It Makes Me Want To Holler

 Here’s a fun little album I’ve not featured before.

 

A virtual window into a time gone by, Hollerin’ was issued by roots and rock ‘n’ roll specialists Rounder Records in 1976, but the competition that inspired the album began in 1969 at Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina, where farmers would gather annually to show off their skill at producing these piercing, high-pitched vocalisations. 

 

Although there are similarities, hollerin’ is not the same as yodelling or other farm or hunting calls: its roots can be traced back to the men working on logging rafts in the 1700s, used when transporting felled timber along rivers. Loggers would holler back and forth to each other so that their rafts would not run into each other, or they would holler out distress calls if they became stuck or injured, so that other loggers would come to their aid.

 

As Bill Nowlin, one of the founders of Rounder Records, explains on the company’s website, ‘Hollers were a way to communicate in days before telephones. They could be greetings from one farmer to another, distress hollers, or just a way to have fun while working in the field. Animals responded to them—they could be a way to bring in the pigs. Because of their high pitch, they carried better than shouting. One farmer told me that when he was courting a woman a couple of farms away, he would begin hollerin’ along the way. It was notice for her to put on her perfume so she could be ready.’

 

Most of the tracks on Hollerin’ were recorded at the competition in 1975. Prior to the album an EP, also recorded live at Spivey’s Corner in 1975 was issued by the company, featuring four of North Carolina’s finest hollerers, all of whom would also feature on the LP.

 

Hollerin’ is both an important collection of long-lost folk art, and a tremendously fun and entertaining peek into a world now gone. The album is still available, both on CD and digitally, and I highly recommend it.

 

Here are a couple of examples to whet your appetite: Leonard Emmanuel, the winner of the 1971 Spivey’s Corner Hollerin' Contest, and Old Georgie Buck, and Floyd Lee, the 1973 winner, with the medley Lulu's My Darling/Hollering In An Automobile.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Georgie HERE

Download Lulu HERE