Georgia Sea Island Singers: The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert

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.

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