'Alex Wheatle writes from a place of honesty and passion with the full knowledge and understanding that change can only happen through words and actions.’ Steve McQueen. Alex Wheatle's life is the basis for an episode of McQueen's Small Axe airing November 2020. 'Grabs your heart, not with pity but wonder that such beauty can come from such a life' The Independent ‘She wondered what kind of world she had brought her two daughters into – the tedious cycle of rural Jamaican life. No chance for them to set off upon adventures and see the outside world.’ But sisters Jenny and Hortense Rodney, descendants of the fierce Maroon people, do get to see the outside world, and Island Songs is their story. Growing up in rural Claremont, working amid the hustle and bustle, lawn parties and ‘houses of joy’ in Trenchtown, the two sisters take a chance and move to England with their husbands, that far-off land of riches, where they settle down to motherhood among the jazz cafés and bleak streets of Brixton. A hauntingly beautifully written evocation of twentieth-century Jamaica, its history and traditions, Island Songs is an epic of love, laughter and sorely tested family loyalties. Many stories are told, but many more secrets are never revealed.

A valuable collection of folk music and lore from the Gullah culture, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands preserves the rich traditions of slave descendants on the barrier islands of Georgia by interweaving their music with descriptions of their language, religious and social customs, and material culture. Collected over a period of nearly twenty-five years by Lydia Parrish, the sixty folk songs and attendant lore included in this book are evidence of antebellum traditions kept alive in the relatively isolated coastal regions of Georgia. Over the years, Parrish won the confidence of many of the African-American singers, not only collecting their songs but also discovering other elements of traditional culture that formed the context of those songs. When it was first published in 1942, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands contained much material that had not previously appeared in print. The songs are grouped in categories, including African survival songs; shout songs; ring-play, dance, and fiddle songs; and religious and work songs. In additions to the lyrics and melodies, Slave Songs includes Lydia Parrish's explanatory notes, character sketches of her informants, anecdotes, and a striking portfolio of photographs. Reproduced in its original oversized format, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands will inform and delight students and scholars of African-American culture and folklore as well as folk music enthusiasts.

"Through the close analysis of musical performance and tradition, the scholarly contributiors to Island Songs provide a global review of how island songs, their lyrics, and their singers engage with the challenges of modernity, migration, and social change uncovering common patterns despite the diversity and local character of their subjects"--Page 4 of cover.

"Includes complete lyrics, chord symbols & ukulele chord diagrams"--Cover.