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Early in the Morning

from Congo Cowboys by Congo Cowboys

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This song is based on a version of the prison work song "Early In The Morning" that was sung in Parchman Farm (Mississippi State Penitentiary) and recorded by Alan Lomax in 1947-1948.

"These recordings were made in 1947 in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. The singers were all Negro prisoners, who, according to the practice of Mississippi, were serving out their time by working on a huge state cotton plantation in the fertile Yazoo Delta. Only a few strands of wire separated the prison from adjoining plantations. Only the sight of an occasional armed guard or a barred window in one of the frame dormitories made one realise that this was a prison. The land produced the same crop; there was the same work for the Negroes to do on both sides of the fence. And there was no Delta Negro who was not aware of how easy it was for him to find himself on the wrong side of those few strands of barbed wire...

I went back to the Mississippi pen with the first portable tape machine that came on the market, for I wanted to record the sounds that were always too rich to be well recorded by the disc machines of former years. Even in 1947 I could see that the custom of work-song singing was dying out at Parchman, where we had recorded our finest singing in the early '30's. The old-timers had lost their voices, and most of the young prisoners regarded the practice as "old fogeyism."

The young prisoner "22" was an exception; he had developed a new style, but he could not tell me whether he was "bopping" it or not. I suspected he was. In any case, his bunch produced a polyphonic style that seems remarkably African — perhaps yet another instance of the ever-fresh spirit of Africa at work in the New World. More importantly. these songs, coming out of the filthy darkness of the pen, still touched with exquisite musicality, are a testimony to the love of truth and beauty which is a universal human trait."...
Alan Lomax

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from Congo Cowboys, released July 26, 2019

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Congo Cowboys Cape Town, South Africa

Congo Cowboys is excited to present music that draws on the foot stompin qualities of bluegrass country, reimagined through Kwassa Kwassa African rhythms and Soukous guitar. The Congo meets the Deep South in a gritty exploration of Americana and ol' timey ditties. Banjo and bluesy bass lines from boys in leather. It's fire and hell, whisky and chicken pie, murder in the pines... BOYA TOSEPELA! ... more

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