Front cover image for Songsters and saints : vocal traditions on race records

Songsters and saints : vocal traditions on race records

Paul Oliver (Author)
In this innovatory book the celebrated writer on the blues, Paul Oliver, rediscovers the wealth of neglected vocal traditions presented on Race records. When blues first reached a large audience it was through the 'Race records' issued specifically for black purchasers in the 1920s. Blues South have been extensively discussed by many writers. Paul Oliver shows that this emphasis has drawn attention away from the other important vocal traditions also available on Race records: the songs of Southern rural dances, the comic and social songs and ballads of the medicine shows and travelling entertainments, and, even more neglected, the sacred vocal traditions, from the song-sermons of the Baptist and Sanctified preachers to the gospel songs of the church congregations and of the 'jack-leg' preachers and street evangelists. Over 500 artists and 700 song titles are indexed and there is a guide to reissued recordings
Print Book, English, 1984
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [Cambridgeshire], 1984
Race record
ix, 339 pages : illustrations (black and white), music, portraits ; 24 cm
9780521248273, 9780521269421, 0521248272, 0521269423
10323548
List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; A note on the transcriptions; The half ain't never been told; An introduction; 1. Do the Bombashay; 2. Under the chicken tree; 3 The long-tailed blue; 4. If luck don't change; 5. As the eagle stirreth her nest; 6. Three ways to praise; 7. Honey in the rock; 8. Natural-born men; 9. Next week, sometime…?; Notes; Bibliography; A guide to reissued recordings; Index of song titles; Index of artists; General index.
Includes indexes