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CNN Saturday Morning News

Harry Belafonte Discusses New Anthology

Aired August 25, 2001 - 08:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: This morning we're going to take you back 40 years, when a young musician by the name of Harry Belafonte began a labor of love. We're talking about 50 artists and 80 songs, a musical retelling of the black experience in America prior to 1900. Work songs, ballads, deep blues, and hymns; musical expression that hasn't been heard by you or me for four decades.

Mr. Belafonte puts us in touch with the chants of African people, displaced by slavery of their rich choral traditions of spirituals reaching into the 20th century.

Harry Belafonte is in Orlando, Florida where he is speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists and he's also joining us to talk about this "Long Road to Freedom, an Anthology of Black Music." Harry, what a pleasure to see you this morning.

HARRY BELAFONTE, MUSICIAN: Thank you very much, I'm glad to be with you.

PHILLIPS: Well, tell me, why did this take 40 years? Give me the background.

BELAFONTE: When we first started to do this project, back in 1961, RCA, Victor and Reader's Digest had a relationship that sponsored and supported the making of this project. By the time the project had ended, RCA and Reader's Digest had dissolved their union and the project needed the support of both in order to be marketed.

I thought that it would only take maybe two or three years for us to find another home for this, but it wasn't quite that easy. Now, here 30 years later, we found that when RCA was bought by BMG they went into the archives, their treasures, discovered this volume of our work, and listened to it, and decided that it was worthy of release. And I'm very delighted.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about -- you began singing in other languages and you really began to dig deeper into rural black America. You found incredible diversity in Harlem. Tell me about what you discovered and why you wanted to put this kind of music together.

BELAFONTE: Well, I've always felt that the purpose of art is not just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be. And in the earliest years of blacks in America, we have no way of documenting our history. We were not permitted to write, we were not permitted to go to schools. There was no way to document our history, except through music.

And in the music and in our songs, starting with the earliest days of slavery up until this very day, much of our history was very accurately documented in this art form. And when you go back into this history, much of which had been archived in the Library of Congress, I discovered this remarkable volume of music, of all different levels of social and human expression. And I just felt that were Americans to be able to hear this music, they'd begin to understand much more about what black people have gone through in America and what their hopes and aspirations have been.

PHILLIPS: You talk about that expression. Let's talk about "Shouts and Early Spirituals." We're going to hear a little bit of "Hark Ye Angel."

(MUSIC)

PHILLIPS: And that's your beautiful voice. Tell us a little bit about that song.

BELAFONTE: That song, I learned from a woman by the name of Bessie Jones who comes from the Georgia Sea Islands, or she did come, she's no longer with us. And the Georgia Sea Islands and the music there has been undisturbed by 20th century industrial development. Much of the music and the culture in the Georgia Sea Islands are very, very close to its African origins and we went there in order to be able to bring an authentic voice to what we were trying to do. And this song, which I learned from Bessie Jones, was one of the eight songs that I sing in the volume, which has over 80 songs in it.

PHILLIPS: On CD number two, "Louisiana Creole," I can relate to this. I lived in New Orleans. Tell me about "Miche Banjo".

BELAFONTE: "Miche Banjo" was one of the earliest songs that sang to the celebration of black liberation. There are many characters in American folk lore that come out of African, roots in African culture, that was used by Africans when they celebrated high holidays and "Miche Banjo" was one of them.

PHILLIPS: And let's listen to number three, "The Colored Volunteer." This is "The Long Road to Freedom, The War Period." Let's listen to this for a moment.

All right, let's move on to, how about "Joe Turner Blues." This is from "Bad Men, Booze, and Minstrels." Let's listen to this a minute.

(MUSIC)

PHILLIPS: Actually, that's "The Colored Volunteer," right, Harry?

BELAFONTE: No, it's neither.

PHILLIPS: No, what is that? BELAFONTE: That is a song that comes out of the Catholic Church in New Orleans and it showed the diversity of the religious involvement of blacks in America. The French, who dominated Louisiana, and the Protestants of England an Europe, who dominated the eastern part of the United States, brought those special religious cultures, and the African community was required to adopt these religious cultures in order to have their own expression.

PHILLIPS: I love how you improvise there with me. Thank you so much. We have so many CD's Harry, we want to get all of it in here.

All right, now let's listen to this one. I know this is a favorite of yours, "I'll Never Turn Back No More." Let's listen for a minute.

(MUSIC)

PHILLIPS: Absolutely beautiful. "My God is a Rock" is the title of that CD, and you had MLK speak in that song, correct?

BELAFONTE: Well, once again, there has been some miscue here. This song is out of the Steven Foster period and it was one of the more popular songs of the day during the antebellum period, which was -- it's a song about a young man going to see his lady in her gingham blue dress.

PHILLIPS: Now, I'm sorry, Harry. I apologize. I guess we're having problems with the switcher. I really am sorry.

BELAFONTE: No, that's all right.

PHILLIPS: It's still beautiful.

BELAFONTE: It is a beautiful song.

PHILLIPS: And you know, I think what is amazing, and I want to make sure we make this point, is the fact that all this beautiful music and everything that the black people went through, it is incredible that all of that did come out with this beautiful music.

BELAFONTE: Well, one of the things that you are identifying is that, when you track the periods through which this music emerges, you'll find songs from the chain gang, you'll find songs from the Civil War period when black regiments volunteers to serve in the Union army. And the songs they wrote to inspire them in battle as well as to speak to their hopes and aspirations of the period.

"Joe Turner," the song that you're listening to right now, being sung by...

PHILLIPS: Oh, what a shame. We lost our satellite. Mr. Belafonte was talking about "The Joe Turner Blues" and one of his favorites, Gloria Lynn. We want to let you know, once again, it's called "The Long Road to Freedom, an Anthology of Black Music." It's a beautiful set of CDs and black history and we hope you'll check it out. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com