Katherine Shipp

ON, MAY 13, 1939, Herbert Halpert produced some field recordings in Byhalia, MS, including many with the category of Walter and Mary Shipp. Walter, a sharecropper and minister, and Mary, a choir movie director, had 14 kids, many of whom participated in the archival task, however the couple’s two daughters, Katherine and Christine, after that 19 and twenty years aged, were the true standouts, delivering many rope-skipping rhymes and rhythms that still possess a romantic and haunting power each one of these years later on, specially the eerie and mystical fragment known as “Ocean Lion Female.” The lyrics of the track for keeping period are not difficult, mostly about taking in coffee and taking in tea, but there’s an ominous, edgy, and unsaid eeriness about any of it that techniques beyond terms and indicating. The lyric continues to be given many variant titles over time, including “Ocean Lion Female,” “Observe Lyin’ Female,” “C-Line Female,” “See-Lye Female,” “Observe Line Female” (this is actually the title utilized by Nina Simone on her behalf edition), and “She Lyin’ Female,” which only increases the enigmatic character of the documenting that this Shipp sisters produced that day time. Greg Hale Jones looped the initial field recording from the tune to lengthen it, added electronically improved ambience, and positioned two versions from the modernized edition (still including Katherine and Christine’s vocals) for the General’s Girl soundtrack in 1999. The outcome was spooky and atmospheric, but so was the initial, which is constantly on the fascinate anyone who hears it.