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That Sweet,
Sweet Spirit
Shout Because You're Free:
The African American Ring Shout
Tradition in Coas at Georgia
by Ait Kosenbaum
University of Georgia Press, 1998
190 pp.; $24.95
The ring shout is the oldest surviving
African American performance in this coun
try. It is kept alive by the McIntosh County
Shouters of Bolden. Ga. — “that place where
they still perform the ring shout on New
Year’s.” In his new book, UGA professor Art
Rosenbaum, who has been crucial in docu
menting the tradition, describes it as “an
impressive fusion of call-and-response
singing, polyrhythmic percussion and for
malized, danceiike movements” that has
“had a profound influence on
African American
music and reli
gious practice."
Imagine men in
the same overalls
they would work in,
women in floor-
length, flour-colored
skirts, matching
plaid shirts and bon
nets — their faces a
mixture of deep fer
vor and joyous
release — clapping
hands while one man
i>eats a broom handle
on the ground. The
singers' rhythms are
not unlike those of a
Yoruba chant. The
grooves are not unlike
any number of Bo
Diddley tunes. As the
women move their arms back and fortn high
over their heads, or bend low in rhythm as
their feet shuffle slightly, they sing:
/ know you re tired/Lay down, body/
/ know you re tired/Lay down, body/
You is tired/Soul need restin ’/
Don t you worry, He gonna call you/
When He callf fombstone movin ’/
Grave is bustin/Soul is risin ’
The “shout” is the movement, not the
singing, and the tunes they sing — “Blow.
Gabriel”, “Jubilee”. “Kneebone Bend” —
belong to them You wouldn’t hear these
p etes sung as hymns in church r or would
more modern church pieces ever fnd their
way into the vast repertoire of shout songs.
The music and dance of the shout is the
closest thing to Africa in North America that
we have, a tradition maintained, as
Rosenbaum writes, as much by “community
cohesiveness and sufficient economic sup
port for survival” as isolation. The fact that
coastal residents could fish rather than rely
on sharecropping has meant they’ve been
able to stay nearby and lea»m tradition from
other, older folk who have also remained. So
the “Watch Night,” or New Year’s shout, still
flourishes, as a group of people bonded by
deep tradition “shout” the Christmas season
and bring in another year.
With its chapters on the shout’s West
African origins, recollections of early
observers, musical transcriptions of 25
songs, descriptions of present day ring
shouts and timeless drawings and pho
tographs that give an enormous sense of
place and performance, Shout Because You’re
Free will help maintain interest in this tradi
tion. But more importantly, it brings, straight
from our own coastline, a sense of some
thing once presumed lost that has not only
been recovered, but studied, understood,
respected and cared for. At 82, head shouter
Lawrence McKiver, in particular, is shown to
be “a model for a way in which a deeply sen
sitive and gifted folk artist can adapt ancient
traditions for new times” — he not only
maintains the old work, but creates new, top
ical pieces like "Drug Song,” with its keen
perception of drug users: "You know they
don t have no age at all, but they sho' don t
look young no mo”
Rosenbaum is respected for his field
recordings of important folk forms — from
the blues, gospel and string band music of
North Georgia to the East Kentucky banjo
playing of Ohio transplant Pete Steele. Just
find a record store with a decent old time/
folk/traditional American music section and
you will see his name. Art and his wife, pho
tographer Margo Rosenbaum, have made
many trips to Bolden to visit The McIntosh
County Shouters. These visits have resulted
in a recording for Smithsonian Folkways in
1984 and a video documentary in 1988. Both
have enabled the shouters to reach a wider
audience. Their book is the latest install
ment on the shout. It
reads, at first, like any
dry documentary that
dares to speculate on
its subject’s origins
and what may have
brought changes to it.
But after the charac
ters who perform this
music are introduced
and allowed to tell
their own stories —
which overlap natu
rally with their place
in the ring shout tra
dition — the reader
gains a sense of arc
and development.
There is also a
certain sadness
brought on by
recent interest in
them. Money has
split the group and changed the feel of
the performances as they leave the Georgia
coast for the stage. Yet, by the time
Lawrence McKiver speaks in the chapter
devoted to him, there is, finally, an under
standing of where the shout may be heading
as we move into a new millennium —
McKiver is certain it will endure.
Even with details of the shouter’s lives,
thoughts and history. Shout Because You’re
Free isn’t a smooth read for those lacking
some interest in traditional or African
American roots music. It helps to have heard
the group, or better yet. to have seen them
perform.
Possibly the best way to understand
them is to pay a v s.t Art and Vargo ie' me
that though what the shouters do was ard
w'!i never be meant for mass pub’ c cor-
sumption "they love v s.tors ard ate happy
to know peop’e a r e interested ’
As for the future of tins tradit on. shorter
Virtie Mclver declares. “I can feel it right
now It's that same sweet, sweet spirit.”
Bruce Miller
The McIntosh County Shouters: Slave
Shouts from the Coast of Georgia, Folkways
FE 4344, can be ordered either on CD or cas
sette from Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings,
955 L’Enfant Plaza SW Suite 2600, MRC 914,
Washington D.C. 20560.
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