I’ll Meet You On That Other Shore” is the third release from Global
Jukebox, the independent label set up by the Alan Lomax Archives to make
its vast holdings readily accessible to the music lovers via download-only
releases. It's also the third in the series of releases celebrating Alan
Lomax's Southern Journey field recordings. These releases were compiled
and annotated by Nathan Salsburg, the albums draw on new transfers of the
original tapes, and include considerable previously unreleased material
and extensive booklets of photos and notes. “I’ll Meet You On That Other
Shore” is released 12/28/2011.
“I’ll Meet You On That Other Shore” features John Davis and the Georgia
Sea Island Singers, Tidewater Virginia’s Union Choir of the Church of God
and Saints of Christ, Old Regular Baptist lining hymns from Eastern
Kentucky, Ozark balladeer Neal Morris, work songs from Parchman Farm (the
Mississippi State Penitentiary), octogenarian Charles Barnett on vocal and
washtub, fiddler
Carlos “Bookmiller” Shannon’s rendition of “The Eighth of January,” Hobart
Smith’s performance of “Railroad Bill” — a formative influence on the
1960s
Folk Revival — and one of the debut recordings of bluesman Mississippi
Fred McDowell.
In 1959 and 1960, at the height of the Folk Revival, Alan Lomax undertook
the first-ever stereo field recording trip through the American South to
document
its still thriving vernacular musical culture. He traveled through
Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia,
and North
Carolina, making over 70 hours of recordings. The trip came to be known as
Lomax’s “Southern Journey,” and its recordings were first issued for the
Atlantic and Prestige labels in the early ‘60s.
Over the past twenty years the Archive has overseen the release of over a
hundred album, book, and film productions — including the 2006
Grammy-Award winning "Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress
Recordings" box set. This past year the Lomax Archive produced the 9-CD
"Alan Lomax in Haiti 1936-1937" box set -- nominated for two Grammys --
which is part of their Caribbean Repatriation Program to return copies of
the music to its sources. In addition to the commercial releases, the
music is being given to museums and schools in Haiti and other Caribbean
repositories. Lesson plans have been created from the music and local
community welfare organizations have taken the music directly to the
temporary camps in Haiti to offer some level of comfort and healing. Large
groups at the camps have heard and sung along to the recordings — the
sounds of their traditions and past.
Other planned Global Jukebox albums forthcoming in 2011 include, Lomax’s
debut recordings of bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell; a companion album
to the new John Szwed biography Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the
World; a hardback book and two-CD set dedicated to Alan’s trip through
Asturias, Spain — “the land at the end of everything”; and the launch of a
series of artist curated compilations, for which guest musicians “Play the
Global Jukebox,” and include an exclusive recording of their own.
Alan Lomax's career was dedicated to the cause of "cultural equity": the
fundamental right of every culture to express and develop its distinctive
heritage of songs, dances, and stories. The launch of Global Jukebox is an
exciting continuation of Lomax's efforts to make sonic space for the
world's musical traditions.
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