Smithers Plantation Recordings
To collect authentic, undocumented folk music, John A. Lomax and his son Alan specifically sought out "made up" songs, ones that had been created and developed by everyday people. In 1934, while searching for the local and secular music of African Americans, the Lomaxes stopped at the Smither farm, or Smithers Plantation as they called it, near the Trinity River in Walker County. There, they asked farm manager Tollie R. Gaines for his help with their project. Gaines called for one of the farm's renters known as One-Eyed Charley, but he was reluctant to sing any songs other than spirituals, even when Gaines encouraged him to share ones that the farm workers made up while plowing fields or chopping wood.
Later that evening, the Lomaxes set up their recording equipment in a building that served as a church and school-house, and several African Americans joined them. Alan attempted to prompt them by asking if anyone knew "Stagolee" and though a man named Blue said he did, he offered to share a song he had just made up that day. Blue's "Po' Farmer," Alan later wrote, was about the "tribulations of the Negro renter in the South." Once Blue stopped singing, he continued speaking and directed his comments to the President, explaining "you just don't know how bad they're treating us folks down here" and urging Roosevelt to come to Texas and do "something for us poor folks." The Lomaxes played Blue's recording back and Alan later recalled that "there was immense joy in this group because they felt they had communicated their problem to the big world."
Alan was particularly moved by Blue's comments and the crowd's response. He later wrote that his experience at the Smither farm "totally changed my life. I saw what I had to do. My job was to try and get as much of these views, these feelings, this unheard majority onto the center of the stage."
Others also performed that evening. A boy about 13 known as Butter Boy and described by the Lomaxes as a "runt" sang "Raise a Ruckus Tonight," which the Lomaxes believe originated as a minstrel song, and "Old Aunt Dinah," a fast-paced chant. A woman named Bat wearing pig tails and a straw hat sang alone before returning with three other women who formed a quartet that was, according to Alan, "far superior to any other group we had heard." They recorded three songs and were accompanied by Monroe Bowdry, a 61-year-old farmer whose vocals are prominently featured on "Tall Angels at the Bar."
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