Chants

Mike Dore · **Posted:** Wed Dec 03, 2003 5:58 pm

I am looking for recording of track gang chants. Can anyone help?

mikedore@foxvalley.net

Jim Fitzgerald · **Posted:** Wed Dec 03, 2003 7:06 pm

I don't know if they have ever recorded their chants, but the Buckingham Bar Lining Gang does a great job. Have seen and heard them several times, at Steamtown grand opening, Railfair 99 in Sacramento, for two.

fitzrr@pioneer.net

Fred Ash · **Posted:** Wed Dec 03, 2003 7:22 pm

> I am looking for recording of track gang
> chants. Can anyone help?

Alan Lomax recorded several songs in the 1930's that sprang from chants, of which "Make Me Your Straw or Make Me Your Son-in-Law" may be the best. I've heard it on NPR and perhaps the Smithsonian Folkways series has it. Ry Cooder recorded a tune called "Tamp-um up Solid" in the 1970s.

fred_ash@bankone.com

A E Pope · **Posted:** Thu Dec 04, 2003 1:47 am

There was a regionally famous English Prof. at East Tennessee State University that collected folk songs and other materials. I recall him describing how he "found" origial chants still being used by track workers on the ET&WNC (in the 1970's I think ?). He recorded these and I believe they are in the special collection holdings of the ETSU library in Johnson City, TN. The catalog is online and you should be able to locate them pretty easily.
Also look for a CD called "Train 45" (Rounder CD #1143)that has some original recordings of prison laborers singing work/chant versions of "Rock Island Line" and "The Longest Train". Recorded in 1934 hese old work chants are amazing to listen to and will send a chill down your spine when you realize that they are being sung by convicts.

aepope@tds.net

George Kaplan · **Posted:** Thu Dec 04, 2003 8:26 am

There was a 30 min. VHS video documentary produced over 8 years ago called "Gandy Dancers." It was a recording of the African-American musical traditions of track workers in the South.
Try this old address & phone #:

The Cinema Guild, Inc.
)212)246-5522
1697 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

Let us know if you make contact.

> I am looking for recording of track gang
> chants. Can anyone help?

Phil Mulligan · **Posted:** Thu Dec 04, 2003 11:43 am

The Library of Congress has Alan Lomax's 1939 trip South. Try: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/lohtml/lomaxstategenre.html
and look for the RR work songs in each state.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

Phil Mulligan · **Posted:** Thu Dec 04, 2003 12:06 pm

Here's a link thru L. O. C. to a Rounder compilation from Lomax's trips.

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/rounder.html

Just go to Railroad Songs and Ballads and click.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association