Biography
In the middle and later years of the 1930s, Henry Truvillion committed approximately sixty songs, calls, and chants to John Lomax under the auspices of the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song initiative. Mississippi native Truvillion spent years laboring on railroad lines before establishing himself in East Texas's "Big Thicket" region, serving there both as a part-time minister and as foreman for a Wier Lumber Company work crew. The intensity of his vernacular performances combined with his extensive command of numerous traditional forms—including stock calls, work songs, track-lining chants, hunting songs, harvest songs, and additional folk expressions—rendered him an important source for Lomax's studies, leading the folklorist to document Truvillion's contributions during no fewer than six sessions spanning 1933 to 1940.