The newest factor to catch my eye within the collections of the American Folklife Middle is a family-related treasure, which makes it particularly related given the Library’s upcoming Treasures Household Pageant. The particular merchandise seems to be a draft or proposal for a youngsters’s e book, written by Alan Lomax. The e book was to be based mostly on a track Lomax recorded alongside his father in 1934, and illustrated by an artist who was apparently not but chosen for the undertaking when the manuscript was written.
Lomax was planning to take a number of liberties with the track, as we’ll see. The obvious one is that, though the track was known as “The Gray Goose,” Lomax determined the e book ought to be known as “The Story of the Mighty Blue Goose.” Nonetheless, Lomax was meticulous about credit score; the e book is credited to “Iron Head,” the nickname of the singer who had sung the track for Lomax and his father in 1934. We’ll say extra about Iron Head later, however on the time he was recorded he was incarcerated at Central State Farm, a jail in Sugar Land, Texas. Alan Lomax and the yet-unchosen illustrator are credited as Iron Head’s assistants.
The manuscript, which yow will discover at this hyperlink, begins with a narrative introducing Iron Head himself, after which describes how the track and illustrations ought to be offered. Let’s take a look at the manuscript first, then the track, after which a few of the background.
The Manuscript Transcribed
Under is a transcript of the entire manuscript, together with a scan of the one illustration, which was evidently meant as a placeholder till an illustrator might be employed. I’ve largely adopted the crowdsourced transcription we provide on the Library of Congress web site, however I haven’t been afraid to make corrections once I suppose they’re warranted. I’ll start by noting that “Negro” was the well mannered time period for African American on the time, and that “the boys” was what the real-life Iron Head known as his pals and singing companions. I’ll additionally point out that I added the phrase [pieces] in two locations the place Lomax says the tree “broke into on his head.”
[p1]
. Negro Materials Misc.
The Story of the
Mighty Blue Goose
By
Iron Head
assisted by Alan Lomax
and
___________ ___________
[p2]
Iron Head was a Negro man with a head so exhausting you couldn’t even think about it. The boys didn’t know a lot about diamonds, I suppose, or they might have known as him Diamond Head, as a result of, as you recognize, a diamond is the toughest type of factor there may be. However the boys had seen much more iron laying round than that they had seen diamonds laying round and they also known as him Iron Head. They thought iron was exhausting they usually knew Iron Head’s head was exhausting too.
This was how they came upon about his head.
In the future he was out chopping down dwell oaks with the boys and he was singing. He was singing so loud that he didn’t hear the boys holler “Timber!” When the boys holler “Timber” and imply it,
[p.3]
they need everyone to know {that a} tree is falling down they usually need everyone to look out as a result of a tree could damage you if it falls on you. That’s what everyone says who ever remembers a tree having fallen on them.
Nicely, the boys hollered “Timber” as loud as they may however Iron Head didn’t hear them as a result of he was singing. So the tree fell on Iron Head’s head. It hit him within the head and it broke. The tree broke, not Iron Head’s head. He didn’t even tremble when that tree broke into [pieces] on his head. He went proper on chopping down his dwell oak and singing his track. And the boys for ever after known as him Iron Head.
He was not proud about this, however for ever after when the boys would ask him,
[p.4]
“Say, Outdated Iron Head, previous buddy, why don’t you attempt to break down a wall together with your head someday?”
Iron Head would gentle his pipe as if he didn’t hear them. The following morning, although, after Iron Head broke the dwell oak tree into [pieces] along with his head, he did have one thing to say.
He mentioned, “You understand boys, final night time after I lay down, I started to check about that tree falling on me. One way or the other it jogged my memory of the time my Daddy went searching the blue goose. Would you want to listen to about that point?”
All of the boys mentioned, “Sure, we actually would love to listen to about it.”
So Iron Head lighted his pipe and commenced to sing. He all the time smoked his pipe when he sang. That is what he sang.
[p.5]
Then the textual content of The Blue Goose ‐—
One couplet to each web page of good illustration.
For Instance:
[p.6]
Women and gents –
Shorty George
Little John Henry
I do know you, rider gon’ miss me when
. I’m gone
Decide a Bale o’ cotton
Root Hog or Die [Tune Hog Rogues on the Hurricane]
P. 430 A. B & F S.
[Manuscript Ends]
The Track “The Gray Goose”
The majority of Lomax’s proposed image e book would have been the textual content of “The Blue Goose.” From the one verse he included for instance, we will inform the track was tailored from “The Gray Goose,” which Iron Head sang for John A. and Alan Lomax twice: as soon as in December 1933 and once more in October 1934. (The 1933 efficiency was cataloged as “The Gray Goose” and the 1934 efficiency as “The Grey Goose,” however Lomax typically used the spelling “Gray” when referring to the track.) The phrases and tunes of the 2 variations are practically (however not fairly) an identical. I’ve embedded the 1934 efficiency within the participant beneath, adopted by the phrases.
{mediaObjectId:'1A14B41A1694DFD9E0635D0C938CFAD9',metadata:["James 'Iron Head' Baker sings 'The Grey Goose' in Sugarland, Texas, 1934"],mediaType:'A',playerSize:'mediumStandard'}
Nicely, final Monday mornin’,
Lord, Lord, Lord
Nicely, final Monday mornin’,
Lord, Lord, Lord,
My daddy went a huntin’, and many others.
Nicely he carried alongside his Zulu
Nicely alongside come a gray goose
Nicely, he throwed it to his shoulder
And he ran his hammer means again
Nicely down he come winding
He was 6 weeks a-falling
We was 6 weeks a-finding
And we put him on his wagon
And we taken him to the white home
He was six weeks a choosing
Lordy, your spouse and my spouse
Gonna give a feather pickin’
And we put him on to parboil
He was six months to parboil
And we put him on the desk
Now the forks couldn’t stick him
And the knife couldn’t reduce him
And we throwed him within the hog pen
And he broke Betty’s jawbone
Then we taken him to the sawmill
And he broke the noticed’s tooth out
And the final time I seen him
Nicely was flyin’ ‘cross the ocean
With an extended string o’ goslings
And so they’s going “quank, quink-quank”
[Spoken] That was led by Iron Head, Will Crosby, Mose Platt, and R. D. Allen. Spoken by Iron Head, Central State Farm, Sugar Land, Texas, Clear Rock, Dough Stomach, and Tough Palms…
Notes on the Manuscript
The Mighty Blue Goose manuscript begins with the phrases “Negro Materials Misc.” Presumably, this was added later as an assist to submitting the manuscript away. In that case, the true starting was the title “The Story of the Mighty Blue Goose.” It’s fascinating that Alan Lomax deliberate to credit score the e book to “Iron Head” with himself and the illustrator listed as assistants.
The primary story informed within the e book is the story of how Iron Head obtained his identify. Alan Lomax’s retelling is a much-embellished model of the story as recounted in his father John A. Lomax’s e book Adventures of a Ballad Hunter. In a chapter on Iron Head Baker and his buddy Clear Rock Platt, the elder Lomax recalled Iron Head’s personal telling of the story:
“I used to be chopping wooden on the Ramsey State Farm at Angleton at a spot known as the ‘lifetime reduce.’ A live-oak tree fell down that I wasn’t anticipating. Some limbs hit my head, and it broke them off; didn’t knock me down, and didn’t cease me from working. The boys named me Iron Head.”
Alan’s gildings embrace the claims that different males shouted “timber” to warn individuals of the falling tree, however that Iron Head didn’t hear them as a result of he was singing so loudly whereas he labored. This establishes not solely that Iron Head is a singer, however that he sings work songs whereas chopping wooden. These had been related cultural particulars that Lomax needed to incorporate within the e book. Together with Lomax’s musings on why “the boys” known as their buddy “Iron Head” as an alternative of “Diamond Head,” these particulars appear designed to seize the eye of younger readers whereas additionally imparting helpful cultural data. Then again, sure data is ignored of the story; there’s no inkling in “The Story of the Mighty Blue Goose” that Iron Head and “the boys” are prisoners engaged in exhausting labor.
In Alan’s proposed e book, Iron Head is reminded of the “Blue Goose” story by the story of his personal nickname. This is sensible because the Blue Goose is so powerful it breaks a noticed’s tooth and a sow’s jaw, simply because the singer’s head is so exhausting it breaks the tree limbs. This pure segue between the 2 tales might need occurred in an unrecorded dialog Alan had with Iron Head, but when it was Alan’s thought it’s a very good instance of his talent as a author and curator.
Lomax specifies that the track ought to be printed “one couplet to each web page of good illustration.” This to begin with establishes that what he had in thoughts was an image e book. It additionally makes it exhausting to know simply what Lomax meant for the textual content; the track as Iron Head sang it was not organized in couplets; every verse consisted of a single line repeated twice, with the “Lord Lord Lord” chorus after every.
Lomax’s instance of an illustrated web page contains two traces and the chorus. The primary line is written vertically to simulate the goose’s falling: “He was 6 weeks a falling.” This can be a line instantly from Iron Head’s track “The Gray Goose.” The second line seems as a part of Lomax’s rudimentary illustration design: “Took an ox-team to haul him.” Apparently, this line does NOT seem in Iron Head’s track, the place the corresponding line is “We put him within the wagon.” Each traces serve the identical perform, which is to ascertain that the goose is just too heavy for the searching celebration to hold and not using a wagon; however Lomax’s specification of an ox-team makes the chicken’s weight appear all of the extra prodigious. Additionally, Lomax’s new line establishes a near-rhyme between “falling” and “haul him,” making the 2 traces match extra naturally as a “couplet” than Iron Head’s authentic textual content. This opens up the query of how devoted to Iron Head’s textual content Lomax meant to be, however that’s a query we merely can’t reply.
As we’ll see, in a 1934 observe on the track, the Lomaxes in contrast it to tall tales about Paul Bunyan. This means that Alan might need modified the goose’s coloration to blue and added an ox staff to the story as a direct homage to Bunyan’s blue ox Babe. The element about Iron Head’s pals chopping a tree and yelling “Timber” when it falls makes the boys look like loggers, which is one other potential reference to the Paul Bunyan custom. Then again, these particulars might merely be an try to boost the track’s tall-tale high quality and make it amusing for youngsters. As a facet profit, these modifications would even have given the illustrator fascinating issues to attract. Additionally, it ought to be famous that Alan was completely clear within the e book that the protagonist, Iron Head, was African American.
Lomax renders the track’s chorus as “Lawd! Lawd! Lawd!” That is consistent with the period’s tendency to render African American dialect in non-standard spellings, one thing we keep away from immediately. I’ve used the usual spelling, “Lord,” in my transcription, as Alan did when he transcribed the track for LP liner notes in 1942.
The final web page of the manuscript options the puzzling heading “Women and gents,” adopted by a listing of track titles. Three of those had been collected by John and Alan Lomax from Iron Head, “Shorty George,” “Little John Henry,” and “Decide a Bale o’ cotton.” “I do know you, rider gon’ miss me once I’m gone,” is a line from “Jail Rider Blues,” collected by John A. Lomax from a gaggle of ladies prisoners at Parchman Farm in 1933. “Root Hog or Die” is a standard track largely within the American West, and the manuscript helpfully follows the title with “P. 430 A. B & F S.” Taking a look at web page 430 of the Lomaxes’ American Ballads and Folks Songs, I discover a cowboy track known as “The Bull-Whacker,” which has the chorus “Whack the cattle on, boys–Root hog or die.” Lomax’s observe “[Tune Hog Rogues on the Hurricane]” appears to be a observe about what tune the track ought to be sung to. Normally, what this checklist of songs signifies is a thriller. Maybe Lomax had an thought for a collection of illustrated songbooks of which “The Story of the Mighty Blue Goose” was merely the primary. However he additionally might have been jotting unrelated notes on an adjoining web page.
Notes on the Track
“The Gray Goose,” and its adaptation “The Mighty Blue Goose,” are a part of a subgenre of people and in style songs involving large or prodigiously powerful animals. Different songs on this style embrace “The Derby Ram,” “The Great Crocodile,” and “The Herring’s Head.” (“Delaney’s Hen,” that includes a chicken that was too powerful to kill and too exhausting to pluck, is especially comparable, and whereas we don’t have variations within the archive, we all know it was sung from Birmingham, Alabama all the best way to Honolulu, Hawaii.)
In Iron Head’s model of “The Gray Goose,” the goose flies so excessive he takes six weeks to fall to earth when he’s shot. The hunters require a wagon to hold him (plus a mule staff in Lomax’s adaptation). A choosing celebration organized by the hunters’ wives takes six weeks to pluck the goose, and even after he’s parboiled for six months he’s so powerful he breaks a sow’s jawbone and a noticed’s tooth. On the finish of all this, he’s not even lifeless, however goes on to have a big household and fly throughout the ocean!
In 1934, when the Lomaxes printed Iron Head’s model of “The Gray Goose” in their e book American Ballads and Folks Songs, they didn’t say very a lot about it:
“Iron Head grinned, very actually just like the Satan, whereas he sang this saga of the gray goose. It has the texture of the Paul Bunyan tales and of Uncle Remus.”
However by 1942, when Alan printed the recording on the third file album to return from our archive, Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs, and Ballads, he had evidently considered it extra, and found within the track a theme of African American resistance and resilience. Within the sleeve notes he wrote:
The people have all the time beloved humble heroes who had been completely invincible, who might endure any hardship or torture with out worry or hurt. For the southern Negro, confronted with the issue of sheer survival below slavery and later because the sub-standard financial group, this sample has dominated his ballads and folk-tales. The ballad of the heroic goose, who, after being shot, picked, cooked, carved and run by way of the sawmill, was final seen with a big, derisively honking flock of goslings, flying over the ocean, epitomizes the Negro’s perception in his personal capability to endure any hardship.
The design of the track is the African leader-chorus kind, and this model is used on the Texas jail farms for hoeing–an entire gang shifting ahead collectively, their hoes flashing collectively within the solar, throughout an irrigation ditch, thus:
Nicely, final Monday mornin’
Lord Lord Lord
It’s good to see that Alan gave up dialect spellings resembling “Lawd” similtaneously he acknowledged deeper meanings within the track’s textual content.
A number of names and phrases within the track may require rationalization. We all know Betty is a sow, as a result of within the different recording of Iron Head singing this track, he sings “broke the previous sow’s jawbone.” To “give a feather-pickin’” meant to carry a communal celebration for plucking poultry; normally, this is able to be carried out when numerous birds had been being plucked for a gathering, so the need of a feather-picking for a single chicken once more signifies the dimensions of the gray goose. A “zulu” is a shotgun, particularly one which was tailored from an out of date navy musket. When Western militaries transformed from barrel-loading lengthy weapons to breech-loading rifles, they usually didn’t have the sources to purchase all new weapons, and as an alternative modified their muskets into moderately poor breech-loading rifles with the help of conversion kits. They then might take a number of years to interchange these subpar however practical previous weapons with new rifles, at which level they offered the out of date weapons to arms sellers who transformed them as soon as extra, to shotguns. They got here to be referred to as “zulu breech-loaders” or “zulu shotguns,” presumably as a result of European variations had been usually despatched out to African colonies. In Iron Head’s different recording of the track, when the gun is fired, it makes the noise “boo-loo,” which is a pleasant callback to its standing as a “zulu;” sadly, Iron Head apparently forgot that line within the model I’ve embedded right here!
Iron Head wasn’t the one one who sang “The Gray Goose” for the Lomaxes. Two different Texas prisoners, Augustus “Observe Horse” Haggerty and “Lightnin’” Washington, sang it for them in 1933 and 1934. Huddie Ledbetter, higher referred to as Lead Stomach, was current for a few of these Texas periods as John A. Lomax’s assistant, assembly each Iron Head and Observe Horse, and he could have discovered “The Gray Goose” from considered one of them. He sang his model of “The Gray Goose” for the Lomaxes in 1935, and saved it in his repertoire all through his musical profession, recording it on a number of youngsters’s albums, enjoying it as a part of the movie “Three Songs by Lead Stomach,” and recording it once more on the finish of his profession in his final periods.
Lead Stomach’s model of “The Gray Goose” differed from Iron Head’s, in that the character searching the goose is “the preacher” moderately than “my daddy,” and the motion happens “one Sunday morning” moderately than “final Monday morning.” In his spoken introduction, Lead Stomach made it clear that the story was a few Baptist preacher who was searching when he ought to have been in church; in some variations he described the women of the church questioning the place the preacher was. The implication was that the goose was God’s punishment, and Lead Stomach usually ended the introduction by saying the goose was “nonetheless laughing at him.” Lead Stomach usually tailored his songs to create fascinating tales about them. He might need borrowed the theme of the preacher flouting his faith to go searching on a Sunday and being punished by the animals he encounters from the favored (and sadly racist) track “The Preacher and the Bear.”
Till the late Nineteen Forties, the Lomaxes believed “The Gray Goose” was sung solely throughout the Texas jail system, however in 1949 Jean Ritchie sang a unique model for Alan Lomax. In 1957, she recorded it for a youngsters’s album, and informed Kenneth S. Goldstein that she had discovered it from John and Ben Corridor on the John C. Campbell Folks College in North Carolina. She repeated that within the posthumously printed e book Jean Ritchie’s Kentucky Mom Goose, however in a 2007 interview with Susan Brumfield included on the Kentucky Mom Goose CD, she mentioned she first heard it when her father and her uncle Jason had been swapping songs, presumably throughout her childhood in Kentucky. In her 1949 model, the goose ultimately has its eyes picked out by buzzards, however she later eliminated that verse and added a refrain.
As Kenny Goldstein identified in his notes, “In [Jean Ritchie’s] model, the goose can hardly be thought-about a logo of the indomitability of the Negro.” That’s true additionally in Lead Stomach’s model, which as we’ve seen makes use of the goose to touch upon the preacher’s indiscretion. Solely in Iron Head’s model does the goose’s indestructible nature appear to have this which means. Definitely, one potential purpose that Alan Lomax was contemplating a youngsters’s e book based mostly on Iron Head’s model moderately than Lead Stomach’s is that he admired the best way it represented the power and resilience of African American individuals and tradition.
Who Was Iron Head?
The person referred to as “Iron Head” was one of the crucial vital singers in John A. Lomax’s recording profession, and has develop into one of the crucial influential singers within the AFC archive. He was incarcerated for housebreaking when John A. Lomax first met him at Central State Farm, the state jail at Sugar Land, Texas. John A. Lomax included a chapter in his e book, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, about Iron Head and his buddy Moses “Clear Rock” Platt. In keeping with Lomax, Iron Head’s given identify was James Baker, and he was 63 years previous when Lomax first recorded him.
These particulars have been repeated by generations of music historians, however more moderen analysis into Texas jail information has proven that Lomax was most likely mistaken. “Iron Head” was certainly the nickname for a person referred to as James Baker within the Texas jail system, however in accordance with the analysis of Caroline Gnagy, “James Baker” was itself an alias for Tom Barkley. Barkley was born to Tom and Ise Barkley on March 18, 1884, in Dallas, which means that Iron Head was solely 49 years previous, not 63, when the Lomaxes got here to Sugar Land in 1933. (As Gnagy additionally factors out, the photographs Alan Lomax took are in keeping with him being 49.) Why Lomax thought he was 63 is a thriller, however Iron Head did at one level insist that he was too previous for exhausting labor, so he might need been pretending to be older with the intention to keep away from the more durable bodily work given to youthful inmates.
Though misinformed about Iron Head’s private particulars, John A. Lomax felt each admiration for his expertise as a singer and affection for him as an individual. On the primary day they met, Lomax and Iron Head bonded when Iron Head sang “Shorty George,” a few convict who breaks out of jail to attend his spouse’s funeral. Earlier than singing it, Iron Head broke down in tears over lacking his lady, and Lomax comforted him by noting that, not like the track’s protagonist, he may but see her once more. In his e book, Lomax indicated that Iron Head was a prodigious singer, and referred to him as a “Black Homer.” His talents as a singer included a powerful voice and good pitch, a terrific reminiscence for previous lyrics, and a fast thoughts for improvising new ones. He additionally had an fascinating repertoire of previous songs, from conventional English ballads to work songs and spirituals.
After their preliminary assembly, John Lomax despatched Iron Head letters and small presents, and the prisoner reciprocated. John and Alan Lomax visited him once more twice in 1934 and continued to file songs from him. Iron Head was a trusty on the jail. As a talented craftsman, he was given his personal freestanding workshop, the place he wove collars for the jail’s horses and mules, in addition to rugs and doormats, out of corn husks. He despatched considered one of his rugs as a Christmas present to John’s spouse Ruby Lomax in 1935, additional impressing the collector.
On the time, one other nice singer whom Lomax had met in jail, Lead Stomach, was appearing as Lomax’s chauffeur and subject recording assistant. Quickly, nonetheless, John Lomax’s relationship with Lead Stomach soured. It was solely pure to hunt an analogous association along with his new buddy Iron Head. Lomax approached James Allred, governor of Texas, and proposed to have Iron Head launched on parole into his care, in return for the trusty’s assist along with his jail recordings. After assembly with Iron Head and being impressed with him, the governor agreed to the parole on Lomax’s phrases. On April 6, 1936, Iron Head and Lomax set off collectively to gather songs.
As a recording assistant, Iron Head appears to have been profitable, breaking the ice between the white collector and lots of African American inmates, and demonstrating the forms of songs Lomax was after. He additionally continued singing all through the tour; not solely did Lomax receive many songs from many singers on his 1936 journey with Iron Head, however he recorded Iron Head himself singing extra songs in Florida, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. Solely as a driver was Iron Head a complete failure; Lomax found that the convict was afraid of driving, and determined he himself should be “everlasting chauffeur.”
Over the course of the journey, Lomax obtained to know Iron Head higher personally, studying for instance that he was afraid of being alone at midnight. (We will speculate this was maybe a results of abuses he suffered in jail.) The consequence was that he normally slept in Lomax’s room, on a pallet on the ground, which solely elevated their time collectively. In strictly segregated institutions and prisons, Iron Head roomed with Black workers or jail trusties. When no such rooms had been obtainable and segregationist insurance policies or different circumstances prevented him from sleeping in Lomax’s room, he locked himself within the automotive to sleep so nobody might assault him.
To Lomax’s disappointment, Iron Head thought-about himself a ordinary prison and had little interest in a crime-free life. Lomax’s earlier assistant, Lead Stomach, had been topic to temper swings, and his uncommon crimes had been dedicated in moments of anger, which he normally might management. Against this, Iron Head was knowledgeable burglar whose crimes had been much less severe and fewer emotional, however way more frequent. As he defined to Lomax, he merely watched homes till the residents left, climbed from the porch as much as a window, and pilfered with out violence. He had been caught and convicted six instances, however he readily admitted that many extra of his burglaries went unpunished than the few for which he had been caught.
After the amassing tour was over, Lomax had promised the governor that he would attempt to set Iron Head up with a enterprise making corn husk rugs and different handwork, which he was evidently wonderful at. However Iron Head didn’t need the duty of a enterprise, and he and Lomax quarreled about his subsequent step. Lomax claims Iron Head made veiled threats to the collector’s household, however nobody appears to have taken them critically. Finally Lomax put Iron Head on a bus again to Austin from Washington, D.C., and thought of their partnership dissolved.
As was additionally the case with Lead Stomach, after his partnership with John A. Lomax was over, Iron Head remained on pleasant phrases with Alan. In keeping with Nolan Porterfield’s biography of John A. Lomax, Alan met Iron Head’s bus in Austin and he and his stepmother Ruby lodged the paroled burglar at their home for a number of days in June, 1936. They then discovered Iron Head a job with pals who owned a farm. Sadly, Iron Head quickly returned to housebreaking, and was despatched to jail as soon as once more.
John Lomax encountered Iron Head once more on his amassing journey in 1939, this time again at Ramsey jail the place Iron Head had earned his nickname. The convict sang a number of extra songs for the collector, this time spirituals, and the 2 males appear to have reconciled. In Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, Lomax mused that Iron Head might need ended up worse off due to their time collectively, as a result of his state of affairs at Ramsey was much less snug than it had been at Sugar Land. He regretted his interference in his buddy’s life, concluding, “I ought to have left him at Sugar Land to weave from corn shucks horse collars and rugs.”
In keeping with Gnagy, Iron Head died of kidney most cancers on February 23, 1944. He was simply shy of 60 years previous, and was nonetheless within the Texas jail system when he died. He lies buried within the jail cemetery at Huntsville, Texas.
A Final Gander at “The Gray Goose” and “The Mighty Blue Goose”
A youngsters’s e book based mostly on “The Gray Goose” was clearly an impressed thought, considered one of many who Alan Lomax had in his lengthy profession. The track actually appealed to youngsters; when Lead Stomach carried out for teenagers, “The Gray Goose” was a staple of his repertoire. Lead Stomach’s model impressed many children, together with the long run Grammy winner Dan Zanes, who later recorded his personal model. Pete Seeger included it on a number of of his youngsters’s albums (together with this dwell efficiency the place he actually obtained into the quink-quank half)! Pete’s nephew Calum MacColl led the track on a Seeger household youngsters’s album, and Pete’s extra commercially profitable buddy Burl Ives additionally had a go at it.
It’s unclear what prompted Alan to think about changing Iron Head’s track into an image e book, or when the concept occurred to him. We do know that each Lomaxes continued to correspond with Iron Head after John’s final go to to him in 1939. A letter Iron Head wrote to John Lomax on December 14, 1941, signifies that Lomax had written to him on December 11, enclosing a present of cash and inquiring about one other go to to file extra songs. Iron Head mentioned he was “overjoyed” to listen to from Lomax, and effusive in his gratitude, suggesting that the 2 males had been feeling their well beyond the pressure of their relationship. (Word that the formality and eloquence of Iron Head’s writing contrasts with the exaggerated Black dialect of early transcriptions of his singing):
I’m certainly grateful to you for every little thing that you’ve got carried out for me. That has been a lot that I don’t know simply what to thanks for first, so I hope for each good blessing for you for being so type to me. I do know that I can by no means repay you for every little thing. However certainly you’ll settle for my poor and pitiful gesture in making an attempt to assist in my means, that’s by doing all of your bidding. I’m making an attempt to get the boys collectively and make some songs that might be passable to you.
Three months later, Alan Lomax wrote to Iron Head requesting the usage of “The Gray Goose” on a file album to be issued by the Library of Congress. The preliminary letter of March 20, 1942, was a very impersonal authorities kind letter, starting “Pricey James Baker” and ending “Sincerely, Alan Lomax.” When Iron Head didn’t reply, Lomax wrote once more on April 14. This was the identical kind letter, however Alan customized it in order that it started “Pricey Ironhead” and ended “Sincerely Your Pal, Alan Lomax.” It’s amusing that Iron Head’s response of Could 4 mentioned he had signed and returned the paperwork and chided Lomax for not being “very immediate in your dealings with me on this enterprise matter.”
Between Lomax’s receipt of Iron Head’s signed types in April 1942 and his departure from the Library of Congress for the Workplace of Conflict Data in October of the identical yr, Lomax discovered time to edit and write notes for 5 file albums of subject recordings, together with the one that includes “The Gray Goose.” The “Blue Goose” manuscript is undated, nevertheless it’s actually additionally from earlier than Alan Lomax left the Library of Congress in October 1942.
Not one of the surviving correspondence between Lomax and Iron Head mentions the potential of a e book, which might be unusual if Lomax had already been engaged on a e book proposal when he wrote to Iron Head in April. Given all this, it appears probably that Lomax started “The Story of the Mighty Blue Goose” after his final surviving letter to Iron Head in 1942. In that case, he probably had the concept by way of revisiting the track for the 1942 album. At the moment, he listened to the track, thought sufficient about it to appreciate its themes of Black resistance and resilience, transcribed it anew, leaving out a lot of the Black dialect spellings, and wrote a brand new headnote. Apparently, someday throughout the means of enhancing the LP notes, however earlier than he determined that the ultimate transcription ought to be “Lord” and never “Lawd,” Lomax had the concept for “The Story of the Mighty Blue Goose,” jotting it down within the manuscript we’ve immediately.
Within the temporary time between enhancing the file albums and leaving the Library of Congress, it appears probably Alan Lomax simply didn’t have time to pursue “The Story of the Mighty Blue Goose” and even to put in writing Iron Head in regards to the thought. If that’s true, it’s simply considered one of many plans Alan had which had been interrupted by his service in World Conflict II and by no means dropped at fruition. Lomax was nonetheless within the Military when Iron Head died in early 1944, and he by no means returned to the Library of Congress to reclaim the unfinished manuscript, which we nonetheless have over 80 years later.
This can be a disgrace, as a result of Lomax was clearly onto one thing. The Story of the Mighty Blue Goose would have been inspirational on a number of ranges. An homage to African American tradition credited to a Black man and his white assistants, it might have been an inspiring youngsters’s e book and a major accomplishment within the legacies of the Lomaxes and of Iron Head Baker.