"Bring Me Little Water Sylvie" Leadbelly

Crinkle pot

“Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie” is the song I chose for this week. It is a great song to tell of Leadbelly’s history and roots. On MudCat someone shared that the song comes from Leadbelly’s own chants while doing work in the field, and when he would get thirsty, he would yell to his uncle’s wife, Sylvie, to bring him some water. Not only does the song address his own experiences, it shows how so many of Leadbelly’s songs were written; in the Szwed chapter “The Saga of Leadbelly,” he explained that Leadbelly would create his own songs from other songs he heard and make a new tune, or go off a melody and make his own lyrics.

My project also has a similar unique birth (like his songs) this week. It is also very personal… this is my second semester taking ceramics at the Berkeley Art studio and I’ve thrown, sculpted and handbuilt over twenty pieces this year. This form was intended for this song to become a perfect cylinder and then a bucket. But, ironically if I think about the song, I used too much water when I brought up the walls! The song calls for more water but I used too much and it created this interesting wave-like form. It was a good thing that it happened. This is one of the most fun pieces I’ve created and it was by accident with a disappointing beginning but exciting end. I’m glad I didn’t decide to just dry out the clay and re-wedge it and start over! The twists and folds now share a rough journey as did Leadbelly and relates to the song because I am not sure if water was ever brought to the singer… of course how could it if it was carried in this?

In the segment from the Gordon Parks’ 1976 film, “Leadbelly,” he depicts Leadbelly as a singer who is a justified murderer, who, other than killing someone to protect his lover, is a good man doing his time and still holds much talent. He shows this by bringing in Lomax to collect his songs, which gives a chance to hear and see Leadbelly’s side of the story as to why he is in jail. He is portrayed as someone who does not deserve to be incarcerated. Some of the battles this story may face in the public eye is that Leadbelly had “powers denied to men of color” (Szwed, 52) seen in his multiple early releases. But also in the Szwed book on John Lomax he told of how he wasn’t freed because of his songs but under one of Louisiana’s laws. This film makes the crimes of murder that Leadbelly committed be tossed under the rug by giving him enthusiastic and passionate characteristics, along with his musical talent, which seem to erase the reasons he is in jail.

The Leadbelly Newsreel film shows Leadbelly asking Lomax to send his song to the governor to plead for his release, which would be the next piece of the story after the Gordon Parks segment ends. Leadbelly goes to Lomax after his release to work for him later on in Kentucky where he sings “Goodnight Irene” to his love and his songs go into the Library of Congress Music Division. Since newsreels were shown in theatres at before movies, the audiences were those who were wealthy enough to go to the movies. The film is from 1935, so still during the Great Depression. I also feel that this film was gauged more to white audiences because the script writers depicted Lomax as the hero in Leadbelly’s story, unlike Gordon Parks’ version giving more pull to Leadbelly and Lomax is another piece that falls into his great story. Szwed tells us that Leadbelly did not get paid by the Lomaxes for starring in the film and I also learned that it was John Lomax’s idea to have Leadbelly wear the jail stripes (he usually wore overalls) to use as a visual identifier and I see it as a form of branding for Leadbelly’s image (63).

“Goodnight Irene” ... The notion to jump into the river and drown comes from the reasons to move from country to town and vice versa. The country can be lonesome, isolated, or not have enough to do, driving people out to the town or city where there are more people and activities. But the city is loud, has too many people, and never stops. Leadbelly doesn’t say this but he gives enough in his lyrics to tell us all of this. Not being able to have the one you love is a more obvious reason he presents too. I think these dramatic or violent ways to die come from his history - he murdered two people so this probably produced his rougher choice of lyrics.

Leadbelly was not the typical folk singer I would envision. His multiple phases of worker, musician, and some recurring, like prisoner make him unique with his history. John Szwed tells of Leadbelly’s past where he did farm work, sang at parties, and went to jail several times. He mentions that after John Lomax helped him get out of jail, his “enthusiasm cooled” after learning that Leadbelly was jailed for murder (Szwed, 41). This is the same reaction I am having because he is a great singer with a distinct voice and some of my favorite songs that we have done, but this man that I am listening to and sing along with has killed someone… or does this add to his story and make him more unique in the folk song realm? In some ways he is a murderer and criminal, but then there are the accounts of the governor letting him off early because he enjoyed Leadbelly’s songs, so even the governor was able to see past his crimes.

I would not be surprised if it is common for people to see Leadbelly as a strong and passionate musician and easily let go of his brutal past. That is how I feel too - the way I can compare is that he is like a character in a movie who the cops are trying to catch but the audience really wants him or her to get away, because they are more than the crime they are committing. I appreciate what the Lomaxes’ were doing by using Leadbelly to introduce black tradition to the white Americans, who Szwed described as rather naive as they could not relate or believe Leadbelly’s songs (if they could understand him). This was important in teaching America about the history they were a part of even though they hadn’t known yet.

Mississippi John Hurt left his home in the fashion of going from a small town to the big city for his musical career (very basic description) and he had done years of hard farm work in the music-less gap years before he “came back” and was popular in the music world. Leadbelly had a similar disconnection from home as MJH but Szwed described it more as a longing to be with his friends from home, them being people of color. He had been on the road working for the Lomaxes for so long and performing for white audiences that he began to get restless. This is reflected in Leadbelly’s songs because as I discussed before, the white people could not relate or image the life described in some of Leadbelly’s songs, which carry the same toil and burden as his life’s history.

Building railroads

The lyrics for "Take This Hammer" are interesting because each verse unfolds different feelings of the singer. At first I thought it was a song about revenge when he sings "take this hammer, carry it to the captain" I thought it was intended to harm the captain because of later verses saying that he wasn't just running, but flying, which could imply escaping. Then, "if he asks you, was I laughing" is where I began to think of revenge or him mocking the captain out of spite of escaping. However, this idea changed in the next verse "tell him I was crying" because this brings a new light that takes away cruel intentions by making it more emotional and personal  that the man wants to be free. This is also heard in him having no desire for "cornbread and molasses" but just have his pride. This took me back to the first verse "take this hammer to the captain" and gave it a new meaning to show that he is giving up the hammer, or work, and leaving for the good of himself. Also, flying instead of running no longer meant the speed that he is escaping, but flying became a term for freedom.

“Rock Island Line” was a wood chopping song that belonged to a prison gang (Szwed, 58) The first verse of tells us that the world continues to sin, which is very true. What I got from the “ABC double XYZ, cat’s in the cupboard but he don’t see me” is that the singer is trying to hide from another and that person does not see the singer... or maybe it is just a something Leadbelly wanted to sing. The song is fun and high energy. It was the first song we learned for this class and got me hooked. I especially liked the way we learned it (the basics) without song books but just by repetition and tripping over ourselves when singing the fast part “if you wanna ride it got to ride it like you find it get your ticket at the station on the Rock Island Line.”