The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience

Chapter 6: Vera Hall: The Life That We Live

[ 153 ] 6 Vera Hall The LifeThatWe Live O n a brittle, yellowed index card among John Lomax’s voluminous family papers lies an account of Vera Hall singing “Another Man Done Gone.” Writing in her own hand, Ruby Terrill Lomax evokes the first time she and her husband heard Vera mention the song, followed by their efforts to coax it from this self-effacing, thirty-eightyear -old singer whose grandparents had been slaves: Mr. Lomax asked her if she knew any other blues. “No sir, I b’lieve not, but my husband knows some. He sings and plays the guitar.” “What is his best blues? “I like ‘Another Man Done Gone.’” “Would he sing it for us?” “He ain’t home much, but I think he be home tomorrow. Maybe I can git him to come sing for you.” But he didn’t come home and Vera reported without him. “How does the song go, Vera. Can’t you sing it for us?” “No sir, I never sing it excep’ to myself. “You sing it for us.” “Well le’s see if I can catch it up,” and after a pause she straightened herself up [ 154 ] in her chair and out came her beautiful tones on ‘Another Man Done Gone,’ six verses in all. Delighted, we recorded it at once.1 The discs themselves fill in the rest. On October 31, 1940, at the Livingston, Alabama, home of author, painter, and folksong collector Ruby Pickens Tartt, Vera Hall (1902–1964) sang “Another Man Done Gone” twice into Lomax’s machine.2 During the first take, the partially filled recording blank ran out of space, abruptly ending the song. The second time, however, Lomax used a fresh side, allowing Vera to include all her verses. Just as she finished, but before he lifted the cutting arm and turned off the microphone, he remarked, “That’s perfect.”3 Lomax’s summation, itself almost purred, saluted more than an unmarred recording. “Another Man Done Gone” became Vera Hall’s most celebrated performance . Carl Sandburg recalled listening to it more than a dozen consecutive times during a January 1944 visit to Lomax’s Dallas home, later including it in his second folksong anthology and learning it himself. The poet termed it “one of the strikingly original creations of Negro singing art.”4 Of a similar mind, composer Elie Siegmeister went to Livingston, Alabama, in the early 1940s and met with Vera and her husband. He soon incorporated their music in his choral group’s recitals.5 Following his father’s lead, Alan Lomax also called on Vera and by spring 1942 had selected this number for one of the Folk Archive’s first releases, including it on their inaugural album series.6 That choice led others to the song, inspiring recordings by Johnny Cash and Harry Belafonte, blues enthusiasts such as John Mayall and Jorma Kaukonen, and folk revivalists stretching from Odetta to the Carolina Chocolate Drops. These covers—and there are more—span nearly seventy years since Vera Hall first sang “Another Man Done Gone” for the disc cutter. The appeal of her recording, apparent to John Lomax from the start, turns out to be perennial. He even tried to tell her so. In 1941, during a daylong trip to Livingston that involved no recording at all, John and Ruby Lomax called on Vera unannounced . Raised on a nearby farm, Vera now lived in town working as a domestic servant and cook. When the Lomaxes arrived at Vera’s home late that afternoon, she was caring for her two grandchildren and ailing mother. By then Agnes Hall’s health required her to stay with Vera. The ten-mile trek to the farm where Vera’s surviving sister still lived made it difficult for doctor visits and unsafe for Agnes to remain so far away. The family had also recently suffered the loss of Vera’s daughter, a passing reported in the Lomaxes’ notes. chapter 6 [ 155 ] Despite these stresses, Vera received her visitors kindly. Lomax found her “gracious as hostess as in every other role. . . . Everything Vera does is done with dignity and composure.”7 In what seems painfully symptomatic of the era’s racial etiquette, the Lomaxes invited Vera to Ruby Pickens Tartt’s home that evening, an invitation that included her preparing their meals, washing up, and then performing for her hosts. “She readily agreed,” Lomax writes, “to go...