Music/Society Modern Wrld (W2)
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FieldHollersWorkFolk.pptxResistance in Early African-American Music
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African Roots; 17th & 18th Century America
Aug. 20, 1619 - First ship (White Lion) of enslaved Africans to Jamestown, America (Angolans kidnapped by Portuguese)
Brought culture, music, drums, etc.
18th century - drums banned in North America; believed to help organize slave rebellions
Drums as form of communication - in Africa, Drums can ‘talk’ (tonal language), anything that you can say verbally can also be drummed
1739 – Stono Slave rebellion (protest), Charleston, SC
After this rebellion, laws started banning drumming
Patting Juba (hambone), result of ban on drums, use of body as a drum
Djembe – ‘to gather’
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Music, Protest, & Humanity
Protest does not have to be overt
Can be - Covert, hidden, surreptitious…
Everyday, quotidian acts, often unexpected by oppressors
Assertion of self “individuality, aspirations, sense of being” (Levine, 588)
“A riot [protest] is the language of the unheard” (MLK) – music is a way of being heard…countering silencing
Music is an expression of humanity
The enslaved are often cast as non-human, or sub-human – thus music performance contradicted slave holders’ racist notions that the enslaved were not human, or less than human
Music was/is a way for oppressed groups to prove/demonstrate their humanity
Music is a powerful way to build community, togetherness, solidarity -> singing/performing together is a simultaneous emotional/physical act
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Ring Shout and Amazing Grace
Ring Shout (at 3:22) – watch all 6:50
note: praise houses, invisible church (from: This far by faith : African-American spiritual journeys / Blackside, Inc., 2003)
“Amazing Grace” – history of, for extra credit
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Spirituals as Resistance
“We are the People of God”
I really do believe I am a child of God
I’m born of God, I know I am
To the promised land I’m bound to go
I walk de heavenly road
I’ll hear the trumpet sound, in the morning
The enslaved were singing for their humanity, right to exist, worth as human beings
The enslaved relationship with the Christian God, saints, Biblical figures - Joshua, Moses, Jonah, Noah, etc.; enslaved people identified with themes of deliverance & freedom
Spirituals are about both this world and the next (Levine, 591)
Relationships with figures - Deliverance in this world; identified with them as real people
Child of God - self worth
Connect with God, vertical; connect with community, horizontal; connect across atlantic, connect past and present, and aspiration
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Spiritual Protest Songs
Enslaved people’s religious music “always” had an element of protest (Levine)
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” (perf. Paul Robeson) (explicit/overt)
Hidden, double meaning (covert, implicit)
I am bound for the land of Canaan”
Steal Away, used for what?
Go Down Moses (Let My People Go); “Wade in the Water”; “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”; common theme?
Re-inscription - giving old songs new meaning
“ Follow the Drinking Gourd ” – secret messages, routes
Popularized by Fisk Jubilee Singers (est. 1871)
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Steal Away (used as call to secret meetings) & Swing Low - comp. by Wallace Willis, Choctaw freeman; around, before 1862
Go down Moses – contraband, escaped slaves 1862
Wade in the water – 1801, john wesley work and brother frederick; for fisk jubillee singers
Fisk University in TN – George White director; avert bankruptcy
Drinking gourd video – start at 2:00mins in
Minstrelsy
What is minstrelsy? Video, video 2
Begins – c. 1840s; variety show – sing, dance, comedy
Involved whites mocking Black Americans, plantation life, considered highly offensive
Blackface – whites mocking Black culture by darkening skin with shoe polish or makeup; then dance, sing, act in mocking way
(its legacy is still unfortunately with us; several famous people have been called out for their offensive engagement in this practice, i.e., Brett Kavanaugh - Supreme Court Justice; Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister; can you think of others?)
Giving the appearance of nostalgia rather than protest; protective coding (minstrel song)
Ol massa was a stingy man
And everybody know’d it
Kept good likker for his house
And never said here goes it
Song; Dan Emmett 1840s; still sung by Af-Am in 1916
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Field holler and Work Songs as Protest
Field Holler (at 13:10 Land Where the Blues Began) – free rhythm – no ‘beat’
Work Song – has steady rhythm to coordinate movement
“Mighty long half day captain”
“Black man beat me, white man cheat me/won get my hundred today”
“Rosie” (work song) protest song? Clip
Prison Work Songs (Chain Gangs)
“Slavery by Another Name” (doc film)
Common phrases
“You don’t know my mind”
“I’m laughing to keep from cryin’”
“Look down that lonesome Road”
“I’ve been down so long, it seems like up to me”
Land where… - 13:10 – field holler
Working together – so no one could be singled out and punished; strength in unity
Singing while working, a form of protest, in that often viewed as sign of joy, when really suffering, show of strength and resistance to harsh conditions and forced labor, expression of freedom to sing, to be human, show of humanity in the face of inhumane treatment
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