ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS
A Collection Of Negro Traditional & Folk Songs with Sheet Music Lyrics & Commentaries - online book
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NEGRO FOLK-SONGS |
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If I had realized that I should need to know music to get folk-songs later in life, my mother would not have had to hound me to the piano to practise, as she did. I wish I had made a study of folksongs then instead of idling over Greek and Latin and other useless things — which never appear in proper darky folk-songs!
But though I have forgotten much, I have remembered much. My past is all mixed up with Negro songs, and I hope to see my future similarly entangled. Now when I hear a lawn mower, the sound of it brings back the songs that Uncle " Mon" used to sing, as he cut our grass; I hear, for example:
Paul and Silas layin' in jail,
De ark kep' a-rollin' on; Lawd come down an' went deir bail;
De ark kep* a-rollm' on.
The ice-cream freezer's droning whirr sings to me now the airs that Johnny used to chant while he turned the handle on the kitchen steps when company was expected. |
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