Take Two
Work Song
Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang
Breaking rocks and serving my time
Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang
Because they done convicted me of crime
Hold it steady right there while I hit it
well reckon that ought to get it
been working and working
but I still got so terribly far to go
Trumpeter Nat Adderley wrote the tune for Work Song inspired by a childhood experience of seeing a group of convict labourers singing while they worked on a chain gang, paving the street in front of his family’s home in Florida. It was featured on his 1960 album of the same name. The lyrics were added the next year by Oscar Brown Jr. for his album Sin & Soul.
The first of our two takes has to be a video of Work Song with Nat Adderley and the Cannonball Adderly Sextet from 1962:
When it comes to our second take we need to include the lyrics. It is a shame that a video was not made of the charasmatic Oscar Brown Jr singing the song when he first released his album Sin & Soul. There is a fine video of him singing it (here) with his bass player son, BoBo, in 1996 shortly before Bobo died in a car accident that August. Oscar died in 2005.
Less successful, I think, was Nina Simone's daughter, Lisa, singinging Work Song in Marciac, France in 2015 (here), but then it would be difficult to replicate her mother's performance. For our second take we can see a video of Nina Simone singing on the Merv Griffin Show in 1966. The video is 'available for licence' which presumably means one can pay to see it without the 'reelinintheyears' addrtess on the screen, but despite that, it is a moving performance:
Gonna see my sweet honey bee
Gonna break this chain off to run
Gonna lay down somewhere shady
Lord I sure am hot in the sun
Hold it right there while I hit it
well reckon that ought to get it
been workin' and workin'
been workin' and slavin'
an' workin' and workin'
but I still got so terribly far to go
09.2024