We’re currently obsessed with Negro Prison Songs from the Mississippi State Penitentiary recorded by Alan Lomax. In this post 2BadJim writes as to how the music is moving him and how it might influence future Slim Jim Blues recordings.
As the title suggests the recordings were made by the folklorist Alan Lomax in a visit to the prison in 1947. They consist of groups of men with hoes or axes, recreating the work songs that the prisoners sang out on the line to cope with the hard monotonous physical labour. They are the direct descendants of the African tradition the slaves brought with them in the 17th century, and the work songs that evolved on the slave plantations and the sharecropper farms.
The song leader’s dialect is difficult for me to understand, the followers sing in an impromptu chorus and the clack of the axes gets ragged in places. Perhaps that creates the sense of authenticity and the sense of being there.
In any case, it’s a wonderful noise; form and function reflecting perhaps the only freedom these men have, riding on the mutual support of being in a group, in choosing their own leader, choosing their own songs, adding their own voice to the collective.
I find it truly inspirational and the more I listen the more I hear.
I’ve been channeling this into my songwriting, trying to invigorate my blues music with something of its DNA. But I am wondering about cultural appropriation. After all, it’s not my ancestors and it’s not my tradition. I’m the product of a completely different heritage, one that frankly once was fuelled by exploitation of the prisoners and their ancestors.
I don’t know the answer to this one. Maybe it’s not for middle class English boys to draw on the lives of black slaves and prisoners many decades and miles away?
Anyway, find the album on your favourite streaming service. Work at it and you will start to hear the influences in early blues, Tom Waits, ‘O Brother Where Art Thou?’ and so on.
Slim Jim Blues 