Chanteys, Worksongs With Roots From Africa That The Enslaved Black People Sang On Plantations, In Prison, And While Working On Boats-Harbors

The Living Legacy of the Piedmont Blues
The music that grew out of Durham’s tobacco manufacturing plants influenced some of the most widely recorded musicians of the last 65 years—and still does today.

Laemouahuma Daniel Jatta is playing the akonting, an African instrument that may be a precursor to the banjo.

In periods with good weather, the slaves on most slave ships would be brought up on deck in the mornings. Normally the women and children would be allowed to move freely around the deck. The men would be chained together, because it was commonly believed that they would be the ones that would cause violence and resistance.

"Jazz Band on Truck". 1920’s - Moore County. Pinehurst N.C.

Original artwork "Wade In The Water"

Algia Mae Hinton was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and vocalist.

Altovise Davis. was an African American actress and dancer. She also was the wife of Sammy Davis Jr.

Sketches of Character in illustration of the Habits, Occupation and Costume of the Negro Population in the island of Jamaica.

On September 28, 1938, soul and R&B singer Benjamin Earl Nelson better known as Ben E. King, was born in Henderson, NC.

Born in Wilson, N.C. in 1932, drummer Billy Kaye has performed with jazz titans like Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Lou Donaldson, and George Benson. This summer he performed in his hometown for the first time ever. Meet Billy Kaye.

Innovative Composer And Jazz Pianist

Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster, educator and jazz activist. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and from 1994 was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Fuller was famous for playing a steel-bodied National guitar that was a natural resonator before amplification. Along with Reverend Gary Davis, Fuller dominated the Bull City’s blues scene, attracting and influencing many musicians.

Carol Brice became one of the first African American classical singers with an extensive recording repertoire.

In 1953 Clyde McPhatter & Drifters recorded Big Hit “Money Honey.”

Once nearly forgotten, the childhood home of jazz legend John Coltrane is slated for preservation and extended new use as an historic site.

He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop.

Remembering Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten, who was born on this day back in 1893. Cotten was a self-taught, American folk and blues musician. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, in the “Early Influence” category.

As with many other Black musicians, Etta Baker influenced countless White musicians, we've Always "influenced" white musicians, and many times our sounds have been stolen in an attempt to replicate them.

Little Eva hit the top of the charts with her recording of “The Loco-Motion.”

For nearly half a century, the North Carolina native has created instruments out of found wood—including some from a notorious hanging tree

In the early 1970s, a one-of-a-kind artist lived near Elm City—the blues guitarist, singer, and musical storyteller John Henry Fortescue. Known as Guitar Shorty, Fortescue—who was originally from Belhaven, also the hometown of Little Eva of “Loco-Motion” fame—was a small man who played a big guitar spangled with flower decals.

Gullah Geechee Ring Shouters, who share the oral traditions of Southeastern Georgia and the Gullah Geechee community all over the world.

Harold Nicholas Was A Tap Dancing Legend and one half of the Nicholas Brothers.

Freddie Palmer, right, leads the McIntosh County Shouters during a recent performance at the Lucas Theatre in Savannah.

Moms Mabley, was born on 3, 19 1897. She was an African American vaudeville performer and comedian, the first Black woman to establish herself as a single act in standup comedy in America.

Clarence Avant, is known as the “Godfather of Black Music” and was recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

James Timothy Brymn was an African-American conductor, arranger, composer, and pianist who generally performed northeastern hot style jazz. He was usually credited as Lieutenant James Tim Brymn, and was sometimes billed as "Mr. Jazz Himself"

Even though the Johnson brothers were not from NC, we felt their song (The Black National Anthem) deserved to be added to our NC Music gallery.
It was a Gift to all American Black people when the brothers wrote and arranged it.

Though he died at age 40, Coltrane released nearly 50 studio albums and almost 20 singles during the course of his career.

John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music.

On July 17, 1967, legendary jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane died.
Born in 1926 in the small Richmond County town of Hamlet.

John Coltrane, who was a legendary American jazz saxophonist.

John Coltrane mural at 29th and Diamond streets in North Philadelphia, designed by artist Ernel Martinez

Elizabeth ‘Libba’ Cotten-Master of American folk Music-an American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter.

"Maceo! Blow your horn!" Parker's name can be heard again and again in James Brown's classic recordings, as he drives his musicians to reach the highest levels of excellence.

On February 14, 1943, saxophonist Maceo Parker was born in Kinston, NC, and is best known for his work with James Brown, Parker brought his funk style to the soul music of the James Brown Band. For nearly 20 years, Brown’s call “Maceo, I want you to Blow!” summoned his unique sound. He also collaborated with a host of artists including George Clinton, Prince, Ray Charles, James Taylor, the Dave Matthews Band and the Red Hot Chili Peppers

The gospel singer, historian, and educator has a voice and a presence that demand attention.

Throughout his career, drummer Max Roach constantly sought to extend the boundaries of jazz, both stylistically and in the service of political change.

Millie McCoy and Christine McCoy were American conjoined twins who went by the stage names "The Carolina Twins", "The Two-Headed Nightingale" and "The Eighth Wonder of the World". The Twins traveled throughout the world performing song and dance for entertainment.

Southern Blues musician, Moses Lee Rascoe, began playing blues at the age of 13 in Windsor, Bertie County, NC. He spent his teen years playing juke joints around the South, literally singing for his supper.

One Of The Greatest Drummers To Live, Who Flew Under The Radar.

This photograph is of the North Carolina Mutual Glee Club in 1929. Bessie Whitted is on the far left, front row.

How many times have you sung 'I feel good, like I knew I would' by the great James Brown?
Did you know it was musically arranged by a Washington, NC PS Jones High School Band teacher named Nat Jones?

"She was one of the most extraordinary artists of the twentieth century, an icon of American music. She was the consummate musical storyteller, a griot as she would come to learn, who used her remarkable talent to create a legacy of liberation, empowerment, passion, and love through a magnificent body of works.

This is the cover of a book written about Nina Simone's life for children.

Eunice Kathleen Waymon professionally known as Nina Simone - singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist. , age 17, circa 1949.

Lyrics to BackLash Blues

Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, Adam Pendleton and Ellen Gallagher are working both to preserve and transform the North Carolina house where she was born.

Pigmeat Markham was an African American comedian extraordinaire, from Durham, North Carolina.

Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis (born Gary D. Davis, April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica.

In 1969, Mr. Spencer wrote and sang the Grammy award winning song, “Color Him Father,” which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart. He is also the owner of the famous Amen break featuring a drum solo by G.C. Coleman. There are some who claim that this piece of music helped to launch hip-hop and the electronic subcultures.

The Grammy-winning singer and pianist, now 85, “plans to stay active in her musical and creative pursuits,” the announcement said.

Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and pianist Roberta Flack

Shirley Caesar, Gospel voice and Minister

In 2011, the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters set the Guinness World Record for leading the largest recorded ring shout, during the “Word, Shout, Song” exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, D. C.

Connie B. Steadman of the Badgett Sisters, an a cappella gospel trio of tremendous depth, not too well known outside of North Carolina, where they sang in “folklife festivals, churches, schools, prisons and mental hospitals” according to the notes on their first LP.

Caption for picture The Old Plantation, South Carolina (between 1785 and 1790) the oldest depiction of African American dance and music (A banjoist, drummer swing dancers)

The Barrino Brothers was an American soul music group formed in High Point, North Carolina, in the late 1960s.

The Bull City Soul Revival is a collaboration of musicians and scholars to showcase the history of Soul in Durham.

This is the Clouds of Joy gospel singing group that sang at the local radio station as well as other places in Chatham.

This amazing 1998 documentary shows how the Gullah descendants of Mende people from Sierra Leone preserved an old mourning song in the Georgia Sea Islands, in their ancestral language, though they no longer understood the words or the meaning.

The Menhaden Chanteymen is a musical group based out of Carteret County, North Carolina. They are a group of retired African-American commercial fishermen who publicly perform the work songs they used when hauling nets.

On Monday, 12.16.1991 The Northern Neck Chantey Singers organized and began preserving African American work songs.

Pictured here is the musical family of John Wesley Allen.

Thelonious Monk, was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than a thousand pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.

Young Men’s Institute jazz band, c. 1900
Ashville, NC
Today, the Young Men’s Institute (YMI) is arguably one of the nation’s oldest African American institutions.

Glass negative showing three young African American men posing in front of a wooden fence behind the Swannanoa Hotel.

Jonkonnu, (pronounced John Canoe) is an African American holiday celebration whose roots can be traced back to Jamaica and to the slave ships from West Africa.