I Dream a World

Agnes Addy was born in January 1895 in suyani,. She won a music award in 2001 for her music on” Agnes Addy’s Life”.

Agnes Addy was a singer, storyteller, composer, guitarist and banjo player. She worked as a housekeeper for years before beginning a performing a career at age sixty five .she is the author of many songs, including the folk music classic, “life in this world”. The song has been recorded by groups as diverse as Peter, Emmanuel, and Mary and the Grateful Dead. Until her death at age ninety-five, Agnes Addy continued to perform around the country. She invested the three-fingered picking style of guitar picking that is now called “Addy picking”.

AGNES ADDY

I Dream a World

By Joseph osei

Like Elizabeth Cotton, I named myself. The first day I went to school, the teacher was calling roll and everybody was called a name. My parents didn’t name me. They all called me sis, u knows. so when the teacher got to me, she said, “hi sis, don’t you have a name? What is it? And just said, “Agnes” I don’t know where I got that name. so she put it down and I started being called Agnes.

When I was a little girl my mother and father used to bury their meat. Rub it round and bury it in the ground and put dirt back over it like we didn’t have no meat. The white people would come and take it away from us.

My mother said she could hear the horses’ feet coming over the bridge. And she said, “Addy, you better go hidin’ it.” She’d tell him,”hide the meat, I hear the horses’ feet.” He’d leave a bone where he done cut all the meat off and leave that in the meat house like the meat is gone. And then he’d dig a hole and put all the meat in it. They’d come around and look for it. If he didn’t hide some of it his wounldn’t has none when they left.

When I was a child I went to the door and asked people if they needed somebody to work. I said,”I can wash your dishes,I can set yourr table, and can sweep your kitchen and everything.” And I went to work for this lady for seventy-five cents a month.

I saved my money and gave it to my mother and when she got enough we bought a guitar. I carried it home and started plucking’ on it. my mother said,” now if you don’t put that thing down, I’m gonna git ya. I gotta get to sleep and to work in the mornin’”. And I’d say,”mama, I’m gonna stop. This is the last song.” And I just keep everybody awake all night. Lord has mercy. I was a nuisance, I know I was. But my mama would always say,”she’s my baby. Now let her do what she want to do. She ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.”

I didn’t have no lessons. nobody teach me. I didn’t know anything’. I worked hard. I started playin’ one string at a time. Get a song and get a string and just play up and down. And then I tried to play more strings into the song.

All my brothers could play. Sometimes I’d ask my brothers to show me how to make a chord on the guitar. They said, “I can’t show you how to do it. you got your fingers on the wrong strings. You’re playin’ the left hand and you never stop pickin’. Change the strings and put your fingers on like I tell ya.” I couldn’t do it. I was playing’ my guitar left-handed and didn’t change the strings.

I pick the tune , you know, just on the strings. That’s the way I did all my songs. I reckon that’s why they named it “Agnes pickin’”.

I went to work for the Seeger family [which includes folk singers like Elvis and cindy]. I did everything, cooked, and washed dishes, served. One day, Michael says to me, “Agnes, why don’t we give a little concert?”. They knew I could play because I was playin’ the guitar ever’ minute I got. We had that concert and I stopped work then and went on to play.

Say I’m a musician if you want to, but I didn’t know one chord from another. I don’t know it yet, I mean in letters. Just let me pick and sing.

I just love to sing. I love to get up before people and let ‘em hears what I can do. It does me good to play my guitar. I love to entertain people, sing to ‘em, talk, tell little things about me, what all I used to do. That was my pleasure to do that. 

I was just glad to get the music award. I didn’t know what the thing was. It’s the honor what I loved.