Featuring Vienna Carroll, Vocals; Keith Johnston, Guitar & Backing Vocals; Newman Taylor Baker/Washboard XT – Washboard; and Stanley Banks, Bass. Guests: Melanie Dyer, Henrique Prince, Nioka Workman.
Listen and Purchase CD at https://viennacarrollmusic.com/music
– ANTEBELLUM FREEDOM AGENTS AND SEA SHANTEY SINGERS
In the 1800’s Black men, both free and enslaved, comprised 22% of those who worked on the water, the primary way to move goods at that time. They traveled from northern to southern ports, throughout the Caribbean, to Europe, Australasia and Japan and returned to their communities with stories of life outside the slaveocracy of the U.S.
Sailors wrote the first six autobiographies of Black Americans. Active agents on the Underground Railroad, their freedom messages were so stirring that after the rebellion led by sailor, Denmark Vesey, South Carolina enacted the 1822 Quarantine Laws/Negro Seaman Acts, jailing these men when they came to port.
Phyrrus Concer, a Black Long Island Whaler at the opening of Japan 1845
The grave marker for Edmund Moody, a US Black sailor who died in Mangonui, North Island, New Zealand, 1864
Dalyce Newby – Black Sailor in the Civil War
My play Shallow Brown: Thessalonia and the Free Sailor tells of the love, family, suffering and ultimately triumph of these brave yet unsung freedom fighters and how they helped us free ourselves.
Please enjoy a bibliography about our Black sailor heroes I put together for you, for more information.
Featuring Vienna Carroll, Vocals; Keith Johnston, Guitar & Backing Vocals; Dan Furman, Piano; and Michael O’Brien, Bass. This Jazz Christmas EP includes four songs: Santa Baby, Mary Had a Baby, Christmas Time is Here, and Alone in the World. Hear excerpts below:
Christmas album is only $12.97 and includes the four tracks above, and comes in CD format. CD only ships to U.S. Also, tracks for sale separately only $3.50. Full length digital songs available on Spotify Premium. Share the Christmas spirit, buy a CD for Christmas and music lovers.
Listen and Purchase CD at https://viennacarrollmusic.com/music
We all had a fantastic time at the Album Release Party on Friday, March 6, 2020, at the American Folk Art Museum. Vienna Carroll and The Folk played songs from their new album, Harlem Field Recordings, plus older crowd folk favorites. Enjoy the photos and videos!
I’ll be with my string band and we’ll be having lots of fun. Spirituals, work songs, prison blues, and sea chanteys – exuberant, roots and funky. Stanley Banks (George Benson) on bass, Keith Johnston (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Jon Hendricks) on guitar and Newman Taylor Baker (Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Henry Grimes) on washboard.
Come on out. Sing along. Admission is free. CDs for sale!
Gorgeous CD artwork by Ken Daley.
“What a voice!
This evening, awesome Vienna Carroll gave a free concert at the American Folk Art Museum. Accompanied by 2 guitarists [Keith Johnson and Stanley Banks] and a washboard percussionist [Newman Taylor], she got everyone singing folk, gospel, spiritual, call & response, and prison labor songs, and deftly wove in stories of resistance to a range of oppressions (slavery, racist police violence, distortions of history). She gave a shout-out to social media as a tool to expose injustice. Her rendition of the lament-lullaby “Hush Little Baby” was beyond heartbreaking. Intense, informative, inspiring.”
– Review by Pam McAllister
