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The Golden Glows reinterpret the prison songs as they were recorded by Alan Lomax and his father John A. Lomax. Roland (Van Campenhout) presents the best of LEAD BELLY, bringing back to life the blues legend that the world discovered via father and son Lomax.
As part of the tribute to ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax that the AB is organising in the fall of 2009, The Golden Glows – a trio from Antwerp with a love for old, somewhat ‘forgotten’ music – have the exceptional privilege of working with this unique musical legacy. 2009 is the year of the blues for The Golden Glows. Following A Songbook from the 20’s (music from the 1920's) and A Folksongbook (traditionals from the 16th to 19th centuries), their third musical project will be presented at the end of this year, The Songbook of Blues. So the execution of what we'll simply call A Prison Songbook, for the sake of convenience, was written in the stars...
Together with a drummer and a six-member male choir, The Golden Glows present a selection from Prison Songs, recorded in 1947 by Alan Lomax in the oldest prison in Mississippi, Parchman Farm. For as far as we're aware, it's the first time that this precious legacy has been performed live and it is moreover a suitable alibi to show another side of the band. Whereas the Glows usually opt for soft, intimate vocal finery and a consistently applied minimalism, this time they go all out. Supported by six sturdy male voices and a phenomenal drummer, The Golden Glows create a one-off and unique performance that thrives on raw energy and vocal power. Its already certain that the AB will shake to its very foundations on 10 October ...
Bram van Moorhem
‘Rosie (be my husband)’
Talent scouts and field-researchers have travelled the world since the end of the 19th century, in order to make recordings of the music made by peoples that were totally culturally unknown until shortly prior. Many of those scouts and researchers have released recordings of their work. Folkways, Le Chant du Monde and Smithsonian are well-known record labels in that respect. Among the most famous scouts and recording-leaders you will find Chris Strachwitz, Harry Smith and in Great Britain A.L. Lloyd. For an hour, Jari Demeulemeester leads you through these valuable items.
Roland plays a selection of Lead Belly songs
Blues legend LEAD BELLY was discovered by Alan Lomax and his father John A. Lomax. In the 30's they travelled to prisons in the South of the United States to record prison songs. That's where they met Lead Belly and the rest is history. His ‘Good Night Irene’ in a version by The Weavers became a number 1 hit and Nirvana’s version of ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night (In The Pines)’ is etched in everyone's memory too. But aside from that, Lead Belly played more than 500 songs in all. Who other than our very own blues legend ROLAND would be more suited to present an exciting selection of those songs?
Huddie Ledbetter, better known as ‘Lead Belly’ was born in 1889 in Louisiana. He learned to play guitar at a very young age but also showed an interest in accordion, mandolin and piano. He later fell in love with a twelve-string guitar and named it ‘Stella’. Huddie travelled throughout he South-West of the United States with his music, working here and there on cotton fields or on the laying of the railroads. His songs and voice especially made an impression upon women and Lead Belly regularly got into trouble with their jealous lovers. That ended fatally twice: he was sentenced to a prison term for murder in both 1918 and in 1930. While sitting out that last sentence in the Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana, Alan and John A. Lomax came along to record prison songs there. That was how they got to know Lead Belly and had the opportunity to introduce his music in New York. Later Huddie moved to that city and established a reputation in the folk circuit. In 1949, exactly 60 years ago, he passed away and left a gigantic musical legacy behind him. His most well-known songs are ‘Good Night Irene’ (later a number 1 hit for The Weavers) and ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night (In The Pines)’, better known to us in the Nirvana version.
In autumn 2009, the AB will be organising a tribute to the American ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax (1915-2002). It is thanks to his pioneering work that anyone can now acquaint themselves with the earliest folksong recordings. Together with his father, he was responsible for the discovery of blues legend Leadbelly and folk icon Woody Guthrie. Lomax was later the most important staff member of the Archive of Folk Song or to the Library of Congress in Washington.
As part of this tribute, the AB is also creating a new production. When Stef Kamil Carlens tipped us off to Antwerp's The Golden Glows, we were immediately blown away by their brilliant CD ‘A Folksongbook’ - a collection of British and Irish folk traditionals, Victorian poems and 19th century ballades. Especially for AB, this trio surrounded themselves with a number of sturdy voices and have created a unique show based upon the prison songs recorded by Lomax, both male and female.
Alan Lomax Prison Songs
The Golden Glows
June 1933, Texas.
John A. Lomax and his son Alan, barely 18 at the time, began their first expedition under the supervision of the Library of Congress. With a primitive Dictaphone machine they made field-recordings of authentic folk music ? working songs, old ballades and blues. One of the first stops was a state prison in Texas. "I had heard all sorts of classical music, contemporary music, chamber music and popular music," Lomax would later declare, "but nothing made such a deep impression upon me as the simple words and melodies of those black detainees." It was the start of a manic search for folk songs that would cover more than six decades and three continents...
The Lomaxes had good reason to start their search in a state prison. They namely assumed that the oldest Afro-American songs – slave songs from the 19th century – were to be found in a context that was very similar to slavery: the prisons (annex working farms) in the south of America in the 30's were typified by forced hard labour, segregation and even open racism from white guards. What's more, they were curious as to which songs the prisoners sang for their own pleasure: as this was often the only form of entertainment and, as the prisoners were completely cut-off from the outside world, it was impossible that they could have been influenced by jazz or popular music on the radio.
However, John and Alan Lomax found little song material that could be attributed to slavery. In 1933 the sound of slavery had already long died out. But they discovered something completely different: a new musical genre, a completely original repertoire that expressed the deepest feelings and fantasies of the black detainees, which, sometimes tragically, sometimes ironically, told of the brutal conditions in state prisons. These songs, which recurred in variations in most of the other prisons that Lomax visited until midway through the 50's, are today known as Prison Songs.
Prison Songs are strongly linked to the blues but have a number of characteristic peculiarities: they are intended to be sung outside, in broad daylight, while they're about dark, pitch-black subjects – absence, loss, emptiness. Subjects are easy to find: guards, fleeing, the length of their sentence, geographical places they remember, women as a source of joy and misery, sickness, death, firearms and the extremely hard forced labour. The language of these songs is extremely tangible, almost primitive, but the themes aren't that in the least, they're mainly negative: their lack of love, lack of freedom, and lack of importance.
Prison Songs defined the work-rhythm for the men who cut or broke stone in a chain gang, they mediated between strong and weak, served as a safety mechanism in the perilous forced labour, softened the disposition of the guards, amused and comforted the singers and returned a certain dignity to the blacks who carried out inhuman work, from sunrise until sunset, under the all-seeing eye of armed guards. In other words, Prison Songs were vital for the mental and physical survival of the prisoners.
October, 2009. Brussels.
