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06 Nov 98 - 12:45 PM (#44468) Subject: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Ken Klinger Were songs sung by slaves called by a group name? I think so but cannot recall the term. Please help. |
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06 Nov 98 - 02:52 PM (#44487) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: The Shambles Are you thinking of 'chain gang songs'? I think we should tread carefully here, as this could be a sensitive subject for some of us. |
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06 Nov 98 - 03:52 PM (#44501) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Liam's Brother Hi Ken! I don't know of any name other than 'slave songs' which inclusively means all types of songs sung by slaves. 'Field hollers,' of course, refers to Afro-American songs that were sung while doing agricultural work. Chain gang songs were sung by prisoners, not slaves. I'm sure someone else can add some more. All the best. |
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06 Nov 98 - 03:54 PM (#44502) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Allan C. My sense is that the majority of such songs have long since been grouped by what the song was used for, such as "Nego Spirituals" or "Hoeing Songs" and such. But what comes to mind is the remark made by an old timer who said something to the effect that while people had come up with a number of labels for the music from "way back when" like "oldtime", "folk", etc., "When I was comin' up, we just called it music." |
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06 Nov 98 - 04:05 PM (#44504) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: BSeed There are, of course, the spirituals, and the freedom songs--sometimes the line between them was pretty blurry: "Let My People Go" is certainly both. There are the work songs and hollers...ultimately, the variety of songs is so great that I don't think any blanket categorization is possible. Where would you put a song like "All the Pretty Horses?" --seed |
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06 Nov 98 - 04:06 PM (#44505) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Bill in Alabama Good point, Allan. Selah! |
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06 Nov 98 - 04:07 PM (#44506) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Ole Bull The earliest published collection (1868 if I recall) was titled "Slave Songs of the United States." Of course, prior to that there was the popular minstrel show music which people believed was inspired by slave songs and music; they also commonly called this style "Ethiopian" music. |
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06 Nov 98 - 05:21 PM (#44519) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Barry Finn I've never seen or heard slave songs refered to as anything else but slave songs. Some might brake that down a little. I asked Frankie Quimby of the Georgia Sea Island Singers about a song & she said "oh that's an old time slave song", on the other hand, older now deceased members of the same group refered to some work songs as a rowing song (going back to slavery days) & on loading lumber on deck, a chantey or just a plain work song. She also called some Code Songs, like to let slave people know that Harriet Tubman was coming through without letting on to the slave holders (this I'd say is a contempory term). Some of the older long moaning slow songs, sung solo while picking cotton might be called a field holler (could also be called a cotton or cane song) but that may be a label applied by recent collectors. After slavery days you may have a muleskinner singing to his mule some camp levee holler & in prison you'll have some songs refered to by the work they accompany (like capstan, pump & halyard shanties), hoeing or flatweeding, chopping or crosscutting or logging songs, but these wouldn't be slave songs. As long as the horses didn't sing them they'd be folk songs. Barry |
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06 Nov 98 - 10:03 PM (#44551) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Chet W. This may be slightly off the subject, but has anyone come up with a good way to modify old songs that contain words that are just too objectionable to justify under the banner of folk authenticity. I'm thinking of the song "Year of Jubilo" as published in Wayne Erbsen's old-time song book, where the objectionable word is replaced by "worker". It makes it sound like a communist youth song, so much so that my partner and I wrote a new verse to it: |
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06 Nov 98 - 10:08 PM (#44554) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Chet W. It didn't print my verse for the modified "Year of Jubilo" On May Day all the workers gather out on the old Red Square/ They celebrate the revolution, where there'll be no hard times there/ They raise a toast to Marx and Lenin while they tear their statues down/ There's going to be a big revival when the Baptists come to town/ (CHO) The massa run, HA,HA/ The workers push and shove/ There's going to be a great day coming in the year of Gorbachuv |
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09 Nov 98 - 03:47 PM (#44675) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Pete M Very good point Chet, compounded by the differences in sensibilities of audiences. I get the definite feeling that the "word" you are specifically refering to would be more "unacceptable" in the US than in many other countries. Problems arise with both with descriptives for ethnic groups as you identify, and with the more colourful language of for instance the lower deck. What with the embarrassment of original singers in including such words when singing for collecters who are generally "gentry" and the wish of collecters to shield the public from the coaser elements, one would think that the most "offensive" statement ever made in a folk song was of the order of "blooming black man". As usual, I don't think there is a right answer, clearly one does not wish to cuase offense, and need to tailor what is sung to the audience, but I would argue very strongly for the retention of the actual words used in any documentation such as the DT. In "Grey funnel lines" Tawney states that he sought to compromise by substituting a less "offensive' but pithy expletive where the sense of the song is not compromised, but retains the original where it would "affect the rhyme or alliteration". I suggest this is the best course. Pete M |
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09 Nov 98 - 04:28 PM (#44687) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Allan C. Field hand??? |
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09 Nov 98 - 10:41 PM (#44751) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: mir I have sometimes heard them refered to as "Work Songs"; songs that have a beat that allows people to work in unison. mir |
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21 Feb 15 - 03:56 PM (#3688600) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: GUEST,jazz (19 Feb 2015) 'Swing low, Sweet Chariot' |
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21 Feb 15 - 03:57 PM (#3688601) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: GUEST,Joseph Scott (19 Feb 2015) "'Field hollers,' of course, refers to Afro-American songs that were sung while doing agricultural work." "Field hollers" refers to "hollers" that were sung in fields. "The holler is a way of singing -- free, gliding from a sustained high note down to the lowest register the singer can reach, often ending there in a grunt. It is marked by spontaneous and unpredictable changes in rhythm." -- John and Alan Lomax, 1936. |
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21 Feb 15 - 03:57 PM (#3688602) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: GUEST,Haruo (19 Feb 2015) There's probably some work to be done on the similarities and differences between field hollers and capstan chanteys/shanties. |
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21 Feb 15 - 05:01 PM (#3688659) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Greg F. where the objectionable word is replaced by "worker". Which "objectionable word" are you referring to? "Darkey"??? Give it a rest. Sing the song as it was written, with a short introduction to explain it was a different time & etc. & why the term is no longer acceptable, even tho its WAY down the scale from ni**er. Here's a chance to educate your audience. Henry Clay Work was an abolitionist. |
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11 Mar 15 - 04:52 AM (#3692991) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: GUEST,Stix EXACTLY Greg, sing it the way it was written!! There was reason behind those songs, whether spiritual, testimonials of sorrow and struggles, rare moments of joy, or a way to get through a days work riddled with hard labor only to be treated less than the family pet at the end each of day, not to mention how many songs were hidden codes that contained explicit instructions on when the coast was cleat and how to safely escape to freedom. The songs were written with purpose and is an accurate historic depiction of the way life was back than and lengths many had to go through in order to survive so for any of us to have the audacity and or arrogance to change those lyrics with the sole purpose of sparing someones misguided sensitivities in mind, I feel, is a slap in the face to whom ever wrote them and to those who ever found solace and strength in singing them as well as the many lives those very lyrics saved. I used the term "misguided sensitivities" because I think the only thing anyone should be offended by as well as learn from, is slavery itself. After reading the topic, I was reminded of wonderful documentary called, "Aida's Brothers and Sisters: Black Voices in Opera" one women emphasized the importance of preserving a song by properly singing each word exactly how it is written, no matter what language it's in, so if the songs says "Where you goin' up yonder? House done built without hands." that is exactly what you sing! |
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11 Mar 15 - 11:47 AM (#3693099) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: wysiwyg I believe I posted pre-Mudcat-crash that they were often referred to as "Sorrow Songs" by the enslaved people who created and sang them; a term still in use, which I heard from an AfAM man at a meeting a few years ago. ~Susan |
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17 Apr 16 - 11:11 AM (#3785737) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: GUEST Spirituals |
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19 Sep 19 - 02:05 PM (#4009616) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: GUEST Weren't they called tear songs or something like that? |
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19 Sep 19 - 03:24 PM (#4009630) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Vic Smith When Cecil Sharp was in the USA during the First World War, notating songs, one of them was Barbara Allen, learned from "Aunt" Maria Tomes, an 85-year-old former slave he found smoking a pipe in a log cabin in Nellysford, Virginia in 1918. "Slave Songs. What Are They Called???" I believe that Barbara Allen is a British Folk Song. I saw the wonderful Carolina Chocolate Drops on their first UK tour. They are a black old-time string band from Durham, North Carolina. My jaw dropped when Rhiannon Giddens announced that she was going to sing an unaccompanied song and it was in Gaelic. She said that many of the slave plantation owners in that area were Scots Gaelic speakers and the slaves had to learn the language of their owners. This has also been collected from an old ex-slave around the time that Sharp was in the Appalachians. There was a Gaelic speaking Scots fiddler friend of mine in the audience and I asked him at the end what Rhiannon's Gaelic accent had been like. "Pretty damned good" was his opinion. "Slave Songs. What Are They Called???" I believe that this one was a Gaelic lament. |
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19 Sep 19 - 05:24 PM (#4009645) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Mrrzy I think if you want to refer to the broad category, the term is slave song. Spirituals are religious whether slave song or not, and hollers etc are all subsets of the broader category (unless sung by non-slaves, when they overlap). All the pretty little horses is a great example... Not a holler, not a spiritual, but yes a slave song. And if a song as written contains offensive terminology, why not use your intro to explain your change rather than explain why, even though you know better, you're going to be offensive? |
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19 Sep 19 - 08:00 PM (#4009665) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: GUEST,mrgrtt123 Songs were used in everyday life by African slaves. Singing was tradition brought from Africa by the first slaves; sometimes their songs are called spirituals. Singing served many purposes such as providing repetitive rhythm for repetitive manual work, inspiration and motivation. |
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20 Sep 19 - 03:45 AM (#4009685) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Jim Carroll I don't know if it's still available, but John Greenway's excellent 'American Folksongs of Protest (Pennsylvania University Press,1953) includes a large section on Black protest songs, including a dozen pages on Slave songs' The book, in my opinion, has never been surpassed as a social history of how songs have been used as weapons in the fight or freedom and better conditions Jim Carroll Have just checked - it's available for reading on line free of charge |
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20 Sep 19 - 03:58 AM (#4009686) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Jim Carroll Forget that last - it's available as a free download Jim |
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20 Sep 19 - 06:37 AM (#4009697) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Vic Smith A big thank you to Jim Carroll for suggesting John Greenway's book. I am just about to go on holiday for a week and I always like to take the sort of book that looks like it will be a compelling and demanding read on holiday. It is available in a number of formats for free on the internet, some as downloads as Jim suggests, but the most user-friendly seems to me to be a facsimilie 'flip-book' format. As I have already decided to take my lap-top with me and as the apartment that we are staying in has free wi-fi this will be ideal. The book in 'flip-book' format is available at https://archive.org/details/americanfolksong00gree |
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20 Sep 19 - 09:57 AM (#4009709) Subject: RE: Slave Songs - What Are They Called??? From: Mrrzy Um, people sang before slaves got here, no? |