Shout Because You're Free: The African American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia

4. The Shout Songs

Along with the shout itself, the shouters of Bolden have preserved a sizeable and impressive repertoire of shout songs. These are today considered a distinct category of song, used only in conjunction with the shout and related percussion. The shout songs would never be sung in church in place of spirituals, hymns, or gospel songs of recent vintage—nor would these serve the needs of the shout.We have seen that in an earlier time there was some overlapping of the shout songs or "runnin' spirituals" and other spirituals, and clearly the shout songs have influenced later religious—and secular— African American musical forms. Rowingsongs and work songs that have passed from use had similar call-and-response patterns: afieldwork song, such as "The Grey Goose" that John and Alan Lomax recorded in Texas prisons, is a secular narrative cousin of the shout songs and very close in structure. Call-and-response forms akin to the shout songs are common in modern gospel singing. The shout songs are richly varied musically and in their texts and mood. The melodies and rhythms hint at the richness of antebellum black folk songs and fuse African and European American elements. It is easy to see why some of the shout songs struck outsiders as repetitious chants when compared with the melodic lyricism of early spirituals; yet many of the shout songs, such as "Army, Cross Over," have stir105 4 TheShooutSongs ringly beautiful melodies. The texts, along with the dramatic shouts they accompany , range in expressive mood from playful to fervently apocalyptic. Many of the shout songs we have recorded in Bolden have been collected, in other variants, along the southeastern coast and beyond; several have not been recovered previously. Though there was unquestionably a degree of exposure to shout song traditions in neighboring communities in the postEmancipation years,it is clear from the testimonyof todays Bolden shouters that the bulk of their songs were passed down to them in a strong familycommunity tradition, from slaves on the Wylly and Hopkins plantations largely through London and AmyJenkins.This slave-born couple were certainly prodigious singers and shouters. There is an active and an inactive repertoire of shout songs.Years ago all the songs were used in the shout, but now fewer are sung and shouted to at Watch Night and in public performances. "Blow, Gabriel," "Move, Daniel," "Eve and Adam," and several others are perennial favorites, and "Farewell, Last Day Coin'" is always sung at the conclusion of the Watch Night shout. Lawrence McKivercannot get his basers to provide the correct background for others, and they have fallen into disuse; he has been willing to record these, doing the difficult task of providing both call and response. Some songs were the "property" of a particular songster; "Wade the Water to My Knees" was Sister Lucille Holloway's song, and after she died no one cared to sing it at the shout. Lawrence knows all the shout songs but will not sing that one: "I can sing it, but I can't sing it like her . . . she got a voice for that song... that song gowith apitiful voice, I saynot apitiful voice, but atouching voice," clarifying that that song is best sung by someone with an alto or soprano voice. Likewise Lawrence recalls "I Come to Tell You" as his mothers "special song" but adds that his "basers can't master all the songs I can sing." Nonetheless, as recently as the summer of 1994, Lawrence McKiver has rehearsed his singers in some of the less-used shout songs and performed them for the public, thus renewing them in practice. The shout songs create joy and spiritual release in the participants, as does the shout, but the songs never cause people to "shout" in the sense of becoming sooverwhelmed that they "fall out," as spirituals and hymnsin the church can. According toMcKiver, Not in the ring shout, I never have seen them [fall out]. But I have seen the preacher be singing, and different strong choirs that touched 106 Shout Because You're Free some people, they fall out. . . [but] no, no, no, no, I never did see one to fall out in the ring shout. Never did. They be happy. But I never have seen one be happy enough to fall out in the ring shout in all my days. Never have. They shout, shout, shout round, and if one maybe get...