Field recordings from southern West Virginia, 1949-1953. Railroad work chants, ancient spirituals, hammer songs, slave-era songs, and more. A collection as rich, varied, and powerful as the African-American experience in Appalachia.

To read a review of this CD, visit The Green Man Review, at: http://www.greenmanreview.com/cd/cd_va_workandpray.html

Download the first three tracks from this CD below.

Songs on Work and Pray:

• Lining Track (four versions)
• Laying Steel
• Ten Pound Hammer
• Steal Away
• Shout Yo' Double Shout
• I Didn't Know I Had to Pray So Hard
• Jacob's Ladder
• Palms of Victory
• Way Over in the Promised Land
• Drinking of the Wine
• John Henry
• This Old
• Hammer (two versions)
• Section Boss
• Railroad Graders
• Ride to Heaven
• Away in the Kingdom
• We're Baptized in the Water
• When the Roll Is Called
• Won't You Go with Me
• Go Home to My Father and Be Saved
• Good Old Chariot
• Lord I Don't Want to Die in the Storm
• Ride On Jesus
• Rock Me Chariot
• Lord I Won't Stop Praying
• Prepare Me O Lord
• God Got His Eyes on You
• John the Revelator
• I Wish I Had-a Heard Them
• In That Morning
• Some Bright Day
• Shoeshine Boy
• We Are Traveling to the Grave

The southern rim of West Virginia, a rugged land of steep hills and narrow valleys, was one of the last areas of the eastern United States to be opened and populated. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad passed just north of this region shortly after the end of the Civil War, and by 1890 the Norfolk and Western Railroad ran north from Virginia to meet the C and O. This opened the vast southern West Virginia coal fields to an industrializing nation, and brought former slaves and their families into the mountains.

Bluefield, West Virginia, at the southern point of the state, became the major city of this coal boom. The town ballooned from 600 residents in 1890 to over 5,000 in 1900, largely through the immigration of African-American miners. In 1895, the state established the Bluefield Colored Institute to train Black teachers for the segregated coal-camp schools scattered throughout the region.

Half a century later, it was a professor at the renamed Bluefield State College who unearthed the music heard in this recording. Cortez D. Reece traveled the winding roads to the old coal camps and railroad towns, seeking out the traditional songs which reflected the unique heritage of this largely overlooked culture. From 1949 through 1953, Reece preserved over 150 songs. These formed the basis of his dissertation A Study of Selected Folksongs Collected Mainly in Southern West Virginia, for which he earned his Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Southern California in 1955.

This CD makes part of that treasure available to the public for the first time.

Work and Pray is the fourth release in the WVU Press Sound Archive series, and was produced from recordings in the West Virginia and Regional History Collection of WVU Libraries.