22 avsnitt • Längd: 30 min • Oregelbundet
”Been All Around This World” explores the breadth and depth of folklorist Alan Lomax’s seven decades of field recordings. From the earliest trips he made through the American South with his father, John A. Lomax, beginning in 1933, to his last documentary work in the early 1990s, the program will present seminal artists and performances alongside obscure, unidentified, and previously unheard singers and players, from around America and the world, drawn from the Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. It hosted by Nathan Salsburg, curator of the Alan Lomax Archive, alongside co-host and producer Michael Cormier-O’Leary, program coordinator at the Association for Cultural Equity, the non-profit research center and advocacy organization that Lomax founded in 1983. (Photo of Alan Lomax by Peter Figlestahler.)
The podcast Been All Around This World is created by Association for Cultural Equity. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
A survey of work songs from around the world, recorded by Alan and John A. Lomax. We narrow the definition of work song to mean specifically those sung to assist in or accompany actual jobs of work.
Visit our brand new work song exhibit here.
Playlist (links to catalog records in the Lomax Digital Archive when available):
1a Alla Boara
1b A Mezzononte en Punto
2 Walter Brown on Privileged Penitentiary
https://archive.culturalequity.org/film-and-video/american-patchwork/greenville-levee-1978
3 Levee Camp Hollers
4a Track Lining Song and Talk https://archive.culturalequity.org/node/1689
4b Dogging Steel https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/southern-us-1959-and-1960/williamson-959/dogging-steel-part-1
4c Sis Joe https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/mississippi-1933-1940/parchman-farm-833/sis-joe
5 Houston Bacon Sinking and Joining Iron https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/mississippi-delta-survey-1941-1942/clarksdale-842/sinking-rails-and-joining-iron
6a Di Yo Pa Hele https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/caribbean-1962/la-plaine-ii-662/di-yo-pa-hele-pou-nou
6b Naje Kanot-la https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/caribbean-1962/scotts-head-662/naje-kanot-la
7a Dekouwe bwa-la https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/caribbean-1962/la-plaine-ii-662/dekouwe-bwa-la
7b Clyde Maxwell wood chopping https://archive.culturalequity.org/film-and-video/american-patchwork/clyde-maxwells-wood-chopping-holler-1-1978
7c John Bray Cypress Logging
8 Winnowing songs
https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/morocco-1967/tazzarine-967/winnowing-song-i & https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/morocco-1967/tazzarine-967/winnowing-song-ii
8b Shouts on the threshing floor https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/morocco-1967/tazzarine-967/shouts-threshing-floor
8c Unidentified Threshing Song
9a I Like Picking Olives https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/spain-1952-1953/valldemossa-752/magrada-collir-oliva
9b Bentara Noa https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/spain-1952-1953/uitzi-1252/bentara-noa
9c Larre Berrian https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/spain-1952-1953/uitzi-1252/larre-berrian-i
10a Warning Cry
11b O’s Toils https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/scotland-1951-1958/garrygall-851/o-s-toil-s-ro-thoil-liom-i-i-very-much-desire
12a O’s Fhada https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/scotland-1951-1958/garrygall-651/o-s-fhada-bhuainn-anna-far-away-us-anna
Been All Around This World has a new co-host! ACE Program Coordinator and Been All Around This World producer Michael Cormier-O'Leary joins Curator Nathan Salsburg in bringing you new episodes of this podcast. We are expanding the show's format to include episodes like today's, which is a continuous mix of music, mixed in with our deeper dives. This will allow us to release content more frequently while still developing longer form explorations of material within the collection.
In the wake of the devastation recently wrought by Hurricane Beryl, today's mix is a survey of recordings Alan Lomax made on the Grenadian island of Carriacou in 1962. If you'd like to help with relief efforts, consider making a donation to support the rebuilding efforts on the island: https://www.facebook.com/share/QgA2Zg2Aph6iWFNr/
Tracklist:
The last episode of our survey of John A. and Ruby T. Lomax's 1939 Texas recordings features highlights of sacred performances in the collection.
1) Eulalia Martinez, Paola Lopez, Genoveva Lopez: Gloria a Diós en las alturas (Sugarland, Fort Bend County, Texas, April 23, 1939)
2) Gonzalo Lopez, Cleofe Lopez: Vela por tu amante (Sugarland, Fort Bend County, Texas, April 23, 1939)
3) Iron Head Baker: This Heart of Mine (Camp #4, Ramsey State Farm, Otey, Brazoria County, Texas, April 23, 1939)
4) Columbus Christopher, Wallace Chains, W.S. Harrison (Jaybird), Sylvester Jones (Texas Stavin’ Chain), Wade Bolden (Monkey): Jesus Getting Us Ready for that Great Day (Camp #4, Ramsey State Farm, Otey, Brazoria County, Texas, April 23, 1939)
5) Smith Casey & Unidentified man: When I Get Home (Dormitory, Clemens State Farm, Brazoria, Brazoria County, Texas, April 16, 1939)
6) Unidentified women: It's A Blessing Just to Call My Savior's Name (Goree State Farm for Women, Huntsville, Walker County, Texas, May 14, 1939)
7) Alvin Brown, William Brown, Terrell Conley, and Eugene Blacker: Ride on King Jesus (State Penitentiary (The Walls), Huntsville, Walker County, Texas, May 13, 1939)
8) Henry Truvillion: Ride on Mighty Rider (The Mighty Rider) (The home of Henry Truvillion, Burkeville, Newton County, Texas, May 16, 1939)
An admittedly cursory holiday mix presenting performances from our new digital release, "Songs of Christmas, New Year, and Midwinter from the Lomax Collection," available now on the Lomax Archive's Bandcamp page as well as the streaming services.
We invite you to pair this mix with our older holiday-themed episode, which features other related material (if some occasional overlap) and the complete "Sing Christmas" program. This ambitious radio broadcast was produced by Alan for the BBC on Christmas Day 1951, and featured regional Yuletide traditions transmitted via live hook-ups all across Britain.
3) Steven Wright: Jingle Bells (New York City, New York, 1950)
4) Group from Sangonera la Verde, Murcia: Rondalla (En tu puerta está la Virgen) (Monteagudo, Murcia, Región de Murcia, Spain, December 14, 1952)
5) Alice Gibbs and group: Today, Today is Christmas Day (Sint Eustatius, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, 1967)
9) Bartolomeo Angelitti - Venite Adoremus
10) Joy Bells - Jingle Bells (Gingerland, Saint George Gingerland, Nevis, Saint Kitts and Nevis, July 11, 1962)
11) Group from Positano, Campania - Capo d'anno > Tammuriata
Fiddlers, harp blowers, and guitarists recorded by John A. and Ruby T. Lomax during their 1939 Texas field-trip.
2) Lake Porter: The Lost Girl (Falfurrias, Brooks County, Texas, April 29, 1939)
3) Lake Porter: Drunken Hiccups (Falfurrias, Brooks County, Texas, April 29, 1939)
[see here for Newcomer's later Cro-Mart release of "Rye Whiskey."]
[see here for the fine Marshall Project piece on prison radio, which includes a discussion of "Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls" and the Ace Johnson photo discussed in the episode.]
Bed Music:
The Lomax Collection reflects a variety of human experience—from the sacred to the profane, from the rural to the urban, and from the public square to the domestic scene. The Lomaxes recorded lullabies all over the world, creating a record of the universality of these particularly intimate moments between parents and children. This episode gathers some of our favorite lullabies from the archive, and is part of a larger project on the subject, which includes an exhibit on the Lomax Digital Archive and a compilation pairing archival recordings with new interpretations by contemporary artists.
For information on the performers, old and new, and the songs, visit the accompanying exhibit on the Lomax Digital Archive: archive.culturalequity.org/go-to-sleepy. The compilation is available via our Bandcamp page: https://alanlomaxarchive.bandcamp.com/album/hush-the-waves-are-rolling-in-lullabies-from-the-alan-lomax-collection. This project was made possible with support from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Show Notes:
3) Carmen Martínez - Durme meu filliño (Soutoxuste, Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain, November 23, 1952)
4) María Escrihuela - Nana Nanita (Tavernes de Valldigna, Valencia, Valencia, Spain, August 5, 1952)
5) Unidentified women - Iavnana (Republic of Georga, August 1, 1964)
7) Bessie Jones - Go To Sleepy Little Baby (Saint Simons, Glynn County, Georgia, October 12, 1959)
8) Bruna Bazil - Night, Night, Night (Massacre, Saint Paul Parish, Dominica, June 24, 1962)
9) Bruna Bazil - Little Baby I Want You to Sleep (Massacre, Saint Paul Parish, Dominica, June 24, 1962)
10) Unidentified women - Cântec De Leagan (I) (Drăguș, Brașov, Transylvania, Romania, August 1, 1964)
11) Unidentified women - Cântec De Leagan (II) (Drăguș, Brașov, Transylvania, Romania, August 1, 1964)
12) Unidentified woman - Ninna Nanna (Baiardo, Imperia, October 9. 1954)
13) Natale Rotella - Ninna Nanna (Feroleto Antico, Calabria, August 5, 1954)
14) Francesca Chilona - Che Bera Sta Figghiola (Cardeto, Calabria, July 27, 1954)
15) Sidney Hemphill Carter - Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby (Probably the home of Sidney Hemphill Carter, Senatobia, Tate County, Mississippi, September 26, 1959)
Bed Music:
K.B. Singh, Harry Naran, Bully Naran, Mrs. Afrose Mohammed - Lullaby (Pasea Village, Tunapuna/Piarco, Trinidad and Tobago, May 7, 1962)
Niña de la Puebla - Alborada de villancicos (Andalucía, Spain, September 20, 1952)
An expansion of our Christmas and New Year episode of a few years back with extra tracks and more all around cheer. Links are to tracks' records in the Lomax Digital Archive. Those without them are either not Lomax recordings, or not yet included in the LDA. (If you'd like to assist in digitization/cataloging efforts to preserve and make available some of the early Lomax collections currently offline, please consider making a donation at culturalequity.org/donate, or drop us a line!) Happy Winter solstice and assorted holidays to everybody.
1. Villagers of Lagartera, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain: Ronda de Nochebuena, Christmas Eve 1952.
2. Merritt Boddie and the Marigolds Band: Christmas Machete / Noel, Gingerland, Nevis, July 1962.
3. Georgia Sea Island Singers: Yonder Come Day, Central Park, NYC, July 1965.
4. Sophie Loman Wing and group: All Night Long, St. Simons Island, Georgia, June 1935.
5. Norman Edmonds and the Old-Timers: Breaking Up Christmas, Hillsville, Virginia, August 1959.
6. Kelly Pace and group: Holy Babe, Cumins State Farm, near Gould, Arkansas, May 1939.
7. Vera Ward Hall: No Room At the Inn (song & story) / Last Month of the Year (song), Livingston, Alabama, October 1959.
8. Phil Tanner: The Gower Wassail, Columbia 372-M, 1937.
9. Jean Ritchie: Wassail song, NYC, March 1949.
10. 1959 United Sacred Harp Musical Association: Sherburne (#186), Fyffe, Alabama, September 1959
11. Alice Gibbs and friends: Today, Today Is Christmas Day, St. Eustatius, January 1967.
12. “Special group” from the 1959 United Sacred Harp Musical Association: Christmas Anthem (#225)
13. Shirley and Dolly Collins: The Moon Shines Bright, from “For As Many As Will,” Topic Records, 1978.
14. Villagers of Hío, Aragon: Buenas Entradas de Reyes, Hío, Galicia, November 1952
15. Ottavio Dogali, Giuseppe Napoli, and Giuseppe Ascani: Alla Pastorale, Cinquefrondi, Reggio Calabria, August 1, 1954.
16. Iaconelli and Arcari: La Novena di Natale, Columbia 14490, NYC, September 1929.
17. Edward King: Le Jour De L'an (New Year's Day), Baraga, Michigan, October 1938.
18: Georgia Sea Island Singers with Ed Young, Hobart Smith, and Nat Rahmings: Yonder Come Day, St. Simons Island, April 1960.
19 and beyond: “Sing Christmas and the Turn of the Year,” BBC Radio, 1957. For artists and titles see here.
Our eschatological episode of the program. Songs on final things: the end of the world, the end of time, judgement day, "when the stars begin to fall," etc.
Playlist (links to catalog records in the Lomax Digital Archive):
[Bed music] Fred McDowell: Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning
1. E.C. Ball & Lacey Richardson: Tribulations (Rugby, Virginia, August 1959) [Your host credited Orna Ball rather than her brother Lacey Richardson as E.C.'s accompanist.]
2. James Moore and friends: World Is Goin' To Destruction (At the home of Dave Roland, Sadie Beck Plantation, Arkansas, July 1942)
3. Holly Springs Sacred Harp singing: New Georgia (#534) (Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church, H.S., Georgia, June 1982)
4. Taylor-Griggs' Louisiana Melody Makers: When the Moon Drips Into the Blood (Victor Records, V-40083, Memphis, Tennessee, September 1928)
[bonus: Sampson Caldwell and J.F. "Farmer" Collett: Jesus Getting Us Ready For That Great Day (At the home of John Sizemore, Gardner, Clay Co. - not Leslie Co. as announced - Kentucky, September 1937)]
5. Hobart Smith, Preston Smith, and Texas Gladden: When the Stars Begin To Fall (Bluefield, Virginia, August 1959)
6. Belleville A Cappella Choir: My Lord, What A Morning (Church of God and Saints in Christ, Belleville, Virginia, April 1960)
7. Group of six men: An-nar (The Hellfire) (Fes, Morocco, September 1967)
8. Mrs. Ross, Rev. Cyphers, and the congregation of True Light Baptist Church: That Awful Day Will Surely Come (Dallas, Texas, February 1948)
9. (Sensational?) Friendly Brothers of Tallulah, Louisiana: Where Shall I Be When the First Trumpet Sounds (St. James Baptist Church, Canton, Mississippi, August 1978)
10. Lillie & Thelma Knox: Where Shall I Be When the First Trumpet Sounds (Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, July 1937)
11. Rev. Dickson, Ebenezer Elliott, and congregation of Indian Walk London Baptist Church: Want To Go To the Happy Land (Indian Walk, Princes Town, Trinidad, May 1962)
12. St. Vincent Spiritual Baptist congregation: On That Great Day (uploaded to YouTube by The Admiral Quow, November 2010)
13. Georgia Sea Island Singers: One of These Days (St. Simons Island, Georgia, October 1959)
(Scroll down for playlist and links to resources mentioned.)
This episode provides an introduction to the singers and sites visited by John A. Lomax in the Palmetto State between 1934 and 1940, on the occasion of...:
The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the Association for Cultural Equity, and the Charles Joyner Institute for Gullah and African
Studies at Coastal Carolina University are pleased to announce that the
entirety of John A. Lomax's historic South Carolina recordings—made between 1934 and 1940 under the aegis of the Library of Congress' Archive of Folk Song—are now freely available online via the Lomax Digital Archive. [Access the collection here.] This collaboratively produced catalog provides free access to more than 12 hours of historic audio, accompanied by extensive descriptive metadata, documenting a diversity of Black and white folk and vernacular music in the Palmetto State: spirituals, hymns, blues, lullabies, ballads, children's game songs, work songs, as well as stories and personal narratives.
John A. Lomax made several trips to South Carolina as a guest of folklorist
Genevieve W. Chandler in coastal Murrells Inlet, who introduced him to some of the renowned singers in the Gullah community there: among them Zackie Knox, Lillie Knox, and "Mom" Hagar Brown. Also representing Gullah traditions of the region in these recordings are Caesar Roper and the Wadmalaw Island singers who participated in Rosa Warren Wilson's "Plantation Echoes" program, which Lomax recorded in Columbia in 1937. White singers also contributed to the sessions at Chandler's home with children's songs, contemporary hillbilly numbers, and ballads. Lomax recorded incarcerated men and women—at the Reid Farm in rural Kershaw County; at the state penitentiary in Columbia; and in a "convict camp" in Anderson County—singing group work songs, sacred pieces, and the occasional blues. Two WPA ditch-digging crews appear in these recordings, one from the Murrells Inlet area and the other from Clemson; this latter group Lomax recorded at the home of South Carolina journalist and memoirist Ben Robertson. Only a fraction of these recordings have ever been published or otherwise made available publicly.
(The Murrells Inlet and Wadmalaw Island material was processed with the support of a National Historic Publications and Records Commission grant with Coastal Carolina University.)
Playlist (links to catalog records in the Lomax Digital Archive):
*Zackie Knox: When I’m Gone, Gone, Gone
*Lillie Knox: I Know My Time Ain't Long
*Hagar Brown: Stay In the Field
*Jonesie Mack, James Mack and Nick Robison: Corrine, Corrina
*Capitol City Laundry Quartet: Ezekiel Saw the Wheel
*Minnie Floyd: Time Enough Yet
*Mike Maybank and group: See John the Writer
*Cleve "Dynamite" Wright & Slick Owens: Ain’t No Heaven On the County Road
*D.W. White & People’s Burial Aid Choir: I’ll Be Standing at the Station
Works cited:
*Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories. U. of South Carolina Press, 2008.
*Alan Lomax's 1983 Johns Island recordings. (Perhaps strangely, Alan didn’t visit South Carolina on his 1959 and 1960 trips through the American South, although he does appear as an announcer on a Folkways LP documenting the 1964 folk festival on Johns Island that featured the singers of the Moving Star Hall - like Benjy Bligen, Bertha Pinckney, and Janie Hunter - who appear in the '83 footage. That festival was organized by Guy and Candie Carawan, who also compiled the gorgeous book “Ain't You Got A Right to the Tree of Life," consisting of narrative segments by Johns Islanders and photographs by Bob Yellin.)
*The Oxford American piece about Rosa Warren Wilson and “Plantation Echoes” has gone missing from their online archives between the recording of this episode and compiling these notes. If anyone turns up a link, please let us know!
[Bed music:]
Sid Hemphill and band: The Death March (Quitman Co., Mississippi, August 1942).
Mr. & Mrs. Boyd Hoskins: Ah, Lovely Appearance of Death (Horse Creek, Clay Co., Kentucky, October 1942)
Bessie Jones: Oh Death (St. Simons Island, Georgia, October 1959)
Nimrod Workman: O Death (Mascot, Tennessee, July 1983)
Bessie Jones tells a story of a woman enduring a night’s worth of ghostly trials (NYC, October 1961)
Sheila Kay Adams: Little Margaret (Burton Cove, Sodom Laurel, Madison Co., North Carolina, September 1982)
Unidentified woman: funeral lament (Santo Stefano di Sessanio, Abruzzo, Italy, December 1954)
Liborio Garanfa (guitar) and Giuseppe Gavita (violin and vocal) (Scanno, Abruzzo, Italy, December 1954)
Almeda Riddle: The House Carpenter (Heber Springs, Arkansas, October 1959)
Jeannie Robertson: Bonny Annie and Andrew Lammie, followed by a story of her own encounter with a spirit (London, November 1953)
Texas Gladden tells a story of her grandfather’s experience in haunted house during the Civil War (Decca Studios, NYC, 1946)
We considered including these two relevant and wonderful pieces that aren’t directly Lomax-related – enjoy them here instead:
Burl Hammons: Turkey In the Straw, learned from an apparition, as he explains. (Recorded by Carl Fleischauer and Dwight Diller at Pocahontas Co., West Virginia, April 1970. Scroll down here for audio.)
Billie Maxwell: The Haunted Hunter (Victor Records session, El Paso, Texas, July 1929. Maxwell was a native of New Mexico, living at the time in Arizona.)
August 30, 2021, is the 70-year anniversary of the 1951 Edinburgh People’s Festival Ceilidh, the seminal event that heralded and generated the Scottish Folk Revival of the 1960s. Alan Lomax was on hand to record it in the Oddfellows Hall, and thus able to preserve a document of a legendary concert that alerted the astonished urban audience to the continuing vitality of Scotland’s rich heritage of traditional song. People in the rich folk culture of the Gaelic-speaking West, or speaking the Doric accent of the North East, still held and sang their vibrant old ballads and songs of work, but the Central Belt city folk thought the songs entombed in old books. Until the Ceilidh.
This podcast presents the (near) entirety* of Alan Lomax's recordings of the event. This audio is considerably inconsistent volume-wise, as quiet singers were typically received with thunderous applause (for which Lomax kept his finger on the fader of his recording machine). And it is presented here raw (unmastered), so headphone-users, be warned! The episode functions as an audio accompaniment to the Lomax Digital Archive's new exhibit, curated by folklorist Ewan McVicar, which annotates the Ceilidh program song-by-song, and pairs more recent interpretations of those songs by revival singers in Scotland and further afield. We're pleased to say that two new recordings have been provided exclusively for the exhibit, by the fine singers Christine Kidd and Alasdair Roberts (who is also a guitarist/composer extraordinaire).
*We omit the lengthy vote of thanks given in Gaelic by the Rev. Duncan. Also, note that some performances/commentaries were truncated by tape running out, and that Lomax missed recording the introductory piping by James Burgess.
Brutality and inhumanity were central to the Southern state prison farms, in their theory and their practice, and of them all, the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman Farm was the most brutal and inhuman. Both John A. and Alan Lomax made repeated visits to Parchman, recording — under the eye of the disinterested white captains, sergeants, and warden, and the guns of the "trusty" prisoner-guards — a body of American song unmatched in its depth, dignity, and power. Folklorist and prison documentarian Bruce Jackson once said that the group work songs sung by the black inmates of the Southern penitentiary farms were means of "making it in Hell." Alan Lomax, writing in 1947, said that: "In the pen itself, we saw that the songs, quite literally kept the men alive and normal.... These songs, coming out of the filthy darkness of the pen, touched with exquisite musicality, are a testimony to the love of truth and beauty which is a universal human trait." In this episode, spurred by the ongoing horrors being reported in the Mississippi Department of Corrections in general and at Parchman in particular, we listen back over the four decades of recordings made by the four white folklorists (the Lomaxes, Herbert Halpert, and William Ferris) who took the trouble to visit the place and document the singing of its prisoners: work songs for clearing ground, felling trees, picking cotton, or breaking rocks, as well as solo field hollers, spirituals, and blues.
No one can mourn the passing of this song tradition and the system of black disenfranchisement and white supremacy that made it necessary to its singers. But, despite the 1971 class-auction lawsuit that forced federal reorganization of Parchman due to its epidemic use of "cruel and unusual punishment," it's only differently awful in 2020. In his harrowing "Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice," Michael Oshinsky provides a 1975 quote from a convict named Horace Carter, who’d been at Parchman for fifty years. What was missing in the “new” Parchman, Mr. Carter said, was “the feeling that work counted for something… awful bad as it was in most camps, that kept us tired and kept us together and made me feel better. I’m not looking to go backwards. I know the troubles at old Parchman better than any man alive. I’m 73 years old. But I look around today and see a place that makes me sad.” This episode was completed before the announcement that William Barr's Justice Department will open a civil rights investigation into conditions at Parchman. It's hard to imagine an administration with less sympathy for incarcerated people of color, but who knows, maybe, at last, Parchman Farm will be shuttered for good.
“These songs are a vivid reminder of a system of social control and forced labor that has endured in the South for centuries, and I do not believe that the pattern of Southern life can be fundamentally reshaped until what lies behind these roaring, ironic choruses is understood.” —Alan Lomax, 1958
For streaming audio of all of Alan Lomax's 1947, 1948, and 1959 Parchman Farm recordings, visit archive.culturalequity.org.
PLAYLIST:
[Bed music:] Unidentified ensemble, including Lonnie Robertson, guitar, and possibly "Black Eagle," cornet. Camp 1, April 1936.
*Frank Devine and unidentified man: In the Bye and Bye. Unidentified camp, August 1933.
*Bowlegs (real name unknown): Drink My Morning Tea. Camp 12, August 1933.
*Unidentified men: He Never Said A Mumblin' Word. Unidentified camp, August 1933.
*M.B. Barnes, Louella Dade, Passion Buckner, Alberta Turner, Bertha Riley, Lily Mallard, Christine Shannon, and Josephine Douglas: Oh Freedom. Women's camp, April 1936.
*Big Charlie Butler: Diamond Joe. Unidentified camp, March 1937.
[Bed music:] John Dudley: Cool Drink of Water Blues. Dairy camp, October 1959.
*Mattie May Thomas: Workhouse Blues. Women's camp, May 1939.
*"22" (Benny Will Richardson) and group: It Makes A Long Time Man Feel Bad. Camp B, November or December 1947. *Ervin Webb and group: I'm Goin' Home. Dairy camp, October 1959.
*Johnny Lee Moore, Henry Mason, Ed Lewis and James Carter: Tom Devil. Camp B, October 1959.
[Bed music:] James Carter and group: Poor Lazarus. Camp B, October 1959.
*Unidentified prisoners: Water Boy Drowned In the Mobile Bay. Unidentified camp, August 1968.
*Heuston Earms: Ain't Been Able to Get Home No More / interview. Camp B, October 1959.
Sacred Harp -- the four-part shape-note singing tradition long confined to the American South, but recently enjoying remarkable international popularity and participation -- fascinated and challenged Lomax for most of his career. He recorded it multiple times, trying with increasing technological sophistication to capture its indelible magic. In this episode, we survey Alan's Sacred Harp recordings and the tradition's development, ethos, and survival.
Intro: United Sacred Harp Musical Association Convention: The Bower of Prayer (#100) (Fyffe, Alabama, October 1959)
1. Allison's Sacred Harp Singers: Weeping Pilgrim (417) (Gennett 6583, Richmond, Indiana, 1928)
2. Alabama Sacred Harp Singers: Present Joys (318) (Columbia 15272, Atlanta, Georgia, 1928)
Interstitial: Martha Woodard, Mission (204) (Gadsden, Alabama, June 1982)
3. Alabama Sacred Harp Singing Convention: Ballstown (217) (Jefferson County Courthouse, Birmingham, Alabama, August 1942)
4. United Sacred Harp Musical Association Convention: The Parting Hand (62) + Hallelujah (146) + Amazing Grace (45) (Fyffe, Alabama, October 1959)
Interstitial: Martha Woodard, Murillo's Lesson (358) (Gadsden, Alabama, June 1982)
5. Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers: How Long (Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington, D.C., August 1983)
6. Holly Springs Sacred Harp Convention: Help Me to Sing (376) (Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church, H.S., Georgia, June 1982*)
7. Alan Lomax extemporizes on musico-historical dimensions of Sacred Harp, with Phil Summerlin and Buell Cobb (Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church, H.S., Georgia, June 1982)
*An egregious error of chronology was made in this episode: Lomax's last shape-note recordings were in fact of the Wiregrass singers in 1983, as the Holly Springs recording took place in the summer of 1982 and not 1983 as repeatedly stated. Apologies!
1. Sid Hemphill and band: The Carrier Line (or the Carrier song). Sledge, Mississippi, August 1942.
2. Sid Hemphill and Lucius Smith: Going Away, Won't Be Long. Senatobia, Miss., September 1959.
3. Miles and Bob Pratcher: I'm Gonna Live Anyhow Until I Die. Como, Miss., 9/59.
4. Fred McDowell with Fanny Davis and Miles Pratcher: Shake 'Em On Down. Como, 9/59.
5. Rosa Lee Hemphill Hill: Faro. Como, 9/59.
6. Sidney Hemphill Carter: Pharoah. Senatobia, 9/59.
7. Ed Young; Lonnie Young, Sr.; G.D. Young: Ida Reed aka Oree aka Little and Low. Como, 9/59.
8. R.L. Burnside: Going Down South. Coldwater, Miss., August 1967. (Recorded by George Mitchell.)
9. R.L. Burnside: Coal Black Mattie. Como, August 1978.
10. Napoleon Strickland: Shake 'Em On Down. Como, 8/78.
11. Lucius Smith: New Railroad. Sardis, Miss., 8/78.
12. Othar Turner and band: My Babe. Gravel Springs, Miss., 8/78.
The Fall 2019 season of the program will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the so-called "Southern Journey" field-recording trip and explore various regions, traditions, and performers Lomax and Collins visited and recorded. This first episode is a (highly cursory) survey.
1. Hobart Smith: Railroad Bill. Bluefield, Virginia, August 25.
2. Texas Gladden: Whole Heap of Little Horses. Salem, Virginia, August 26.
3. Charlie Higgins, Wade Ward, and Bob Carpenter: Did You Ever Seen the Devil, Uncle Joe? Galax, Virginia, August 31.
4. Fred McDowell with Fanny Davis and Miles Pratcher: Gravel Road Blues. Como, Mississippi, September 22.
5. Ed Young, Lonnie Young, Sr., and Lonnie Young, Jr.: Church I Know We Got Another Building. Como, Mississippi, September 21.
6. Ed Lewis and group (consisting of, at least, Wesley Lee Brown, Oscar Crosby, Robert Lewis, Willie Matthews, John Edmonds, Willie P. Roberts, and Henry Mason): I'll Be So Glad When the Sun Goes Down. Camp B, Parchman Farm (Mississippi State Penitentiary), September 19 or 20.
7. Vera Ward Hall: Wild Ox Moan. Livingston, Alabama, October 10.
8. Almeda Riddle: Rainbow Mid Life's Willows. Heber Springs, Arkansas, October 6 or 7.
9. Big John Davis and the Spiritual Singers of Coastal Georgia (soon to be renamed the Georgia Sea Island Singers): Moses, Don't Get Lost. St. Simons Island, Georgia, October 12.
1. Villagers of Cáceres, La Mancha: Christmas processional, Christmas Eve 1952
2. Merritt Boddie and Marigolds band: Christmas Machete, Gingerland, Nevis, July 1962
3. Norman Edmonds and the Old-Timers: Breaking Up Christmas, Hillsville, Virginia, August 1959
4. Sophie Loman Wing and group: All Night Long, St. Simons Island, Georgia, June 1935
5. Kelley Pace and prisoners: Holy Babe, Cumins State Farm, near Gould, Arkansas, 1942
6. Vera Ward Hall: No Room At the Inn / Last Month of the Year, Livingston, Alabama, October 1959
7. Phil Tanner: The Gower Wassail, Columbia Studios, London, 1937
8. Shirley and Dolly Collins: The Moon Shines Bright, from “For As Many As Will” (Topic, 1978)
9. 1959 United Sacred Harp Musical Association: Sherburne (#186), Fyffe, Alabama, September 1959
10. Villagers of Hío, Aragon: Buenas Entradas de Reyes, Hío, Galicia, November 1952
11. Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers with Hobart Smith, Nat Rahmings, and Ed Young: Yonder Come Day, St. Simons, Georgia, 1960. Preceded by 1962 discussion about the song between Jones and Antoinette Marchand.
And the complete 1957 BBC broadcast of “Sing Christmas and the Turn of the Year,” produced and hosted by Alan Lomax. Songs and performers listed here (although we have edited out Lomax's performance of "No Room At the Inn" for reasons [primarily] of file size).
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Sing-Christmas-And-The-Turn-Of-The-Year/release/6156619
Topical, protest, and resistance songs from Kentucky, Virginia, Arkansas, Trinidad by way of New York City, Oklahoma by way of California, and the Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm.
1. Sarah Ogan Gunning: I Hate the Capitalist System. NYC, November 1937.
2. Hobart Smith: Peg and Awl. Bluefield, Virginia, August 1959.
3. Big Bill Broonzy: Black, Brown and White Blues. Decca Studios, NYC, March 1947.
4. Lord Invader: Yankee Dollar. Town Hall, NYC, December 1947.
5. Woody Guthrie: Dust Bowl Refugees. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., March 1940.
6. Nimrod Workman: 42 Years. Mascot, Tennessee, July 1983.
7. Floyd Batts: Dangerous Blues. Parchman Farm Camp 11, Parchman, Mississippi, September 1959.
8. M.B. Barnes & prisoners: Oh Freedom. Parchman Farm Women's Camp, April 1936.
Songs from and/or of the sea (and one Great Lake), from Italy, Scotland, Grenada, the Georgia Sea Islands, and Lake Michigan.
1. Captain A.H. Rasmussen: interview on chanties/Amsterdam Maid (fragment). Recorded in London, 1955.
2. Daniel Aitkens & tombstone feast group: Blow the Man Down. Recorded in La Resource, Carriacou, Grenada, August 1962.
3. Big John Davis, Henry Morrison, and Georgia Sea Island Singers: Hop Along, Let’s Get Her. Recorded in St. Simons Island, Georgia, October 1959.
4. Elizabeth Austin and group: Sailing In the Boat When the Tide Runs Strong. Recorded in Old Bight, Cat Island, Bahamas, 1935.
5. Dominick Gallagher: The Gallagher Boys. Recorded at Beaver Island, Michigan, 1938.
6. Penny Morrison and group: Cha déid mi do dh’fhear gun bhàta (I’ll Not Go To A Man Without A Boat). Recorded at Balivanich, Benbecula, Scotland, June 1951.
7. Michele Ilari and fishermen: Cialomi (tuna fishing chants). Recorded off Agrigento, Sicily, Italy, June 1954.
8. Jean Glaud: Hooray Irena. Recorded in Gouyave, Carriacou, Grenada, August 1962.
9. Lomax interview with Newton Joseph, interspersed with chanteys (“Hi-Lo Boys” and “Long Time Ago”), L’Esterre, Carriacou, 1962.
The Lomaxes are well-known for the recordings they made of artists who went on to become famous and influential figures in traditional and popular music alike: Lead Belly, Bessie Jones, Woody Guthrie, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters. But there are countless wonderful singers and players in the Lomax collections about whom we know next to nothing or nothing whatsoever, and this episode focuses on some of them, with music from Memphis, Cajun Louisiana, Morocco, Sint Eustatius, Romania, and two songs from the Mississippi Delta (one by way of Detroit).
1. Unidentified woman: All Power Is In His Hands. Recorded at the Coahoma County Agricultural High School, Coahoma, Mississippi, July 1942.
2. Cecil Augusta: Crawford's Jump. Memphis, Tennessee, October 1959. [Since this episode was produced, we have discovered "Cecil Augusta" was Lomax's garbling of the name of Augustus Crowford.)
3. Sampson Pittman with Calvin Frazier: I Been Down the Circle Before. Detroit, Michigan, November 1938.
4. Unidentified: Strigaturi. Dragus, Romania, August 1964.
5. Alice Gibbs: Jerusalem Cuckoo (I Am A Donkey Driver). St. Eustatius (Statia), 1967.
6. Unidentified: Cajun mazurka. Kaplan, Louisiana, 1934.
7. Unidentified Amazigh man: Al-Hamdulillah (Thanks Be to God). Aguelmouss, Ouarzazate, Souss-Massa-Drâa, Morocco. September 1967.
Dance tunes from Arkansas, Abruzzo, the island of Dominica, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a front porch in the North Carolina Piedmont, and an excerpt from the "Dancing Around the World" episode of Alan Lomax's 1948 "Your Ballad Man" radio show.
1. Said excerpt, early 1948, Mutual Broadcasting System.
2. Edward King: Le Jour D L'an (New Years Day). Recorded in Baraga, Michigan, October 1938.
3. Neal Morris & Uncle Charlie Higgins: Wave the Ocean, Wave the Sea. Timbo, Arkansas, September 1959.
4. Sonia Carbon and group: Bo Mwen Che. Woodford Hill, Dominica, June 1962.
5. Unidentified singers with Liborio Garanfa (guitar) and Giuseppe Gavita (violin): Saltarella. Scanno, Abruzzo, Italy, December 1954.
6. Algia Mae Hinton: front porch boogie. Johnston County, North Carolina, July 1983.
A selection of songs concerning love in its vagaries, timed for Valentine's Day. Performances from Atlanta, Georgia; Cajun Louisiana; Scotland; Southwest Virginia; Turkmenistan; Eastern Kentucky, and the Arkansas Ozarks.
Playlist:
1. Blind Willie McTell: King Edward Blues. Recorded by John A. Lomax in Atlanta, Georgia, November 5, 1940.
2. Isla Cameron: Died for Love. Recorded in London, England, February 11, 1951.
3a. Ella Hoffpauir: Papier d'épingles. Recorded by John A. and Alan Lomax in New Iberia, Louisiana, August 1934.
3b. Mr. & Mrs. John Mearns: Pennyworth O' Preens. Recorded in Aberdeen, Scotland, on July 15, 1951.
3c. E.C. and Orna Ball: Paper of Pins. Recorded in Rugby, Virginia, August 30, 1959.
4. Gurbandurdy Jeng Ienov and ensemble: You Are Beautiful. Original recording date unknown; dubbed by Alan Lomax at Radio Moscow, August 1964. (Notes read: singer Mr. Gurbandury Ienov, accompanied himself on dutar, with gyjak and 2 dutars.)
5. Harvey Porter: Since You Have Disdained Me. Recorded in Salyersville, Kentucky, on October 23, 1937.
6. Almeda Riddle: The Lonesome Dove. Recorded in Greers Ferry, Arkansas, on October 6 or 7, 1959.
7. Primitiva Amado Díaz, Balbina Díaz-Jiménez, and Marcelina Díaz-Jiménez: The Wedding of Inisilla and Brilliante. Recorded in Arroyo de la Luz, Extremadura, Spain on October 4, 1952.
In the inaugural episode of "Been All Around This World" we survey Alan Lomax's seven-decade field-recording career, with music from Haiti, Ireland, Mississippi, North Carolina, and the tiny Caribbean island of Carriacou, recorded between 1937 and 1991.
Playlist:
1. Rara St. Therese: Mwen tètè (I Am Stubborn). Members unidentified. Recorded on March 27, 1937, in Carrefour Dufort, Haiti.
2. Tangle Eye (Walter Jackson) with Hard Hat (Willie Lacy), 22 (Benny Will Richardson), and Little Red: When I Went to Leland. Recorded at Parchman Farm (Mississippi State Penitentiary), Sunflower County, Mississippi, November or December 1947.
3. Margaret Barry: She Moved Through the Fair. Recorded in London, England, on November 1, 1953.
4. Georgia Sea Island Singers (Bessie Jones, John Davis, and Emma Ramsey) with Hobart Smith, Ed Young, and Nat Rahmings: That Suits Me. Recorded at St. Simons Island, Georgia, in April 1960.
5. Belton Sutherland: Blues #2. Recorded at the home of Clyde "Judas" Maxwell, Madison County, Mississippi, on September 3, 1978.
6. Sheila Kay Adams: Dinah. Recorded at the home of Dellie Chandler Norton, Sodom Laurel, Burton Cove, Madison County, North Carolina, September 6-7, 1982.
7. Winston Fleary: Marullus's speech from Julius Caesar (Act I, Scene I). Recorded during Shakespeare Mas, Carriacou, Grenada, 1991.
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.