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Born in 1902, Bessie Jones learned songs from her grandfather Jet Samson (who died in 1941 at age 105) and others from the Georgia Sea Islands. Many of the songs she had learned dated back to slavery days; Jet Samson himself made the voyage. Along with five other members of his family, he had been brought to the United States as a slave and worked on plantations in Virginia and Georgia. As Mary Jo Barron writes in her notes, 'In every song, there is pride and belief and sorrow and determination and hope and humor. Bessie carries within her the culture, the survival of the race.' A warm and energetic performer, she was very aware of the importance of the music she had embraced. She was a teacher as well as a folk artist of the first order. Original recordings by Bruce Kaplan, Mark Wilson and Bill Nowlin 24 bit digital remastering from original analogue sources From the Rounder Heritage Series