Bali: Gamelan & Kecak

The first time I heard gamelan music, I had no idea what it was. I thought it was electronica. It literally sounded like aliens. I was very confused, and very entranced. Then gradually I heard some more, and it was totally mindblowingly enchanting. I hope all of you get to hear one of these ensembles live some time, because the overtones really really knock you out. They build up a cloud of resonant sound that is hovering, shimmering all around you, which is the context of every note that gets played. And within this soundfield, stuff gets repeated, switched around, slowed down, sped up; it creates a context for surprises. And it lulls your conscious mind while stimulating your spirit. And that's why the music is so amazingly ethereal and out-of-body.

And this is exactly the same as what John Fahey does in open tunings.

And this is not an accident.

John Fahey happened to grow up in a neighborhood that had a gamelan ensemble in a backyard. When he'd get frustrated with school or family or life he'd bugger off to the gamelan and play for a while. Wild, eh? True story.

He also was sent an early Harry Partch disc when he was young. Harry Partch was very influenced by indonesian music and gamelans in particular.

And they weren't the only ones. Gamelan music changed the way that westerners thought about music at a very fundamental level. Suddenly, there was an alternative to the the linear scale-based, chord-based, key-based, melody-based approach to music that westerners had been taking since Baroque times. Here was a music that was harmonically driven, like Medieval music, Greek music, and a few others lost to time.

If you've never heard this sort of music before, or even if you have, you owe it to yourself to give this disc a listen. And when you come down from floating 50 feet above your body, you will have been deeply healed.

A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included.

The term refers more to the set of instruments than to the players of those instruments. A gamelan is a set of instruments as a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together — instruments from different gamelan are generally not interchangeable.

The word gamelan comes from the Javanese word gamels, meaning "to strike or hammer", and the suffix an, which makes the root a collective noun.

Introduction

Gamelan is a term for various types of orchestra played in Indonesia. It is the main element of the Indonesian traditional music. Each gamelan is slightly different from the other; however, they all have the same organization, which based on different instrumental groups with specific orchestral functions. The instruments in a gamelan are composed of sets of tuned bronze gongs, gong-chimes, metallophones, drums, one or more flute, bowed and plucked string instruments, and sometimes singers. In some village gamelan, bronze is sometimes replaced by iron, wood, or bamboo. The most popular gamelan can be found in Java, and Bali.

The Beliefs

In Indonesian traditional thinking, the gamelan is sacred and is believed to have supernatural power. Both musician and non-musicians are humble and respectful to the gamelan. Incense and flowers are often offered to the gamelan. It is believed that each instrument in the gamelan is guided by spirits. Thus, the musician have to take off their shoes when they play the gamelan. It is also forbidden to step over any instrument in a gamelan, because it might offend the spirit by doing so. Some gamelan are believed to have so much powers that playing them may exert power over nature. Others may be touched only by persons who are ritually qualified. In Javanese gamelan, the most important instrument is the Gong Ageng. The Javanese musicians believe that Gong Ageng is the main spirit of the entire gamelan.

Functions of Gamelan

Gamelan is a way of linking individuals in social groups. Gamelan music is performed as a group effort, and so there is no place for an individual showoff. Traditionally, gamelan is only played at certain occasions such as ritual ceremonies, special community celebrations, shadow puppet shows, and for the royal family. Gamelan is also used to accompany dances in court, temple, and village rituals. Besides providing music for social functional ceremonies, gamelan also provides a livelihood for many professional musicians, and for specialized craftsmen who manufacture gamelan.

Today, although gamelan music is still used for ritual ceremonies and the royal family, it is also performed as concert music at social and cultural gatherings to welcome guests and audiences. Gamelan is also used to accompany many kinds of both traditional and modern dances, drama, theatrical and puppetry. In modern days, gamelan can be kept in places such as courts, temples, museums, schools, or even private homes.

Balinese Gamelan music is very similar to Javanese Gamelan music. The music is in cycle too, however, it is usually faster. One of the characteristic of Balinese gamelan music is that, it has a lot of sudden changes in tempo and dynamics. Like the Javanese gamelan, the instruments in Balinese gamelan includes metallophones and gongs. However, there are more metallophones than gongs in Balinese gamelan. The metal keys in Balinese metallophones are ticker than those of Javanese. These Balinese metallophones produce very bright sound. Another characteristic of Balinese Gamelan music is the used of cymbals. These cymbals create fast rattling sound that usually cannot be found in Javanese Gamelan music.

Kecak (pronounced , alternate spellings: Ketjak and Ketjack) a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting "cak" and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the monkey-like Vanara helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. However, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.

Kecak was originally a trance ritual accompanied by male chorus. German painter and musician Walter Spies became deeply interested in the ritual while living in Bali in the 1930s and worked to recreate it into a drama, based on the Hindu Ramayana and including dance, intended to be presented to Western tourist audiences. This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the "modern art-culture system" in which, "the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and onsumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while making 'art' which was once embedded in the culture as a whole, into a separate entity." Spies worked with Wayan Limbak and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels have helped to make the Kecak famous throughout the world.

Performer, choreographer, and scholar I Wayan Dibia cites a contrasting theory that the Balinese where already developing the form when Spies arrived on the island. For example, well-known dancer I Limbak had incorporated Baris movements into the cak leader role during the 1920s. "Spies liked this innovation," and it suggested that Limbak, "devise a spectacle based on the Ramayana," accompanied by cak chorus rather than gamelan, as would have been usual.

As an uncharacteristically knowledgeable amazon customer has said:

In his amazing book Ocean of Sound, David Toop opens with a chapter on the meeting of western composers (especially Debussy) with the sounds of the Indonesian Gamelan (which are essentially orchestras of various sizes). Situating the nexus of much modern music in this meeting by finding strains of these sounds in minimalists like Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and John Cage, but also stretching into the filmic realms of Ryuchi Sakamoto, the electronics of Loop Guru, and the Free Jazz of Don Cherry, just to name a few he cites, Toop indicates the range of influence of this amazing music. David Lewiston's 1987 recordings on this compilation jubiliantly reflect this diversity, even in the fascinating opening track of various ensembles passing by in a parade showcasing the sounds of cymbals, gongs, drums, flutes, metallophones, wooden cowbells, and countless other mostly percussive sounds. The rest of the tracks on the CD are equally varied. The third track, for example, Genggong Duet, takes place with the Balinese Jew's Harp, and could almost sound like the electronic squiggles of some electronic outfits like mouse on mars or matmos; the fourth track, a Frog Song which is produced through a piece of palm bark and sounds like a reed instrument, could pass for a free-jazz improvisation. Another exciting highlight would be the 8th track, a Kecak piece that tells the Indian Legend of Hanuman. Familiar to anyone whose seen the film Baraka, this is a piece where a large group sits in a circle, moving, swaying, and chanting, tjak tjak tajk, in furious rhythm. Like the Master Musicians of Jajouka, whom William Burroughs called a "2000 year old rock band," this music sounds both ancient and progressive at the same time. An excellent introduction based on variety alone, but with digital recording, these sounds are surprisingly clean. For anyone curious about Balinese music, this would be a great place to start.

VA - Bali: Gamelan & Kecak

Year: 1989
Label: Nonesuch

Recorded by David Lewiston in 1987, these are fine recordings of both famous and little-heard strains of Indonesian music. In a series of recordings that include both large gamelan orchestras and small ensembles, he has captured the wide scope of the music of Bali. In addition to the gamelan works we are offered some very unique sounds: a palm bark version of the Jew's harp; a reed instrument with a distinctly "Hendrix on the bagpipes" sound. Perhaps most enjoyable is a recording of a passing parade, with various instruments, rhythms, and melodies drifting by in the sort of cacophony associated with Charles Ive's marching band works. Lewiston's offering is invaluable. -- Louis Gibson

Album Description
Bali's most popular ensemble is still the large gamelan gong, consisting of 25 to 30 musicians. The principal melody instruments are metallophones, xylophone-like instruments with bronze keys. Sets of small, tuned gong kettles provide melodic ornaments, while the penetrating bass tones of great gongs punctuate larger phrases. Clashing cymbals add to the overall glitter. A flute or stringed instrument sweetens the melody. The entire structure is supported by two drummers, who create the crucial rhythmic underpinning. The kecak is uniquely Balinese. The rhythmic interlocking "tjak-tjak-tjak-tjak," chanted by a large group of male voices, originated as the accompaniment to an ancient trance dance. It is a performance of the Ramayana, where the monkey hordes come to the aid of King Rama in his battle with the evil King Rawana. The 80 members of the Sekaha Ganda Sari are heard in this kecak performance.

Review
by Bruno Deschênes
For many musicians, Bali is still the last paradise on Earth; their music shows an unsurpassed originality and creativeness. Still today, new pieces are being composed by Balinese composers for the different existing ensembles. This CD, produced and recorded by American ethnomusicologist David Lewiston, gives us an overview of the large variety in Balinese music, of the different types of gamelan ensembles. The first piece is the music of the opening parade of the Bali Arts Festival on June 1987 (a festival taking place in June and July of every year on the island). You hear recently created ensembles, styles, and pieces as well as older ones. Among the recent musical creations of Balinese are the kecak, a type of rhythmic vocal play with short and percussive words which are used for trance dance. This type of singing, which came to life in the 1930s, is found only in Bali and is sung exclusively by men. Quite possibly one of the best Balinese CDs available!

Tracks:
1 - Opening Parade, Bali Arts Festival - 12:18
2 - Gamelan Gong Sekaha Sadha Budaya - 10:41
3 - Genggong Duet - Artika, Meji - 2:33
4 - Genggong Batur Sari, Batuan - 4:11
5 - Gamelan Salunding, Tenganan - 7:52
6 - Sadha Budaya Gamelan Gong Suling - 6:06
7 - Gender Wayang: Sukawati - Balik, Loceng, Nartha, Sarga - 7:34
8 - Sekaha Ganda Sari, Bona - 8:07
9 - Gamelan Gong Kebyar Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia, Den Pasar - 12:48

Sounds of the South, recorded by Alan Lomax

Well I seem to be on a roll of 4-cd box sets featuring expired musicians from the roots of the great tree of American music. I see no reason to reverse that trend now... and in fact this is one of the best box sets you can get. Except that you can't get it, because it's out-of-print (unless you want to spend $240!). But like I said, this is a great box set, and chances are you've already heard a few of the pieces, in a slightly-altered form. I don't just mean that countless artists have covered the traditional material on here, though they have. I'm referring to the curious fate of a few of these songs, which ended up being vaulted into the top-10, on the triple-platinum-selling album 'Play' by the vegan techno-hack Moby. Yes, Moby lifted entire songs from this set, tacked on a lame synth riff and a 16-bar repetetive beat, and watched as the cash rolled in. And though he espoused a supposedly 'non-commercial' stance, Play was the first album in history to have every single track (18 in all!) used in a television ad. And despite the revenue from this and from selling over 3 million copies, he didn't pay a dime to the Lomaxes or performers. Ha. Hairless invertebrete hack of a syphilitic contemptible whore. You can read about the whole fandangle here.

Hobart Smith & Bessie Jones

But back to the music, it's a really terrific mix of raw roots recordings, from folk ballads, old-time hymns and proto-bluegrass, to delta and mountain blues to spirituals and work-songs, with a whole cd of children's music thrown in to boot! Names you should recognize: Hobart Smith, Bessie Jones, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Vera Hall, Sid Hemphill, Estil C. Ball, Almeida Riddle. If you don't know about them yet, you will. And you won't be the same afterwards. Particularly after the fife'n'drum rendition of Chevrolet (pretty vastly different from the take by Geoff & Maria Muldaur with the Kweskin Jug Band).

Now some info on "That old bugger Lomax" (as Son House described him)

Alan Lomax - biography

Musicologist, producer, and writer Alan Lomax (b. Austin, Texas, 1915) spent over six decades working to promote knowledge and appreciation of the world’s folk music. He began his career in 1933 alongside his father, the pioneering folklorist John Avery Lomax, and in 1934 the two launched an effort to develop the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress, which had been established in 1928. They gathered thousands of field recordings of folk musicians throughout the American South, Southwest, Midwest, and Northeast, as well as in Haiti and the Bahamas. Inspired by such a wealth of traditional music, the Lomaxes published several popular and influential collections of American folk songs, beginning with American Ballads and Folk Songs (New York: Macmillan, 1934). They also collaborated on one of the first serious studies of a folk musician in American literature, Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly (New York: Macmillan, 1936), which African American author/historian James Weldon Johnson called “one of the most amazing autobiographical accounts ever printed in America.”

After completing a philosophy degree at the University of Texas in 1936, Alan and his wife, Elizabeth Lyttleton Harold, spent several months in Haiti, conducting field research and recording local musicians. The next year, Lomax was appointed Assistant in Charge of the Archive of American Folk Song; by 1939, in addition to doing graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University, he was producing the first in a series of national radio programs for CBS. American Folk Songs and Wellsprings of Music for the CBS School of the Air and the prime-time series, Back Where I Come From, introduced vast audiences to traditional music, giving exposure to such figures as Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Aunt Molly Jackson, Josh White, the Golden Gate Quartet, Burl Ives, and Pete Seeger. Lomax built on the interest created by his books, records, and broadcasts with numerous concert series, including The Midnight Special at Town Hall, which introduced 1940s New Yorkers to blues, flamenco, calypso, and ballad singing, all still relatively unknown genres. “The main point of my activity,” Lomax once remarked, “was... to put sound technology at the disposal of The Folk, to bring channels of communication to all sorts of artists and areas.”

After his work with Lead Belly, Lomax hoped to further explore the genre of oral biography. His conversations with New Orleans jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton, which produced the 1938 Library of Congress recordings, also formed the basis for the book Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and “Inventor of Jazz” (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1949). A remarkably picaresque document closely based on Morton’s narrative, it has inspired two Broadway musicals. Lomax’s oral historical portrait of “Nora” in The Rainbow Sign (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1959) was drawn from 1948 49??? Recordings of Alabama folk singer, Vera Hall. Blues in the Mississippi Night, Lomax’s 1946 recording of music and frank talk by Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy Williamson, remains a classic recorded document of African American musical history (it was reissued by Rounder in 2002). “Every time I took one of those big, black, glass-based platters out of its box,” Lomax wrote of the recording process, “I felt that a magical moment was opening up in time… For me the black discs spinning in the Mississippi night, spitting the chip centripetally toward the center of the table...heralded a new age of writing human history...”

A joint field trip conducted by the Library of Congress and Fisk University in 1941 and 1942 , described in his 1993 memoir, The Land Where the Blues Began, took Lomax even deeper into the musical and cultural world of the African American South. In Mississippi, he became the first to document several extraordinary African-derived musical repertories, such as Hill Country fife-and-drum and quills (panpipes) music. While there he interviewed a 29-year-old singer and guitarist named McKinley Morganfield, later known to the world as Muddy Waters. In 1947 Lomax returned to Mississippi with the first portable tape recorder to make recordings at the notorious State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm.

In the 1950s, Lomax set his sights beyond North America and the Caribbean. Basing himself in London, he conducted recorded surveys of European folk music in Britain, Ireland, Italy, and Spain, through which he exposed scores of listeners to folk music on a series of BBC radio programs. His collaborations with Diego Carpitella in Italy, Seamus Ennis in Ireland, Peter Kennedy in England, and Hamish Henderson in Scotland helped to inspire folk-song revivals in those countries. During this period, Lomax compiled an 18-volume LP series anthologizing world folk music for Columbia Records, a project which anticipated a similar UNESCO world music series by several years.

Returning to the United States in the late 1950s, Lomax set out on two more long field trips through the American South, resulting in 19 albums issued on the Atlantic and Prestige International labels in the early ‘60s. He also published the groundbreaking collection Folk Songs of North America (New York: Doubleday, 1960), which revealed his theoretical interest in music and culture and eventually led to a program of systematic research in human expressive behavior . Along with colleagues at Columbia in the 1960s, Lomax developed Cantometrics, Choreometrics, and Parlametrics, methodologies designed for analyzing song, speech, dance, and speaking cross-culturally. Initial results of this project were published in Folk Song Style and Culture (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Publication No. 88, 1968; reprinted by Transaction Books, New Brunswick, NJ).

Subsequently, Lomax published numerous journal articles, recordings, films, teaching materials, and television programs. Cantometrics: An Approach to the Anthropology of Music, first published in 1976, was used to help students understand and analyze world musical styles. Three teaching films, Dance and Human History, Step Style, Palm Play, published in the 1970s, introduced students to Choreometrics and its anthropological analysis of dance. The Longest Trail (1986) combined historical data and Choreometric analysis of movement and dance to demonstrate cultural unities among the Amerindians of North and South America. As musical consultant for the disc accompanying the 1977 Voyager space probe, produced by Carl Sagan, Lomax saw to it that a worldwide chorus of human musical expression was carried to the stars with the blues and jazz of Blind Willie Johnson and Louis Arrnstrong, Andean panpipes and Navajo chants, a Sicilian sulphur miner’s lament, polyphonic vocal music from the Mbuti pygmies of Zaire and Caucasus Georgians, the works of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, and more.

American Patchwork , Lomax’s prize-winning five-hour television series on American musical regional cultures, aired on PBS in 1990. The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon, 1993), a reflection on Lomax’s encounters with African-African musicians and on the Jim Crow South in the 1940s, won the National Book Critics Award for non-fiction. Sounds of the South, a four-CD set of Lomax’s 1959 stereo recordings of Southern musical traditions, was reissued by Atlantic Records in 1993, and the Alan Lomax Collection, a CD series anthologizing Lomax’s six-decade recording career, begun by Rounder Records in 1997, will ultimately number over 100 volumes.

After 1991, Lomax and a team of researchers and developers began compiling his most last big project, The Global Jukebox, a multimedia interactive database which looks at relationship between dance, song, and social structure. Lomax intended the database to serve both as a medium for scientific research into human expressive behavior, and as a tool for social science, arts and humanities education. With the Jukebox, he also hoped to further “cultural equity”—a concept created by Lomax call attention to the importance of giving all local cultures, worldwide, a valid forum in the media and in educational curricula , for the meaningful display of their arts and values.

Alan Lomax retired in 1996, and passed away on July 19, 2002. He was 87 years old.


...and for all that, he was still a bugger, paying musicians in Coke bottles instead of cash...


VA - Sounds of the South
A Musical Journey from the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta
recorded in the Field by Alan Lomax

Year: 1993
Label: Atlantic

Amazon Review:
Alan Lomax received funding from Atlantic Records in 1959 to head into the Southeast with the latest in stereo field recording technology, and this set collects the original eight records issued as a result of that trek in 1961. The sound quality is brilliant, the performances uncompromisingly raw, vibrant, plaintive, and real--everything the Greenwich Village folk movement tried to be is encapsulated on these slices of rural sound. Because of its high fidelity and the immense character found within the performances, this is the Lomax document to own if you absolutely have to pick a single one. Deep delta slide blues, enthusiastic shape-note singing from the Sacred Harp song book, lined-out hymnody, children's songs, mountain bluegrass music, juke-joint barrelhouse blues--it's all here and much more. This is vibrant, pure American music at its finest. --Mike McGonigal

Review by Lindsay Planer
The music on this anthology has been derived from several notable albums of field recordings by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax gathered in the South during the early 20th century. The primary components include the long-players Sounds of the South (1960), Blue Ridge Mountain Music (1960), Roots of the Blues (1960), Blues Roll On (1960), Negro Church Music (1960), White Spirituals (1960), and American Folk Songs for Children (1960). In Lomax's 1993 written introduction, he reveals that the four and a half hours housed in the package were "culled out of eight hours of field tapes" documented during a two-month tour in the summer of 1959 that began in Virginia and progressed into the Ozarks, the Mississippi Delta, and then the Georgia Sea Islands. While he goes on to explain the significance of his research, the authenticity of the living aural history really speaks for itself. Artists and songs of possible familiarity to enthusiasts of folk and blues are scattered throughout. Mississippi Fred McDowell's "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning," "Shake 'Em on Down," and "Drop Down Mama," the Mountain Ramblers' "Cotton-Eyed Joe" and "Shady Grove," and Estil C. Ball & Orna Ball's "Jenny Jenkins" are taken from the Sounds of the South and Blue Ridge Mountain Music entries. The trio of Boy Blue (vocal/harmonica), Willie Jones (guitar), and Joe Lee (drums) provides a seminal reading of "Boogie Children," while Lonnie Young (vocal/bass drum), Ed Young (cane fife), and Lonnie Young, Jr. (snare drum) unleash a variation of "Sittin' on Top of the World" from Roots of the Blues and Blues Roll On. Negro Church Music and White Spirituals' sacred selections are highlighted by a "Sermon Fragment" from the Reverend G.I. Townsel as well as a "Sermon and Lining Hymn" featuring Reverend I.D. Back with his congregation and a stirring solo rendition of "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" by the previously mentioned Estil C. Ball. Perhaps most fascinating are the American Folk Songs for Children, as they transcend race or religious creed. Almeda Riddle's "Froggie Went A-Courtin'," Bessie Jones' "Hambone," Hobart Smith's "The Arkansas Traveler," the Mountain Ramblers' "Liza Jane," Mississippi Fred McDowell's "Freight Train Blues," James Shorty/Viola James & Congregation's inspired "This Little Light of Mine," and a rare confab between Felix Dukes and Mississippi Fred McDowell on "Motherless Children" all surpassed their era.


Disc 1 - Blue Ridge Mountain Music

1 The Banks of the Arkansas/Wave the Ocean - Neil Morris - 1:59
2 Hen Duck - Ed Young - 3:05
3 The Farmer's Curst Wife - Ball, Estil C. - 2:59
4 Bollweevil Holler - Vera Hall - 2:03
5 Jesse James - Mountain Ramblers - 2:16
6 Jesse James - Neil Morris - 4:54
7 Kenny Wagner - Bob Carpenter - 2:35
8 Trouble So Hard - Vera Hall - 1:38
9 Baptizing Scene - Donaldson, Reverend W.A. - 1:36
10 Is There Anybody Here That Loves My Jesus - Donaldson, Reverend W.A. - 3:02
11 Windham - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers - 2:00
12 Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 2:45
13 Come On, Boys, Let's Go to the Ball - Sidney Hemphill, Lucius Smith - 2:04
14 Join the Band - John Davis - 1:03
15 Lucky Holler - Ed Lewis - 2:21
16 I Be So Glad When the Sun Goes Down - Ed Lewis - 2:36
17 Cotton Eyed Joe - Mountain Ramblers - 2:32
18 Big Tilda - Mountain Ramblers - 2:14
19 Jennie Jenkins - Ball, Estil C., Orna Ball - 2:42
20 John Henry - Mountain Ramblers, Cullen Galyen - 3:46
21 Rosewood Casket - Mountain Ramblers, Eldridge Montgomery - 3:01
22 Silly Bill - Mountain Ramblers - 2:27
23 Big Ball in Boston - Mountain Ramblers - 2:20
24 Chilly Winds - Wade Ward - 2:12
25 The Old Hickory Cane - Mountain Ramblers - 4:31
26 John Brown - Hobart Smith - 1:52
27 Poor Ellen Smith - Hobart Smith - 2:01
28 Shady Grove - Mountain Ramblers - 2:18

Disc 1


Disc 2 - Roots Of The Blues - The Blues Roll On

29 Jim and John - Lonnie Young, Ed Young - 3:06
30 The Wild Ox Moan - Vera Hall - 1:03
31 Been Drinkin' Water Out of a Hollow Log - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 2:55
32 All Night Long - Miles Pratcher & Bob Pratcher - 3:33
33 Shake 'Em On Down - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 3:19
34 Levee Camp Reminiscence - Forrest City Joe - 5:16
35 Chevrolet - Lonnie Young, Ed Young - 4:04
36 Levee Camp Holler - Moore, Johnny Lee - 2:46
37 Eighteen Hammers - Moore, Johnny Lee - 2:38
38 Drink on Little Girl - Forrest City Joe - 2:51
39 Drop Down Mama - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 2:49
40 Boogie Chillen - Boy Blue - 2:54
41 She Lived Her Life Too Fast - Forrest City Joe - 3:20
42 Sitting On Top of the World - Lonnie Young - 2:40
43 Cool Water Blues - John Dudley - 3:02
44 She Don't Love Me That Way - Forrest City Joe - 3:21
45 Stop Breaking Down - Forest City Joe - 2:50
46 Joe Lee's Rock - Boy Blue - 3:36
47 Bullyin' Well - Hill, Rosa Lee - 3:22
48 When You Get Home, Write Me a Few Little Lines - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 3:24
49 Red Cross Store - Forrest City Joe - 3:37
50 Forrest City Jump - Forrest City Joe - 2:55

Disc 2


Disc 3 - Negro Church Music & White Spirituals

51 Death Have Mercy - Vera Hall - 1:50
52 I Want Jesus to Walk with Me - James Shorty - 3:43
53 Jesus Is Real to Me - Mary Lee - 3:14
54 I Love the Lord - R.C. Crenshaw - 2:47
55 A Sermon Fragment - G.I. Townsel - 3:02
56 I'm Goin Home on the Mornin' Train - R.C. Crenshaw - 2:48
57 Power - Mattie Wigley - 2:34
58 On That Rock - Viola James - 2:56
59 Jesus on the Mainline - James Shorty, Viola James - 3:37
60 I'm Gonna Sail Like a Ship on the Ocean - Henry Morrison & Saint Simon's Island Singers - 2:39
61 Blow Gabriel - John Davis, Bessie Jones, Henry Morrison - 2:24
62 What Do You Think About Jesus (He's All Right) - Bernice McClellan - 2:58
63 Tribulations- Ball, Estil C. & Blair Reedy - 2:48
64 When I Get Home - Ball, Estil C. & Blair Reedy - 2:55
65 The Poor Wayfaring Stranger - Ball, Estil C. - 3:14
66 Baptizing Down by the Creek - Mountain Ramblers - 2:49
67 Sermon and Lining Hymn - I.D. Back - 3:32
68 Antioch - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers - 1:35
69 Calvary - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers - 1:39
70 Please Let Me Stay a Little Longer - Ball, Estil C. & Lacey Richardson - 2:41
71 Father, Jesus Loves You - Ball, Estil C. - 2:09
72 Lonesome Valley - Ball, Estil C. - 2:45
73 Father Adieu - Ball, Estil C. - 2:09
74 The Old Country Church - Mountain Ramblers - 2:29
75 The Cabin on the Hill - Ball, Estil C. & Lacey Richardson - 3:06

Disc 3


Disc 4 - American Folk Songs For Children

76 Johnson's Old Gray Mule - Mainer Band - 2:14
77 My Little Rooster - Almeda Riddle - 1:49
78 Whoa Mule - Mainer Band - 1:29
79 Froggie Went A-Courtin' - Almeda Riddle - 2:48
80 Glenn's Chimes - Mainer Band - 1:53
81 Chick-A-Li-Lee-Lo - Almeda Riddle - 1:17
82 Old Joe Clark - Mountain Ramblers - :52
83 Go Tell Aunt Nancy - Almeda Riddle - 4:02
84 Train III - Mainer Band - 3:00
85 Johnny Cuckoo - Bessie Jones - 3:02
86 Mama Buy Me a Chiney Doll - Almeda Riddle - 2:27
87 Soldier, Soldier - Hobart Smith - 1:43
88 Mary Mack - Pratcher, Jesse Lee & Mattie Garder - :45
89 Hambone - Bessie Jones - 1:06
90 Banging Breakdown - Hobart Smith - 1:35
91 Green Sally, Up - Pratcher, Jesse Lee & Mattie Garder - :43
92 Sometimes - Bessie Jones - :54
93 The Arkansas Traveler - Hobart Smith - 1:48
94 Paper of Pins - Ball, Estil C. - 2:15
95 The Little Dappled Cow - Texas Gladden - 1:38
96 Go to Sleep Little Baby - Bessie Jones - 1:14
97 Paddy on the Turnpike - Wade Ward - 1:46
98 Jimmy Sutton - Spencer Moore - 2:34
99 Liza Jane - Mountain Ramblers - 3:08
100 Oree - Lonnie Young, Ed Young - 2:37
101 Train Time - Forrest City Joe - 4:31
102 Freight Train Blues - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 3:03
103 This Little Light of Mine - James Shorty, Viola James - 2:39
104 Motherless Children - Felix Dukes - 2:49
105 Little Moses - Neil Morris - 3:24

Disc 4
all mp3 192kbps | w/ covers

* out-of-print

Alan Lomax Collection: Deep River of Song - Mississippi

Alan Lomax, the great folk music collector, for all his stature and invaluable contribution to the preservation of American culture, was actually kind of a jerk. Dick Waterman, manager of many of the great blues artists in the '60s, recounts this story:

"In 1941 and 1942, Son [House] had been recorded in Mississippi by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. Then Son vanished completely for over two decades, until he was found in Rochester, New York, in 1964. When Son and I walked onto the Newport Folk Festival grounds in July of that Year, I spotted Lomax walking toward us.
Son saw him coming and remarked, "Here come that old booger Lomax."
Before I had a chance to respond, Lomax was upon us and shaking hands with Son. "How are you, Son? Still living by the bridge in Rochester?"
Stunned that Lomax knew where Son had been all those lost years, I said, "You knew where Son has been since the 1940s?"
Lomax nodded his head. "Oh, yes, Son and I have stayed in touch over the years, haven't we, Son?"
Wait a goddamn minute. What the hell is going on here? I looked at Lomax, then at Son, and then back to Lomax.
"You knew where one of the greatest blues singers of all time was for over 20 years and never told anyone? Didn't you think it was important to record him and give him a chance to make some money?"
Lomax shrugged his shoulders and replied, "After I recorded him, it wasn't any of my business what he did with his life. My job was to record him for the Library of Congress. I didn't care what he did after that."
As he walked away, I stood there and stared at him for a moment. I wasn't sure if he was ignorant or evil not to have shared the details of Son's whereabouts.
Son turned to me and said, "He come down and recorded me and Willie Brown back then and he didn't give us but one Coca-Cola. Willie grabbed up the Coca-Cola first and I didn't get nothing." -from Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive


Well, in the spirit of fairness, I think you should all get this music for free too. After all, even the recording trips were publicly funded.

Here's two albums from the Alan Lomax Collection's Deep River of Song series:

Mississippi: The Blues Lineage
Musical Geniuses of the Fields, Levees and Jukes

Sixteen country blues cuts, recorded between 1936 and 1942 by folklorists Alan and John A. Lomax for the Library of Congress at plantations, penitentiaries, tourist camps, and elsewhere (actually the two songs by William Brown were done near Mississippi, in Arkansas). This is a more pleasurable compilation than most folk field recordings of the era are (whether by the Lomaxes or others), due to the tight and focused performances. A couple of the names will be familiar to any blues fan (and to some non-blues fans). Muddy Waters, then playing acoustic Delta blues as McKinley Morganfield, contributes "I Be Bound to Write to You" and "You Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone"; Son House, about to disappear from the public eye for a couple of decades, does four songs, including his famous "Walking Blues" (which is six minutes here, with accompaniment from other musicians on mandolin, guitar, and harmonica). Most of the tracks are entertaining as well as academically important, as well as illustrative of some differences in Mississippi blues styles. Some of these are blues that are more upbeat than the Delta stereotype, as in David "Honeyboy" Edwards' "Wind Howlin' Blues" and Lucious Curtis (who never recorded before or after his 1940 recordings on this disc), whose sharp guitar picking has some ragtime and boogie flavor.
- Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

Tracks:
1 Ragged And Dirty - William Brown
2 Mississippi Blues - William Brown
3 County Farm Blues - Eddie 'Son' House
4 High-Rolling Sergeant - Sam Carter/Jim Mickles/Eddie Miles/Jack Rogers
5 Early In The Morning - Hollis 'Fat Head' Washington
6 The Jinx Blues (No. 2) - Eddie 'Son' House
7 I'll Be Bound To Write To You - McKinley Morganfield ('Muddy Waters')
8 You Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone - McKinley Morganfield ('Muddy Waters')
9 Wind Howlin' Blues - David 'Honeyboy' Edwards
10 High Lonesome Hill - Lucious Curtis/Willie Ford
11 Payday - Willie Ford, Lucious Curtis
12 Train Blues - Lucious Curtis
13 Santa Field Blues - Willie Ford
14 Low Down Dirty Dog Blues - Eddie 'Son' House
15 Red River Blues - Frank Evans
16 Walking Blues - Leroy Williams

Alan Lomax Collection -- Deep River of Song -- Mississippi: The Blues Lineage
Musical Geniuses of the Fields, Levees and Jukes
Year: 1999
Label: Rounder
better than a coca-cola.
not my rip | 192 kbps mp3 | 84 mb | no cover

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Mississippi: Saints & Sinners
From Before the Blues and Gospel

The field recordings made from 1936 to 1942 for the Library of Congress by John and Ruby Lomax, with their son Alan, showed that much of America's finest music and poetry have come from far beyond the entertainment and publishing industries. In the case of these stirring selections from the Lomax archives, among this country's richest cultural resources was the black population enslaved on southern plantations and penal farms. Evident here are echoes of lost worlds--the eerie sounding call of a Mississippi ferryman, the mystery of Charlie Butler's stunning "Diamond Joe," and the fierce spirituality of "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down" by Reverend C.H. Savage and congregation. Most extraordinary are the performances by Sid Hemphill, who Alan Lomax said was his greatest discovery. Playing the ancient pre-harmonica quills or panpipes, whooping with primal fervor, his ingenious "Emmaline, Take Your Time" anticipates Hemphill's unreleased fife-and-drum masterpiece, "The Devil's Dream." --Alan Greenberg

Tracks
1. It's Better to be Born Lucky 1:31
2. Stagolee 1:44
3. Walking Billy 4:10
4. Mississippi Sounding Calls 2:55
5. Come Here, Dog, and Get Your Bone 2:27
6. Emmaline, Take Your Time 2:21
7. Hog Hunt 4:45
8. The Fox Hunter's Song 2:51
9. Times is Getting Hard 3:48
10. Diamond Joe 2:18
11. One Morning at the Break of Day (Wake Up Song) 1:58
12. Workin' on the Levee, Sleepin' on de Ground 1:40
13. Lord, I'm in Trouble 2:36
14. Stewball 5:18
15. Rosie 2:48
16. French Blues 2:16
17. Rock Daniel 2:34
18. Interview 3:10
19. Hallelu, Hallelu 2:29
20. I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray 1:08
21. Conversion Experience 4:36
22. Let Me Ride 3:53
23. If I Had My Way, I'd Tear the Building Down 4:13
24. Little David 3:31
25. Calvary

Alan Lomax Collection - Deep River of Song -- Mississippi: Saints & Sinners
From Before the Blues and Gospel
Year: 1999
Label: Rounder
what goes around comes around.
not my rip | mp3 96 kbps | 45 mb | no cover