Follow the Drinking Gourd song

[Joel Bresler]

At 11:59 PM 10/14/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>On Oct 14, 2004, at 3:44 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Follow the Drinking Gourd song
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------
> >
> > ISTR that Harold Courlander expressed some skepticism about the
> > genuineness song in his 1963 book

<snip>

"Negro Folk Music USA."

Hi, Jonathan and all.

Please note that Courlander was commenting on the Lee Hays "reconstruction"
of the song (first published in 1947 and first recorded in 1951), NOT the
Parks original. I wish I knew what Courlander made of the H.B. Parks
version, if he knew it at all!

I would be very grateful for early African-American references to "the
drinking gourd" as a synonym for the Big Dipper/Ursa Major, etc. I didn't
find it in "Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'
Project, 1936-1938" at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mesnquery.html nor  in
"Slave testimony : two centuries of letters, speeches, interviews and
autobiographies", edited by John W. Blassingame, but clearly, there are
mountains of other materials out there.

Thank you,

Joel



Joel Bresler
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USA

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