Belton sutherland biography of barack

“Kill the Old Grey Mule, Burn Down the White Man’s Barn”:
An Unmarked Biography of Belton Sutherland

By T. DeWayne Moore, Executive Director, Mt.

Zion Memorial Fund

The Association for Cultural Equity (ACE)—a charitable organization founded by folklorist Alan Lomax to explore and preserve the world’s expressive traditions with humanistic commitment and scientific engagement—posted four and a half minutes of largely unseen footage to the internet on December 16, 2010.

It featured a guitar player singing an improvised blues number on a porch in Madison County, Mississippi. Shot by John Bishop, Worth Long, and Lomax at the farm of Clyde Maxwell on September 3, 1978, the rolling rhythm of his guitar and the atmospheric accompaniment of the crickets projected a pure release of emotion to the creator, introducing Belton Sutherland, in all his foot-tapping and cigarette-smoking glory, to folks across the globe.

He played a classic Kay archtop guitar tuned do