Alan Lomax Archive | Peerless Four: Trouble In My Way (1960) @AlanLomaxArchive | Uploaded April 2020 | Updated October 2024, 22 hours ago.
Members of this Tidewater Virginia gospel group unidentified at the time of the recording, in May of 1960. (A Norfolk group under this name made some records later in the '60s, which included the names of the following singers: Clyde Burston, Percy Griffin, Jake Chambers, and Charles Russell. If anyone can confirm their involvement in Lomax's session, please let us know. Photo is culled from the group's Discogs entry, as Lomax took no pictures during the session.)
Alan Lomax later recalled: "I made this record in a little Baptist church in the slums of Norfolk, inviting a group of neighborhood girls to listen. When they began to clap and stomp out an accompanying rhythm, the Peerless Four took off and flew. Somewhere in the middle you can hear the two leaders swapping their rhythmic parts with every phrase, a feat I have [sic] never before heard quite equaled at this tempo."
Members of this Tidewater Virginia gospel group unidentified at the time of the recording, in May of 1960. (A Norfolk group under this name made some records later in the '60s, which included the names of the following singers: Clyde Burston, Percy Griffin, Jake Chambers, and Charles Russell. If anyone can confirm their involvement in Lomax's session, please let us know. Photo is culled from the group's Discogs entry, as Lomax took no pictures during the session.)
Alan Lomax later recalled: "I made this record in a little Baptist church in the slums of Norfolk, inviting a group of neighborhood girls to listen. When they began to clap and stomp out an accompanying rhythm, the Peerless Four took off and flew. Somewhere in the middle you can hear the two leaders swapping their rhythmic parts with every phrase, a feat I have [sic] never before heard quite equaled at this tempo."
![Susan Shepherd: The [1927] Kentucky Flood (1937)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SVrr3GoJwtg/hqdefault.jpg "Susan Shepherd: The [1927] Kentucky Flood (1937)
*In the wake of the devastating flooding that struck Eastern Kentucky on July 27-28, 2022, please considering donating to relief efforts: https://appalshop.org/news/appalachian-flood-support-resources *
A ballad performed (and presumably composed) by Susan Shepherd concerning the May 29-30, 1927 flood in Letcher Co., Kentucky. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax at Cumberland, Harlan Co., Kentucky, September 27, 1937. For more from the Lomaxes Kentucky recordings and Alans fieldwork collections in general, visit archive.culturalequity.org. [AFS 1433A & B1]")
