Waiting for the Train.

Waiting for the Train.

African tribes have sung about everyday life, like the man at Tutwiler station was doing, for thousands of years. Singing and music have always been very important in African culture, as they are in all cultures. The roots of blues include at least three kinds of songs: work songs, chain gang songs and moans.

A person who was working alone sometimes sang to pass the time and make the job easier. They often invented the words as they sang, describing the things that were happening in their lives at the time. These were known as work songs.

Chain gang songs were often used to co-ordinate work. Men trying to lift heavy weights needed to be able to lift or pull together. Often one man sang a line of a song and the group answered as they lifted something together, loaded a boat or worked to construct new railway lines. Prisoners were often taken out to work, cruelly chained together so that they could not escape. These chain gangs used this music to co-ordinate their movements and to avoid thinking of their suffering.

Moans were often heard at night from the place where the slaves or plantation workers slept and were about their pain and sadness. It was often one person singing alone.

These styles of singing were commonly sung in the southern United States by African Americans, and are considered to be the ancestors of the blues.