In 1959 and 1960, at the height of the Folk Revival, Alan Lomax ventured again through the American South to document its still thriving vernacular musical culture. He and his assistant, the English folksinger Shirley Collins, traveled through Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina, making over 70 hours of field recordings, the first ever to be made on stereo tape. The trip came to be known as the "Southern Journey," and its recordings were originally issued for the Atlantic and Prestige labels in the early '60s.
"Wave the Ocean" is the first of five albums compiled for the 50th anniversary of the Southern Journey and features recordings of Fred McDowell, Forrest City Joe and His Three Aces, Young Brothers' Mississippi Hill Country fife and drum ensemble, work songs and field hollers from the notorious Parchman Farm, the Silver Leaf Quartet from Virginia's Eastern Shores, Blue Ridge musical siblings Texas Gladden and Hobart Smith, Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, the 1959 United Sacred Harp Convention, and WEUP Huntsville's Daddy Cool. Compiled and annotated by Nathan Salsburg, the albums feature remastered audio from transfers of the original tapes, and include considerable previously unreleased material and extensive booklets of photos and notes.
Download the liner notes here:
culturalequity.org/ce_images/features/globaljukebox/WavetheOceanBooklet.pdf
released October 19, 2010