Georgia Sea Island Singers led by John Davis - "Read 'Em John" [Sampler] 

Listen to the Georgia Sea Island Singers, led by John Davis, perform "Read 'Em John" from their album 'The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert.' “Read ‘Em John,” led by John Davis, is a ring shout spiritual that can be traced back to emancipation. In this song, “John” reads a letter to his fellow enslaved people, revealing that they had been freed. Learning to read was a risky proposition for enslaved Africans, but John’s perilous act of resistance delivers their collective freedom. The song builds slowly into celebratory eruptions of rhythmic energy, punctuated by Bessie Smith’s tambourine, Davis’ powerful exclamations, and percussive tapping characteristic of the ring shout tradition.
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Bessie Jones, John Davis, and the Georgia Sea Island Singers gained wide renown during the 1960s and ‘70s for their powerful performances of traditional songs from the African American Gullah Geechee community on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Most in the group were born and raised on St. Simons, and could trace their ancestry to the enslaved West and Central Africans who worked on the island’s cotton plantations. Throughout the ‘60s, the Georgia Sea Island Singers were prominent voices in the civil rights movement, bringing hundreds of years of Black musical tradition to bear on a pivotal time in American history. This previously unheard recording captures their complete Friends of Old Time Music concert of April 1965, at which they were joined by legendary bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell, cane fife player Ed Young, and folklorist Alan Lomax, who acted as emcee. The album showcases a variety of traditional music from the Island and beyond, including stirring work songs, emotionally charged spirituals, jubilant songs for children, and revelatory renditions of Mississippi blues.
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