There's No Hiding Place Down Here: A Song History

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In "There's No Hiding Place Down Here," a singer goes to a rock for shelter and is told that no refuge exists.[1] The Traditional Ballad Index reports it from the southeastern United States and the Bahamas and gives it Roud number 3408.[1] An early printing, titled "No Hiding Place," appears in Folk Songs of the American Negro, a collection edited by Frederick J. Work and published in Nashville in 1907.[2][3]

Enormous overhanging boulder with a small seated figure in its shade, a valley and buildings beyond

Andrew Joseph Russell, Hanging Rock, Foot of Echo Cañon, albumen silver print, 1867–68. A man resting beneath a great overhanging rock in 1867 or 1868, shown for the song's singer who goes to a rock for shelter; the photograph has no connection to the song.

The Carter Family recorded it for Victor on December 11, 1934, in Camden, New Jersey, with Ralph Peer supervising the session.[4] The discography's files credit A. P. Carter with the words and music, though they add that he was possibly the song's adapter or arranger.[4] It came out on Bluebird B-5961, on the Australian Regal Zonophone label, and on Montgomery Ward M-4547, where it shared the disc with "There'll Be Joy, Joy, Joy," cut at the same session.[4][5]

The song also had a life on the concert stage and in quartet singing: the contralto Marian Anderson recorded Lawrence Brown's arrangement in 1937 with pianist Kosti Vehanen, and the Hampton Institute Quartet sang it unaccompanied for Victor in April 1941, for the album Swing Low: Grand Old Spirituals.[6][7] Lulu Belle & Scotty issued a version on Conqueror that same year.[1] Elwood Donnelly chose it as one of 35 songs, drawn from a Carter Family output his product description puts at 300, for Such Singing You Will Hear: 35 Songs Of The Carter Family, which sets each in DAD tuning with guidance for the dulcimer player, for accompanying instruments and for singers.[8]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "No Hiding Place".
  2. Hymnary.org: "No Hiding Place" (Folk Songs of the American Negro, No. 1, #30a).
  3. Hymnary.org: "Folk Songs of the American Negro (No. 1)".
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BS-87029. There's no hiding place down here / Carter Family".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Montgomery Ward M-4547".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Gramophone DA-1597 (10-in.)".
  7. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor 27472 (Black label (popular) 10-in. double-faced). Swing low: Grand old spirituals (Album P-78)".
  8. Elwood Donnelly: "Such Singing You Will Hear: 35 Songs Of The Carter Family".
  9. Image: Andrew Joseph Russell, Hanging Rock, Foot of Echo Cañon, albumen silver print, 1867–68. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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