Audio file
Title: Commentary by Vera Hall on her family (I)
Date recorded: May 1, 1948
Contributor(s): Performer: Lomax, Elizabeth Lyttleton; Performer: Lomax, Alan; Performer: Hall, Vera Ward; Recordist: Lomax, AlanBelongs to: New York City 5/48
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Date recorded: May 1, 1948
Contributor(s): Performer: Lomax, Elizabeth Lyttleton; Performer: Lomax, Alan; Performer: Hall, Vera Ward; Recordist: Lomax, Alan
Subject(s):
Genre: interview/commentary
Culture: African American, Southern U.S.
Instruments: voice
Setting: Alan Lomax's apartment, 3rd Street
Language: English
Location: New York City, New York, United States
Physical form: Reel to Reel
Tape number: T811
Track Number: 7
Archive ID: T811R07
Note: Vera Hall talks about how her sister Estelle was a better helper to her mother than she was. Alan asks whether Vera thinks boys and girls love their fathers or mothers better. Vera thinks girls tend to love their fathers more. Vera looks exactly like her mother. Vera learned most of her songs from her mother. Her father didn't sing too much. He whistled songs when he worked. He looked mad all the time. He didn't talk much and people were a little scared of him. He was a kind man though. He had a hard time as a boy. He was a mischevious boy. He would fight a lot. When he was 18 or 19 he played a long day of baseball and came home to eat his dinner. He ate so many dumplings that he layed on the bed and had a vision of three heads coming through the cracks in the roof of the house. Then he felt something heavy land on his chest and he was screaming and struggling, then he grabbed the door and bit at one of the creatures in his room and spit out a piece of it on the floor. He thinks they were some kind of aliens. Vera Hall's grandfather was a slave and was sold into the county where he lived and worked. Her father was brought up working on the land where they lived. At Christmas time the white landowner would give them 5 dollars to buy clothes and shoes for the children. When her father was grown, he left, got married to Vera's mother and rented land from another plantation. Then he was working for himself and that is where Vera grew up. Her father was a very hard worker. He harvested and plowed all spring and summer and cut wood and sold it in the winter time. He had his own wagon and mules.
About the session: This session of oral history and songs represents the only time that Vera Ward Hall left her home state of Alabama. She was invited to New York by Alan Lomax to perform in the Fourth Annual Festival of Contemporary American Music at Columbia University in the City of New York, May 10th through May 16th, 1948, sponsored by the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University. Vera performed on Saturday, May 15th, 8:30pm, at the McMillin Theater. The concert was entitled "Ballads, Hoe-Downs, Spirituals (White and Negro), and Blues," with performances by Texas Gladden, Hobart Smith, Jean Ritchie, Brownie McGee, Vera Hall, Dan Burley, Pete Seeger, and narrations by Alan Lomax. These recordings were made not at the concert, but during the remainder of Vera Hall’s stay in New York with Alan Lomax. Lomax is joined by his wife Elizabeth, their daughter, and an unidentified couple, who can be heard throughout the session. This session is comprised of tapes recorded at 15 IPS, probably used as working sequences for a possible LP. Alan Lomax used an echo box to produce the effect heard on Vera Hall's voice. These recordings have been compiled into an individual session because they were not recorded as candid interviews, but as conscious attempts at professional recording for commercial release. One of the tape boxes is given a date of Sunday, May 23rd, and this date has been assumed for the entire session.
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