Wake Up Dead Man
Hard Labor and Southern Blues

"Making it in Hell" says Bruce Jackson, is the spirit behind the 65 worksongs gathered in this dispatch from a brutal era of prison life in the deep south. Through documented song arrangements and profiles of their singers, he shows how these songs are distinctly African in heritage.

"Making it in Hell, " says Bruce Jackson, is the spirit behind the sixty-five worksongs gathered in this eloquent dispatch from a brutal era of prison life in the Deep South. Through engagingly documented song arrangements and profiles of their singers, Jackson shows how such pieces as Hammer Ring, " "Ration Blues, " "Yellow Gal, " and "Jody's Got My Wife and Gone" are like no other folk music forms: they are distinctly African in heritage, diminished in power and meaning outside of their prison context, an used exclusively by black convicts. The songs paced workers through the rigors of cane-cutting, logging, and cotton-picking. Perhaps most important, they helped resolve the men's hopes and longings and allowed them a subtle outlet for grievances they could never voice when face-to-face with their jailers.