Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs, and Stories from the Afro-American Heritage

by Bessie Jones and Bess Lomax Hawes

Growing up in the rural South, Bessie Jones sang her way through long hours of field work and child tending, entertaining her young companions with chants and riddles or joining them for a rousing evening of ring dances and singing plays. These songs and games, recorded in Step It Down by folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes, capture the shape and color of the crowded, impoverished, life-demanding, and life-loving days of the black family of sixty years...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820309605
• ISBN13: 9780820309606
• Release Date: September 1987
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Every Music Teacher should own this!

This is a fantastic book of African-American Folk Songs. Bessie Jones includes not only the songs, but background information and games/motions to go along with it. I use it religiously in my lesson planning.