Tom Davenport's Playlist

1. Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison (1966)

Pete Seeger and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 and produced Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison, a rare document of work songs by inmates of the Ellis Unit.

Worksongs helped African American prisoners survive the grueling work demanded of them. With mechanization and integration, worksongs like these died out shortly after this film was made.

The large plantations in the U.S. South were based on West African agricultural models and, with one major difference, the black slaves used worksongs in the plantations exactly as they had used them before they had been taken prisoner and sold to the white men. The difference was this: in Africa the songs were used to time body movements and to give poetic voice to things of interest because people wanted to do their work that way; in the plantations there was added a component of survival. If a man were singled out as working too slowly, he would often be brutally punished. The songs kept everyone together, so no one could be singled out as working more slowly than everyone else.

-- From Bruce Jackson's background notes on making this film.

2. A Singing Stream (1985)

A Singing Stream 1985 —  my own film about a rural Black family in North Carolina. First of a two part series following the Landis family over four generations.

With interviews and stories, and scenes from daily life, reunions, gospel concerts, and church services, the film traces the history of the Landis family of Granville County, North Carolina, over the lifetime of its oldest surviving member, 86-year-old Mrs. Bertha M. Landis. Particularly featured are performances by her sons’ gospel quartet The Golden Echoes of such songs as "Troubles of the World," "Going up to Meet Him," and "The Old Rugged Cross," and family and church performances of "Mighty Close to Heaven," Come and Let's Go to that Land," and "There's Union up in Heaven."

This film was released in 1985. It is the first of two documentaries that follow the story of a gifted African American family from the rural South. The sequel "Reunion" (2016) follows the grandchildren into the 21th Century.

3. Style Wars (1983)— Urban graffiti art in New York

Style Wars chronicles an extraordinary epoch of youthful creativity and civic controversy. Teenage graffiti artists made New York City's ramshackle subway system their public playground, battleground, and spectacular artist canvas. Opposing them were Mayor Ed Koch, the police, and the Transit Authority. As MC's and DJs rocked the city with new sounds, street corner B-boy breakdance battles became performance art. The phrase "New York 1982"(the superimposed title that starts the film) has itself become a code for a legendary time of heroic teenage exploits, a touchstone for successive generations of youth worldwide, many of whom can recite the film's dialogue by heart.

3. Clotheslines (1981)— local women in the Bronx talk about their secret lives

With verve and humor, Clotheslines shows the love/hate relationship that women have with the task of cleaning the family's clothes. As we see the clothes flapping in the wind and hear the voices - some proud, some angry, some wistful - we realize that doing laundry calls forth deep feelings about one's role in life. Some remember when their mothers and grandmothers tackled the same chores using washtubs and washboards, or even river streams. This engaging film pays homage to the commonality of women's experience. Most of Clotheslines was shot in New York City, Brooklyn and Queens.

4. It Ain’t City Music (1973)

5. The Highly Exalted (1984)

6. The Men Who Danced the Giglio (1995)

7. The End of an Old Song (1969)

8. Halsted Street (1995)

9. Celebration of a Marriage (1986)

10. How to Build an Igloo (1949)

11. Til the Butcher Cuts Him Down (1971)