American Musical Traditions

Chapter 10. McIntosh County Shouters: Slave Shout Songs from the Coast of Georgia

Audio Examples

Blow, Gabriel
In this energetic shout song, the singer exhorts the Archangel Gabriel to blow his trumpet on the Day of Judgment; it is the antecedent of later spirituals on that theme. The characteristic stick and clapping rhythms can be heard clearly when the singers leave off singing for a time. (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album # Folkways F4344 1984)

Move, Daniel
This song accompanies one of the more active examples of shouts. The religious content of the shout songs was clear enough from the text, but hidden messages carrying protests against slavery and jokes on the master, eluded earlier white observers.
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album # Folkways F4344 1984)

Religion, So Sweet
McKiver (leader) usually precedes the performance of this shout with a skit he does with the Shouters in which he assumes the high voice of a woman assembling her children to sing this song for her birthday.
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album # Folkways F4344 1984)

The recordings included here made over a period of two years in McIntosh and Glynn Counties in Georgia. Some performances were recorded at the 1983 Sea Island Festival on St. Simon's; other songs were recorded in two recording sessions in the annex of Mt. Calvary Baptist Church. The McIntosh Country Shouters in these recordings are: Leaders: Lawrence McKiver, Doretha Skipper, Sticker: Andrew Palmer
Basers and shouters: Catharine Cambell, Odessa Young, Thelma Ellison, Vertie McIver, Oneitha Ellison, Elizabeth Temple.
Notes for these examples were written by Art Rosenbaum and accompanied the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album titled The McIntosh Country Shouters – Slave Shout Songs from the Coast of Georgia. Musical examples were taken from the same album.

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