In the half-decade 1929-1932, a band of northern labor organizers-radical and intellectual-met a number of rural, conservative folksingers in the Southern Highlands. From this setting came a group of topical songs using old melodies to set off intensely stark and militant texts. In a sense, Piedmont mill villages and Cumberland mine camps became meeting grounds for the ideologies of Andrew Jackson and Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln and Mikhail Bakunin. Few of the mill hands or coal miners were able to synthesize traditional and modern values into lasting literature, but some managed to compose folk-like songs which fused timeworn melodies with strange, revolutionary lyrics. Prior to 1929 a body of Southern industrial songs had clustered around mine and mill. Such pieces were frequently mock-humorous or sardonic commentaries on hard times, but the "new" songs were overtly hard. Needless to say, with Roosevelt's New Deal the thrust of radicalism in labor was diverted and the main body of left, sectarian songs was forgotten. Almost none entered tradition. (However, a few have been retained by students and "revival" singers of folksongs.)
The radical pieces of the Great Depression are not insignificant because they failed to become folksongs. Today, as the nation focuses on poverty in Appalachia and civil rights in the Black Belt, a song which draws attention to the plight of poor or deprived people has utility. When such a song flows from the experience of a traditional folksinger and is delivered in authentic style, it becomes a poignant statement for the listener-even a potential guide to new values.
Some of the mountain broadside composers remained anonymous in the twenties and thirties. Others died before decent recordings were made of their work. Fortunately, in the present decade a few companies with superb equipment and high standards have recorded traditional performers. Hence, today we can hear laments and battle cries of the thirties sung in the sixties by their own composers.
The best of such living bards is Sarah Ogan Gunning, who complements her own journalistic numbers with a songbag of old ballads, love lyrics, comic ditties, and religious pieces. Sarah is important for her dual repertoire-traditional and topical. She adds to the largeness of this gift a magnificent mastery of Appalachian style. The contents of her personal songs stress hardship and sorrow. She does not separate such contents from her delivery, in which pathos and loneliness sound so natural. Yet Sarah's doleful messages denote neither narrowness of vision nor personal alienation. As she moves from "Dreadful Memories" to "The Hand of God on the Wall," one hears the wholeness in her life and perceives the bridges between her realms. Frequently, the tension generated by conflict between fundamental religious convictions, highly conservative personal training, and radical political creed is destructive to artistic statement. Seemingly, Sarah has diverted such tension into her songs and in the process has enhanced their emotional and esthetic worth.
continued here
Dreadful Memories: The Life of Sarah Ogan Gunning, 1910-1983
A Film by Mimi Pickering. 38 minutes, Color
Gunning suffered a life of bitter poverty which became the fuel for dozens of moving songs about working people, the mines, and the great coal strikes of the twenties and thirties. Gunning's a cappella roots music is intercut throughout the interviews and archival footage. A 1988 film by Mimi Pickering, available from Appalshop on DVD.
see trailer below or watch the complete film here. it's fantastic and yes tear jerking.
there is an lp available as seen above. i just don't have it.
great history.
you can get her LP here for a price, although a free MP3 of "Constant Sorrow" is free.
In the half-decade 1929-1932, a band of northern labor organizers-radical and intellectual-met a number of rural, conservative folksingers in the Southern Highlands. From this setting came a group of topical songs using old melodies to set off intensely stark and militant texts. In a sense, Piedmont mill villages and Cumberland mine camps became meeting grounds for the ideologies of Andrew Jackson and Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln and Mikhail Bakunin. Few of the mill hands or coal miners were able to synthesize traditional and modern values into lasting literature, but some managed to compose folk-like songs which fused timeworn melodies with strange, revolutionary lyrics. Prior to 1929 a body of Southern industrial songs had clustered around mine and mill. Such pieces were frequently mock-humorous or sardonic commentaries on hard times, but the "new" songs were overtly hard. Needless to say, with Roosevelt's New Deal the thrust of radicalism in labor was diverted and the main body of left, sectarian songs was forgotten. Almost none entered tradition. (However, a few have been retained by students and "revival" singers of folksongs.)
The radical pieces of the Great Depression are not insignificant because they failed to become folksongs. Today, as the nation focuses on poverty in Appalachia and civil rights in the Black Belt, a song which draws attention to the plight of poor or deprived people has utility. When such a song flows from the experience of a traditional folksinger and is delivered in authentic style, it becomes a poignant statement for the listener-even a potential guide to new values.
Some of the mountain broadside composers remained anonymous in the twenties and thirties. Others died before decent recordings were made of their work. Fortunately, in the present decade a few companies with superb equipment and high standards have recorded traditional performers. Hence, today we can hear laments and battle cries of the thirties sung in the sixties by their own composers.
The best of such living bards is Sarah Ogan Gunning, who complements her own journalistic numbers with a songbag of old ballads, love lyrics, comic ditties, and religious pieces. Sarah is important for her dual repertoire-traditional and topical. She adds to the largeness of this gift a magnificent mastery of Appalachian style. The contents of her personal songs stress hardship and sorrow. She does not separate such contents from her delivery, in which pathos and loneliness sound so natural. Yet Sarah's doleful messages denote neither narrowness of vision nor personal alienation. As she moves from "Dreadful Memories" to "The Hand of God on the Wall," one hears the wholeness in her life and perceives the bridges between her realms. Frequently, the tension generated by conflict between fundamental religious convictions, highly conservative personal training, and radical political creed is destructive to artistic statement. Seemingly, Sarah has diverted such tension into her songs and in the process has enhanced their emotional and esthetic worth.
continued here
Dreadful Memories: The Life of Sarah Ogan Gunning, 1910-1983
A Film by Mimi Pickering. 38 minutes, Color
Gunning suffered a life of bitter poverty which became the fuel for dozens of moving songs about working people, the mines, and the great coal strikes of the twenties and thirties. Gunning's a cappella roots music is intercut throughout the interviews and archival footage. A 1988 film by Mimi Pickering, available from Appalshop on DVD.
see trailer below or watch the complete film here. it's fantastic and yes tear jerking.
there is an lp available as seen above. i just don't have it.
great history.
you can get her LP here for a price, although a free MP3 of "Constant Sorrow" is free.
