Bessie Jones, John Davis & The Georgia Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell & Ed Young
Release Date: 14 June 2024
Label: Smithsonian Folkways
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 093074025826
Description
Bessie Jones, John Davis, and the Georgia Sea Island Singers gained wide renown during the 1960s and '70s for their powerful performances of traditional songs from the African American Gullah Geechee community on St Simons Island, Georgia. Most in the group were born and raised on St. Simons, and could trace their ancestry to the enslaved West and Central Africans who worked on the island's cotton plantations. Throughout the '60s, the Georgia Sea Island Singers were prominent voices in the civil rights movement, bringing hundreds of years of Black musical tradition to bear on a pivotal time in American history. This previously unheard recording captures their complete Friends of Old Time Music concert of April 1965, at which they were joined by legendary bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell, cane fife player Ed Young, and folklorist Alan Lomax, who acted as emcee. The album showcases a variety of traditional music from the Island and beyond, including stirring work songs, emotionally charged spirituals, jubilant songs for children, and revelatory renditions of Mississippi blues.
Tracklisting
The Seldom Scene
Sons of Membertou
Jerron Paxton
Jake Blount & Mali Obomsawin
Dan + Claudia Zanes
Ella Jenkins
Ella Jenkins
The Po' Ramblin Boys
Mahalia Jackson
Richard Hartley & Soul Resurrection
Duo Praxedis
Pearly Brown
Vanessa Bell Armstrong
The Staple Singers
Bessie Jones, John Davis & The Georgia Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell & Ed Young
Ethel Waters
