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Overview

The work song was part of the African culture long before Africans came to the North American continent's shores and remained so for a long time after their arrival. In the community's performance of work songs in West Africa, laborers sang songs that enhanced their ability to work by creating a group consciousness that allowed them to function at a steady, rhythmic pace via the call-and-response pattern (James 1955, 16). Author Tilford Brooks makes note that "…while the practice of singing to accompany one's labor is indigenous to West Africa, it is obvious that working one's own field in his own land is quite different from forced labor in a foreign land. Thus, the references in the songs accompanying the work changed radically" (Brooks 1984, 43).

Be ready to:

Describe the importance of the work song to the African before arriving to North American

Identify how work songs translated into enslaved African work ethic on Southern plantations.

Describe the importance of the work gang singing leader to the creation of a work song.

Identify why a slave master did not like a slave that did not sing.

List the four essential functions of prison work songs.

Describe the type of work songs associated with movement and non-movement.

Describe the African American musical traits found in the work songs "Hammer Ring," "Go Down Old Hannah," "Chopping in the New Ground," and "Mighty Bright Light."

Describe the critical role of the gandy dancer.

Identify the significance of the role of John Henry to the railroad industry.

Articulate the significance of Anansi to the Trickster tale tradition.

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Work Song Types in General: Prison Work Songs (Continued)

Bruce Jackson in the liner notes to the Wake Up Dead Man compact disc notes that "because the work song was more functional than entertaining, it had a different aesthetic from performance songs. Rhyme was rare; usually, especially in the faster songs, the leader would simply sing the same line twice and the group would repeat a regular chorus." He also goes on to mention that "a good leader was not known for the lovely voice tones, but rather by an ability to be heard over the noise of the work going on, by ability to maintain a steady beat, by ability to keep coming up with enough verses…or even make up lines as he went along (Jackson 1994, n. p.). The types of work songs described here illustrate that the call-and-response A song structure of performance practice in which a singer or instrumentalist makes a musical statement that is answered by another soloist, instrumentalist, or group. The statement and answer sometimes overlap. Also called antiphony and call-and-response. structure has multiple functions: "It (1) encourages improvisation, (2) facilitates musical exchanges and cohesiveness among the participants, and (3) allows for songs to be lengthened and to continue indefinitely. These functions have been preserved in all forms of Black music in the United States for nearly five centuries" (Burnim 2015, 12).

"Talking 'Bout a Good Time"♫

"Christian's Automobile"♫

In the structural pattern of the work song "Go Down, Old Hannah,"♫ the leader and the chorus sing the melody in falsetto characteristics. "Old Hannah" "is what the prisoners called the sun throughout the South. They sang about the color of 'Old Hannah' and the pain it brought upon them and their partners or friends working next to them. They wanted the sun to go down for it meant their workday was now over" (Reference needed here). This work song's lyrics state: character. "Old Hannah" "is what the prisoners called the sun throughout the South. They sang about the color of 'Old Hannah' and the pain it brought upon them and their partners or friends working next to them. They wanted the sun to go down for it meant their workday was now over" (African American Work Songs, n. p.). This work song's lyrics state:

Old Hannah

Why don't you go down, ol' Hannah
Don't you rise no more

If you come up in the mornin'
Bring judgment sure.
If you come up in the mornin'
Bring judgment sure

Well I look at ol' Hannah
She was turnin' red.

Well I look at my partner.
He was almost dead

In these prison work songs, the forced labor of slavery found a new application: "Once again working under oppressive conditions, African Americans timed work routines, enforced group solidarity, expressed emotions of loneliness and despair, and constructed social commentary through oral expressive forms" (Every Tone a Testimony, track 22).

Listen to these two songs, "Chopping in the New Ground"♫ and "Mighty Bright Light,"♫and compare how the "leader"-the soloist-and the "chorus"-the other members-interact. As mentioned earlier, a good singing leader was paramount in the execution of the work required of him and his men. In "Chopping in the New Ground," listen for how many times the leader repeats each line of text with a varied melody and also review the lyrics in table 7.1. Compare the use of the call-and-response technique in "Chopping in the New Ground" versus "Mighty Bright Light." Note that Courlander states in his monumental work Negro Folk Music that prison song "Mighty Bright Light" is "unequivocally religious" (Courlander 1963, 101)

Table 7.1: Lyrics of "Chopping in the New Ground" and "Mighty Bright Light"
CHOPPING IN THE NEW GROUND	MIGHTY BRIGHT LIGHT
Oh, Captain Charlie Good God A' mighty Oh, Captain Charlie Oh my Lord Etc.	It was a mighty bright light that was shining down (x3) Oh, a mighty bright light that was shining down. Oh, tell me, who was that light that was shining down (x3) Oh, a mighty bright light that was shining down. Oh King Jesus was the light that was shining down (x3) Oh, a mighty bright light that was shining down. My mother saw the light that was shining down (x3) Oh, a mighty bright light that was shining down. Oh, everybody saw the light that was shining down (x3) Oh, a mighty bright light that was shining down.

Bruce Jackson's compact disc liner notes sums up the prison work song tradition by noting that these songs "survived into the early 1960's because the southern penitentiary was a copy of the mid-19th century plantation.... The songs lasted until prison reform made them anachronistic. The overt brutality in the fields ended and slow workers were no longer tortured.... [Also], younger black men saw the songs as holdovers from slavery and Uncle Tom days and refused to join the older black men in performing them" (Jackson 1994, n. p.)

Gale P. Jackson

Work songs document the central experience in the lives of most Africans in the early history of the Americas who worked 'from sun up until sundown,' recognized the true extent of their worth, and despite the pervasive and horrific violence, brutality, and trauma of enslavement, drew sustenance from their own strength and accomplishments.

Frederick Douglass

They who study mankind with a whip in their hands will always go wrong.