Blues Parallels and Black Protest

A notable element of the Lawrence Gellert field archive is the many items, particularly from Gellert’s seven-inch discs from the 1920s, that parallel commercial blues from the decade. As researcher Bruce Conforth has pointed out as well, these blues parallels provide additional overlapping corroboration between the Gellert archive and the broader field of song of the era.1

The very first seven-inch disc in the Gellert catalog at the Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University Bloomington (ATM), is an unaccompanied informant performance with an audible verse and melody match to Tampa Red’s commercial release “The Duck Yas-Yas-Yas” from 1929. Elsewhere among Gellert’s seven-inch discs, an informant sings the first two verses of this same Tampa Red record, and another informant on a different song item sings an exact three-verse lyrical match to artist Texas Alexander’s commercial release “Tell Me Woman Blues,” also from 1929.2

There are more of these kinds of matches in the Gellert collection. Among the audible seven-inch discs there are identifiable item matches to commercial recordings dating from as early as 1923 to as late as 1930, but the preponderance of matches are to commercial releases from 1927, 1928, and 1929.

Among the Gellert ten-inch recordings, there is a striking parallel to a song familiar as Texas Alexander’s “Penitentiary Moan Blues,” released commercially in 1928. The Gellert field recording and Alexander release match up in melody and in three verses, but there is a difference.

In his first verse of the commercial recording, Alger “Texas” Alexander sings:

The lyrics derive from Black work song tradition. Gellert’s informant draws on the same pool of lyricism, and/or perhaps the commercial version itself. However, he appears to make a key word change in the third line of this first verse:

Here is a transcription of the verse. Notice the word change:

The Gellert informant also sings the following verse not in the Alexander release:

Both the Gellert recording and the Alexander version then end with the same verse:

This Gellert field item was released on the second Rounder compilation LP in 1982. However, the sound quality on the ATM-digitized field original offers a sharper listening experience than the commercial release. “Raped” appears to be substituted for “whipped” in this song. The lyrics directly call out white sexual assault and impunity under racial oppression, and then lament, all the more tragically, the reality that the work of exploitation goes on whatever the circumstances. No matter what the circumstance involving “poor Annie Lee,” when “your captain call you, you got to go.”3