Slave songs and field hollers may have developed from traditional African work chants. These songs lived on in prisons and chain gangs into the first half of the last century. Some were recorded by legendary American Musicologist, John Lomax.
Bad Man Lazarus |
According to Lomax, this song was "...known to convicts and gang workers from Virginia to Mississippi. Po' Lazarus (Bad Man Lazarus) concerns the doomed attempt of an exploited and underpaid black laborer to even the score by stealing the payroll from his bosses". Various versions have been covered by Woody Guthrie, Dylan, and others. I first heard it in the Cohen brothers' film, O Brother Where Art Thou.Well the high sheriff he told the deputy
Won't you go out and bring me Lazarus
Bring him dead or alive
Lord, Lord, bring him dead or alive
Won't you go out and bring me Lazarus
Bring him dead or alive
Lord, Lord, bring him dead or alive
Lomax recorded hundreds of prison songs throughout the thirties and forties. Here are two more powerful recordings from The Mississippi State Penitentiary 1947:
Black Woman |
Rosie |