Since the earliest days of slavery, singing has accompanied all kinds of group and individual work activities of African Americans. These improvised songs, known as work songs, field calls (also field hollers) and street calls (also street cries) served many functions. Singing passed the time, coordinated the movements of workers and offered encouragement. They also communicated human emotions and provided a forum for criticizing whites in positions of authority.
https://timeline.carnegiehall.org/genres/work-songs-field-street-calls-satirical-protest-songs

https://blackmusicscholar.com/field-hollers-and-work-songs/

“Arwhoolie” (Cornfield Holler)

Roosevelt ‘Giant’ Hudson – Field Holler

John and Ruby Lomax recorded Roosevelt ‘Giant’ Hudson at the Cummins State Farm in Gould, Arkansas, Camp #1

African American chain gang | work songs and spirituals (1929) [restored video and audio]

This film was made in Augusta, Georgia, which lies on the border with South Carolina. March 18th, 1929. The workers appear to be in the process of smoothing out a road. The first song, “Build Right on that Shore” can be classified as a spiritual. The second song “Waterboy, Run” is a work song, used to keep rhythm and entertain the workers just as sailors would sing sea shanties onboard a ship. This kind of music was more popular during the nineteenth century, when it was performed by slaves to accompany their labor. Most of the authentic recordings that exist of African American work songs (including those made by John and Alan Lomax) were recorded in prisons; this is because prisons were isolated from the popular music trends of the outside world, so the old songs were preserved. Here are some films made in the 1960s showing more prison work songs:
https://www.folkstreams.net/films/afro-american-work-songs-in-a-texas-prison

https://www.folkstreams.net/films/parchman-penitentiary

It is this kind of traditional African American folk music that gave rise to blues, jazz, rock n roll, and arguably most of modern popular music (“Build Right on that Shore” even uses the twelve-bar blues chord sequence!). If anyone has any information about the two songs, I’d love to hear it. All I know is that “Build Right on that Shore” is Roud 16441. I added artificial color with an automatic online tool, and improved the audio to remove background noise.

Wade in the Water – Deeper Dimension (Official video)

“Wade in the Water” (Roud 5439) is the name of a Negro spiritual first published in New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1901) by John Wesley Work II and his brother, Frederick J. Work (see Fisk Jubilee Singers). It is associated with the songs of the Underground Railroad.

Wade in the Water

The Brotherhood performing ‘Wade in the Water’ on a local Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky broadcast. This was taken while standing behind the cameramen

“Wade in the Water” (Roud 5439) is an African American jubilee song, a spiritual—in reference to a genre of music “created and first sung by African Americans in slavery.” The lyrics to “Wade in the Water” were first co-published in 1901 in New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers by Frederick J. Work and his brother, John Wesley Work Jr., an educator at the historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, Fisk University. Work Jr. (1871–1925)—who is also known as John Work II—spent thirty years collecting, promoting, and reviving the songcraft of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, which included being a member and director of the Fisk Jubilee Quartet. The Sunset Four Jubilee Singers made the first commercial recording of “Wade in the Water” in 1925—released by Paramount Records. W. E. B. Du Bois called this genre of songs the Sorrow Songs. “Wade in the Water” is associated with songs of the Underground Railroad