Captured in April 1965 using a Nagra tape recorder and a Sony condenser microphone by field recordist Peter Siegel, this concert is being presented for the first time. It provides a compelling glimpse at the intersection of Black folk traditions and civil rights activism.
Album review by Corbie Hill, 11 Jun 2024, https://nodepression.org/
The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert by Bessie Jones, John Davis, and the Georgia Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ed Young opens with legendary ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax’s assurances that integration and world peace were imminent.
The condenser mic didn’t pick up what the mostly white audience thought of Lomax’s well-intentioned, if naive, introduction to the 1965 concert in New York City. He stood with singers whose coastal Georgia remoteness had allowed their Gullah Geechee music to develop with less white interference than that of many other Southern Black communities. Onstage, too, and lending some star power were cane fife player Ed Young and country blues guitarist Mississippi Fred McDowell.
The folk revival had given these musicians a broader platform, but they remained Black Americans living under Jim Crow’s long shadow. This concert, now presented in its entirety as a Smithsonian Folkways release, documents the sheer force of their musicianship — plus moments of cringe here and there as white academics interpreted their work rather than hearing it.
“My God is a rock in the weary land / weary land / in the weary land,” the Sea Island Singers sing in the Peter Davis-led “My God Is a Rock.” “He’s shelter in the time of storms.” In the gospel number’s chorus, the singers create rich, forceful minor chords. Nonverbal melodies and countermelodies back the verse. Beyond that, there’s little more than clapping and tambourines. Some songs also include McDowell’s acoustic slide guitar and others feature Young’s fife, yet every track on this Sea Island Singers recording feels fully realized. Deceptively effortless polyrhythmic clapping drives “Let my Children Go.” Bessie Jones leads a driving, ecstatic “Sign of the Judgment.”
“Let me buy you a house and home / if you do something for me,” Ed Young sings in his poppy, playful “Chevrolet.” “I don’t want your house and home / you can’t do nothing for me,” Emma Lee Ramsey replies in the song’s back-and-forth. It’s a swinging barebones R&B number, secular and sultry. Elsewhere, McDowell’s slide blues can be languid and spacious like “Going Down to the River” or upbeat and danceable like “Shake ‘Em on Down.”
The Complete Friends of Old-Time Music Concert has the stylistic range of a sampler and surprising sonic fidelity for something recorded 59 years ago through a single microphone. What that mic captured was the interplay and chemistry as a stage full of accomplished musicians took turns stepping to the front.
Review by:
https://klofmag.com/ 24 April, 2024
Between 1961 and 1965, Friends of Old Time Music (F.O.T.M) brought fourteen concerts of traditional folk music, old-time country music, bluegrass, blues, and religious music to New York City audiences. The founding directors were Ralph Rinzler, John Cohen, and Israel Young. The liner notes to the 2006 Folkways compilation Friends of Old Time Music: The Folk Arrival 1961 – 1965 (SFW40160) revealed how other folk music advocates, musicians, and folklorists made significant contributions, including Mike Seeger, Alan Lomax, Jean Ritchie, and Sam Charters—they all played a major role in developing a new paradigm for the presentation of traditional music in concert. For many, this was the first time that urban “folk” audiences saw the performances by the likes of Clarence Ashley, Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, Maybelle Carter, Fred McDowell, Roscoe Holcomb, and Dock Boggs.
Smithsonian Folkways have today revealed a new release, taken from a key F.O.T.M 1965 Live Concert in the midst of the Civil Rights Era:
The Complete Friends of Old-Time Music Concert by Bessie Jones, John Davis & The Georgia Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ed Young, presents a riveting, historic look at the intersection of Black folk traditions and civil rights activism. Taken from a concert in April 1965, this recording showcases the haunting songs of the Georgia Sea Islands Singers, led by Jones and Davis–Black folk songs and spirituals that have influenced everyone from Jerry Garcia to Afrofuturist Folkways artist Jake Blount.
Bessie Jones featured alongside the Georgia Sea Island Singers on a Folkways album titled Lest We Forget, Vol. 3: Sing For Freedom which featured recordings from the 1964 “The Sing for Freedom Workshop”— described by Folkways as “a remarkable event that brought together the best of freedom singers to share the history of this tradition, better organize the freedom song movement, and enrich an already powerful repertoire of song.” When asked why she sang these songs, Jones is quoted as saying, “Your children are gonna call your music old later on, too… You should know the bottom before you come to the top.”
Even today, the songs of the Gullah Geechee people of Georgia retain deep connections to Africa and were encoded with powerful messages of resistance to slavery and oppression. In our interview with Jake Blount for his New Faith album, he shared how influential the Gullah Geechee were:
“They just have a really incredible body of work song then most other Black people have in this country just because they were able to hold on to more in in that time, so, when I go back and listen to old songs, and I definitely look for songs from everywhere, but I tend to find that a lot of the most wonderful things are songs that come from the Gullah Geechee tradition.”
“They just have a really incredible body of work song then most other Black people have in this country just because they were able to hold on to more in in that time, so, when I go back and listen to old songs, and I definitely look for songs from everywhere, but I tend to find that a lot of the most wonderful things are songs that come from the Gullah Geechee tradition.”
The concert also featured the country blues of legendary singer and guitarist Mississippi Fred McDowell and Mississippi cane fife player Ed Young. It was a star-studded concert, and the excitement of these seminal musicians joining together on songs and inspiring each other is palpable. But the powerful subtext of this concert was clear even then.
McDowell himself was one of the great stars of the folk revival, first encountered in Mississippi by Lomax right before Lomax returned to the Georgia Sea Islands in 1959. Lomax’s assistant at the time, the soon-to-be famous British folk singer Shirley Collins, said she’d never forget meeting McDowell, remembering the image of him walking out of the woods with his guitar after picking cotton all day. His guitar playing has a tranced-out sound to it, heralding him as a precursor of the Mississippi Hill Country Blues that others like R.L. Burnside and The Black Keys would popularize. Listen to his guitar work opening up the song “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.” McDowell lasers in on a much slower, rawer tempo for this powerful old spiritual, while the Georgia Sea Island Singers lift their voices beneath him. From the same region as McDowell, Young’s fife playing is so old as to almost be primordial. It was the oldest Black American instrumental music that had survived, though it had fused with military traditions at a certain point. Young and McDowell weave in and out with the Georgia Sea Island Singers in creative ways throughout this evening’s program, delighting in the collaboration and creating something new and indelible together.
“We’re on the road to world peace, and freedom, and integration,” says famed folklorist Alan Lomax brightly in his introduction to the concert. Behind him on the stage, some of the greatest Black folk singers of their time say nothing. Their thoughts on Lomax’s overly optimistic prediction come through in the songs they presented that evening. Songs that prayed to a Biblical God for justice, songs that spoke of the pure barbarity and horror of slavery, the death and murder of so many brought from Africa over the centuries, songs that spoke of the thousands and thousands of marchers in America at that very time during the Civil RIghts movement. “If I can’t march, I can sing,” said Mable Hillery of the Georgia Sea Island Singers, herself a noted Civil Rights activist and frequent marcher who had stayed back from protests to testify before this crowd of mostly young, white people in New York City. Captured on a Nagra tape recorder and a good Sony condenser microphone by noted field recordist Peter Siegel, the entire concert is presented here for the first time, each song a revelation. “It’s rare that you could put out every song from the concert and they’re all good,” says Siegel. It was also a very visual concert. The Georgia Sea Island singers presented actual religious ceremonies, like the complicated dancing and rhythmic percussion of the ring shout, which brought a lot of energy. Everyone in the audience surely felt this energy during the concert, and you can hear the musicians egging each other on.
That energy of a great live performance is the reason that Siegel left the concert wholly intact, but he was also interested in the larger contexts of the concert. The way Lomax interacts with the performers is key. He positions himself not only as the MC for the evening, but as the arbiter of their traditions. They looked on him kindly, but also recognized the power divide. Davis jokes at one point, after Lomax spun a tale for him about the song he was going to sing, that “all I have to do is do it now!” Lomax was just one in a line of white interpreters who had been presenting Georgia Sea Islands music since the early 1900s. Contrasting starkly with the academic comments and optimistic beliefs of Lomax as the white intermediary, the songs presented that evening ranged from Biblical to terrifyingly apocalyptic. The Georgia Sea Island Singers, and especially Jones and Davis, knew that presenting traditional music from the time of slavery was a powerful connection to help audiences understand what slavery really was, and they took this as their core mission.
That energy of a great live performance is the reason that Siegel left the concert wholly intact, but he was also interested in the larger contexts of the concert. The way Lomax interacts with the performers is key. He positions himself not only as the MC for the evening, but as the arbiter of their traditions. They looked on him kindly, but also recognized the power divide. Davis jokes at one point, after Lomax spun a tale for him about the song he was going to sing, that “all I have to do is do it now!” Lomax was just one in a line of white interpreters who had been presenting Georgia Sea Islands music since the early 1900s. Contrasting starkly with the academic comments and optimistic beliefs of Lomax as the white intermediary, the songs presented that evening ranged from Biblical to terrifyingly apocalyptic. The Georgia Sea Island Singers, and especially Jones and Davis, knew that presenting traditional music from the time of slavery was a powerful connection to help audiences understand what slavery really was, and they took this as their core mission.
Due to their isolation and their geographical location off the coast of Georgia, the formerly enslaved community of African descent on the islands were able to keep their traditions without as much outside interference as other Black communities endured. The result is that the songs of the Gullah Geechee people of the Georgia Sea Islands have kept powerful undercurrents of commentary in their songs up to the present day. Though many songs have roots in the Bible, they’re interpreted through West and Central African customs and perspectives. Because the Georgia Sea Islands were so isolated, there wasn’t the same threat of death or injury for keeping these traditions alive that other Black communities experienced, so these songs are able to present a direct perspective on slavery and oppression. Knowing this history, Jones, Davis and Mable Hillery all believed that the songs of the past could inform the protests of the present. One song, “Read ‘Em John”, draws a direct parallel to the impending passage of the Voting Rights Act that same year, 1965. Hillery wrote one of the most direct songs of the evening, “Marching on the Mississippi Line,” which directly references the activist work that Hillery was engaging in, fusing Black spirituals with contemporary political movements of the time. Perhaps the most haunting song of the evening, “Buzzard Lope,” is presented at first by Jones as a folkloric dance that people would perform in the fields. But as she points out, the dance portrays buzzards picking the bones of the bodies of enslaved Black people cast into the field to rot. The blood that fed these old folk songs is very real in this recording, not least for Jones, who was the granddaughter of an enslaved person herself.
Mississippi Fred McDowell and fife player Ed Young may not have been as direct in their protests at the time, but their music rings with power. “Don’t Ever Leave Me” brings Hillery’s voice together with McDowell’s powerful guitar, a moment that shows her deep roots in the blues and his empathic accompaniment. McDowell himself was one of the great stars of the folk revival, first encountered in Mississippi by Lomax right before Lomax returned to the Georgia Sea Islands in 1959. Lomax’s assistant at the time, the soon-to-be famous British folk singer Shirley Collins, said she’d never forget meeting McDowell, remembering the image of him walking out of the woods with his guitar after picking cotton all day. His guitar playing has a tranced out sound to it, heralding him as a precursor of the Mississippi Hill Country Blues that others like R.L. Burnside and The Black Keys would popularize. Listen to his guitar work opening up the song “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.” McDowell lasers in on a much slower, rawer tempo for this powerful old spiritual, while the Georgia Sea Island Singers lift their voices beneath him. From the same region as McDowell, Young’s fife playing is so old as to almost be primordial. It was the oldest Black American instrumental music that had survived, though it had fused with military traditions at a certain point. Young and McDowell weave in and out with the Georgia Sea Island Singers in creative ways throughout this evening’s program, delighting in the collaboration and creating something new and indelible together.
By bringing out an unheard tradition of Black American music and showcasing the music in such a direct, engaging way, all the performers on stage this one evening in 1965 hoped to leave a lasting mark on the audience. They reveled in playing together, and they found common ground across very different Black communities in the United States. But as Siegel pointed out, they had very clear motives for their music. “Bessie Jones and John Davis were very aware of their mission to help people understand this music,” Siegel says. “Where it came from and how it could inform the future.”
The Georgia Sea Island Singers Inspired a Musical Movement. Now You Can Hear Them Like Never Before.
The new “Complete Friends of Old-Time Music Concert” features Mississippi Fred McDowell, Ed Young, and other unsung artists who paved the way for folk musicians like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez
By Jim Beaugez / June 14, 2024 / https://gardenandgun.com/
By Jim Beaugez / June 14, 2024 / https://gardenandgun.com/
The Georgia Sea Island Singers performing at the Poor People’s March in Washington, D.C., 1968.
The American folk and blues revival that peaked during the 1960s amid the Civil Rights Movement enraptured predominantly white, Northern audiences. But for every Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Pete Seeger, there was a trail of long-forgotten Black musical pioneers who developed the nation’s original roots music under largely oppressive conditions.
“At that time, a lot of people in the cities and in New York heard a lot of great folk music,” says folk archivist and music producer Peter K. Siegel. “We heard Pete Seeger and Odetta and all kinds of great people, but we didn’t really get to see the people who represented the communities from which these traditions sprang.”
Even iconic songs that emerged from the movement, like Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”—which he played at the 1963 March on Washington, just before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech—were based on old spirituals. “You have these folk artists who are going down South to hear these songs,” Siegel says. “And then you have some of the songs by Bob Dylan influenced by what he’s hearing from these African American songs, these spirituals.”
A man holds a guitar
photo: Alan Lomax
Mississippi Fred McDowell.
photo: Alan Lomax
Mississippi Fred McDowell.
A portrait of a woman with a tambourine
photo: Diana Davies/Rinzler Archives
Bessie Jones.
photo: Diana Davies/Rinzler Archives
Bessie Jones.
The Georgia Sea Island Singers, led by Jones and Davis, grew out of the Gullah Geechee culture on St. Simons Island, Georgia, where descendants of enslaved West and Central Africans lived in relative obscurity for hundreds of years.
“Because the island was somewhat isolated from the mainland—the only way you could get there was basically in a rowboat—they passed down these songs pretty much intact,” Siegel says. “So, we get to hear songs passed down from enslaved people about slavery.”
“Because the island was somewhat isolated from the mainland—the only way you could get there was basically in a rowboat—they passed down these songs pretty much intact,” Siegel says. “So, we get to hear songs passed down from enslaved people about slavery.”
A group of people sit on a picnic table and smile
photo: Alan Lomax
From left: Emma Ramsey, Ed Young, Mable Hillery, John Davis, and two unidentified children.
photo: Alan Lomax
From left: Emma Ramsey, Ed Young, Mable Hillery, John Davis, and two unidentified children.
Denied the use of hand drums and other musical instruments by plantation overseers, Gullah Geechee people developed songs and rhythms as vocal performances, with clapping techniques substituting traditional percussion. The lyrics and movements were encoded with messages of resistance to slavery and oppression. In the introduction to “In That Old Field,” for instance, Bessie Jones explains how the remains of animals were discarded in boneyards on the plantations, and how that practice inspired the spiritual and its accompanying “buzzard lope” dance. “They were telling people they didn’t care what they did with their body,” Siegel says. “They said their soul lived with God.”
Such expressions of the Gullah Geechee people’s collective experience didn’t sit well with everyone in the folk and blues scene of the sixties, when the Georgia Sea Island Singers performed for audiences far beyond the islands where their ancestors grew cotton, rice, and indigo under systems of slavery and sharecropping.
“Many of those in the Civil Rights [Movement] wanted to not sing the old enslaved songs,” says musicologist Dr. Eric S. Crawford, who has authored several books on Gullah Geechee culture. “They wanted to do the more bluesy versions, the more soul versions of songs, and Bessie Jones up and said, ‘These songs got us through the enslaved period, and these songs are equally important now.’ She really was that pivotal force.”
Such expressions of the Gullah Geechee people’s collective experience didn’t sit well with everyone in the folk and blues scene of the sixties, when the Georgia Sea Island Singers performed for audiences far beyond the islands where their ancestors grew cotton, rice, and indigo under systems of slavery and sharecropping.
“Many of those in the Civil Rights [Movement] wanted to not sing the old enslaved songs,” says musicologist Dr. Eric S. Crawford, who has authored several books on Gullah Geechee culture. “They wanted to do the more bluesy versions, the more soul versions of songs, and Bessie Jones up and said, ‘These songs got us through the enslaved period, and these songs are equally important now.’ She really was that pivotal force.”
photo: Alan Lomax
Members of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. In front row, from left: Willis Proctor, John Davis, an unidentified child, and Bessie Jones.
Siegel, for his part, became somewhat of an accidental archivist for events such as the Friends of Old Time Music concerts. He got permission from Ralph Rinzler, one of the founders of Friends of Old Time Music, to record the performances for his own personal use with just a single microphone and his reel-to-reel tape recorder. But they’ve since become important historical documents.
“It was a very informal thing,” he says. “There was no money involved in it. I bought the tape and brought my own equipment, but I think Ralph understood that if I recorded those concerts, there would be a record of them.”
Jim Beaugez writes about music and culture from his native Mississippi. He has contributed to Garden & Gun since 2021 and has also written for the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Oxford American, and Outside.
Album Review: June 13, 2024
“It was a very informal thing,” he says. “There was no money involved in it. I bought the tape and brought my own equipment, but I think Ralph understood that if I recorded those concerts, there would be a record of them.”
Jim Beaugez writes about music and culture from his native Mississippi. He has contributed to Garden & Gun since 2021 and has also written for the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Oxford American, and Outside.
https://folkalley.com
On April 9, 1965, Bessie Jones, John Davis, the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Ed Young took the stage at the New School in New York City for the Friends of Old Time Music Concert. Field recordist Peter Siegel captured the riveting performances of these singers and instrumentalists, and his recording showcases the nuances of phrasing, vocal delivery, and rhythmic styles of the songs, as well as the canny storytelling that unveils the multi-faceted meanings inherent in each song. The entire concert is now available for the first time on Smithsonian Folkways as The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert.
Folklorist Alan Lomax serves as emcee for the evening, and the concert opens with his introduction to the Georgia Sea Island Singers and the special guests of the evening. At the end of Lomax’s introduction, he declares optimistically that society is on the road to world peace and integration, a feeling that the Singers’ less optimistic and more realistic music betrays. As Lomax concludes, the ensemble “travels” in from the wings to the electrifying accompaniment of Jones’ tambourine playing which sets the cadence for the repetitive harmonic chorus “I got on my travelin’ shoes,” which she punctuates with shouts such as “Lord have mercy now” and “I’m gonna tell the Lord.” Like many of the songs in the concert, this one operates on at least two levels: the movement toward the promise of political freedom and the movement toward spiritual redemption and liberation.
As members of the Georgia Island Sea Singers introduce each song, they take care to introduce the audience to the history and background of the songs, as well as to the their musical styles. The ring shout spiritual “Buzzard Lope (Dance)/In That Old Field (In Dat Ole Fiel),” for example, reenacts the story of the bodies of dead slaves being left in the field or tossed at a crossroads where buzzards would soon come to devour the bones. Davis’ pattering, intricate dance steps (the buzzard lope dance) can be heard on the song as Jones and Mable Hillery lead the group with their calls to the group’s response.
With his resounding vocals, John Davis leads the sea shanty “Goodbye My Riley O,” a tribute to the work of stevedores on St. Simons Island, while on “Sink ‘Em Low,” Jones captures the sing-song rhythms of prison work gang songs that would not only provide a musical pattern to the grueling labors but also a sense of unity and liberation from the harsh conditions imposed by callous and often malicious guards.
Spare and haunting, McDowell’s snaking guitar rhythms and leads and his gravelly vocals evoke a poignant lonesomeness on the country blues “Going Down to the River.” Several of the songs retell various biblical stories—“Once There Was No Sun (Once Dey Was No Sun),” “Adam in the Garden (Adam in De Gyaaden),” “Who Built the Ark (Who Build De Ark)”—using Gullah and West African perspectives and linguistic roots. John Davis leads another ring shout spiritual, “Read ‘Em John,” which opens slowly, building to an urgent rhythmic shuffling—signaled by the drumming—that conveys the necessity of having one enslaved person—in this case, John—read a letter to the gathered slaves concerning their freedom. McDowell’s low moans and stinging slide notes introduce the traditional spiritual “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning”; he’s joined by the Georgia Sea Island Singers in their ethereal harmonies and shouting and handclapping as they blend their voices in the anticipation of spiritual and political liberation. Mable Hillery’s stirring use of the call and response structure of the spirituals lends force and urgency to the striving for political changes called for and enacted in Civil Rights marches. On “Marching on the Mississippi Line,” she reveals the deep religious dimensions of the ongoing struggles for social justice and freedom from racial oppression.
The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert captures the energy of the Georgia Sea Island Singers and their guests; the performances are electrifying, and one can’t help but hear and feel the depths of soul out of which every one of these songs issue. Apart from Lomax’s introductions, this set is a stunning introduction to the Gullah-Geechee music and the West African music traditions the Georgia Sea Island Singers kept alive in their communities.
On April 9, 1965, Bessie Jones, John Davis, the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Ed Young took the stage at the New School in New York City for the Friends of Old Time Music Concert. Field recordist Peter Siegel captured the riveting performances of these singers and instrumentalists, and his recording showcases the nuances of phrasing, vocal delivery, and rhythmic styles of the songs, as well as the canny storytelling that unveils the multi-faceted meanings inherent in each song. The entire concert is now available for the first time on Smithsonian Folkways as The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert.
Folklorist Alan Lomax serves as emcee for the evening, and the concert opens with his introduction to the Georgia Sea Island Singers and the special guests of the evening. At the end of Lomax’s introduction, he declares optimistically that society is on the road to world peace and integration, a feeling that the Singers’ less optimistic and more realistic music betrays. As Lomax concludes, the ensemble “travels” in from the wings to the electrifying accompaniment of Jones’ tambourine playing which sets the cadence for the repetitive harmonic chorus “I got on my travelin’ shoes,” which she punctuates with shouts such as “Lord have mercy now” and “I’m gonna tell the Lord.” Like many of the songs in the concert, this one operates on at least two levels: the movement toward the promise of political freedom and the movement toward spiritual redemption and liberation.
As members of the Georgia Island Sea Singers introduce each song, they take care to introduce the audience to the history and background of the songs, as well as to the their musical styles. The ring shout spiritual “Buzzard Lope (Dance)/In That Old Field (In Dat Ole Fiel),” for example, reenacts the story of the bodies of dead slaves being left in the field or tossed at a crossroads where buzzards would soon come to devour the bones. Davis’ pattering, intricate dance steps (the buzzard lope dance) can be heard on the song as Jones and Mable Hillery lead the group with their calls to the group’s response.
With his resounding vocals, John Davis leads the sea shanty “Goodbye My Riley O,” a tribute to the work of stevedores on St. Simons Island, while on “Sink ‘Em Low,” Jones captures the sing-song rhythms of prison work gang songs that would not only provide a musical pattern to the grueling labors but also a sense of unity and liberation from the harsh conditions imposed by callous and often malicious guards.
Spare and haunting, McDowell’s snaking guitar rhythms and leads and his gravelly vocals evoke a poignant lonesomeness on the country blues “Going Down to the River.” Several of the songs retell various biblical stories—“Once There Was No Sun (Once Dey Was No Sun),” “Adam in the Garden (Adam in De Gyaaden),” “Who Built the Ark (Who Build De Ark)”—using Gullah and West African perspectives and linguistic roots. John Davis leads another ring shout spiritual, “Read ‘Em John,” which opens slowly, building to an urgent rhythmic shuffling—signaled by the drumming—that conveys the necessity of having one enslaved person—in this case, John—read a letter to the gathered slaves concerning their freedom. McDowell’s low moans and stinging slide notes introduce the traditional spiritual “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning”; he’s joined by the Georgia Sea Island Singers in their ethereal harmonies and shouting and handclapping as they blend their voices in the anticipation of spiritual and political liberation. Mable Hillery’s stirring use of the call and response structure of the spirituals lends force and urgency to the striving for political changes called for and enacted in Civil Rights marches. On “Marching on the Mississippi Line,” she reveals the deep religious dimensions of the ongoing struggles for social justice and freedom from racial oppression.
The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert captures the energy of the Georgia Sea Island Singers and their guests; the performances are electrifying, and one can’t help but hear and feel the depths of soul out of which every one of these songs issue. Apart from Lomax’s introductions, this set is a stunning introduction to the Gullah-Geechee music and the West African music traditions the Georgia Sea Island Singers kept alive in their communities.
How a live recording of a concert can preserve one powerful moment indelibly in time.
“We are on the road to world peace, freedom, and integration”, declares ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in 1965, as he introduces this historic concert. With songs which were encoded with powerful messages of resistance to slavery and oppression, the powerful subtext of the concert was crystal clear, even then. From behind him on the stage, however, some of the greatest Black folk singers of their time say nothing. Their thoughts on Lomax’s overly optimistic prediction were to come through in the songs they presented that evening. Songs that prayed to a Biblical God for justice, songs that spoke of the pure barbarity and horror of slavery, the death and murder of so many brought from Africa over the centuries, songs that spoke of the thousands and thousands of marchers in America at that very time during the Civil Rights movement.
“If I can’t march, I can sing“, said Mable Hillery of the Georgia Sea Island Singers, herself a noted Civil Rights activist and frequent marcher who had stayed back from protests to testify before this crowd of mostly young, white people in New York City. Their collective mission was to help people understand what slavery was, where this music was coming from and how it could inform the future.
The “Complete Friends of Old-Time Music Concert” is not just a live recording but a previously unheard, historically significant document. This unique piece of history that captures the reality of the Black American experience through folk songs is a captivating intersection of Black folk traditions and civil rights activism. In the midst of the Civil Rights Era, they used a range of songs, from Biblical to apocalyptic, to make a potent and specific point about the past horrors and the change needed for justice in the present and future.
The album is a rich tapestry of traditional music featuring a variety of genres from the Island and beyond. It includes stirring work songs, emotionally charged spirituals, jubilant songs for children, and revelatory renditions of Mississippi blues. Four of the songs, in particular, released in advance of the album, provide a vivid narrative of the history these artists aimed to convey, adding depth and context to the overall experience.
“Buzzard Lope (Dance)“, sung by Bessie Jones, John Davis, & The Georgia Sea Island Singers, is one of the most haunting songs on the album. A spiritual dance with African origins, this folkloric song reflects the horror and humiliation of enslaved black people whose bodies were thrown in the fields to rot rather than buried in the time of slavery. Singers would gather in a circle, cloth representing the body; as they danced, individuals would enter the circle and mimic the buzzard by snatching the cloth.
“Read ‘Em John,” sung by John Davis, Bessie Jones, and The Georgia Sea Island Singers, can be traced to emancipation. It speaks of the one enslaved person who could read being asked to read the letter telling the other enslaved people that they were now free. It is a simple but lively celebration packed with sheer joy and enthusiasm.
“Chevrolet“, from the early recorded blues tradition, is a 1930 Memphis Minnie song sung here by Ed Young and Emma Ramsey. Young’s fife playing ties it back to the Mississippi fife and drum tradition that traces back to the Civil War. The fun song, however, is about a brand new Chevrolet and the coming of new technology and was recently made famous when Mary J. Blige sang it a cappella in a 2017 Super Bowl ad.
“Marching on the Mississippi Line” is sung by Mable Hillery and Emma Ramsay. Hillery was part of The Georgia Sea Island Singers, but she was also participating in freedom-song teach-ins in the South during the Civil Rights Era. Having spoken about how she couldn’t be out marching because she was at this concert instead, she brought together Biblical ideals with modern politics for a song that still resonates today.
It was a star-studded concert, and the excitement of these seminal musicians joining together on songs and inspiring each other in this live recording is palpable. They clearly revel in playing together, having found common ground across very different Black communities in America. The spoken introductions to the songs capture the traditions of the time, and the musicality, mainly through handclapping, flutes, and stringed instruments, is wholesome and moving as the performers and audience alike put their all into the evening.
The recognition and foresight of this movement in 1965 were brave and groundbreaking, yet, astonishingly, some sixty years later, the fight for freedom from slavery and oppression in its many forms continues across the globe. Despite being acknowledged for centuries, the release of this live recording is a pertinent, valuable reminder that the job is far from done
Bessie Jones, John Davis & The Georgia Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ed Young - The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert
CataLogue Number: SFW40258
Visit: https://folkways.si.edu/
Type: Album, Collaboration
Released: 14 June 2024
Recorded: 9 April 1965
Genres: Spirituals, Traditional Black Gospel, Hill Country Blues
Source: Digital
1. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones - Introduction by Alan Lomax / Travelin’ Shoes 2:29
2. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones with Ed Young - Handclapping - Cane Fife 3:07
3. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones - Buzzard Lope (dance) - In That Old Field 2:12
4. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones - Josephine 1:14
5. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by John Davis - Goodbye My Riley O 2:41
6. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Peter Davis - Go Row the Boat Child 1:39
7. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by John Davis - Join the Band 1:26
8. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones - Sink ’Em Low 2:29
9. Mississippi Fred McDowell - Going Down to the River 3:30
10. Mississippi Fred McDowell with Mable Hillery - Shake ’Em on Down 3:04
11. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones - Once There Was No Sun 2:40
12. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by John Davis - Adam in the Garden 1:26
13. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones - Who Built the Ark 1:38
14. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by John Davis - Let My Children Go 3:19
15. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Peter Davis - My God Is a Rock 4:14
16. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Mable Hillery with Mississippi Fred McDowell - I Heard the Angels Singing 3:11
17. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by John Davis - Read ’Em John 1:37
18. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Mississippi Fred McDowell - Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning 3:32
19. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones - Sign of the Judgement 2:45
20. Ed Young, Emma Lee Ramsey - Chevrolet 4:22
21. Fred McDowell - Write Me a Few of Your Lines 3:29
22. Mississippi Fred McDowell, Mable Hillery - Don’t Ever Leave Me 3:56
23. Mable Hillery with Emma Lee Ramsey - Marching on the Mississippi Line 3:12
24. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by John Davis - Down to the Mire 3:18
25. Georgia Sea Island Singers led by Bessie Jones - Before This Time Another Year 4:56
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