Pretty Polly (fragment) / Give Me The Hook, Give Me The Line (fragment) / Jenny Get Around (fragment) / Interview with Ada Combs about courting, rearing children, marriage, domestic abuse, and murder

Date recorded: September 12, 1959
Contributor(s): Performer: Lomax, Alan; Performer: Combs, Ada; Performer: Caudill, Harry M.; Recordist: Lomax, Alan

Subject(s):

Genre: comic song, dance song, interview/commentary, spoken

Culture: Anglo-American, Southern U.S.

Instruments: banjo (five-string), voice

Setting: Alan Lomax's car, driving between Scottsboro and Huntsville

Location: Alabama, United States

Physical form: Reel to Reel

Tape number: T866

Track Number: 1

Archive ID: T866.1R01

Note: Ada sings and plays fragments of "Pretty Polly," "Give Me the Hook, Give Me the Line," and "Jenny Get Around."

Transcript:
Belongs to: Alabama in transit 9/59

About the session: These recordings were made by Lomax on a "Midgetape" an early dictaphone machine about 6" x 10" in size that used a small tape cartridge holding two reels of tape stacked on top of each other. T866A is one of two extant cartridges of Alan's (the other being T866, interviews with Ada Combs, Whitesburg, KY), and it appears that he reused this tape many times in capturing various ambient and incidental recordings. These recordings were made in the car between Scottsboro and Huntsville, identified as such by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins in the brief segments of narration.

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