An album focusing on music of chain gangs, this record is as explosive and powerful as any in
Belafonte's catalog. Accompanied again by
the Belafonte Folk Singers and the occasional guitar and bass (with conductor Bob Corman credited under his real name, Robert De Cormier),
Belafonte turns the hypnotic, rhythmic chants of Negro prisoners into riveting, passionate songs of unrelenting loneliness and shame ("Swing Dat Hammer"), torturous days laboring in the hot sun ("Go Down Old Hannah"), hatred for their captors ("Grizzly Bear") and even their guard dogs ("Here Rattler Here"). "Diamond Joe" features
Belafonte expressing the prisoner's anger and despair as he faces an endless life on the rock pile. It is one of the most chilling performances of his career.