<P> It had prevalence among whites in the southern United States too . </P> <P> It was described by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1853 as a' long, loud, musical shout, rising and falling and breaking into falsetto', a description that would also have fitted examples recorded a century later . Some hollers are wordless, like the field call by Annie Grace Horn Dodson; Some have elaborated syllables and melismas, such as the long example recorded at the Parchman Farm penitentiary in Mississippi in 1947, by "Bama", of a Levee Camp Holler . </P> <P> Verbal, improvised lines were used as cries for water and food and cries about what was happening in their daily lives, as expressions of religious devotion, a source of motivation in repetitive work, and a way of presenting oneself over across the fields . They described the labor being done (e.g., corn shucking songs, mule - skinning songs) recounted personal experiences or the singer's thoughts, subtly insulted white work attendants, or used folk themes . An unidentified singer of a Camp Holler was urged on with shouts and comments by his friends, suggesting that the holler could also have a social role . Call and response arose as sometimes a lone caller would be heard and answered with another laborer's holler from a distant field . Some street cries might be considered an urban form of holler, though they serve a different function (like advertising a seller's product); an example is the call of' The Blackberry Woman', Dora Bliggen, in New Orleans . </P> <P> Field hollers, cries and hollers of the slaves and later sharecroppers working in cotton fields, prison chain gangs, railway gangs (Gandy dancers) or turpentine camps are seen as the precursor to the call and response of African American spirituals and gospel music, to jug bands, minstrel shows, stride piano, and ultimately to the blues, to rhythm and blues, jazz and to African American music in general . </P>

The blues originated from field hollers shouts and work songs