Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song

Subject: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: harpgirl
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 09:18 AM

... a recent thread on music prompted me to mention this collection and to comment.
Ruby Pickens Tartt of Livingston, Sumter County, Alabama was a short story writer, painter, librarian, mother, and perhaps more than anything else, a lover and collector of Afro-Americcan folklore, life, and song. The book is called "Honey in the Rock." (have we discussed this before?)
Negro spirituals, in this collection, are said to come in several types: exhortatory, salvation, interior monologue or prayer song, lament, celegration of a state of grace, morale builder, eternal happiness in the promised land, the poetry of mystic salvation, elegiac lyric song of death, apocalyptic song, sermon song, story song...for instance


The ole ark's er movin'

The ole ark she reel,
The old ark she rock.
The ole ark she reel from mounting top.
Sing the old arks' er movin',movin',movin',
Ole ark's er movin',movin''long.

Way down yonder 'bout Jurden stream
Think I heered de chillun say dey been redeemed.
Sing the ole ark's er movin',movin',movin',
Ole ark's er movin',movin',movin' 'long.

Jurden river deep en wide
None can cross but de sanctified.
Sing the old ark's er movin', movin',movin' 'long.

When I gets to heaven, gonna talk en tell
How Jesus freed my soul from hell.
Sing the ole ark's er movin',movin',movin'
Ole ark's er movin',movin', movin', 'long.



Thank god almighty I'm free at last...hg

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 10:49 AM

Good thread Harp.

Although I've never learned to "properly" sight read, I used to spend hours thumbing through that and other similar collections of Gospel music, humming away to myself. T'was great practice since the tunes are usually somewhat similar in intervals, with the same musical phrase often repeated in several songs. Highly recommend Gospel collections if you want to brush up on your reading skills.

Rick

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 01:32 PM

Bibliographic Information, for those who want ot track down the book:

Author:Tartt, Ruby Pickens
Title: Honey in the Rock, the Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection of Religious Folk Songs From Sumter County,
Alabama Mercer University Press, 1992. Hardcover.
LOC Call No: 90-042394 //r95, [Edited and With Preface, Introduction, and Bibliographical Essay By Olivia and Jack Solomon]. xxxvi, 176 p., 23 cm. .

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 06:16 PM

Abby,

What a surprise ! I looked in here expecting to find yet another thread filled with scatological reference to songs or whatever about scarlet women and other Ruby tarts. But it's an actual music topic about a collector I've never encountered. Very nice to see. I'm looking forward to hearing more freom folks about this.

Art

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: Frankham
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 06:43 PM

Ruby Pickens Tart was the lady who discovered the great folk African-American singer Vera Hall. She was the one who first did "Another Man Done Gone"

Frank

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: harpgirl
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 10:45 PM

Art, Olivia and Jack Solomon had some interesting things to say about "folk." May I quote:

We have made no attempt to "clean up" this Sumter County collection. Ordinary standards of correctness are useless and self-defeating in folklore investigation where language is a fundamental agent in the identification of a phenomenon as "folk." Ironically, in a grammatical fault will often lie the poetry and truth of some human experience. Historically, some transcriptions of Negro folk speech have descended to a caricature which insults the people it purports to portray. Mrs. Tartt's song manuscripts are notabley free of that flaw: she was extremely careful to avoid exaggerated phonetic spelling, and she recorded folk diction and syntax accurately." preface xiv, Honey in The Rock.

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: The Shambles
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 02:59 AM

Folk song collecting. Good or bad.

She sounds like a 'good' one?

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 03:21 AM

Harpy, are the tunes included, or just mostly lyrics? This sounds like a book I gotta have.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: harpgirl
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 07:45 AM

HI Joe, No chords but many of them are easily deciphered from the explanatory notes or similarity to mainstream gospel tunes....How was the Everglades? We are finally getting some rain down here....harpgirly

Subject: Index: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection of Folk Song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 05:03 PM

Here's the index of this collection.
-Joe Offer-

---

HONEY IN THE ROCK
The Ruby Pickens Tart Collection
Of Religious Folk Songs
From Sumter County, Alabama
Olivia and Jack Solomon, 1991 (Mercer University Press)

Ain't no stranger here
All the friend I had dead en gone
All time trouble in my heart
Ananias, Ananias
Ankle in Jesus
Anyhow
Anywhere, anytime

Been in de war so long
Blow, Gable in de army
Borrowed land

Can't hide, sinner, you can't hide
Carry me safely home
Clear the line before you call
Clim'in' up de hills
Coming up, coming up before God
Cotton chopping song

De las' word I heerd him say
De world can't do me no harm
Didn't you hear my Lord call?
Dis is er mean old world to try to live in
Dis ole world is er mean world
Don't let nobody turn you `round
Don't/Doan you be uneasy
Don't you grieve
Down on me

Ef I had my way, I'd tear de buildin' down,
Everybody ought to love their soul
Fightin' fer de city
For my Jesus ever more

Gimme Jesus
God gonna trouble the water
God knows I am the one
God's gettin' worried wid yo' wicked ways
God-er-mighty knows I can't stay down here
Good news
Good-bye, Sammy
Got Jesus in dat lan' where I am bound

He never sed er mumerlin' word
He's coming again so soon
He's got his eyes on me
Hear what my Jesus say
Hit jes' suits me,
Honey in the rock
How long, Jesus?

I ain't going to lay my religion down
I believe I'll go back home
I doan know when ole death gwine call me home
I feel like my time ain't long
I got a home in the rock
I heard the angels singing
I started to make heaven my home
I stood en rung my hands en cried
I wonder where the gamblin' man
I'm so glad I got my religion on time
In that land
Israelites shoutin' in the heaven

Jerdan is so chilly and cold
Jesus gonna make up my dying bed
Job, oh Job
Job, oh Job, New verses to
John saw that number

Let dat liar erlone
Let hit shine
Little angels
Little black train is comin'
Live tergether, little chillen
Lord, I feel like I got to go to Jurden
Lord, I wonders where he's gone (a,b)
Lord, I'm goin'down in your name
Lord, I'm gonna tell the news
Lord, I'm on my way
Lord, pray wid de heaven
Lord, trouble so hard
Lord, won't you come by here
Low down chariot and let me ride
Low down death right easy
Lyin' in de arms uv the Lord

Making for the promised land
Move de member
My good Lord done been here

Nora built the ark

Oh John, preaching in the wilderness
Oh Lord, I'm in your care (a,b)
Oh Lord, when I die
Oh, show de weary traveler

Play-party or rock song

Rock my soul in de bosom of Abraham
Rocky, chillun
Rough, rocky road, en you `most done travelin'

Seal up your book, John
See thy lovin' Lord
Servant choose yo' seat and set down
Set down side uv de lamb
Shepherd, shepherd
Some say give me father
Soon as my feet strike Zion won't be trouble no more
Stay in de field `til de war is ended

Tall angel at de bar (a,b)
Tall angels at the bar
Tell me, Job
Thank God a'mighty I'm free at las'
Thanky fer de risin' sun
The bar of judgment
The old ark's er movin'
There's sumpin' on my mind whut's worryin' me
They cannot crown my Lord `til I get there
Three religion songs (a,b,c)
Time is windin' up
Travelin' on
Travelin' shoes

Until I found the Lord

Walk in Jerusalem jes' lac John
Watch-a-man
We gonna have a good time bimeby
Wheel in the middle of a wheel
Wheel in the middle uv the wheel (a,b)
When the love comes twinkle-un' down
When the train rolls up
Work on the buildin' for the Lord
Wouldn't mind dyin' if dyin' wuz all

You can't cross there
You gonna need that pure religion, halle-luh, halle-luh
You got ter move
You jes' as well get ready
You'll need that true religion

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 06:09 PM

Click here for information about the entire collection, which is apparently far more extensive than this one book.
-Joe Offer-

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http://cdm17066.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p17066coll3

Subject: RE: Ruby Pickens Tartt Collect. of Folk Song
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 04:44 PM

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