Another from Rick Pollay: In 1989, Si Kahn adapted traitional lyrics from song like Go Down Hannah with a new tune and chorus. My mash up adapts his tune with more trad lyrics, new verses and arranged with doubled verses. SO LONG, MISSISSIPPI (Si Kahn-adapted) So long ago, so long ago So long Mississippi goodbye my friend So long ago, so long ago So long Mississippi goodbye Been a convict here since nineteen oh one Choppin’ cotton in the white man's sun Was down in the delta in nineteen oh two Where they did anything that they wanted to do CHORUS If a convict here in nineteen oh three You’d a seen the things that they done to me Oh the convicts here in nineteen oh four We slept in rooms that had no floor CHORUS To escape from here in nineteen oh five Some fled North tryin’ to stay alive The convicts here in nineteen oh six Were layin’ track with shovels, hammers and picks CHORUS Oh. I realized in nineteen oh seven I won’t be free ’til nineteen eleven and the convicts here in nineteen oh eight The railroad track we had to make straight CHORUS All the convicts here in nineteen and nine Were workin’ hard in the turpentine pine And the convicts here in nineteen and ten They was workin’ the women like they workin’ the men CHORUS Rick's notes: Si Kahn, in 1989, adapted lyrics from old prison songs like Go Down Hannah with a new tune and chorus, recording an elaborate instrumental arrangement as So Long Ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dieZ-iFqP6k). My mash up is a variant of Si’s tune with verses doubled up, and with more of the traditional lyrics and I added verses to mention a few more of the many hard jobs given to leased convict labor: e.g. building railroads and gathering pine sap for turpentine. Convicts were also made to work the worst jobs in mines and steel mills in Alabama, which at one point in the late 19th Century got 70% of the entire State’s revenue from leasing convicts, very predominately black prisoners often imprisoned for minor offenses, such as vagrancy.
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