D EEP R IVER OF S ONG D EEP R IVER OF S ONG Louisiana Barrelhouse, Creole and Work Songs ROUNDER CD 0000 p © 2003 Rounder Records Corp., One Camp Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140 USA. ROUNDER is a registered trademark of Rounder Records Corp. http://www.rounder.com email:
[email protected] www.alan-lomax.com INTRODUCTION — John Cowley, Ph.D. (French) people of southern Louisiana, in that section known as the Evangeline country. These people yet invite John A. and Alan Lomax began collecting folk music groups of French singers to be present at weddings to using a cylinder machine, the earliest audio recording sing folk songs for the entertainment of guests, the technology employed by field researchers. They set out in singing being prolonged often until a late hour. Drinking 1933, traveling through Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and and singing always go together, the songs being passed Virginia and it was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 15, along by “word of mouth” instead of by the printed page. 1933, that they first switched to the newly- We made records of many of these songs, some of which manufactured portable aluminum disc apparatus. The we believe show undoubted evidence of indigenous ori- remainder of their 1933 recordings were made using this gin, though others are carry-overs from French sources. novel mechanism. In any event, the changes that have taken place in the process of oral transmission through generations should The 1933 Louisiana sessions date from a visit to the furnish matter of interest to scholars. It seems important Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola (July 16–20) and to put into permanent form the actual singing of these constitute a simple snapshot of Louisiana’s black music songs while the rural life of that section of Louisiana repertoire.