Culling through 60 years of recorded music with roots that go even deeper, Time Life has created an emotionally powerful anthology that demonstrates no art form has done a better job of chronicling and conveying the African American experience than music.
The three-CD set opens with “Go Down Moses,” a spiritual that was first recorded in 1914 by the Tuskegee Institute Singers. The version here is performed a capella by the gospel group known as The Southern Sons in 1941. The obvious parallels between the plight of the Israelites in Egypt and the unequal status of African Americans demonstrates why the Christian faith has resonated so strongly in their community. The song opens and closes with very somber vocals, contrasted against the middle section sung in an upbeat doo-wop style that reflects the jubilation faith can bring. There’s no change of moods or tempo when Billie Holiday delivers the gut-wrenching “Strange Fruit” from 1939, the oldest recording in the set. This haunting piece about lynching is just as powerful as when poet Lewis Allan wrote it.
Segregation and Jim Crow laws are dealt with in Josh White’s “Uncle Sam Says,” where inexplicably men who risked their lives for this country were treated as second-class citizens by the military, and Brownie McGhee’s cover of Big Bill Broonzy’s “Black, Brown, and White” with the refrain “if your white, you’re all right/ if you’re brown, stick around/ if you’re black, oh brother, get back, get back, get back.” The latter was taken from one of the few remaining copies available, but the audible scratch and hiss is acceptable knowing the song’s inclusion ensures it will be preserved. When an artist of Nat “King” Cole’s stature and acceptance in the White mainstream still had to point out “We Are Americans Too” in 1956, the issues were far being resolved.
It wasn’t just those who suffered from injustice that were aware of it and wanted it stopped. Ervin Drake wrote how there were “No Restricted Signs” in Heaven, performed by The Golden Gate Quartet. Although originally written in support of eleven Communist Party leaders convicted under the 1940 Smith Act, The Weavers’ “The Hammer Song (If I Had A Hammer)” the context of the song changed when Peter, Paul & Mary and Trini Lopez covered it. The children and young adults of the ‘60s decided “love between all of my brothers” included all races.
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