The Day is So Long and the Wages So Small: Music on a Summer Island

by Samuel Charters

In the summer of 1958, jazz and blues historian Samuel Charters traveled with Ann Danberg to Andros, a remote island "on the wrong side of the wind" in the Bahamas. Living within a small local community descended from a handful of Bahamian slaves, they discovered how the unique historical fusion of disparate cultures on Andros, from Africa and Europe, had resulted in a wealth of traditional music that had stubbornly resisted the influx of modern styles. Combining rare travel and musical elements with Danberg’s evocative photographs, Char-ters describes their search for a song so rich and startling in its resonance, they had to follow it to its source. "Just about the best 'what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation’ report ever written." — Booklist (starred review)

Genres: Nonfiction, Music

176 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1999

About the author

Samuel Charters was an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet.

Reviews

[Nicole C. (using StoryGraph more these days) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't remember how I came across this book, but a few years ago I was attempting to create a list of books set in more international locales than those toward which I normally tend to gravitate - US/Western Europe. This slim title, obtained all the way from Maine for me by my library system, is a gem. I don't know much about folk or blues music, but while that is the main reason FOR this book, it's not necessary to have that knowledge to enjoy it. Samuel Charters (along with the woman who would later become his wife, Ann) travel to Andros, one of the lesser-known Bahamian islands, in the summer of 1958, searching for the origin of a song that has been haunting Samuel since he heard it months earlier.

Charters' prose is very vivid and takes the reader along to the little settlements they visit; you can smell the sea and the sand, and feel the heat burnishing your skin along with them as they evade sharks, fish for their dinners, and meet a bevy of musical folk descended from African slaves who were abandoned on the island long ago.

If you're a fan of music, brief memoirs, or travelogues, you will probably find something to like in this book.

[Devon Leger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the best book I’ve ever read about fieldwork. Charters is a seminal writer on black American music, especially the blues, and undertook some pretty impressive work in his career. But this book is the account of a calmer time in his life, as he travels to the Bahamas in 1958 looking for a place to lie low with his new partner, Anne. Their time on the island is a hazy dream of early love and slow-time fieldwork. Charters was a poet too, so his prose sparkles like sun on the ocean. While there, they discovered the legendary guitarist Joseph Spence and other great artists, but it’s less the story of a dogged anthropologist and more the story of two people’s immersion in a strange and beautifully alien (to them) world. His description of the music he finds is wonderfully rendered, and his obvious love for the island and the characters he meets is molded of the same clay as his descriptions of falling deeper in love with his soon-to-be wife. It’s a beautiful book.

[Ken Mitten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tight, evocative travelogue/ music history tome. Transported me to a place and time that were new to me. I will now explore the music detailed in the book. Recommended.

[Sarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent for anyone interested in travel writing, memoir, or music. It describes a summer spent on the Bahamas' Andros Island in the late 1950s to record some of the island's traditional music. Some of the writer's experiences really stick with you--everything from the vivid descriptions of the music and scenery to a story of how some young boys caught a shark which had swam up into a creek. I found it to be a fairly quick read, though I think it's mainly because it was definitely interesting enough to keep me reading!