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Musical recording and interview Part 1, Athens, Georgia, 1981 July 3

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@ Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection

Rosenbaum, Art

Description

Part one of a two-part recording. Art Rosenbaum interviews Doc Barnes and Henry Grady Terrell. Terrell was born in Fulton County in 1921. He has been singing since he was 12, and he mostly sings in gospel music quartets. His main quartet was The Gospel Pilgrims with Doc Barnes, and before that they were Soul Stirrers. They changed their name because another group had the same name. His first quartet was named the Four Fellows. Its members included Terrell, James Ward, Joe Warden and a fourth (undecipherable). The next group was with Ortha Cooper, and then with Homer, Ersha[?] and Leroy Jackson. He sang with George Johnson, and finally in The Gospel Pilgrims with Barnes. He speaks about singing work songs with the crew when he worked on the Monroe and Greensboro highways as a boy. He also worked on WPA projects, where he worked with ex-convicts who taught him the work songs, or "convict songs," that he knows today. Terrell and Barnes worked on the Athens post office building in 1939 and 1940. Terrell mentions a man named Leroy Smith who sang a lot, as did a man with the last name Thrasher. They sang "Hammer Dammerama," another that begins "Picking up line," as well as "Jack the rabbit and Jack the bear." They also used to sing "John Henry," but Terrell is hesitant to sing it for the recording because it is not a church song. He eventually does, and he and Barnes wielded pick axes to demonstrate...

Record Contributed By

Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia