Search - Various Artists :: Deep River of Song: Bahamas 1935: Ring Games & Round Dances

Probably my single favorite overall disc of the series

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 12/03/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"My original intention was to review the entire Deep River of Song series 2 or 3 years ago when I wrote reviews for a few of the individual discs, but I never finished. I'm again hoping to review the whole series so I decided to re-start here with one of my favorite discs of the series.



This is really 2 great albums in one. Tracks 1 - 17 are traditional stuff. Rings games, round dances and fire dances. That will mean more to you after you read the liner-notes, as it did for me. Visualizing the movements of the various dances while listening to this music also adds alot to the experience.



This music is the type of thing that Bob Brozman talks about. Music born out of that time and place where "Western Civilization", through its greed and inhumanity, smashes head-on into other cultures... in this case, the various West African cultures that were brought to the Americas, whose musics then intermingled with each others, as well as adapted to, and absorbed various aspects of Western musics.



This stuff is excellent here. It's generally vocals by men, women, or both, accompanied by clapping and drumming. For percussion, this is the single best disc in the whole Deep River of Song series, as well as being one of Lomax's best-ever sets of percussion recordings. The drumming accompaniment on this disc never fails to surprise me. These drummers play beautiful counterpoint to the melodies being sung. They don't play beats and rhythms that you'd expect to hear accompanying these songs and melodies, but the contrast is perfect.



The "2nd album" on this disc, tracks 18 to the end, are more Westernized and equally great. Most of these final tracks are by a string-band that played to tourists in a Nassau hotel. I know that generally tourist music is bottom-shelf forgettable fluff, but I love this string-band. They have everything a great, entertaining string-band needs... fun, goofy tunes (though sometimes more serious), and great musicianship. Also, for you Johnny Cash American Recordings fans who are seeing Delia's Gone in the track-list above... yes, it is THAT Delia Gone, and a great version it is. I'm no expert on Bahamian musics, but of the handful of discs I do have, this is my favorite.



The usual caveats apply, if you are new to this sort of thing. No, fidelity was not pristine in 1935, and yes it was even lower for field-recordings. The music still shines through, though. There are a few times where someone sings highly and the sound saturates with treble-static. Just listen to this disc at a reasonable volume the first few times so you can find out where and when this happens, then you can adjust for it on subsequent listens.

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