Georgia Sea Island Singers - The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

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. Album Tracks 1. Introduction By Alan Lomax / Travelin' Shoes 2. Handclapping - Cane Fife 3. Buzzard Lope (Dance) - in That Old Field 4. Josephine 5. Goodbye My Riley O 6. Go Row the Boat Child 7. Join the Band 8. Sink 'Em Low 9. Going Down to the River 10. Shake 'Em on Down 11. Once There Was No Sun 12. Adam in the Garden 13. Who Built the Ark 14. Let My Children Go 15. My God Is a Rock 16. I Heard the Angels Singing 17. Read 'Em John 18. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning 19. Sign of the Judgment 20. Chevrolet 21. Write Me a Few of Your Lines 22. Don't Ever Leave Me 23. Marching on the Mississippi Line 24. Down to the Mire 25. Before This Time Another Year