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

Notes

Notes Throughout this book I have used the following citation practice: Within each paragraph the note number appears after the first sentence of the source cited. The reader may assume that any subsequent quotations within that paragraph come from the same source. Quotations from other sources are indicated by note numbers after the first sentence of the material quoted. Full information on interviews is found in the Works Cited list. Explanations of abbreviations used in the notes appear at the beginning of the Works Cited list. Preface Thanks to Etta Moten Barnett, Timuel Black, Margaret Burroughs, Ted Gray, Margaret Stewart Joyner, Archie Motley, and Dempsey Travis, who generously shared their memories of Casey Jones. Additional thanks to Michael Flug, archivist of the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, Chicago Public Library; Frank Francis Jr., director of the Thomas Winston Cole Library in Marshall, Texas; and to Genell Barclay of the Harrison County Museum, who assisted me during my visit there, March 1, 1994, and afterward, to learn more about Casey and his upbringing. 1. Burroughs, “Casey Jones, and Lady Baby,” 3. 2. Ibid., 4. 3. Ibid., 5. 4. See the Casey Jones file at the Chicago Historical Society; Archibald J. Motley, Jr.’s 1948 painting Casey and Mae in the Street; and Lizard Music, a 1992 stage play in which Casey became the model for a lead character. Casey graces the cover of a book about the Maxwell Street market where he often performed, and appears in Mike Shea’s documentary noted below. For years, Casey also participated in Chicago’s Bud Billiken parade, one of the largest black community spectacles in the country. 5. Chicago Defender, June 15, 1974. 6. Black interview. 7. Travis interview. 8. Casey Jones in Mike Shea’s 1965 Maxwell Street film And This Is Free, Shanachie VHS 1403. This scene can also be accessed on the Web at YouTube under “Casey Jones, Chicken Man.” 9. Botkin, “We Called It ‘Living Lore,’” 190. [ 362 ] 10. B. A. Botkin described the “Living Lore” part of the Federal Writers’ Project in ibid., 193–94. 11. “Shad Song,” AFS 3654 A2. See Clyde “Kingfish” Smith’s twenty-one other recordings housed at the Archive of Folk Culture, AFS 3654 A1 to 3656 A6. 12. Banks, First-Person America, 238. 13. Ibid., 239. 14. See Benjamin Filene’s analytical account of “Hoochie Coochie Man” in Romancing the Folk, 97–109, and Zora Neale Hurston’s poetical essay, “High John de Conquer.” 15. Botkin, “We Called It ‘Living Lore,’” 191. 16. Wade, “Fleming Brown,” 9. 17. See Wade, Catching the Music. Introduction Thanks to Senior Warden John D. Netherland and Capt. Dick Taylor Jr., both of State Farm penitentiary, as well as Cindy Collins in Central Criminal Records, Virginia Department of Corrections. Warden Netherland had great interest in the history of his institution and was enormously supportive during my visits there. He also had a reputation as the best man-hunting dog-tracker in the state. Further thanks to Texas’s Warden Morris Jones at Huntsville Walls, Warden Mike Wilson at Wynne Farm, Assistant Warden Brian K. Horn at Clemens Unit, Sergeant Ken Palombo at Clemens, Sergeant Jesus Peralto at Walls, Michael W. Countz, assistant director of Classification and Records, and especially Simon Beardsley of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice—all generous with their time, guidance, and memories. “Tradition ,” one sergeant told me, “is what we do everyday.” 1. J. Work III, “Typescript of Address,” 1. 2. Ibid. 3. See J. Lomax, “Field Experiences with Recording Machines.” 4. For more on the establishment of the Archive of American Folk Song, see Wade, Treasury. For its ideological roots and historical background, see Archie Green, “The Archive’s Shores,” in Torching the Fink Books, 134–50. 5. “The Library of Congress Is Ready to Begin the Distribution of Albums of Records from the Archive of American Folk Song,” Library of Congress Press Release, Office of the Secretary, Feb. 28, 1943, no. 106, p. 1. 6. A listing of the week’s events at Fisk used this alternate title. I’m indebted to Fisk University’s special collections librarian Beth M. Howse for this information. 7. J. Work IV interview, Nov. 6, 2000. 8. See Gilpin, “Charles S. Johnson.” See also Gilpin and Gasman, Charles S. Johnson. 9. Charles Johnson’s pivotal role during the Fisk/LC project included not only his shaping its research methodology, but also choosing where it took...