Work Songs as Folk Music

Work songs are a fascinating segment of folksong.  Many came about to accompany hard physical group labor, where they helped to coordinate the work and lighten the hearts of the workers.  They are usually simple, repetitive, rhythmic, almost hypnotic in character, as befitted the nature of demanding manual labor.  Sailors sang them, railroad men, lumberjacks, field workers, just about anyone who had to work together as a group, and they are a wonderful source for choral arrangements.

One of Master Chorus Eastside’s singers has been doing a bit of digging into a couple of the numbers in our upcoming Celebrate America concert, and one of them in particular has an intriguing history.  Hoedown, arranged by Norman Luboff, is a real foot-tapper of a barn dance, but its roots lie in another direction: the stultifying cotton fields of the South.

It’s better known to some as Pick a Bale of Cotton, unforgettably sung by Huddie Ledbetter, or Leadbelly as he is known.  He was a blues singer and balladeer in the first half of the twentieth century who sang the traditional songs of his youth, and often transformed them in the process.

He took Pick a Bale of Cotton, a slow-tempo working man’s lament, and changed it into a dance number with a message.  The original (if there is ever an original in folk music!) sadly moaned, “Never will I pick a bale-a-day,” but in the song Leadbelly boasted, “I can pick a bale-a-day,” the triumph of a working man over truly adverse circumstances.

The Luboff choral arrangement picks up the repeated phrase, “Gonna jump down, turn around and pick a bale of cotton, gonna jump down, turn around and pick a bale a day,” and builds an entire category of work out of it: cooking beans, planting peas, doing the things “I oughta,” accompanied by whoops and sniffs, until it turns wickedly fast at the end and declares, “Won’t jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton!”  Doesn’t that ring true with every worker, no matter who they are or what they do, at the end of the day!

Folksong is endlessly adaptable, and these two arrangements essentially convert this simple work tune, probably born in slavery, into a declaration of freedom.  Amazingly, in this YouTube age, I can’t find a video or recording of Luboff’s Hoedown for comparison.  To hear it, find a recording, or come to our concerts on June 30 if you can!  It will make you want to dance—freely!

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director and conductor

Master Chorus Eastside