RECORD ILLUSTRATIONS—CHAPTER THREE

Spirituals—Hymn Tune Style

SISTER B. PHILLIPS AND HAROLD LEWIS

God Leads His Dear Children Along (Circle 3001)

SISTER ERNESTINE WASHINGTON

The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow, Does Jesus Care (Disc 710)

HUDDLE LEADBETTER (LEADBELLY)

We Shall Walk Through the Valley (in Disc. Album 660)

Also ROSETTA THARPE record listed in Chap. 2

Spirituals—Archaic Folk Style

MITCHELL CHRISTIAN SINGERS

I’m Praying Humble, The Saints are Marching (Columbia Reissue); Walk With Me, The Bridegroom’s Coming (Columbia 37483)

LEADBELLY

Talking, Preaching (in Disc Album 660)

Spirituals—Solo Song and Concert Style

MARION ANDERSON

Hold On, Poor Me (Victor 10-1278)

ROLAND HAYES

Were You There, Hear The Lambs A’ Cryin (Columbia 69812)

PAUL ROBESON with LAWRENCE BROWN

Eight Spirituals (Columbia Album 610)

Blues—Basic Twelve Bar

BESSIE SMITH

Lost Your Head Blues (Columbia 35674)

MA RAINEY

Black Dust Blues (Paramount Reissue 12926)

HOCIEL THOMAS

Go Down Sunshine (Circle 1014)

MEMPHIS MINNIE

It Was You, Baby (Columbia 37462)

FERDINAND “JELLY-ROLL” MORTON

Mamie’s Blues (Commodore 4001)

COOT GRANT

Evil Gal Blues (King Jazz 147)

SONNY TERRY

Harmonica Blues (Columbia 37686)

EDITH JOHNSON

Good Chib Blues, and COW COW DAVENPORT—Jim Crow Blues (Paramount, Reissued on Century 3021)

MEADE LUX LEWIS

Whistle Blues (Blue Note 39)

Blues—Folk Song, Hymn Tune, Work Song, Breakdown and Dance Patterns

BESSIE SMITH

New Orleans Hop Scop Blues (Columbia 37577)

BERTHA HILL

Careless Love, Trouble in Mind (Circle 1004)

JACK DUPREE

Dupree Shake Dance (Columbia 37335)

LEADBELLY

Negro Work Songs, Country Dances, etc. (in Disc Album 660)

MEMPHIS MINNIE

I’m Not a Bad Gal (Columbia 37562)

JOE WILLIAMS

Stack of Dollars (Columbia 38055)

SONNY TERRY AND OH RED

Harmonica and Washboard Breakdown (Columbia 37686)

FERDINAND MORTON

Wining Boy Blues, Buddy Bolden Blues, Don’t You Leave Me Here (Commodore 4004, 3, 5)

BILL GAITHER (LEROY’S BUDDY)

How Long, Baby, How Long and After the Sun Goes Down (Decca 48044)

MA RAINEY

Leavin’ This Morning (Paramount Reissue 12902)

Twelve Bar Blues—Instrumental

LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND BAND

S.O.L. Blues (Columbia 35661)

DEWEY JACKSON’S PEACOCK ORCHESTRA

Capitol Blues (Brunswick 1010)

ART HODES AND HIS CHICAGOANS

Slow ‘Em Down Blues (Blue Note 506)

KID ORY’S CREOLE JAZZ BAND

Blues for Jimmy (Crescent-2)

BUNK JOHNSON AND HIS NEW ORLEANS BAND

Franklin St. Blues (Victor 404-0129) Snag It (Victor 40-0126) (See also fine performances of “Snag It” by King Oliver—Brunswick 1010—Kid Ory—Circle 12001—Muggsy Spanier—Commodore 616)

BABY DODDS TRIO, WITH ALBERT NICHOLAS

Albert’s Blues (Circle 1002)

KID RENA’S DELTA JAZZ BAND

Lowdown Blues (Circle 1035)

LOUIS ARMSTRONG

Gutbucket Blues (Columbia 36152)

Blues Treatment of Hymns, Creole, and other

Traditional New Orleans Songs

KID ORY’S CREOLE JAZZ BAND

Bucket Got a Hole in It, Eh La Bas, Creole Bo Bo, Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho (in Columbia Album 126)

KID RENA’S DELTA JAZZ BAND

Get in Right (Circle 1038)

BABY DODDS JAZZ FOUR

Winin’ Boy Blues, Careless Love (Blue Note 518)

JACK TEAGARDEN’S BIG EIGHT

St. James Infirmary (HRS 2006)

ECLIPSE ALLEY FIVE

Bucket Got a Hole in It (Circle 1612)

BUNK JOHNSON’S NEW ORLEANS BAND

My Maryland, Tishimongo Blues (Decca 35132, 1) When The Saints Go Marching In (Victor 40-0126)

“RED” ALLEN AND ORCHESTRA

Canal Street Blues (Decca 19092)

LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND ORCHESTRA

Down in Honky Tonk (Decca 18091)

LU WATTERS YERBA BUENA BAND

Working Man Blues (West Coast 104)

(King Oliver’s original performance of this work may be available on Hot Jazz Club of America—7)

The Break

LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND BAND

Cornet Chop Suey (Columbia 36154) Potato Head Blues (Columbia 35660) Oriental Strut, You’re Next (Columbia 35660) Wild Man Blues (Brunswick 80059)

JOHNNY DODDS AND ORCHESTRA

Come on and Stomp, Stomp, Stomp (Brunswick 80074)

BECHET-SPANIER BIG FOUR

If I Could Be With You (HRS 2002)

(For interesting treatments of the break, see “Snag It” recordings, and “Joe Turner Blues,” “One and Two Blues,” “Skid-Dat-De-Dat” “Bragging in Brass,” “Congo Blues” in listings above and in Chapter 2)

The Riff, Early Style

LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND ORCHESTRA

Savoy Blues (Columbia 37537)

JOHNNY DODDS AND ORCHESTRA

Red Onion Blues, Gravier St. Blues (Decca 18094)

FERDINAND MORTON

King Porter Stomp (Commodore 4005)

ART HODES

A Selection from the Gutter, Organ Grinder Blues (Commodore 545)

LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND ORCHESTRA

2:19 Blues (Decca 18090)

It was the W.P.A. of the 1930’s that inaugurated the large scale study of American folk music, led by men like John A. Lomax and Benjamin A. Botkin. Unfortunately the magnificent Library of Congress recordings that resulted are insufficiently available for knowledge and study. The transformation in appreciation of our folk lore, however, is a permanent one, and is seen in the work being done by Alan Lomax for Decca, George Avakian for Columbia, Мое Asch for Disc.

It is a disgrace that a great mass of the most beautiful music ever created in America is still locked away in the files of the commercial record companies. Some of Bessie Smith’s finest “straight” blues, like “Backwater Blues” with its dramatic flood story, “Poor Man Blues” with its protest against mistreatment, are out of print, as well as records by other singers such as Leroy Carr, Ma Rainey, Bessie Tucker, who exhibit the untrained human voice in all its flexibility of expression, making its own music and poetry. A careful sifting of the records, issued by the companies originally, with typical snobbery, as “race records,” would unearth a few hundred of the utmost value in studying American history, American music, and the origins of all music. Blues records are still being made. They exhibit generally, however, the mentality of the manufacturer rather than the fluid, changing and creative words and music of people making their own art for their own social needs.

Among the songs listed here as “Spirituals, Concert Style,” it is interesting to pick out their varied origins. Most of them, like “Bye and Bye,” “Go Down Moses” “Hold On,” are clearly antiphonal in structure. “Balm in Gilead” is a fine hymn-like tune. “Sometimes I Feel” and “Were You There” are close to the blues. “Jericho” is typical of the revival meeting and the “jump” rhythm.

The origin of the songs listed as folk song and dance blues, and traditional New Orleans songs, is anybody’s guess, and the ear is the most important judge. Songs undergo strange transformations in use. The popular hit of a few years back, “Pistol Packing Momma” is almost note for note a Creole song, and many a hymn tune has been put to secular use, reversing the process whereby hymn tunes were originally made out of secular songs.