About the Film
This film documents work songs of a fishing community in Ghana, the West-African roots of the work-song tradition shown in the films "Afro American Worksongs in a Texas Prison" and "Gandy Dancers". The film shows the community singing as it pulls fish nets onto the shore and men on boats in heavy surf singing to pace their rowing. It was shot 40 miles northeast of Accra, Ghana, January 7th or 8th, 1964.
The film material is part of the Seeger collection at the Library of Congress. The majority of films in this collection were shot on the Seeger family's ten-month performing tour during 1963 and 1964 that included stops in Japan, Indonesia, India, East and West Africa, Israel, the USSR, and Ireland.
During the world tour, Pete Seeger kept readers informed with his regular "Johnny Appleseed, Jr." column in Sing Out! magazine. In the April/May 1964 edition, he wrote:
On this trip, we have so much equipment with us that, to keep from paying too much overweight charge on the planes, our clothing is down to the bare minimum. One pair of shoes apiece, two socks, two shirts, etc. The rest is banjos and guitars, a tape recording machine, and cameras, cameras, cameras.
