A horde of Southern casual laborers and wanderers down that lonesome road
A brown black army of “bad men”—creepers and ramblers and jamboree breakers, “travelin’ men” de luxe
Itinerant full-handed musicianers, music physicianers and songsters, singly, in pairs, quartets, always moving on
A host of women workers from field and home and factory at once singers and subjects of the lonesome blues
A swelling crescendo, a race vibrato inimitable, descriptive index of group character, folk urge and race power
PREFACE
Negro Workaday Songs is the third volume of a series of folk background studies of which The Negro and His Songs was the first and Folk-Beliefs of the Southern Negro was the second. The series will include a number of other volumes on the Negro and likewise a number presenting folk aspects of other groups. The reception which the first volumes have received gives evidence that the plan of the series to present scientific, descriptive, and objective studies in as interesting and readable form as possible may be successful in a substantial way. Since the data for background studies are, for the time being, practically unlimited, it is hoped that other volumes, appearing as they become available and timely, may glimpse the whole range—from the Negro “bad man” to the æsthetic in the folk urge.
In this volume, as in previous ones, the emphasis is primarily social, although this indicates no lack of appreciation of the inherent literary and artistic values of the specimens presented. Indeed, so far as possible, all examples of folk expression in this volume are left to tell their own story. The type melodies and musical notations are presented separately with the same descriptive purpose as the other chapters, and they are not offered as a substitute for effective harmonies and musical interpretation. For the purposes of this volume, however, the separate chapters on the melodies and phono-photographic records with musical notations are very important. It is also important that they be studied separately, but in the light of the preceding chapters, rather than inserted in the text to detract from both the social and artistic interpretation of the songs enumerated.
The Seashore-Metfessel phono-photographic records and musical notations mark an important contribution to the whole field of interpretation of Negro music. There may be an outstanding contribution both to the musical world and to the whole interpretation of Negro backgrounds in the possible thesis that the Negro, in addition to his distinctive contribution to harmony, excels also in the vibrato quality of the individual voice. These studies were made at Chapel Hill and at Hampton by Dr. Carl E. Seashore and Dr. Milton Metfessel of the University of Iowa, under the auspices of the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina through a special grant of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial. Full acknowledgment to them is here made.