Another Man Done Gone

Another Man Done Gone

U.S. South

prison

time: 20th century

"Another Man Done Gone" centers around the American South's early 20th century penal farm system, whose conditions were notoriously terrible. Like many institutions of the post-reconstruction era, they were heavily racialized with a disproportionate population of black prisoners in comparison to the state's black population. The song makes particular mention of the chain gang, whereby prisoners were linked to one another via shackles and toiled in hard labor such as building highways or clearing land. While various penal labor systems still exist, the practice of chain gangs would largely fall out of favor by the mid-20th century but would have been a relatively common sight during the time of Vera Hall's recording by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax.

songwriter: unknown

1937

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English

genre: blues

genre: folk

United States

Wade, Stephen. "Vera Hall: The Life We Live," In The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience. Baltimore: University of Illinois Press, 2015. 169-170. Accessed June 10, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Vera Hall

Sandy Trand

Another Man Done Gone [Youtube]