Alabama songster and harmonica player Horace Sprott entered the world on February 2, 1890, as the child of Bessie Ford, a woman once held in bondage, and acquired his family name from the Sprott Plantation of his birth. Early on he adopted both guitar and harmonica, performing a blend of blues, work songs, spirituals, and traditional slave material at neighborhood gatherings and social events throughout the region. Legal difficulties later led to a period of confinement on a prison work farm in Montgomery. In 1954, while in Marion, Alabama, Folkways researcher Frederic Ramsey came across Sprott and, struck by the breadth of his material—particularly several unaccompanied vocal pieces—captured seven sessions with him across April and May. The resulting field tapes were condensed into an LP issued that same year on Folkways Records. The release generated short-lived interest within folk circles, prompting a 1956 appearance by Sprott on a CBS television broadcast, yet no sustained performing career developed. He gradually receded from view, passing in the early 1990s.
