Bessie Jones Get In Union

Bessie Jones
Get In Union
The Alan Lomax Archives/Association For Cultural Equity

Alan Lomax first visited the Georgia Sea Island of St. Simons in June of 1935 with folklorists Zora Neale Hurston and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle. There they met an ensemble called the Spiritual Singers Society of Coastal Georgia, organized two years earlier by Lydia Parrish (wife of painter Maxfield Parrish). Parrish had dedicated herself to preserving the spirituals, ring-plays, and shouts of the island's rich, isolated folk culture, with its roots running deep through the Antebellum South to West Africa. That summer, Barnicle, Hurston, and Lomax recorded several dozen sides of the Singers' sacred material for the Library of Congress, plus a handful of their tall tales and songs for work and play.

Returning to St. Simons in 1959, on the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement, Alan found the islands much changed. Still, the principals of the Spiritual Singers—Big John Davis (a former sailor and roustabout), fisherman Henry Morrison, and storekeeper Willis Proctor, the group's de facto leader— were still singing. They were significantly enriched by a profound new element: Bessie Jones.

Mary Elizabeth Smith Jones was raised in Dawson, in South Georgia, in a large and deeply musical family. She learned many of her songs from her mother, Julia—a dancer, singer, and autoharp player—and her step-grandfather, Jet Sampson. Sampson, who was born in Africa in 1836 and sold into slavery as a child, taught young Bessie about the slave experience and "the old ways." With formative musical experiences of church, school, and social functions, she was steeped in song.

She was first married to John Davis' nephew. After her husband died in 1926, spent the rest of the decade following Hatchet's death on an itinerant circuit, harvesting cotton in South and East Georgia and working odd jobs across coastal Florida—from taking in laundry in the Keys to cooking in Miami to cultivating new ground on Marco Island. In the years before she would be born again into the Holiness Church, she gambled, sang the blues, and even made and sold moonshine.

She met second George Jones, who became her second husband in 1928. After spending several seasons following the crops up the Eastern Seaboard from Florida to Bridgeport, Connecticut. After visiting the Davises on St. Simons, Hatchet's family took George in "just like he was Cassius," and he convinced his wife to settle on the island. Bessie was welcomed into the close-knit community of the Spiritual Singers Society. To this community, she added her massive repertoire to the songs and dances of the Singers. Lomax was able to document the Singers music for Atlantic Records' "Southern Folk Heritage Series" and Prestige International's "Southern Journey." Both credited the group rechristened as the Georgia Sea Island Singers. The present digital-only release, with sixty tracks, by the Alan Lomax Archive, is an expanded version of the two-CD set issued by Tompkins Square in 2013. It features nine previously unreleased tracks.

The 60 tracks available on this digital release cover a broad spectrum of traditional African-American from children's songs to work songs and spirituals. Performances rename from unaccompanied vocals, vocals with call and response, performances with fife and drum, and more. There is Jones' stirring rendition "John Henry," as well as Bessie leading the Georgia Sea Singers' fervent version of "Daniel in the Lion's Den." There is plenty of zeal for "O Mary Don't You Weep," with the men taking the lead, while Jones is the only vocalist, "This Train Is A Clean Train" with unidentified percussion. Ed Young's fife and Nat Rahmings' drum enliven the rendition lively spiritual "Beulah Land," with Hobart Smith on vocal and banjo.

"You Got to Reap Just What You Sow / Just A Little Talk With Jesus," feature McKinley Peeble's raspy preaching vocal and guitar along with Jones' supportive singing. Then there are selections from the August 1965 concert presented by the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park and billed as a celebration of Southern African American traditional music and its antebellum echoes. Along with the Georgia Sea Island Singers, it featured Ed Young and the Southern Fife and Drum Corps, Gary Davis, and the Georgia Sea Island Singers. They improvised collaborative performances on stage. These include a raucous revival rent exuberance of "Before This Time Another Year," and the high spirits of children's songs "There Was An Old Lady From Brewster," and "Little Johnny Brown."

This digital release provides only a sample of the variety and richness of the songs presented on this remarkable collection of the music Alan Lomax recorded of Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Singers. "Get In Union" is a treasure chest of traditional African-American music. It is available from Bandcamp at https://alanlomaxarchive.bandcamp.com/album/get-in-union.

I received a download to review from a publicist. Here John Davis and Bessie Jones sing "Beulah Land."