Square Dance With Soul
Two audio excerpts from the album Square Dancing With Soul by Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, originally released on the Folkways label in 1969. The comments are from the booklet released with the album, which contains a lengthy essay worth reading.
The complete album is available to listen to on YouTube.
Red River Valley: "Know that we are not totally Africans nor Western. I thought I would exist a hybrid culture here - Afro-American, singing a Western song isn't that real? Isn't that at home? That is a real fact. That's what people are looking for, the truth about realism. All ethnic groups can dance well on this one.
"Square sets - and let's have a good time Western style."
Swing Your Own Thing: "A dance written also by Brother Kirkpatrick:
" This one is telling it like it is. Do your personal worth. Show your ideas. Of course your thing in this particular setting is your partner. The broad behind is your corner. Language of Black origin and living our _own life. The commands are more meaningful, the feelings are more at home. In other words it is you nobody but you, that is the way it's been and that's the way its going to be. A good real simple life where people love people - respect, humanity. Let me be me, I can't be you. So leave me alone, I don't want to be you. I know too much about you. I've followed your path. It has not been a beautiful one. Now I'm going back to the old land mark.
"Square: your sets and do your own thing. Square your life and do your own thing."
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Two audio excerpts from the album Square Dancing With Soul by Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, originally released on the Folkways label in 1969. The comments are from the booklet released with the album, which contains a lengthy essay worth reading.
The complete album is available to listen to on YouTube.
Red River Valley: "Know that we are not totally Africans nor Western. I thought I would exist a hybrid culture here - Afro-American, singing a Western song isn't that real? Isn't that at home? That is a real fact. That's what people are looking for, the truth about realism. All ethnic groups can dance well on this one.
"Square sets - and let's have a good time Western style."
Swing Your Own Thing: "A dance written also by Brother Kirkpatrick:
" This one is telling it like it is. Do your personal worth. Show your ideas. Of course your thing in this particular setting is your partner. The broad behind is your corner. Language of Black origin and living our _own life. The commands are more meaningful, the feelings are more at home. In other words it is you nobody but you, that is the way it's been and that's the way its going to be. A good real simple life where people love people - respect, humanity. Let me be me, I can't be you. So leave me alone, I don't want to be you. I know too much about you. I've followed your path. It has not been a beautiful one. Now I'm going back to the old land mark.
"Square: your sets and do your own thing. Square your life and do your own thing."