Biography
Ozella Jones is known for only two tracks recorded by Alan Lomax and Zora Neale Hurston at the State Farm in Raiford, FL, in 1936 as part of the Archive of American Folk Song project. Her unaccompanied singing on the weary, wistful, and haunting "Prisoner Blues" (the song is sometimes listed as "I Been a Bad, Bad Girl," since it is a loosely adapted version of Barefoot Bill's "Bad Boy," released on Columbia Records in 1930), recorded May 4, 1936, is a true marvel. Two days later, on May 6, she sang with Annie May Jefferson on a version of "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," again recorded at the State Farm. Nothing else is known of her life, but the testament she delivers on "Prisoner Blues" sets one moment of it in timeless relief.
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