Deep River of Song: Big Brazos: Texas Prison Recordings, 1933 and 1934 [Original recording remastered]

Various Artists - Blues | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 13, 2000)
• Original Release Date: June 13, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Rounder Select
• ASIN: B00004TQXQ
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,110 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Ain't No More Cane on the Brazos

2. Black Betty

3. Old Rattler

4. Stewball

5. Long John

6. Go 'Way Eadie

7. Black Gal

8. Gonna Be a Witness for My Lord

9. Hammer Ring

10. I Wonder What's the Matter

11. Great God Almighty (Long Hot Summer Days)

12. Go Down Old Hannah

13. Johnny Won't Ya Ramble

14. Go on, Old 'Gator

15. Old Rattler

16. Godamighty Drag

17. Mama Mama

18. Drop, Old Diamond

19. Waco Ida

20. Hammer Ring

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "the dogs is comin', and I've got to go", August 7, 2003

By 

Pharoah S. Wail (Inner Space) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Deep River of Song: Big Brazos: Texas Prison Recordings, 1933 and 1934 (Audio CD)

I have noticed that this website doesn't bring up every disc in this series with just a "Deep River Of Song" search. In the interest of helping people find these discs here, I'll name every other disc in the series.

South Carolina

Bahamas 1935

Bahamas 1935 Volume 2

Mississippi: The Blues Lineage

Mississippi: Saints and Sinners

Georgia

Black Texicans

Black Appalachia

Virginia and the Piedmont

Alabama

Even moreso than the Black Texicans disc, this disc (recorded in 1933 & '34, on various prisons and "work farms", aka Texas prisons) seems to really illustrate life in hell. That of the black Jim Crow Era prisoner, although many of the songs and social situations would have been things to which I'm sure any black person of this era could relate. Unfortunately. No one should have had to live and sing these tales, but they did, and we should not forget them and their stories.

This music...these people with their songs and stories... are letting me take a glimpse into a world that I cannot even imagine. One of the great failures of the American education system is that it places no emphasis on music. Perhaps a student can sit bored in a classroom and be unmoved by stories on the page, but it's less easy to overlook the actual human voice of someone who was living those stories.

From the racial brutality (and all-too-common scenario of dogs used to hunt down black Americans) in Moses "Clear Rock" Platt and James "Ironhead" Baker's version of Old Rattler, to the back-breaking hardship that you can't help but be haunted by in Augustus "Trackhorse" Haggerty's Mama, Mama. If you've read any of the great books about the Jim Crow Era, this disc will certainly strike a deep chord within you, as these are the voices from the page.

Lightnin' Washington and group are not to be missed on this set of recordings. Some of the tree-cutting songs on here are favorites of mine.

As I said for the Black Texicans disc...this is not for the faint of heart. There is no studio polish here. These are hard songs sung by hard men who had hard lives and were doing the hardest of time. If you can get with field-recordings of music by the true "folk" then this is for you, but if not, I fear you may be disappointed with this disc. I just want to make sure people see that caveat. I love this disc but I certainly understand that many may not.