Pantechnicon; Bruce Jackson

Yeah. Them. Hand them out. Make. Them. Go there. Jack of Diamonds was a guard on a Texas state prison farm in the 1930s. The

nickname belonged originally to an inmate but after the guard killed the inmate Jack in a gunfight other inmates transferred the name to him. They say he carried a Luger automatic and never brought a captured escapee back alive. That when he died he had to be chained down because he was so mean. They say also that he died one morning as the men were being marched out to work in his last words were I don't mind Diana but I mind these niggers seen me doing it. And the men cheered. He's gone from Texas prisons and so is the brutality he exemplified so well. But the negro inmates some of them still sing about him about the old days and about the way things are now. My name is Bruce Jackson and during the next hour I hope you'll join me in listening to tape recordings of Negro inmates singing prison work so we'll discuss where the songs came from and why they survive in these days when so many other forms of folklore are being replaced by passive activities such as watching other people perform on television. The recordings were made last August in the bottom lands of the Brazos and Trinity rivers in south central Texas.

But before we discuss them let's listen to the rest of grizzly bear. Now. Now.

Now. Now.

Now. Nowadays the work songs are used mainly to help pass the time as was the case with the four men you just heard working with spade years ago however their function was far more important. They helped the man stay alive. The man didn't work fast enough then he was likely to be whipped with a device called a bat. A thick strip of leather on a long wooden handle about which one man said when the leather to leave the skin would leave with it. After beating a man was expected to go right back to work. If he wasn't dead and not a few were in order to keep everyone together so no one could be singled out for working too slowly. The men would sing a song time to the work at hand all the axes or hoes in

an area would strike at once. Usually a leader would sing out a line then the group would repeat that line or sing a chorus. When the men were chopping down trees the song served to keep them alive in a different way. They still do in fact. With four men circling a medium sized tree there's always a chance that one might be leaning too far forward when the adjoining man's axe is in the forward part of its lateral arc in order to keep one's head on one shoulders literally. One tries to hit out of phase with one's neighbor in phase with the man opposite the song supply the necessary rhythm. The next song hammering serves such a function. Each stroke you hear is two axis hitting at the same time there are four men working on the tree. There are two rhythms for the acts on the tree cutting songs are fast because one hits only every other beat and because the ax moves almost horizontally and is never in a rest position when the tree is down it is being cut into sections what they call logging. The slower song is used and the men are able to take a long swing and rest at the top of the hour. The slowest

songs are the ones used with hoeing called flat waiting because of the hose great length and its long. The song that follows has two parts. It is the simplest kind of works on the leader sings out a line the other three men sing the chorus. The leader repeats the line and uses the time to think about what he's going to sing next. Halfway through they change from hammering to fallen down a warning song that lets other men in the area know that their timber is getting limber. That is the tree is starting to rock and is going to fall so when the leader sings in the first part that his hammer is hanging that the axe is getting stuck in the tree it is a workers bows when he sings it in the second part he means the rocking of the tree traps it when it strikes. You'll notice he never says X but refers to the device usually as a hammer and sometimes with the metaphor Diamon which perfectly captures the brilliant clash of the axe blade in the sun or hammer and. Then you

know you cannot. Know you cannot. Know. You. Know you hear me. Yes.

She says.

She. Called. Him. And then. You. Jus don't know.

But you. Look I don't want you don't know. Oh yeah no I don't want you. Do whatever. You. Say. Oh man. You. Live. Alone hand. Them out. Thank. You.

I'm. Down. There. And next thing I know. Not only are the lawn cutting so slower but the men are often less accurate with their timing. The tree cutting songs demand correct rhythm as a matter of physical necessity

with log cutting it as a matter of pleasure only in this neck so do it. We hear form and work on a 16 foot lot. Our hair I mean our hair even. Dad dad dad got me oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh OK. Cold.

Get this. Job. OH YEAH YEAH YEAH I GOT TO SEE YOU GOTTA SEE got to see what it really child. Judge

me. Rather get horny. Oh. Yeah. One more time. Carlos. Do you care I mean do you care a. Lot. Singing to a woman who does not hear and cannot help. The central themes in these songs are the basic logical concerns of the long time man is woman

his lack of freedom the dogs the guards. These concerns are developed most movingly in a group of song used for work that is not metered such as cutting sugar cane and picking cotton. These may be sung by a group as is the well known. Go down old Hannah where they may be sung alone. A particularly inventive singer may pass away part of a tiring day with the temperature well over 100 and humidity in the 90s typical southern weather for south central Texas by singing a story using stock phrases and verses when they fit improvising others when he feels like it. In a moment we'll listen to two of these stories but first a few words about the work songs in general. Though it is talked fully out of fashion it should be obvious that there is a great deal of African survival in these songs. There are objections to this view. Many whites extremists at both ends prefer to view the 19th century and 18th century negro slave as a tabular razor and claim that what he knew he learned from whites or developed while he was

here many negroes view the whole subject of Negro folklore as associated with bad days bad places bad people and try to ignore it. But if a white hillbilly can sing sad songs about fair maidens and brandish broadsword there's no reason why a Southern negro farmer isolated from the general white American culture than his hillbilly counterpart cannot maintain some sense of traditional style. After all slaves were imported right up to the beginning of the Civil War and folk traditions even in dissolving communities easily survive two or three generations. If logic isn't enough here there is also the added weight of recent research. Most of the American slaves came from West Africa Nigeria Gold Coast to Holmey the Congo agricultural areas often composed of large family farms plantations where men worked in groups. The Africans themselves use slaves captured in battle with neighboring tribes so transplanting to this country for so often was more a climactic change than anything else. Anthropologist Melville

Herskovitz wrote that acculturation occurs as a result of contact and it is the continuing nature of the contact and the opportunities for exposure to new modes of life that determine the type and intensity of the same criticism which constitute the eventual patterning of the resultant cultural orientations. Well how much contact of the deep south slave here have with the white society around outside of house slaves who had little to do with field hands. Not a great deal. Nor was there much exchange of these of a Until used TV sets became so cheap everyone could afford exposure for better or worse. The characteristics of Africans saw the metronomes sense ethnomusicologist Richard Waterman has written about dominance of percussion poly meter offbeat phrasing of melodic accents overlapping call and response patterns are all safe poly meter prevalent in negro Folkways in this country. One West African chant according to Waterman has been identified as possessing the same melody as a negro prison works on long

johns which you will hear a little later in the program. I want to play for you now a solo song one used for picking cotton. The singer a man called Smitty knows all the standard group songs and their melodies. But there is one melody he always seems to use when he sings alone to that melody he sang five songs from eight comprising a total of about 80 different stanzas none of them repeated the style is an interesting variation of blues style. The first sings a pair of lines then sings them again in reverse order with minor variations almost as if to point out to the listener himself really that events in his life are related now by kind of competency rather than causality. Time doesn't exist in the free world said the singer begins by saying he got too much time for his offense that had he known the severity of the sentence he would have attempted to run away. He notes ironically that the reduction from 100 years to 99 changes nothing. It is still life time. His strength is failing in many of the men he knew are dead and gone but he knows if he had a gun as does the guard he could

act strongly enough. Thinking about that he tells the guard with his two barrel down that is his double barreled shotgun that he's going to run off. He concludes by remembering his woman's useless advice. She told me not to worry but I got to worry some because I'm way overloaded for the crime I've done. Broken. To loan

you do. Get your grip. While manic you Rob. And Hoover are with the Q me a robin by your mom which you may grit in knowing. Good luck you

know I went I. Got a good hundred broad tonight and. Why. On a night air. Don't you consider me lucky. When I've got my time. 100. Mom was nine to. One man. They know my new phone. Order. Time.

You know what I do for. Old Boat. I do soon. One hundred was not. Our own. But a one job loan. Why would I be ruined when number 0 0 0 0 gone where heroin. Came and when abroad lol. Grown men have been on this or

upon their loan. Power Kept. Out of my 0 0 0 0 0 somewhere who were loaded and would have cried. Why here alone. Are you. WHAT WHERE.

Where you go. One moment. You can. Would you care. Woman brought. Me money round the yeah. I take money the BE TOO money. Well.

Pablo who looked. At me double crossed here on June your buddy re-imposed been. Junior for a stag one plan. To change that. Oh oh yes we're on right by our own one and they're welcome. I wouldn't

own one. Yeah. I wouldn't know no one at my job. You know. What. Route you're done. You know. Look Tim I have to go on. The wing

that we're growing. You don't we're. Well read and never were in. My cross. To thank him. Where. Sergeant who when where and how. I didn't know.

Where. She told me not to worry. Or somewhere. And your line is when you ride allowed between the state land and the free land. In a tangent of free will we call it I always thought a band that would leave just a driver to use in a very rude answer was always somebody at danger line try to you know keep you from going colons sergeant. Boy somebody now you have you beat him

beat him to the danger line you got to know about it as I did you did right away. The next cotton or Cain song sung by that group deals with similar themes. The first verse is a floater one found in many songs in many states. I'm going to write my mom and tell her to pray for me mama I got a lifetime of the soul river and never will go free if the mother wants to see him alive she should send a box of cartridges in a 45. He asked the guard if he doesn't feel sorry for a man with a life sentence but the guard says I don't never feel sorry till I drive you down. Then musically an interesting thing happens. They double up on the tempo taking about two stanzas to reach the new velocity. I asked later why they did this and was told that sometimes they'd be working with an easy guard or alone in the field and would see the captain coming and they would speed up their work rate in order to impress him. After they sing a while the new tempo one of the singers says I believe I'll pray now

and he does just that while the others continue the song he drops to his knees and chants the Lord's Prayer in rhythm with them. When he's finished he sings. I don't prayed now. And the leader without losing his rhythm sings back pray a little longer which he does. Maybe. News.

News Room. The work songs we heard earlier were performed by small groups of men working in isolated areas.

Next we're going to listen to some men singing in the Trinity bottoms on Ellis prison farm near Huntsville Texas. They're in a large densely wooded tract and about 75 men are working in a fairly small area. Only four men are singing but eight axes are hitting in time with the song. For ex is it time those of four men on one large tree and four other men working on two adjoining trees other axes in the area can be heard hitting off beat. The crackling noise in the background is a large brush fire nearby. While this was going on I set the microphone on a log and began taking photographs while I was busy focusing a tall tree about 40 feet away was rapidly flowing. You'll hear it land on the microphone temper. A word that occurs in every stanza means worker and it obviously derives from road work gang usage where it referred to the job of tamping down ties. And here is that same song before by a group of four men flat

clearing away vegetation with Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Whoa that was. Was. That was the. Was. God.

Was. The God. Was. The. Was. The. God the. God Who.

Was now. Was. In the. House. One of the favorite tree cutting songs is lost John variously titled Crooked Foot John and John Henry Lund. It is about a man with a specially built

shoe that left a footprint with two heels so the pursuers couldn't tell which way he was moving. This is the song Richard Waterman said was paralleled melodically in West Africa. The version you're about to hear has a particularly interesting aspect. A segment of verses inserted by the leader about the tree itself the lawn the lawns are not related to John but are handled as an interchangeable part just as are many of the verses and sections of the work songs. These lines form a touching sequence about the great tree in the man who destroys it. Well this old tree been a stand in right here for many many year well along come a man with a diamond in his hand and he you down and you down you get down to the ground Well it's long gone then Chinaman the leader returns to long lost John again. So tomorrow in the midst of the company of the axis and Chinaman's violent verbal attack the lines achieve a poor Nancy seldom realized in part the harsh framework of the song and style heighten this effect.

I. I. I. I. I. Why.

Here.

You. Are. There.

You go. There is no concept in the prison system of one's owning the song of anyone's having the best version. There's none of that self-consciousness revealed in a remark made to me by an 80 year old white Ozark ballad singer last year. I guess I'm about the best singer ever puckered lips. A good leader is what matters in the works of. One who can keep the beat going and be heard. A man who doesn't run out of women before the men run out of work among some of the younger inmates there's a feeling of performance and they often add gospel harmonies to the older sort. Producing what is sometimes a curious amalgam of styles. Many of the new inmates younger men are too cool to sing the old songs and they include this in what they consider a blanket rejection of the old ways and Uncle Tommy. This may be true but more an influence is the absence of the old

brutality and the introduction of new machinery and also a demographic change that has first offenders housed in their own prisons where they can't learn the song. But still one regularly meets men in their 20s and early 30s who know the repertory and who sing regularly the songs are still there but sometimes something is missing. The urgency the tension born of the original pain and irony of the situation that a man who could not sing or keep rhythm might die Izzy's today's terrors are tomorrow's tall tales and men forget quickly for a while at least the lore lasts its sources. Prison is the only place left in this country where the work song survives and its days there are surely numbered. Another generation or two. And the only source will be the record library. But considering the conditions that produced the songs and maintain them in this country one would hardly say that their passing does not indeed mark a passage long overdue. Load.

I am the I was the o them. God was the dark haired. Man was the man. Wear them load. Them.

The fact that. That. Was Now the UN. Was. No. Them up.

Was there. The. Amount. Was nice. Was that the head. Where download

where the money can be earned. Hi how are you. Oh I see where he was where I was. Hounding. Them where

the man B was and B where you had no nose head no head. Buried. Head down the head in their hand. Oh I've. Been there.

Where.