oh, some people say
Ma religion ain't true.
T'ank Gawd a'mighty
Didn't git it f'om you.
E. A. MacIlhenny's Black Spiritual Collection 105
"Glory and Honor" (p. 104), verse two, contains another:
Some say Nora was a foolish man
Built his ark in Sinai lan'
Dun got out de notion ob dyin' at all,
Ole uncle Nora
Don't you do dat again.
The most interesting example, a veritable comedy skit--like a minstrel
olio-is in the first spiritual in the book, entitled "Adam in de Garden
Pinnin' Leaves" (p. 37). It is a dialogue between God and Eve.
Firs' time Gawd called Adam
Adam 'fused to answer
Adam in de garden la'in low.
Secon' time Gawd called Adam
Adam 'fused to answer
Adam in de garden la'in low.
Eve, Where is Adam?
Oh, Eve, Where is Adam?
Lord, Adam in de garden pinnin' leaves.
Nex' time Gawd called Adam
Gawd hollered louder
Adam in de garden pinnin' leaves.
Nex' time Gawd called Adam
Gawd hollered louder
Adam in de garden pinnin' leaves.
You Eve, can't see Adam
Oh, Eve, can't see Adam
Lord, Adam 'hin' de fig tree pinnin' leaves.
Although McIlhenny attempted to weed out all the "church hymns"
from this collection, there remain a few spirituals that show clear
derivation from familiar gospel songs as sung in both black and white
churches. Their adaptation as spirituals shows the flexibility long known
to be characteristic of spiritual creation. As an example, consider "Are
You Ready" (p. 53), which is adapted from the gospel tune by Will L.
Thompson (1847-1909), "Great Day" (see ex. 5). As in many spirituals
of this collection, the melody of the verse parrots the melody of the
refrain and thus is somewhat different from the verse of the gospel
song, except in the most characteristic phrase of measures five and six.
The refrains are really quite similar. (Of course, it is not inconceivable
that Will Thompson adapted the spiritual for his song, rather than the
other way around.)
The dynamics of adaptation and invention in the continuity of the
106 McKenzie
Example 5: A. Will L. Thompson, "There's A Great Day Coming," (transposed).
B. "Are You Ready,"B efo'd e WarS piritualsp, . 53.
h"THERE'S A GREAT DAY COMING"
Thhorrv#ta . &Y tCam-ing, A estt d"y com4ag, Theres Ag rL4ny camveig by a bv bWbt AA
"ARE YOU READY?"
a,
-s
a d yd Cm
id.- -ay , -* -W?
oh, iMs a ad
,
as ta -;i*
' y
-" -y
a
-'a
Satajd1* & ifnwir•
e
ppa t-ed jLand ftArn w read-y 4r
Matda,
fdo mea AA n p .d-y?
B
' .4
--
.. .
" -- JifJs•' Rin-n ers .t All-;in' r;ght A''f,e. Ae yes
r•ea4-y
#a d. udyoda eday? Art p ready ,
A
Are pa ,ad- y! Are yari.nd-y for he judgeae..eo day? Afe pyu rad-y ? Are ysw rad-y ?
h,. .I--aA
Are you rd- y,
a,.,A.y
hr de Juige- mer# 4 Are yeu r.ad-y, Arv
y•.urd-y
,
A
4w Aa jdguf-mNA ddy?
Br
d..d.1.-...
dI i
*,ui-y
cr 4.
jfi j
,d-vwm, l
day'
black spiritual, a process that involves reassembling of materials, which
Southern calls "refashioning,""• can be observed by comparing "Jes'
Like John" (p. 147) in this collection with "I Want to Be Ready/' as
printed in John W Work's American Negro Songs and Spirituals (see ex.
6).'~ Especially interesting in this example is the changed placement of
the pitch la (the sixth degree) in the two versions.
The adaptive process can be seen within the same repertory in Befo'
de War Spirituals. Example seven shows the melodies of "Prancing
Horses" (p. 204) and "Run Here, Jeremiah" (p. 220), the former of
E. A. MacIlhenny's Black Spiritual Collection 107
Example 6: A. "Jes' Like John/'"B efo'd e WarS piritualsp, . 147. B. "I Want to
Be Ready,"J ohn W. Work,A mericanN egro Songsa nd Spiritualsp, . 204.
"JES' LIKE JOHN"
A III
R I ce to die, .1 Waal I, ' - - dy
WenW
I come
t'
"I WANTTOB ER EADY"
I t to be rad-- y I0 we 6 -- y I is
e.
dit Sain' walk 3T--D-sa-lem jes' likAg
.
.fi'n' Walk "e - o -- &-- - /am
•Ie'
T - ru s- lem mrrn-i
- - -
J.•
ul ike . ThTt . ath - i y Walk -/ Tes - ju/si• a JibI.
•_me
m m u ,
•
..._- ? ? - ,, ? - ,,• , II •
A
which seems to be an adaptation of the latter. "Run Here, Jeremiah"
consists in reiterations of a pair of phrases (marked "a" and "b" in ex.
7), the same each time (except for repeated notes to handle the extra
syllables), whereas "Prancing Horses" consists of three different phrases
("a,' "b," and "c" in ex. 7), each varied at least once. The characteristic
opening minor third is prominent in both songs, as is the equally
characteristic minor-seventh chord arpeggio, which appears in both
songs in measures three and four, and elsewhere. The texts are evidently
two versions of a common idea, but each has its own distinctive
emphasis: the "hammer" in "Run Here, Jeremiah" and the "prancing
horses" in the other.
Example7 : A. "RunH ere Jeremiah,"B efo'd e WarS piritualsp, . 220. B. "Prancin'
Horses,"B efo'd e WarS piritualsp, . 204.
"RUN HERE JEREMIAH"
A L
Rvn h.r , J - - - m - h Ho mia oard Ru•h, er•
I - - - -
"PRANCING HORSES"-
br.-pher
ad L key Bre.-ther ?md h& MyyhY e y Lorid W,' is t cW
'
-r.'m
ov - er
A
mi - A eyA Hay hbrd _ f ia, rawdi ye' ha-mr L/od m
B
J"I, ,
1
. . . . . ..
yeo - der May Lord- y whol Jai rr
m-m 6-ver yon - der Hey m&
:F
,
A o 7rI4
RAheewr ei t's hiam-mhera y hey ard . W'y osodo wid f 1hm
w.rer
' TPr 7
.% Ja i a I -
x
- lus
#-y
In
- ae
l
/Vt d IiAe IT
e us
Ham.-mr on d htry o9bd a w• - ed, Ho my herd ma-mmr o i•t e •arf b de
F F F .
"
9gr - mend ~iay me Lord kuokIwl . eis by
9ar-,mwn1
Mda y e
_
bard.
E. A. MacIlhenny's Black Spiritual Collection 109
It seems that the singers of the spirituals in this collection were
remembering, adapting, and creating all at the same time. Befo' de War
Spirituals may be from the early nineteeth century only in the sense
that its sources, its reservoir of musical and textual impulses extend
back that far. But the collection is an honest effort to preserve a repertory
of music that McIlhenny feared was disappearing, and to preserve it
in what he felt was its authentic style. (When he uses the term "reconstructed
spirituals" to describe "spirituals as ... sung by the various
companies of 'Jubilee' singers and minstrels" [p. 25], he invests it with
as much disdain as many Southerners bring to the phrase "Reconstruction
Era.") The effort was based on McIlhenny's own memory,
stretching back fifty years, and the memories of two elderly singers,
going back even further. Their memories were not frozen in time,
however: over the years they must surely have been reinforced, reinterpeted,
reinvented, etc., as circumstances dictated. And the result is
a collection of tune and text aggregates-many in forms not found in
other collections - exemplifying the oral-tradition process.
NOTES
1. Hermann Deutsch, "The Jungle Gardens of Avery Island" (Pamphlet).
2. KathrynM organ,N atureC lassicsA: Catalogueo f the E.A . McllhennyN aturalH istory
Collection at Louisiana State University, Compiled and Edited by Anna H. Perrault (Baton
Rouge, LA: Friends of the LSU Library, 1987), xiv.
3. Ibid.
4. E. A. McIlhenny, Befo' de War Spirituals: Words and Melodies, (Boston: Christopher
Publishing House, 1933). The songs were collected in the fall of 1930 and offered to
the publisher in January 1932. The book, however, did not appear until December 1933.
Chronology of the book's production is derived from a series of letters exchanged between
January 1932 and December 1933 by E. A. McIlhenny and Arthur J. Christopher, of the
Christopher Publishing House; the letters are housed in the Louisiana Collection, Hill
Memorial Library, Louisiana State University.
5. The New GroveD ictionaryo f AmericanM usic,s .v. WehrmannH, enry W. Jr.
6. Slave Songs of in the United States, ed. William Allen et al. (New York: A. Simpson,
1867), v; and Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans, 2d ed. (New York: W W
Norton, 1983), 196.
7. Rebecca Elzy explained that the songs she sang were " 'spiritual and jubilee hymns' ":
"'de spiritual cums frum yo' spirit an' goes to de spirit an' yo' spirit prasies de Lord.
De jubliee cums frum de heart when you's happy an' you sings to de Lord how happy
you is.' " The songs in this collection are not classified according to spiritual and jubilee.
McIlhenny, Befo' de War Sprituals, 30-31.
8. The repertory of Befo' de War Spirituals was compared with those of the following
collections: William Allen, Charles Ware, and Lucy Garrison, Slave Songs of the United
States (New York: A. Simpson, 1867; repr. New York: Peter Smith, 1951 [136 songs]);
William E. Barton, Old Plantation Hymns (Boston: Lamson, Wolffe and Company, 1899;
repr. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1972 [67 songs]); Bernard Katz, The Social Implications
of Early Negro Music in the United States (New York: Arno Press and the New York
110 McKenzie
Times, 1969 [67 songs]); [Thomas P. Fenner], Religious Folk Songs of the Negro as Sung
on the Plantations, arranged by the musical directors of The Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute (Hampton, Virginia: The Institute Press, 1909 [133 songs]); Mary
Allen Grissom, The Negro Sings a New Heaven (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1930; repr. New York: Dover Publications, 1969 [45 songs]); George
Pullen Jackson,W hitea nd NegroS piritualsT, heirL ifeS pan and Kinship( New York:J .J.
Augustin, 1944; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1975 [116 songs]); James Weldon Johnson
and J. RosamondJ ohnson,T he Bookso f AmericanN egroS piritualsT: wo Volumesin One
(New York: The Viking Press, 1969, a republication of the 1925-26 editions, [122 songs]);
J. B. T.M arsh,T heS toryo f theJ ubileeS ingersw ith TheirS ongs,r ev.e d. (Boston:H oughton,
Mifflin and Company 1880, [128 songs]); John W Work, American Negro Songs and
Spirituals (New York: Bonanza Books, 1940 [230 songs]).
9. Glen R. Conrad, comp., New Iberia, Essays on the Town and Its People, 2d ed.
(Lafayette, LA: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana,
1986), 211.
10. One pair of versions ("Little David") has the refrain notated at the beginning in
one version (p. 172) and at the end of the other (p. 58). We can assume this to be the
order in which they were sung at the time the collection was made.
11. Cf. Southern, The Music of Black Americans, 188-90 for other common stanza
forms.
12. "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was written by Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879)
of Boston in 1830. Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, ed. by Iona and Peter Opie
(Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1951), 299-300.
13. This verse was not unknown to Negro Minstrelsy. It appears as the first verse of
a poem with the title, "Dey Hab a Camp Meetin,' subtitled "A Negro Hymn:' that was
found in the papers of Dan Emmett and is printed in an anthology of his works in Hans
Nathan, Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy (Norman, OK: University of
Oklahoma Press), 143.
14. Southern,T heM usic of BlackA mericans1, 76.
15. John W Work,A mericanN egroS ongsa nd Spirituals5, 0.