I hear America singing: the roots of American music - work of musicologist Alan Lomax to document and record Southern folk music

American Visions, Feb-March, 1994 by Allan Wood

Across the Mississippi River, in Hughes, Ark., Lomax met Forrest City Joe, an expressive singer and energetic harmonica and piano player. At a country juke joint, lubricated by whiskey and backed by a simple guitar-and-drum duo that rocked until dawn, Joe poured out his blues, both cynical and pleading, and reminisced about levee camp life. Sadly, before these eight songs would introduce Joe to a larger audience, he was killed in an automobile accident.

Lomax's travels in the Mississippi Delta region are recalled in his magnificent book The Land Where the Blues Began (Pantheon, 1992).

No collection of Southern music would be complete without the sounds of the church. Preachers, congregations and musicians from Mississippi, Alabama and the Georgia Sea Islands are represented in Sounds of the South, but three congregations from Memphis are the most viscerally inspiring. There is an undeniable sensuality about the performances. Indeed, as the rhythmic intensity builds and builds. and the choir cries out, this holy music isn't too far removed from the "sinful" blues against which church elders caution. As the husky lead voice on "I'm Goin' Home on the Mornin' Train" shouts in orgasmic release, the spirited accompaniment of the choir and the counter-rhythms of piano and handclapping all contribute to a distinctly African performance.

By contrast, the white spirituals on these CDs are much more controlled, with the sparse musical accompaniment following a rigid pattern. Because lyrics are the first concern, the joyous spontaneity of the black spirituals is absent. Guitarist Estil C. Ball, of Rugby, Va., is a recurring presence throughout the collection, performing 11 songs by himself; with his wife, Orna Ball; or with various combinations of friends. Some of Ball's spirituals, such as "When I Get Home" and "Lonesome Valley," retain African-American influences.

Likewise, the Mountain Ramblers, a five-piece string band recorded for the first time in Sounds of the South, skillfully blend traditional white styles with the overlapping vocal harmony and jazz-influenced instrumentation of their black neighbors. Led by Cullen Galyen, their music is some of the most vibrant of this collection.

Though stylistic differences between black and white spirituals are reflected in all Southern music, Lomax demonstrates that no genre of American music can claim racial purity. The Mountain Ramblers drew on the influence of bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe, who credited African-American jazz musicians with sparking his music's swing and improvisation. Even in the blues, where the voicing, rhythmic organization and orchestration are essentially African, European-like melodies were used.

In the Blue Ridge Mountains, black and white musicians formed integrated bands for weekend dances, where new ways of performing were certainly exchanged. How else to explain "Banging Breakdown," a probable survivor of black plantation music with its African syncopation, played by Hobart Smith, a white banjo player from Virginia? According to Lomax's extensive notes included with the collection, this swapping of musical ideas across racial lines was an "open secret" in the segregated South.