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Edition #24: The Music of Sodom Laurel, Madison County, North Carolina listen |
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First broadcast August 7, 2006
The ridges of Madison County in western North Carolina are home to an extended family that sings the old British ballads, as well as lyric songs and religious material, in an utterly unique and beautiful style. The Chandler, Wallin, and Norton clan has been the subject of several records, two films - John Cohen's End of an Old Song and Martha King and Rob Roberts' Madison County Project: The Film - and two photo essays, one by Harvey Wang and another by Rob Amberg, which was published by the University of North Carolina Press as the Sodom Laurel Album, with an accompanying CD.
Playlist
01 Dillard Chandler: A Soldier Travelling from the North
Dark Holler: Old Love Songs and Ballads (Smithsonian Folkways)
02 Dellie Norton: Early, Early in the Spring
High Atmosphere (Rounder)
03 Berzilla Wallin: If I Had the Wings of an Angel
Sodom Laurel Album: Appalachian Ballads from Madison County, North Carolina (UNC Press)
04 Lee Wallin: Neighbor Girl
Dark Holler: Old Love Songs and Ballads (Smithsonian Folkways)
05 Doug and Jack Wallin: Darling Cora
Family Songs and Stories from the North Carolina Mountains (Smithsonian Folkways)
06 Cas Wallin: Pretty Saro
Alan Lomax 1983 film footage (unissued)
07 Sheila Kay Adams: Little Margaret
Alan Lomax 1983 film footage (unissued)
08 Lloyd Chandler: Remember and Do Pray for Me
High Atmosphere (Rounder)
09 Dellie Norton: Little Mohee
Sodom Laurel Album: Appalachian Ballads from Madison County, North Carolina (UNC Press)
10 Dillard Chandler: I Wish My Baby Was Born
Dark Holler: Old Love Songs and Ballads (Smithsonian Folkways)
and
High Atmosphere (Rounder)
11 Cas Wallin: Camp a Little While In the Wildnerness
Appalachia: The Old-Traditions, Vol. 2 (Homemade Music)
12 Dillard Chandler: Short Time Here, Long Time Gone
Dark Holler: Old Love Songs and Ballads (Smithsonian Folkways)
The practice of "lining out" hymns was the dominant form of congregational singing before musical instruments, organized choirs, and increased literacy made lining obsolete. It has endured in only a handful of marginal but proud places: among the Primitive Baptists of Appalachia; in black Baptist and a handful of Presbyterian churches in the deep South; and the Gaelic Presbyterians of the Western Isles of Scotland.
Playlist
01 George Spangler & the congregation of the Thornton Old Regular Baptist Church, Mayking KY: Amazing Grace (2:10)
02 Rev. J. M Gates & singers: Oh Death, Where Art Thy Sting?/You Must Be Born Again (3:00)
Anthology of American Folk Music (Smithsonian Folkways)
03 Hylton Thessalonia Primitive Baptist Church, Patrick County, VA: I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say (7:57) [excerpt]
Primitive Baptist Hymns of the Blue Ridge (UNC Press)
04 Rev. G. I. Townsel & congregation: I Love the Lord, He Hears My Cry (2:50)
Negro Church Music (Alan Lomax's 1959-60 recordings, Atlantic)
05 Deacon Leroy Shinault: I Cannot Live In Sin (2:16)
1950s Gospel Classics (Document)
06 Elder Charles Shepherd & congregation of Indian Bottom Association Old Regular Baptists,
Defeated Creek Church, Linefork, KY: The Day Is Past and Gone (4:33)
Songs of the Old Regular Baptists (Smithsonian Folkways)
07 John Murdo Martin (of Portree) & singers, at the Back Free Church, Isle of Lewis: Psalm 133 (Stornoway tune) (4:37)
Salm (Ridge Records)
08 Rev Dockery Ingraham and Mt. Zion Presebyterian Church Choir: Amazing Grace (3:38)
Salm & Soul (Ridge Records)
09 Ike Caudill & congregation: Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah (5:24)
Southern Journey #6: Sheep, Sheep Don't You Know the Road (Lomax Collection/Rounder)
1. Miles & Bob Pratcher: If It's All Night Long
Southern Journey, Vol. 3: 61 Highway Mississippi (Lomax Collection/Rounder)
2. Earl Johnson's Clodhoppers: All Night Long
The String Bands, Vol. 2 (Old-Timey/Arhoolie)
3. Johnny Otis: All Nite Long
The Original Johnny Otis Show (Savoy)
4. Unidentified group: All Day, All Night Long
Bahamas 1935, Vol. 2: Ring Games and Round Dances (Lomax Collection/Rounder)
5. Skip James: All Night Long
Skip James Today! (Vanguard)
6. Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers: All Night Long Blues
Good For What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows (Old Hat)
7. Burnett & Rutherford: All Night Long Blues*
Kentucky Mountain Music boxset (Yazoo)
*If I live and don't get killed / Gonna make my home in Louisville
8. Mance Lipscomb: Night Time is the Right Time
Mance Lipscomb, Vol. 4 (Arhoolie)
9. Incredible String Band: No Sleep Blues
5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (Elektra)
Edition #19: Music from the Axis of Evil and Other Thorns in America's Side listen |
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First broadcast April 10, 2006
Playlist
01 Iraq
Unidentified: Ahl Al Aqil (Oh, People Of Reason) (3:31)
Choubi Choubi! Folk and Pop Sounds from Iraq (Sublime Frequencies)
02 Afghanistan
Amir Jan Khushnawaz and ensemble: Badil ghazal (5:45)
Traditional Music of Herat (Unesco-Auvidis)
03 Syria
Farid Al-Atrache: Erhamni We Tammenni (6:00)
Erhamni We Tammenni 45 (Dounia)
04 Iran
Unidentified: unidentified love song (5:30)
Folk Music of Iran - The Luristan and Fars Provinces (Lyrichord) "Remove the scarf which you wear on your chest / So that I can touch your breasts. /
What kind of politics are you doing now?"
05 Venezuela
Trio Cantaclaro: Polo (3:50)
World Library of Folk and Primitive Music: Venezuela (Columbia Masterworks)
06 Cuba
Unidentified group: Canto a Asoyin (3:15)
Conjunto Folklorico Nacional De Cuba (Areito)
07 North Korea
Korean People's Army Concert Troupe: Song of the Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il (1:55)
Courtesy of pyongyang-metro.com.
08 France
Jacques Brel: Une Ile
Encore (Vanguard) Granted, Brel was Belgian. But Neil Young's Canadian. You know what I mean.
01 Leatha Eller: The Heavenly Light Is Shining On Me (2:46)
Lomax film footage, Hiawassee, Georgia, 1982 (unissued)
02 Bukka White: I Am In the Heavenly Way (3:30)
Mississippi Blues (Takoma)
03 Reverend Gary Davis: We Are the Heavenly Father's Children (3:23)
If I Had My Way: The Early Home Recordings (Smithsonian Folkways)
04 Almeda Riddle: Children of the Heavenly King (3:00)
Granny Riddle's Songs and Ballads (Minstrel)
05 The Skillet Lickers: Hell Broke Loose In Georgia (3:01)
Old-Time Fiddle Tunes and Songs from North Georgia (County)
06 The Delta-aires: I Don't Want to Get In That Fire (2:24)
Birmingham Boys: Jubilee Gospel Quartets from Jefferson County, Alabama (Alabama Traditions)
07 Sister Rosetta Tharpe: What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? (5:01)
Spirituals and Rhythm (Diplomat)
08 Washington Phillips: What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? (3:16)
The Complete Recordings (Yazoo)
09 Miles and Bob Pratcher: I'm Gonna Live Anyhow Till I Die (2:35)
Southern Journey, Vol. 3: 61 Highway Mississippi (Rounder)
03 Merle Haggard: Who'll Buy the Wine (2:34)
Pride In What I Am (Capitol)
04 Jimmy Martin: Drink Up and Go Home (2:30)
Country Music Time (Decca)
05 Blind Teddy Darby: Bootleggin' Ain't Good No More (3:06)
Bootleggin' Ain't Good No More (Blue Planet)
06 Wilmot MacDonald: The Lumberman's Alphabet (6:01)
Folk Songs of the Miramichi (Folkways)
No mortal on Earth is a happy as we,
Tell me hi derry, ho derry, hi derry down,
Give the shanty boys whiskey, there's nothing goes wrong.
07 Big Bill Broonzy: Good Liquor Gonna Carry Me Down (2:43)
Young Bill Broonzy, 1928-1935 (Yazoo)
08 Jali Musa Jawara (Djeli Moussa Diawara): Haidara (10:53)
Yasimika(Oval/Tangent)
A conversation between a man and his marabout, concerning the ill-effects of the man's enjoyment of drink. The marabout tells the man that "any liquid which does not come from the water well is not a serious drink," and goes on to catalog the evils of beer ("it kills"), whiskey (which "ruins your character"), champagne, palm wine, marijuana, and pills. The jacket notes then either quote the marabout or arrive at their own conclusion, saying that "a man with a destiny should not destroy his future with drugs." -- NS (33 minutes)
It's admittedly just as tired to complain about the ubiquity of Christmas songs this time of year as is their ubiquity itself, but a particular jarring shove into the season's soundtrack recently inspired me to cobble together a response, however impotent, in the form of this show. Other things, therefore, that I'd rather listen to than the damn Christmas songs. -- NS
Playlist
01 Bascom Lamar Lunsford: Lost John Dean
Times Ain't Like They Used To Be, Vol. 1 (Yazoo)
02 Celeste Cappelli and friends: L'è Rivà D'un Bastimento (A Ship Has Come In) (2:49)
Italian Treasury: Lombardia (Alan Lomax Collection/Rounder)
03 Abida Parveen: Ho Jamalo (3:18)
The Best of Abida Parveen (Music Today)
04 John Jacob Niles: American Street, Field, and Jail House Cries (6:15)
Sings American Folk and Gambling Songs (RCA Camden)*
*One of the more bizarre of Niles' adaptations - and no source given. First released in 1939
on 78 as "Street Cries," he no doubt took some liberties with this expanded version. Niles is
responsible for some well-known arrangements of Christmas material, such as his "Seven Joys of
Mary" and the "Kentucky Wassail" - they're of course out of bounds for this show. Besides, I
don't have copies of them, and thanks to Scorsese's Dylan documentary with its four seconds of
a Niles appearance, his records have gone from selling for $3.99 (the price of this one this
summer) on Ebay to ten times that. Two 45s of his Christmas folk songs are currently priced to
sell this holiday season at $155 and $170. Now that's the Christmas spirit!
05 Fairuz: Ya Natour El Amriye (2:36)
In a Sentimental Mood (EMI/Voix de l'Orient)
06 Pink Anderson and Simmie Dooley: Every Day In the Week Blues
Sinners and Saints, 1926-1931 (Document)
07 The Symbols: The Wrong Girl (2:46)
Aladdin & Imperial R&B Vocal Group Magic, Vol. 6 (Aladdin/Imperial)
08 Lillian Leach and The Mellows: Yesterday's Memories (3:00)
Presenting Lillian Leach and The Mellows (Relic)
09 Nimrod Workman: Brown Lung Blues (3:12)
Mike Rivers recordings, Elkins, WV, 1978 (unissued/forthcoming...)
A sampling of Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan 45s I picked up in June 2004 in Fès, Morocco, where I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the city's annual Festival of World Sacred Music. This is the first of hopefully several shows of these killer records, surface noise notwithstanding. -- NS (32 minutes)
Playlist
01 Salim Hilali: Samra Ou Beida (4:10)
Folklore Tunisien (Polydor France) If anyone knows anything about this singer please let me know!!
02 Fatima Zehafa: Kif Ndir Ana (4:45)
(Ifriquiaphone)
03 Mohamed El Aroussi: Chouf Sinia, Pt. 1 (3:40)
(Boussiphone)
04 Khelifi Ahmed: Selem Ya Djaouab (5:55)
(Philips)
05 Cheb Haj Mohamed Bouzoubaa, Jr.: Baba Salah (Pt. 1)
(Koutoubiaphone) Bouzoubaa Jr. directed the Fes Malhoun radio orchestra from 1966 to 1997. His father, Bouzoubaa Sr., founded it in 1956.
06 Cheikh Mohamed Abbassi: Ya Loulid (5:05)
Elle ou lui? (Folklore Algierien - Records Achark/La Voix du Globe)
That is, those songs sung by Southern black prisoners, peculiar to Southern
black prisons - the field hollers and work songs, holdovers from the 19th
century plantation system, that were sung throughout Southern penitentiaries,
often to keep time with physical labor, under the guns of mounted white
overseers or black trusties. The end of convict field labor (and its
accompanying brutality), the racial integration of the prisons, and a refusal
on the part of younger prisoners to take part in what they saw as an Uncle Tom
anachronism did in the tradition of prison songs, which was extinct by the
early 1970s.
Playlist
01 Ed Lewis and prisoners: Black Gal (3:39)
Alan Lomax 1959 Parchman Farm recordings (unissued)
02 Floyd Batts: Dangerous Blues (1:10)
Bad Man Ballads: Southern Journey, Vol. 5 (Rounder)
04 J. B. Smith: Ever Since I Have Been A Man Full Grown (23:15)
Ever Since I Have Been A Man Full Grown (Takoma) "Ain't but one thing, partner, that I done wrong - stayed in Texas a day too
long."
Bruce Jackson was the last in the uncrowded field of documentarians who recorded prison songs - with John A. and Alan Lomax and Dr. Harry Oster among the few before him. His 1965 and 1966 recordings in Texas' Ramsey State Farm and Ellis Unit were issued as an LP, a book, and a film - all entitled Wake Up Dead Man. The only LP ever devoted to a single singer of this material was Takoma's 1966 issue of Ever Since I Have Been a Man Full Grown, sung by J. B. Smith, who Jackson met, he wrote in 1972, "In the 11th year of a 45-year sentence for murder, which, because of his age, pretty much looked like life. He had been in prison three times previously on charges of burglary and robbery by assault... He was paroled in 1967, lived in Amarillo for awhile and did some preaching; I heard recently that he'd returned to the prison for a parole violation."
I wrote Jackson recently and asked him if he knew whatever became of Smith. He
didn't. -- NS
There was a time when it wasn't so difficult to stomach evangelical Christianity, as it seemed to be more comfortable couched in a song than in the White House. Let's remember those days. -- NS
Playlist
01 Stanley Brothers: Let the Church Roll On (2:02)
Sacred Songs from the Hills (Starday)
02 Molly O'Day and the Cumberland Mountain Folks: Coming Down from God (2:42)
In Memory: Great Early Recordings (Old Homestead)
03 Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Singers: I Want to Go Where Jesus Is (2:57)
The Bristol Sessions (CMF)
04 Laurel Glenn Regular Baptist Church Congregation (Alleghany County, N.C.):
When the Redeemed are Gathering In (3:43)
Children of the Heav'nly King: Religious Expression in the Central Blue Ridge (Rounder)
05 Browns Ferry Four: When the Redeemed are Gathering In (2:23)
16 Greatest Hits (Starday)
06 Alfred Karnes: Called to the Foreign Field (3:10)
Music of Kentucky, Vol. 1 (Yazoo)
07 Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper and the Clinch Mountain Clan: Walking My Lord Up Calvary Hill (2:52)
Early Recordings (County)
08 Redd Harper: What This Country Needs*
Redd Harper Sings and Plays (Christian Faith Recordings) *" more than anything else is a good old-fashioned talk with the Lord."
09 E. C. and Orna Ball: Trials, Troubles, Tribulations (2:52)
Sheep, Sheep, Don't You Know the Road: Southern Journey, Vol. 6 (Rounder)
10 Coot Greene, R.L. Harmon, and Margie Harmon: Precious Memories (3:52)
Traditional Music of Beech Mountain, North Carolina (Folk Legacy)
I sincerely apologize in advance - no Kid Ory or King Oliver. No Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino, Nevilles, Ernie K-Doe, Lloyd Price, Eddie Bo, Rosco Gordon, Huey Smith, Tremé Brass Band, Rebirth Brass Band, Mardi Gras Indians. No attempt made to leave Orleans Parish for Bois Sec Ardoin, Clifton Chenier, Boozoo Chavis, Dennis McGee, Canray Fontenot. No Dr. John. It's impossible to begin to pay ample tribute to New Orleans music - much less that of Louisiana - in a half hour, so instead, I humbly offer up some city-specific samples that I hold dear, knowing the surface is far from scratched. -- NS
Playlist
01 Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers - Original Jelly Roll Blues (2:50)
The Pearls (Biograph)
03 Roy Montrell - That Mello Saxophone (3:10)
Wild and Frantic! (Dead Dog)
04 Red Onion Jazz Babies - Cake Walking Babies from Home
Young Sidney Bechet 1923-1935 (Timeless) Louis Armstrong on cornet, Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano, and Alberta Hunter, vocals
05 Jessie Hill - Ooh Poo Pah Doo (2:14)
Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Golden Classics (Collectibles)
06 Sister Dora Alexander - Let God's Moon Alone (1:13)
The Music of New Orleans, Vol. 1: The Music of the Streets (Folkways)
07 Sister Gertrude Morgan - Way in the Middle of the Air (2.20)
Let's Make a Record (True Believer/Preservation Hall)
08 Professor Longhair - Tipitina (2:29)
Professor Longhair: New Orleans Piano (Atlantic)
09 Irma Thomas - That's All I Ask (3:33)
Ruler of Hearts (Charly) Meant to play "It's Too Soon to Know," but this came out instead. Can't hurt.
10 Bunk's Brass Band - Didn't He Ramble (2:38)
Bunk's Brass Band & Dance Band 1945 Sessions (American Music)
11 Jelly Roll Morton - Didn't He Ramble (0:50)
The Complete Library of Congress Recordings (Rounder)
12 Allen Toussaint - Poor Boy Got To Move (2:57)
It Will Stand: Minit Records 1960-1963 (EMI America) "Trying to get back home where I belong.
For more of New Orleans' best, with a more expansive eye to the other affected Gulf Coast states, check in with David Weinstein's current episode of Impossible Music: Gulf Coast Music Special on WPS1. And make sure you pay a visit to WWOZ IN EXILE -
the 24 hour stream, donated by the peerless WFMU, of past shows from New Orleans' finest
radio station: wwoz.org. They've been digging into their vaults, raising money to get back on the air in a new space. If you're lucky you'll catch the 1998 Mardi Gras special hosted by Ernie "Burn K-Doe Burn!" K-Doe. "Keep it poppin!" -- NS
01 Aunt Molly Jackson - I Was Borned and Raised in Old Kentucky (1:45)
1959-1960 Alice McLerran recordings, Sacramento (unissued)
Recorded in the last two years before Aunt Molly died. She frequently laments the state of her voice in McLerran's sessions, and that of her visage: "And to look at me a sittin here with not a tooth in my head, and I look like I'm a hundred and fifty in the place of bein 80."
02 Sarah Ogan Gunning - Come All You Coal Miners (2:15)
Come All You Coal Miners (Rounder)
Sung at a gathering of miners and their families hence the frequent coughing behind. Check out Appalshop's Dreadful Memories: The Life of Sarah Ogan Gunning.
03 Nimrod Workman - Black Lung Song (3:25)
Mother Jones' Will (Rounder)
There's only one song of Nimrod's available on CD at the moment, which is a high crime. But Appalshop's beautiful film of him - To Fit My Own Category - is available, and very worth seeing. Alan Lomax filmed him in 1983 and some of that footage appears in the American Patchwork series, Dreams and Songs of the Noble Old episode, available through Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop.
04 George Davis - When Kentucky Didn't Have Any Union Men (1:38)
George Davis: The Singing Miner of Hazard, Kentucky (Folkways)
05 Joe Glancy - Mule Skinnin' Blues (1:29)
Songs and Ballads of the Bituminous Coal Miners (Rounder)
06 Albert Morgan - Union Man (1:47)
Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miners (Rounder)
07 Evening Breezes Sextet - Coal-Loading Machine (2:42)
Songs and Ballads of the Bituminous Miners (Rounder)
African American miners from Vivian, West Virginia.
08 Jean Ritchie - West Virginia Mine Disaster (2:45)
Clear Waters Remembered (Geordie)
09 Annie Cosgrove - The Gresford Disaster (2:35)
Folk Songs of Britain, Vol. 3: Jack of All Trades (Topic)
An explosion at Gresford Colliery near Wrexford in North Wales killed 265 miners in 1934.
10 Coal miners' song from Joban, northeastern Honshu, Japan (2:44)
Traditional Folk Songs of Japan (Folkways)
"Listen, you young girls, wives of coal miners, you will become widows the moment the rocks fall."
11 Nimrod Workman and chorus - Don't You Want to Go to That Land? (1:20)
Come All You Coal Miners (Rounder)
12 Aunt Molly Jackson - I Love Coal Miners, I Do (3:00)
1939 Library of Congress Recordings (Rounder)
Note: The field recordings of George Korson, originally released in two albums by the Library of Congress and reissued by Rounder as two CDs - Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miners and Songs and Ballads of the Bituminous Miners - are the best sources of true miners' songs, by which I mean songs sung (and ostensibly composed) by miners themselves. But, as Archie Green points out in his sublime Only a Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1972), songs such as the Carter Family's "Coal Miner's Blues" and those in the more overtly agit-prop repetoires of Appalachian miners' mothers/sisters/wives - Aunt Molly Jackson, Sarah Ogan Gunning, Florence Reece, and later Hazel Dickens - are also an essential part of coal mining folklore. In an industry so dangerous, politicized, proud, and violent, songs were born as vehicles for protest (as in the field holler and blues) and what might otherwise be typical tropes of occupational folklore took on radical connotations, in no small part thanks to the efforts of the UMW and the NMU. If it weren't for these more accessible, and accessed, singers and songs (as well as films like The Molly MacGuires, Matewan, and Harlan County USA), we probably wouldn't know so much of what we do about mining coal. How much in comparison do we know about the Southern turpentiners?
The Korson reissues do feature some topical and/or union material (his collecting was after all supported by a UMW grant), but for some reason none of the radical songs of Workman or Aunt Molly are currently available on CD. George Davis' "Harlan County Blues" is included on Songs of the Bituminous Miners (and his "Death of the Blue Eagle," lamenting the end of the National Recovery Act, is in John Cohen's expanded Mountain Music of Kentucky CD set), but Smithsonian Folkways has yet to reissue his LP, The Singing Miner of Hazard, Kentucky. Sarah Ogan Gunning's Girl of Constant Sorrow is available on cassette from Folk-Legacy, and four of her songs are on Rounder's Coal Mining Women collection, along with Florence Reece's bedrock anthem "Which Side Are You On?" and three topical tunes sung by Nimrod Workman's daughter, Phyllis Boyens.
It's worth giving a pitch for Korson's anthracite record. The songs are of heavy Celtic extraction, sung unaccompanied in parlor ballad style with sober voices heavily vibratoed, and the texts of the songs are determinedly linear and very illustratively detailed. You're surprised by the old-world quality of them, probably because when we think of coal mining songs we think of Appalachia and hillbilly music, but the blues ballad influence of southern African Americans that flavors and tunes and texts of mountain music never made it to anthracite country. Though it's not to say that it's totally forgotten - a family friend, now in his 80s, whose Jewish family ran a general store frequented by anthracite miners of Polish stock near Wilkes-Barre, Penn., remembers a bastardized couplet that made the rounds in the 1940s or so, hamming up the Slavic English: "Me and Buddy work in mine / Holy jeepers have good time."
Korson published several books of anthracite (hard coal) and one book of bituminous (soft coal) mining songs and lore. I can only vouch for Coal Dust on the Fiddle, but there's no reason to think the rest aren't worth the trouble, though - surprise - none are currently in print.
- Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miners (1927 - predecessor to the Library of Congress album)
- Minstrels of the Mine Patch (1938)
- Coal Dust on the Fiddle: Songs and Stories of the Bituminous Industry (1943)
- Pennsylvania Songs and Legends (1949) (Korson, ed.)
- Black Rock: Mining Folklore of the Pennsylvania Dutch (1960)
A book of miners' songs from the United Kingdom was compiled by the British folklorist A. L. (Bert) Lloyd. He too received support, in his case from both the workers and the bosses - the Workers' Music Association and the British Coal Board. Imagine the possibilities of nationalized industry...
- Come All Ye Bold Miners: Ballads and Songs of the Coalfields (1952, rev. 1978)
Finally, I'm wary of so heavily stuffing the playlist with Rounder releases, but for better or worse they're the only label that consistently released this sort of thing. The LPs Come All You Coal Miners, Jackson's 1939 Library of Congress Recordings, and Workman's Mother Jones' Will have yet to be reissued. -- NS
Dog songs, in (hesitant, grotesque) honor of Snuppy, the world's first cloned
dog.
Playlist
01 Jim Jackson - Old Dog Blue (3:01)
Anthology of American Folk Music (Folkways)
02 Jimmy Johnson's String Band - Old Blind Dog (2:53)
Kentucky Mountain Music boxset (Yazoo)
03 Pegram and Parham - Old Rattler (2:08)
Pickin' and Blowin' (Washington)
04 Mississippi John Hurt - Salty Dog (2:45)
Folksongs and Blues (Piedmont)
05 Ewan MacColl - The Rantin Dog, The Daddy O't (0:48)
Songs of Robert Burns (Folkways)
06 Unidentified man - My Dog, Rajna (0:55)
Folk Music of Hungary (Folkways)
07 The Sweet Brothers - I Got a Bulldog (2:52)
Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove (Old Hat)
08 Blind Lemon Jefferson - Hot Dogs (2:58)
Complete Works in Chronological Order, Vol. 2, 1927 (Document)
09 Rosalie Jeffers and friends - Mr. Dog, He Came to Town (1:10)
Nevis and St. Kitts - Tea Meetings, Christmas Sports, and the Moonlight Night (Rounder)
10 Blind Blake (Jimmy Bertrand, xylophone) - Doggin' Me Mama Blues (3:20)
All the Published Sides (JSP)
11 Rosco Gordon - No More Doggin' (3:11)
12 Son House - Low Down Dirty Dog Blues (5:05)
Mississippi: The Blues Lineage (Rounder)
*Correction: I'd like to apologize to the listener for a series of inaccuracies I let spew concerning this track. First of all, the Rock Island Line was not a mere short line but was, by the end of the 19th century, one of the nation's biggest railroad conglomerates, the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad. It did in fact run in Texas and Louisiana, but not from one to the other. I had in mind another Lead Belly song of another train, nicknamed the Shorty George, which ran past the Central State Farm in Sugarland, Texas, bringing women visitors to the prisoners on weekends.
I thought of 'Shorty George' because both it and Lead Belly's 'Rock Island Line' have their origins in state pens. Lead Belly did not learn 'Rock Island Line' in his native Louisiana, and nor was it a string band rendition he heard. Perhaps because of Coleman's 1929 banjo-with-guitar-accompaniment version I had declared that Lead Belly's had similar roots (and many songs in Lead Belly's repertoire did have string band and minstrelsy roots), but he in fact learned it in Gould, Arkansas, at the State Farm Penitentiary. It was there in 1934 that John A. and Alan Lomax, with Lead Belly in tow, recorded the now-famous version of 'Rock Island Line' as a work song from a group of prisoners, led by a man named Kelly Pace. The song might have originated at the State Farm in Gould, but there's no way to know for sure. One Rock Island line ran south from Little Rock to Eunice, Louisiana, and stopped in Fordyce, Arkansas, fifty or so miles west of Gould; another, the Choctaw Express, ran from Memphis through Little Rock on its way to Amarillo. Yet another, the Cotton Belt, provided service back and forth from Little Rock to Memphis. All Pace's version tells us is that somehow 'the train left Memphis at half past nine / Made it back to Little Rock at 8:49.' Regardless, the work song owes nothing to Coleman's blues. (For what it's worth, the Rock Island didn't run to Atlanta, where Coleman was from.)
"Baby if anyone should ask you who composed this song
Just tell 'em Lonnie Coleman done been to your town and gone."
One final twist is that a version of "Rock Island Blues," in fact older than Coleman's "Old Rock Island Blues," was circulating in Memphis in 1927, first recorded by Furry Lewis - the only similarity, however, is the first line: "I got the Rock Island Blues / Waiting on the Rock Island train." -- NS
01 WHAS Broadcast from the backside of Churchill Downs, two days before the 65th running of the Kentucky Derby, 1939. Music by the Barnyard Boys (In the Evening, My Old Kentucky Home,and Dinah) and the Six Bits of Rhythm (Old Man Mose and Shoeshine Boy). (10:09) (Unissued)
02 Ed Lewis & prisoners - Stewball (3:25)
61 Highway Mississippi: Southern Journey, Vol. 3 (Rounder)
03 Carver Boys - Tim Brook (3:12)
Music of Kentucky, Vol. 2 (Yazoo)
04 Stanley Brothers - Molly and Tenbrooks (2:24)
Earliest Recordings: The Complete Rich-R-Tone 78s, 1947-1952 (Revenant)
05 Papa Charlie Jackson - Lexington, Kentucky Blues (3:00)
Mostly New to LP, 1924-1929 (Matchbox)
06 Mbarek Ammouri and ensemble - Ayyis (The Horse) (3:12)
Anthologie des Rwayes (Inedit)
07 Unidentified schoolgirls: Four White Horses on a Rainbow (0:40)
Zoop Zoop Zoop - Traditional Music and Folklore from St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John (New World)
Traditional, folk, vernacular, endangered, and extinct music from America and elsewhere. Hosted by Nathan Salsburg, production manager of The Alan Lomax Collection and staff member at the Alan Lomax Archive in NYC, Goodbye Dear Old Stepstone celebrates homegrown music everywhere.
Playlist *
01 Bascom Lamar Lunsford - Goodbye Dear Old Stepstone (2:20)
Music from South Turkey Creek (Rounder)
02 Henry Thomas - Red River Blues (3:03)
Complete recorded works in chronological order (1927-1929) (Document)
03 Elder Charles Beck - Drinkin Shine(3:15)
Complete recordings in chronological order (1930-1939) (Eden)
04 Dellie Norton - Little Swallow (1:13)
Appalachia: Old Traditions from VA & NC (Home Made)
05 Arthur Smith Trio - Chittlin Cookin Time in Cheatham County (2:32)
Smoky Mountain Ballads 78 album (Victor)
06 Weems String Band - Greenback Dollar (3:05)
Echoes from the Ozarks (County)
07 Henry Morrison, John Davis, GA Sea Island Singers - Hop Along Let's Get Her (1:05)
Earliest Times: Georgia Sea Island Songs for Everyday Living (Rounder)
08 Unidentified girls - Hopali (1:46)
Deep River of Song: Alabama (Rounder)
09 Rev. Lester Knox preaching (1:14)
10 Unidentified singer - The Master's Bouquet (1:50)
Reverend Lester Knox: Put Your Face In Gwod: The 366th Revival (The Smack Shire)
11 Stanley Brothers - The Master's Bouquet (2:26)
Sacred Songs from the Hills (Starday)
12 Emmett Lord - Women (2:47)
Rare L.A. Tracks (Bacchus Archives)
*Many vintage records of this ilk have of course been reissued in scores by many different imprints. I've listed only my sources and not those that others more expert/concerned might consider "definitive."
