Skip navigation.

Unit 4: Civil War and Reconstruction

Unit 5: Development of the Industrial U.S.

"African American Work Songs and Hollers "

by Sandy Pekar and Judie Whittaker

 

Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is to demonstrate informal, secular music used by African-Americans especially during the period between emancipation and 1900.  The three forms of music included in this lesson are:

  • Call and response – group work songs

  • Group work songs

  • Solo hollers as work songs

Background Information

Although the roots of this music emanate from slavery, the continuation of the field hollers and work songs through Reconstruction testify to the continuing need for their practical value.  Reconstruction represented a time of ‘theoretical freedom’ for African-Americans and for many the sharecropping experience was hardly different from slavery. Those who migrated to urban or agricultural work in the North still carried with them this rhythmic tradition.  Many work song themes gradually expanded into blues lyrics that developed at the turn of the 20th Century.  This was particularly true with songs that were slow-paced and lamented ill-fortune.

Barlow in Looking Up At Down, The Emergence of Blues Culture reminds us of the connection of work songs to slavery and provides insight from Frederick Douglass:

[Barlow] Work songs were generally encouraged by the slave owners, who saw them as means of increasing the slaves’ work output and maintaining their morale.  For the slaves, however, the nature of their work was punishment, not self-fulfillment.  As Frederick Douglass explained, their use of work songs was linked to their resignation or resistance to forced labor:

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.  A silent slave is not liked by masters or overseers. . . .This may account for the almost constant singing heard in the southern states. . . .I have often been utterly astonished, since I cam north, to find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of their contentment and happiness.  It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake.  Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy.  The songs of the slaves represent the sorrows of his life; and he is relieved by them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.  At least such is my experience.

The composing of work songs, like most African-American folk music, was done spontaneously and collectively; it usually expressed an immediate concern or referred to an event in the lives of the slaves.

Songs

The primary source we found and can recommend to others interested in this medium is:

Negro Work Songs and Calls. Eds. B.A. Botkin and Alan Lomax-1943. Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture (Rounder Records, 1999)

The songs, rhythms, and applications to be presented are:

Solo Voice, some with distinctive vowel qualities, tonality, or rhythm:

  • Tamping Ties (Henry Truvillion) - recreating the setting and tamping of railroad
  •  ties, with sticks.
  • Arwhoolie (Thomas Marshall) – a cornfield holler
  • Quittin’ Time Song II – what instrument does this sound like?

Call & Response/Chorus

  • You Got My Letter (Willis Proctor) – Georgia Sea Islands Cut # 5 note the hauling stroke.
  • I Wonder What’s the Matter (“Lightning” and Group, Darrington State Farm, TX) - Negro Work Songs – Cut # 14  – note pace/rhythm in this prison song
  • It Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad – Negro Work Songs - #18 – note the driving rhythm of this accompaniment to ‘double cut’ axe work.

As the Lomaxes found, “The movement of these songs varies seemingly more in accord with the fast or slow rhythm of the work than with the moods of the singers.” (liner notes quoting Our Singing Country). While the psychological connection can lead us to the blues, the work songs and hollers allow us to share the bridge from secular slave songs to the blues.  “The words of these songs were not designed for the ear of the Lord, nor for the ear of the white boss.  In them the Negro was likely to speak his free and open mind.”

Other songs to consider:

Southern Journey: Earliest Times, Georgia Sea Islands Songs for Everyday Living. The Alan Lomax Collection, Vol 13. Rounder Records, 1998. Especially the following cuts:

  • #4-Row the Boat, Child (by Peter Davis)–Call & Response rowing song

  • #19-The Old Tar River -  a hauling song

Southern Journey: Eastern Shores Choirs, Quartets, and Colonial Era Music. The Alan Lomax Collection, Vol 8. Rounder Records, 1998. Especially the following cut:

  • #16- Walk, Billy Abbott

Negro Work Songs and Calls

  • Cut #3- Heaving the Lead Line (Sam Hazel) and Cut #4 Mississippi Sounding Calls (Joe Shores) which refers to the practical use of the term ‘mark twain’.
  • Cut #9 – Possum Was an Evil Thing (Henry Truvillion) – a walking song with yodel quality [presented by Mike Seeger]
  • Cut #16 – The Rock Island Line (Group from Cummins State Farm, AK) – very upbeat Call/Response with chorus.

Activities

  • Students will be encouraged to participate in the rhythms by a number of ways:
  • demonstrate step dance rhythms with a cappella accompaniment;
  • the class sits in a circle with wood pieces (various lengths) to tap the rhythms during the -music played (clapping may be substituted where wooden pieces can be a problem);
  • small groups can portray the original applications of the work song music:

    planting/harvesting crops

    tree clearing

    rowing

    driving the team

    rail tamping

    general communication

Next students need to identify their own types of (non-dancing) physical activity; say,

  • walking to class

  • seeing a friend in the crowd and getting his/her attention

  • showing off for the teacher/for friends

  • catching the bus

They need to pick a rhythm that suits the intended purpose and create their own holler, solo or call/response, submit the words, and perform the finished product for the class.

Concluding Reflection Exercise

  • How does setting an activity to music influence a person’s attitude to the task?
  • What are some of the advantages to group/communal singing during work?
  • Were work songs  “work”,  “performance”, or “meditation”?

Activity Extension

  • Look for examples of work calls promoting sales of goods and services in cities around the end of the 19h Century;
  • Sea shanties used to facilitate work (esp. anchor pulling); prison chain gangs; and military training.
  • Compare/contrast Hollers with examples of Blues and Spirituals (Mule Skinner Blues?)

 

Bibliography

Barlow, William.  Looking Up At Down, The Emergence of Blues Culture.  Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 1989.

“Chain Gang Songs; Field Hollers; Work Songs”.

           

Negro Work Songs and Calls. Eds. B.A. Botkin and Alan Lomax-1943. Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture (Rounder Records, 1999) (

Southern Journey: Earliest Times, Georgia Sea Islands Songs for Everyday Living. The Alan Lomax Collection, Vol 13. Rounder Records, 1998.

Southern Journey: Eastern Shores Choirs, Quartets, and Colonial Era Music. The Alan Lomax Collection, Vol 8. Rounder Records, 1998

Lyrics for African-American Work Songs and Hollers  

Tamping Ties                                                            

from Negro Work Songs and Calls

Tamp ‘em up solid,

All the livelong day.

Tamp ‘em up solid,

Then they’ll hold that midnight mail.

The captain don’t like me.

Won’t allow me no show.

Well, work don’t hurt me,

Don’t care where in the world I go.

Work don’t hurt me,

Like the early rise,

Well, work don’t hurt me,

But that’s the thing that hurts my pride,

That hurts my pride,

That hurts my pride,

That hurts my pride.

 

Arwhoolie                                                                  

Quittin’ Time 2

Oh, etc.                                                                       

Oh, etc.

I won’t be here long.

Oh, etc.

Oh, dark gonna catch me here,            

Dark gonna catch me here.

Oh, etc.

You Got My Letter               

from Southern Journey: Earliest Times, Georgia Sea Islands Songs for Everyday Living.

Leader:  Ready? Go!

Leader: Got my letter?

  All:  O yeah! Huh!

Leader: Got my letter?

  All: O year! Huh!

Leader: Got my letter?

  All: O yeah! Huh!

          People keep a-comin’ and the train done gone.

(Continue as above.)

John was a writer,      (3x)

Wrote the Revelation (3x)

You got my letter?     (3x)

I Wonder What’s the Matter                                   

from Negro Work Songs and Calls

Leader: I wonder what the matter

  Chorus: Oh – o, Lawd!

All: Well, I wonder what’s the matter with my long time here

Leader: Boys, I woke up early this mornin’.

  Chorus: Hey, Lawd!

All: Boys, I woke up early this mornin’.

        ‘Bout the break of day

        (The break of day.  Hear it, hear it.

Leader: Well, the big bell sho was tonin’.

  Chorus:  Oh – o, Lawd!

All: Well, the big bell sho was tonin’.

        Sho was.  Good Lawd

        Just a while fo’ day.

        Judge right.  Oh, yah!  Everybody talk.

Leader:  Well, the bully turn over in the bed a-grumblin’.

Chorus: Oh – o, Lawd.

All: Bully turn over in the bed a-grumblin’.

        ‘Bout that night so short.

         Oh, Lawd.

         Don’ hurt nobody.

         Night so short.

Leader: Well, it look like it been one hour.

  Chorus: Oh – o, Lawd.

All: Well, it look like it been one hour.

        Oh, Lawd.

        Pardner, since I lay down.

        Oh, Lawd, since I lay down….

 

It Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad                    

from Negro Work Songs and Calls

…, she won’t write to po’ me,

Alberta, she won’t write to po’ me,

She won’t write me no letter,

She won’t send me no word,

It make a long,oh, long- a time man,

Oh Lawdy, feel bad.          

Captain George, he got the record and gone,

Captain George, he got the record and gone,

Captain, George, he got the record and gone,

Oh Lawdy, Lawdy,

Captain George, Oh George, he got the record,

Oh, Lawdy, and gone.                     

Lawd, hit me with a brick!

           

It Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad - continued

It makes a long time man feel bad,

It makes a long time man feel bad,

An’ it’s the worst old feelin’

That I ever had,

When I can’t, oh can’t-a get a letter,

Oh Lawdy, from home.

I know my baby don’t know where I’m at!

My mother, she won’t write to po’ me,

My mother, she won’t write to po’ me,

She won’t write me no letter,

She won’t send me no word,

It make a long,oh, long- a time man,

Oh Lawdy, feel bad.          

Alberta, would you cry about a dime?

Alberta, would you cry about a dime?

If you cry about a nickel,

You will die about a dime,

Alberta, oh ‘Berta. Wpi;d upi cru.

Oh Lawdy, ‘bout a dime?

Lawd, have mercy!

It makes a long time man feel bad,

It makes a long time man feel bad,

An’ it’s the worst old feelin’

That I ever had,

When I can’t, oh can’t-a get a letter,

Oh Lawdy, from home.

My uncle, he won’t write to po’ me,

My uncle, he won’t write to po’ me,

He won’t write me no letter,

He won’t send me no word,

It make a long,oh, long- a time man,

Oh Lawdy, feel bad.          

My aunty, she won’t write to po’ me,                           

It makes a long time man feel bad,

My aunty, she won’t write to po’ me,                           

It makes a long time man feel bad,

She won’t write me no letter,                                       

An’ it’s the worst old feelin’

She won’t send me no word,                                       

That I ever had,

It make a long,oh, long- a time man,                             

When you can’t oh, can’t-a get a letter

Oh Lawdy, feel bad.                                                    

Oh Lawdy, from home.