SPOTLIGHT: Bound To Go

This Spotlight is on an album and not one individual artist or group. Andrew Calhoun is a singer/songwriter that was born in 1957. He founded Waterbug Records as artists' cooperative label specializing in great songwriters and traditional folk musicians who do original research in 1992.

Recently he released Bound To Go, an album of 35 songs from the African American folk tradition. This album includes spirituals, prison ballads, shout songs from the Sea Islands and rare folk songs. Calhoun says in the booklet accompanying the cd:

Folk songs carry the emotional truth of our history. People speak of the African American folk songs and spirituals as "roots of the blues" or "roots of gospel," but they are more than that. They are the roots and branches together, joined with the sound of the Maker's breath in the leaves of the Tree of Life.

This album finds songs that may have never been recorded, or has not been heard for years if not decades. The song "Run To Jesus" is the song that gave Frederick Douglass the idea of escaping from slavery.

He makes a case in the booklet that these spirituals were not simply songs about Heaven, but that the Heavenly Home may have been about the slave's home land of Africa. He gives the history of the songs as he can find. Did you know that "Michael, Row The Boat Ashore" was a rowing song from the Sea Islands sung as a prayer for safe passage addressed to the archangel.

This is a fascinating album of music and history. His research casts a new light on these songs. An added word has to be said about the packaging. This album is an amazing package as much for the looks as the music. The cover is a painting by the Gullah artist Jonathan Green called "White Scarf." For those who think that a cd's cover can't be art, they need to look at this cd and they'll discover they are wrong. Everything on this project is a class act from the cover to the packaging to the music.

Like the collection Song of America this album is an important historical document, highlighting parts of our history that are sometimes forgotten. But it doesn't mean that it isn't entertaining also, the songs on this album are full of life and sung from the heart.

"Run To Jesus"


"Bound To Go"