Humanizing Struggle
The Enduring Legacy of the Black American Work Song"
Black-American musical expressions like work songs and field hollers were the foundational building blocks for blues, jazz, gospel, rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, and popular music. These musical traditions emerged from a history of oppression and enslavement and are a reminder of the resilience and creativity of Black Americans. As these genres evolved and spread, they carried with them the echoes of struggle, resistance, and hope, becoming anthems for civil rights movements and platforms for voicing the injustices faced by marginalized communities. Their emotive force, rhythmic complexity, and cultural distinctiveness have endured the generations, sustaining and nurturing not only musical expression but the ongoing struggle for a more just and equitable world.
All African tribal groups brought to the New World as slaves shared a common cultural trait: music played an essential role in every aspect of life. It was present during play, work, mourning, and worship, blurring the lines between these purposes. Creating music was a communal effort, with everyone contributing according to their abilities.
Even after Africans were forcibly taken from their homes and forced to adapt to a foreign land and culture, music remained central to their lives. Their songs encompassed work, dance, and worship music, forming distinct categories.
Throughout history, despite the challenges of slavery, the slaves developed a new communication system through these songs. Over time, these musical expressions became the foundation of Black American music, uniting the black community during years of struggle and hardship.
Subsequent generations built upon this foundation, eventually giving rise to what we now know as Black American culture.
Enslaved individuals sang work songs while laboring on railways, cutting woods, and clearing bushes for their masters. These songs served as a way to alleviate boredom, express emotions, frustrations, and dreams of freedom. The lyrics provided insights into their harsh life, reflecting on deaths, punishments, starvation, and family separation.
Beyond mere expression, the work songs became a means of covert communication among the slaves, using coded messages to mock their masters. These songs fostered a strong bond among the slaves, and they sang together in groups, with a leader starting the line and others repeating it as a chorus. This communal singing improved their coordination and enhanced the effectiveness of their tasks, especially during heavy labor involving dangerous tools.
Work songs varied based on the type of labor, pacing the tasks and making life more bearable. Descriptions of work songs are scarce before 1800, but their modern understanding is based on an intermediate stage of development. These songs evolved from improvised music into roughly predictable rhythmic and metric patterns.
Most slave music was delivered in a responsorial fashion, with one singer leading and the others joining in, a practice likely influenced by African singing traditions. This style of singing built community and was essential for ensuring worker safety during heavy labor.
An example of such a song is the railroad work song, which helped coordinate the efforts of workers when hammering spikes or realigning sections of railroad. Chants or songs like "Steel Driving Song" and "Track Callin'" provided the rhythm needed for synchronized labor.
Field recordings of work songs were typically not captured while the singers were actually working due to the inconvenience of remote work locations for collectors and the disruptive presence of recording equipment for the workers.
John Lomax and his son, Alan Lomax, were folklorists who unearthed some of the most potent vernacular music from the American South within the oppressive and violent prison system of the region.
These songs had once been sung throughout the South, but the advent of machines led to the disbanding of work gangs. Subsequentlu, the songs found their last refuge in the road gang and the penitentiary.
Southern agricultural penitentiaries mirrored nineteenth-century plantations in many ways, where groups of slaves toiled under the watchful eye of armed white overseers, facing constant threats of severe physical punishment.
Consequently, it was no surprise that the music of plantation culture, including the work songs, also made its way into the prisons.
Modern interpretation
Within the prison environment, the presence of collectors became an intriguing novelty for the inmates, who had no choice but to comply with their wardens. Work tasks, like chopping trees or hoeing fields, were sometimes done with the purpose of recording.
Field recordings made under such conditions, like "Early in the Mornin'" and "Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad," provide valuable insight into the integration of work and song. Alan Lomax recorded tie-tamping and wood-cutting chants, field hollers, and occasional blues at Mississippi's Parchman Farm Penitentiary in 1947 and on February 9, 1948.
These recordings were anthologized as "Negro Prison Songs" in 1958 and released in 1997 as two volumes of "Prison Songs" in the Alan Lomax Collection by Rounder Records (1714 and 171).
A notable example of a work song assimilated into popular culture is the "Night Herding Song." Throughout the history of recorded popular music, especially blues and country music, work songs have been adapted to suit the styles of various singers who then became inspirations for later generations.
For instance, in 1929, Mississippi John Hurt recorded the popular tune "Spike Driver Blues," his own take on the traditional "Take This Hammer."
The work song "Black Betty," originally documented by the Library of Congress, has been recorded by rock bands Ram Jam (1977), Spiderbait (2004), and The Melvins (2011). As a result, contemporary pop music carries traces of the driving rhythms and poignant lyrics that echo the centuries of American workers chopping, hammering, and daydreaming.
An essential element of all Black American music, particularly work songs, is the "call and answer" structure present in both the musical and textual lines. This structure remains even when there's only one singer, and it persists in modern popular music, regardless of race.
In genres like Blues within Black American music, the "call" portion may occur on a beat or two. The tradition of call and answer singing has endured throughout history, from the construction of the transcontinental railroad to the work gangs in southern penitentiaries until the 1930s, and even in the songs of basic training in the U.S. military.
These vestiges of call and answer singing can still be heard in popular music today.
Modern Example: Edwin Hawkins Singers, “Oh, Happy Day, 1968
During field work, like hoeing, efficiency was crucial for work lines, and the music was not vastly different from "gang" songs. Call and answer melodic lines remained the norm, but the absence of serious injury risk allowed for more improvisational freedom and exploration. This led to irregular line lengths and a more dramatic delivery of the songs.
Black improvisation during this time was not concerned with rhyme or syllabification. Syllables were either shortened or elongated to fit the rhythmic unit. Additionally, the origin of the modern guitar "lick" can likely be traced back to the field holler or "arhoolie."
The regional variations in field hollers may also offer some insight into the regional differences observed in Blues styles. These distinct regional influences contributed to the diversity of the Blues genre.
Field hollers represent a form of work songs originating from enslaved individuals who toiled for long hours in the fields. These songs emerged during the peak of slavery in the United States, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and endured into the twentieth century, carried by African Americans even after the abolition of slavery in 1865.
Incorporating distinct elements, field hollers often involved snarls, growls, and other non-musical language or animal sounds, as well as swoops and glissandi—blurring one note into the next without a break between them. All slave music, regardless of its purpose, featured the use of quarter-tone inflections.
A quarter-tone denotes the note between two recognized in Western music. For instance, the pitch between E flat and E is neither E flat nor E but a distinct sound in itself. In Blues, these notes are referred to as "bends." These unique musical nuances contribute to the richness and depth of the field hollers and Blues genre.
Example: Mistreatin' Mama by the harmonica player Jaybird Coleman, 1927
Slave owners and overseers recognized the significance of work songs and understood that slaves who didn't sing could cause trouble. They also grasped the impact of the music's tempo (the speed of the beat) and its character. Faster, cheerier, major-key songs were encouraged, as they increased productivity. Mournful, sorrowful songs in minor keys were discouraged, as they could affect the mood, slow down work, and lead to trouble.
The tempo of work songs sometimes depended on the pace of the machines used, like in grinding. The evolution of work songs' textual content and musical characteristics didn't solely follow African lines or exist in a cultural vacuum. Coastal region slaves worked alongside newly-arrived blacks from the West Indies and immigrants from England and Ireland, resulting in a blend of musical influences from various cultures.
West Indian music brought fresh African elements into slave music, while the music of immigrants from the British Isles reinforced the initial British influence on the slaves during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The diverse cultural interactions shaped the musical landscape of work songs during that era.
The Spiritual emerged as a dominant music type during the evangelical crusades of the nineteenth century. In regions where religious teaching proved successful, spiritual texts replaced the typical texts of work songs. Throughout history, work songs provided slaves with an opportunity to express their emotions by praising or satirizing their masters through song.
"Marching" songs can also be categorized with work songs, as slaves marched to and from labor, to the "big house" for weekly rations, and during migrations to auctions after the abolition of slave importation from Africa. These marches were more cost-effective than transport by rail or water.
With the emergence of black soldiers in the late nineteenth century, march songs transitioned into the military, where each troop-unit developed its own songs.
Field hollers and work songs share similarities, with the main difference being that work songs have a steady beat, while field hollers lack precise rhythm. Field hollers are predominantly solo performances, while work songs involve group singing. Field hollers played a crucial role in black music, capturing urban environments through amplified sounds.
Resources
https://blackmusicscholar.com/field-hollers-and-work-songs/
https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/experience/education/history.html
https://www.loc.gov/item/lomaxbib000058/
https://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbcb.25385/?sp=31&st=single
https://www.jazzhistorytree.com/ring-shout/
Books
Here are the citations in Chicago style, listed in alphabetical order by the author's last name:
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.
Floyd Jr., Samuel. "Ring Shout! Literary Studies, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry." Black Music Research Journal 22 (2002): 49-70. Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College of Chicago and University of Illinois Press.
Jackson, Bruce. Wake Up Dead Man: Hard Labor and Southern Blues. University of Georgia Press, 1999.
Lomax, John A., and Lomax, Alan. Our Singing Country: Folk Songs and Ballads (Dover Books On Music: Folk Songs). New York: The Macmillan Co, 1941.
Rosenbaum, Art. Shout Because You're Free: The African American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia. University of Georgia Press, 2013.
Spence, John. Annals of Rutherford County vol. 2. The Rutherford County Historical Society, 1991: 20.
Stuckey, Sterling. Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory & the Foundations of Black America. Oxford University Press, 1987.