Exploring American Folk Music

by Kip Lornell

  “John Henry” is doubtless the most well known member of this tradition. Popular among both black and white musicians, “John Henry” was a steel-driving man whose story is believed to have occurred in West Virginia in the 1870s. This song’s many versions are archetypal of black ballads for it recounts the story of a strong man competing against a steam-powered drill. In most versions John Henry dies after defeating his mechanical foe and is celebrated as a mighty man. “John Henry” has been collected among blacks across the South from the early 1900s to the present and is sometimes played as a fiddle tune. In the late 1920s Joe Evans and Arthur McClain recorded this rather complete version:

  John Henry he was a li’l baby boy

  Sittin’ on his mama’s knee,

  Had a nine-pound hammer, holdin’ in her arms

  Goin’ be the death of me . . . (x4)

  John Henry went to that Big Bend tunnel

  Hammer in his hand,

  John Henry was so small and that rock was so tall

  Laid down his hammer and he cried. (x4)

  John Henry asked his shaker,

  “Shaker did you ever pray?

  Cause if I miss that piece of steel

  Tomarrow be your buryin’ day.” (x4)

  “Who’s gonna shoe your pretty little feet,

  Who’s gonna glove your li’l hand?

  Baby who’s gonna kiss your rosy cheeks

  When I’m in a differ’nt land?” (x4)

  John Henry took sick and went to bed,

  Sent for the doctor and in he come.

  Turned down the side of John Henry’s bed,

  “Sick and can’t get well, oh partner,

  Sick and can’t get well.”

  While “John Henry” is ubiquitous, other black ballads have remained regionalized or even more local. The story of “Railroad Bill” relates how an Alabama turpentine worker, Morris Slater, became entangled with the law and eventually fronted a series of bold attacks on trains before being shot to death in 1897. This ballad has primarily circulated in the southeastern states, most widely in Tennessee and Virginia. “The Mystery of Dunbar’s Child” exemplifies a ballad with exceptionally limited geographic circulation. This song describes the kidnapping of two children from a 1912 Opelousas, Louisiana, picnic. The only known version of “The Mystery of Dunbar’s Child” comes from Richard “Rabbit” Brown, a New Orleans singer/guitarist who recorded it for Victor in 1928. Because of its strong narrative and chronological sense, this ballad is unusual in black tradition.

  Two of the best songsters—Libba Cotten and John Hurt—at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. Jim Marshall photo courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.

  The majority of ballads associated with black culture, however, fall in between the popularity of “John Henry” and the almost utter obscurity of Rabbit Brown’s song. “Frankie and Albert” tells of a lovers’ quarrel that leads to death for Albert, who was shot by Frankie after she spied him with another woman. This song is also known as “Frankie and Johnny,” possibly because the sheet music for the song appeared with this title in 1912. The printed publication of ballads helped their circulation, but black singers always took decided liberties in reshaping them to suit their own needs. The publication in 1909 of “Casey Jones” helped to popularize this ballad among both black and white performers. In 1927 Memphis singer Walter “Furry” Lewis recorded this song for Victor. “Casey Jones” has also been part of Anglo-American ballad tradition and even made it into contemporary pop music by way of the Grateful Dead.

  It is not surprising that another man of mythic proportions, Stack O’ Lee, has rivaled John Henry for the attention of black songsters. Stack O’ Lee (also known as Staggerlee, Stagolee, etc.) was a purely bad man, a bully who in some versions of his tale kills Billy Lyons following a gambling game. Another murderous “bad man,” Dupree, who in the somewhat confused narrative promises Betty a diamond ring and ends up hanging for the murder of a policeman and a detective, also circulated among black singers in the late 1920s. “Dupree Blues” is derived from a ballad published by Andrew Jenkins, a white composer and recording artist from Atlanta who sang the song as “Frank Dupree.” His version is based on a true incident, which resulted in the hanging of Frank Dupree on September 4, 1922.

  * * *

  MUSICAL EXAMPLE

  Huddie Leadbetter, “Lead Belly,” was one of the best-known black folk musicians of the twentieth century. He also helped to popularize the twelve-string guitar, which was one of his trademarks. Lead Belly was a quintessential songster, with a wide repertoire of sacred and secular songs. Following his “discovery” by the Library of Congress in 1933, Lead Belly popularized “Goodnight Irene,” “Black Betty,” “Midnight Special,” and a host of other songs. He recorded extensively for the Library of Congress, the American Record Company, and Folkways before his death in 1949.

  Title “Rock Island Line”

  Performer Lead Belly

  Instruments voice and guitar Length 2:32

  Musical Characteristics

  1. This is a cante-fable, a performance that is partially sung and partially spoken.

  2. Once the singing begins, the tempo of this song increases.

  3. At times, Lead Belly’s voice and guitar act in tandem creating internal antiphony.

  4. After a rubato introduction the song settles down into a gently rocking duple (4/4) meter.

  Spoken: This is the Rock Island Line. These boys is cutting with pole axes and the man that cuts right-handed he stands opposite side of the other man; the other one cut left-handed, he stand on the other side. Boys, one thing about that Rock Island Line, which is a might good road to ride. In that road, the man going to talk to the depot agent; when he’s going to come out to cut with the Rock Island Line freight train, coming back from New ’leans this away. That man blows his whistle different than men’s blow whistles here. ’Cause he’s talking to the depot agent, tell him something when that switchboard call over that line, that means for that freight train to go into that hold. The man’s going to talk to him.

  Sung:I got goats. I got sheep. I got hogs. I got cows. I got horses. I got all livestock. I got all livestock.

  Spoken:Depot agent let him get by. He got down, going to tell him.

  Sung:I fooled you. I fooled you. I got iron. I got all pig-iron. I got all pig-iron. The old Rock Island Line.

  Chorus:Oh, the Rock Island Line is a mighty good road.

  Oh, the Rock Island Line is a road to ride.

  Oh, the Rock Island Line is a mighty good road.

  If you want to ride, you gotta ride it like you find it,

  Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.

  Jesus died to save our sins, Oh great God, we’re gonna meet him again.

  Chorus

  I may be right, I may be wrong, you know you gonna miss me when I’m gone.

  Chorus

  ABCWXYZ that’s how it goes, but it don’t take me.

  Chorus (repeat)

  This selection is from Smithsonian Folkways 40044.

  * * *

  Bad men, murderers, and men of strength seem to have captured the interest of black songsters because their exploits are more celebrated than those in other ballads. “Stavin’ Chain,” is an intriguing song that appears to straddle the line between ballad and blues. Stavin’ Chain is the nickname for a man who in black culture is bigger than life. In the collected and recorded versions of the songs about him, Stavin’ Chain was in Parchman Farm (a notorious Mississippi prison) for killing a man, a train engineer of might, a man with sixteen women but who wanted sixteen more, and a dead man who lives in hell with his Stetson hat on. All of these different Stavin’ Chains symbolized a man of extraordinary means, electric energy, and sexual power. He appears to have been a hero with many chameleonlike virtues who triumphed over many situations and conquered many women. There are many balladlike son
gs about Stavin’ Chain, though none can be counted as a true ballad.

  Ballads of British origin are not entirely unknown to black performers. Not surprisingly they are rarely encountered in black musical culture and tend to be among the most popular of the broadside or Child ballads. The bawdy ballad of adultery “Our Goodman” (Child 302), known as “Drunkard’s Special” or “Cabbage Head” among New World performers, was collected during the early part of the twentieth century and later recorded by Dallas-based singer Coley Jones. The North Carolina performer Blind Boy Fuller’s “Cat Man Blues” (while not a ballad) utilized the same theme on his 1936 recording of this song. As recently as 1973 it was recorded by the New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair. The Irish broadside ballad “The Unfortunate Rake,” the sad lament of a lad dying of venereal disease, became “St. James Infirmary” or the “Dying Gambler” as sung by blacks. Two Ramsey State Convict Farm (Texas) inmates recorded by John A. Lomax in 1933, “Iron-Head” Baker and Moses “Clear Rock” Platt, also performed several British ballads, “Maid Freed from the Gallows” (Child 256) and “The Farmer’s Curst Wife” (Child 276). “Maid Freed from the Gallows” also appealed to Lead Belly, who recorded the song several times during his career.

  SONGSTERS AND RURAL MUSIC

  The term songster implies that the performer not only possesses a fine voice but also knows many songs in a variety of genres. Many of the black rural singers of this century are, in fact, songsters. Record companies and field researchers often billed them as “blues singers”; however, such versatile musicians as Walter “Furry” Lewis (Memphis), Pink Anderson (South Carolina), Jim Jackson (Memphis), Henry “Rufe” Johnson (South Carolina), John Hurt (Mississippi), and Mance Lipscomb (Texas) performed blues, work songs, ballads, religious songs, and so forth.

  Songsters participated in church music, too. After a Saturday night in the juke joint, at least some of the patrons would adjourn to church pews for their Sunday worship service. The most “churchified” citizens of Leigh, Texas (where the well-known songster Lead Belly lived early in the twentieth century), no doubt stayed out of these joints, but many people moved back and forth between the secular and sacred sides of life.

  Lead Belly’s physical movement from Leigh illustrates the most important early means of transmission for regional styles of folk music. Geographers call such movement relocation diffusion, referring to the spread of a new idea or innovation through the migration of an individual or a folk group. Between 1906 and 1911 Lead Belly lived in several places in eastern Texas and Louisiana, calling Shreveport and nearby Marshall home for short periods. His music traveled with him and he, in turn, picked up new influences and musical ideas.

  Lead Belly in the late 1940s. Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.

  Wandering black folk musicians were not an uncommon sight early in the twentieth century. Folk music provided entertainment, and small rural towns always welcomed a good musician with new ideas and a fresh sound. Some were itinerant musicians who, like Lead Belly, moved from town to town. Many other black folk singers found steady employment with traveling minstrel or medicine shows or with a circus. Road shows provided steady employment for peripatetic musicians eager to see the world around them. This tradition harkens back to the antebellum minstrel tradition that first flourished in the 1840s, but by the time of Lead Belly’s adolescence at the opening of the twentieth century, minstrelsy was beginning its inevitable decline and transformation.

  The mobility of certain black musicians, the fact that most of these musicians were musically illiterate (in the sense of reading musical notation), and the orientation of African Americans toward the verbal arts, all helped to promote the aural/oral tradition in black folk music. Beginning in the middle 1920s commercial recordings played a critical role in disseminating musical information. With few exceptions, the odd-printed broadside or sheet music featuring a folk song, this music has not been transmitted through formal musical channels. There are no formal conservatories for black (or white) musicians to attend nor university courses, such as “Advanced Blues Singing Techniques,” “The Rudiments of Afro-American Accordion Playing,” or “Gospel Quartet Ear Training.” Early in the twentieth century black singers learned their music by way of family members, like Lead Belly, whose accordion technique came from his uncle, or older members of an immediate musical community.

  Music was especially important for many blacks living in the rural South. It provided a source of entertainment and escape from a daily diet of hard work and poor food. Racism, both legal and social, was regaining strength with the passage of “Jim Crow” laws restricting the right to vote, reinforcing segregation, and reapplying the stranglehold of economic subjugation. Many of the gains won during Reconstruction were slowly eroding into a legal and social mire that brought despair to the black community by 1990.

  Weekends in the churches and at the rough juke joints provided diversion, offered solace, and brought relief from daily toil. These venues presented the public side of folk music. Within the black community, public musical performances fulfilled several functions—one of which was pure entertainment. A performer such as Lead Belly played for many public events within his own community. As a youth he worked at dances, known as breakdowns or smoky jumps in his section of east Texas. These rowdy dances featured free-flowing liquor, gambling, and mixing of the sexes and often served as the social centerpiece for many rural people. From small Texas towns like Leigh to the Mississippi Delta through the Carolinas, Saturday night functions drew the community together to visit, discuss problems, gossip, and relax from six days of demanding work. Because of their activities, Saturday night dances drew adults only. They began at dusk and usually lasted until well into the night, occasionally until sunup.

  The actual music heard at dances varied according to the region of the country. In North Carolina, for example, the music was often provided by small string bands consisting of fiddle, banjo, and guitar. Missouri blacks were more likely entertained by a ragtime piano player when they congregated to forget their troubles. In Texas, Lead Belly or one of his contemporaries performed a mixture of lively duple-meter polkas and two-steps, elegant waltzes, and slower tempo “drags,” which gave the dancers a chance to become better acquainted. People called out requests that the musicians could nearly always fulfill, for this was a tightly knit group composed of people who knew one another quite well.

  Well into the twentieth century most blacks living in the rural South fit into the patterns associated with a classic folk community: insular/isolated, family oriented, agrarian, conservative, cohesive, homogeneous, and slow changing. This era prior to paved interstate highways, the electronic media, and mass public education helped to reinforce traditional and regional culture. The folk roots of twentieth-century blues and gospel music lie in the antecedents that emerged from such communities.

  DOWN-HOME BLUES

  Blues first evolved as a distinctive style near the beginning of the twentieth century. The product of multigenesis in the Deep South (east Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama), blues was a synthesis of the traditions that preceded it: dance tunes, minstrel songs, secular ditties, and spirituals. Because of its origins, it is impossible to assign a specific date and geographical location for the first blues performance.

  There are several reasons why blues developed at this time. First, the period of Jim Crow racism added misery and hard times to the black community. Ku Klux Klan activity gained momentum during the 1890s, too, with the number of lynchings increasing and the per capita income for blacks stagnating or falling. These factors meant that black American citizens lived in an increasingly segregated society, enduring attacks on their civil and legal rights. Reconstruction promised freedom and opportunities for blacks, but thirty years after the Year of Jubilee the specter of increased racism shadowed the United States.

  Second was the more ready availability of
mail-order guitars and their greater popularity among folk musicians. Guitars were perfect for black folk musicians because these instruments were portable, their primary chords (I, IV, and V) were easy to play, and their strings easily bent to accommodate the sometimes flatted tonality commonly found in black folk music. Early blues guitarists sometimes tuned their instrument to an open D or E chord and used a knife or the neck of a bottle to increase their ability to produce tonalities outside of their European models. Bottleneck blues guitar (still an important performance practice) also gave guitarists a voice that was more human in its qualities, allowing them to create an interesting foil between their instrument and their voice. Interaction between a guitarist and his voice as well as between the singer and audience have become important ingredients of the blues tradition.

  Because the early-twentieth-century black community closely adheres to our model of an idealized folk society, change and innovation is expected to be gradual. In this instance it took the blues tradition at least ten years to diffuse across the South and gain acceptability. Nonetheless, blues provided one of the most important, creative outlets in response to increased repression and a renewal of hard times after the heady days of Reconstruction. Blacks (and a few whites) protested in other ways: newspaper editorials, feeble legislative reforms, and the formation of support organizations. But these did not hit the same type of responsive chord as blues, which became an important rallying point for the frustrations of blacks and one of their most important and lasting musical contributions to American culture.

  Early blues probably sounded similar to the “hollers” sung as people worked hard in the fields and to the secular ditties popular during the 1880s and 1890s. Certainly the subjects would have been similar: mistreatment, money problems, and difficulty between the sexes. Field hollers are one of the most immediate precursors for blues, and their free-form structure betrays the relationship to the later innovation. This particular example comes from Virginia in the late teens: