I still am working on the history of “Come by Here” and “Kumbaya.” My posts are delayed because a close friend has been ill and needing care. Items will be posted as I have time to complete them.
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
War's End
Topic: Early Versions - Waccamaw Neck
Wars rarely end as scheduled with peace plans in place. They stop when something unexpected occurs on the battlefield.
Sherman took Columbia, South Carolina, on February 17, 1865, while Charleston was taken that day by Quincy Adams Gillmore. [1] Eight days later, on February 25, Allen K. Noyes took control of Georgetown at the lower end of the Waccamaw River. On March 1, Colored units were stationed there. [2]
As troops moved north with Sherman, they informed slaves or slave owners. Georgia Horry recalled that “Mr. Carmichael sent by the state. Go to Brookgreen, Longwood, Watsaw. Tell everting surrender. Go to any located place.” [3]
Up country, where the Wards had taken their slaves, Ellen Godfrey told Genevieve Willcox Chandler: “Yankee officer come. ‘Where Mahams Ward and John J. Woodward? Come to tell ’em take dese people out the dirt camp!” [4]
In many places, the immediate response of freed people was to break into the food stores and appropriate clothing and other plantation property.
Ward’s slaves were not near their plantations. Godfrey recalled their problem was returning home. “Put we in flat. Carry back! Put food and chillum in flat. We been walk.” [5] Going up “Three flat carry two hundred head o’ people and all they things.” [6] On the return, “Three flat gone round wid all the vittles.” [7]
At night they camped where women cooked food for the next day. By then it was December, with “snow on ground.” [8] Cook fires provided heat.
She remembered it was “easier coming home. Current helped. Going up against the current, only poles and cant hooks—tedious going.” [9]
All was not well, for at least one person died on the journey. “Mother Molly die on flat. Bury she right to Longwood grave-yard.” [10]
If one only read the accounts of white women like Elizabeth Blyth Weston, niece of Robert Francis Withers Allston, [11] freed slaves were uncontrollable. She wrote Allston’s wife on 17 March 1865 that Robert’s third cousin, Martha Pyatt, [12] “went at once to George Town leaving everything Toney having not a change of clothes for her infant and I hear has not a servant. Her house was given up to the Negroes at once.” [13] Her plantations were north and south of Ward’s Brook Green. [14]
Weston added that Joshua John Ward’s sister “is anxious to go to Poplar Hill but her people refuse to move her.” [15] Catherine Jones Ward had married Joseph Percival La Bruce, who died in 1827. [16] One of their sons, Joshua Ward La Bruce, owned land on Sandy Island, [17] which lay across the Waccamaw River from Turkey Hill, The Oaks, Brook Green, and Richmond Hill.
Even Ben Horry recalled that, “after Freedom,” the wife of Joshua, son of Joshua John Ward, “Miss Bessie gone to she house in Charleston.” [18]
More objectively, revenge was more measured and according to African-based views of justice.
Ben recalls one driver at Brook Green manipulated job assignments to force himself on women.
“If one them drive want you (want big frame gal like you Lillie!) They give you task you CAN’T DO. You getting this beating not for you task—for you flesh!” [19]
He continued: “The worst thing I members was the colored oberseer. He was the one straight from Africa. He the boss over all the mens and womens and if omans don’t do all he say, he lay task on ’em they ain’t able to do. My mother won’t do all he say. When he say, ‘You go barn and stay till I come,’ she ain’t do dem. So he have it in for my mother and lay task on ’em she ain’t able to do. Then for punishment my mother is take to the barn and strapped down on thing called the Pony. Hands spread like this and strapped to the floor and all two both feet been tie like this. And she been give twenty five to fifty lashes till the blood flow.” [20]
It is not clear if this slave actually was born in Africa. The United States Census for 1860 only reported foreign birthplaces for free Blacks. The legal trans-Atlantic slave trade ended in 1808, fifty-two years before the beginning of the Civil War. The overseer could have been imported illegally, or plantation-born slaves may have used the term “African” as a pejorative for individuals who did not conform to the mores of local slave communities.
Ben’s relative, Miss Georgie, remembered the overseer’s name was Paris, and that he betrayed his owners to the Yankees. [21] The Wards had buried their valuables [22] and “he go and show Yankee all dem ting!” [23]
She added:
“Ole Miss git order to have him kill and don’t harm none! She ain’t one to see him tru all that thousand head o’ nigger for get ‘em.” [24]
Chandler noted that she had been “told that the cruel negro overseer was shot down after Freedom–blood still on ground (according to Uncle Ben) because he led Yankees to where silver, etc., was buried.” [25] She added this was one incident she heard “from other old livers.” [26]
However, Ben did not connect it with theft. He still recalled the wrong done his parents. His mother was a “natural nuss for white people” [28] and Ben’s father was the driver. [29] Still, “MY OWN DADDY DERE couldn’t move! Couldn’t venture dat ober-sheer! Everybody can’t go to boss folks! Some kin talk it to Miss Bess. Everybody don’t see Miss Bess. Kin see the blood of dat over-sheer fuss year atter Freedom; and he blood there today!” [30]
End Notes
1. George C. Rogers. The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970; reprinted by Georgetown County Historical Society, 2002. 416.
2. Rogers. 418–419.
3. Georgie, statement provided by Ben Horry. 2:236–238 in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves – South Carolina Narratives. Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project. Washington: Library of Congress, 1941. 2:237.
4. Ellen Godfrey, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler. 2:118–127 in Slave Narratives. 2:121. Godfrey was a slave on Longwood, owned by Maham Ward. John J. Woodward may be Maham’s brother Joshua Ward. Their father, Joshua John Ward, owned many plantations when he died in 1853. Union soldiers got their information from slaves. The family is discussed in the posts for 6 August 2023 and 10 September 2023.
5. Godfrey. 2:121.
6. Godfrey. 2:122.
7. Godfrey. 2:121.
8. Godfrey. 2:121.
9. Godfrey. 2:121.
10. Godfrey. 2:121.
11. Robert Francis Withers Allston is discussed in the post for 6 August 2023.
12. Martha Pyatt was the third cousin of Robert. He was the grandson of John Allston’s son William; she was the granddaughter of John’s son Josias. [30]
13. Elizabeth. Letter to Adele Petigru Alston, widow of Robert Francis Withers Allston, 17 March 1865. Reprinted by J. H. Easterby. The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed in the Papers of Robert F. W. Allston. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1945; republished by University of South Carolina, 2004. 206.
14. On the eve of the Civil War, Pyatt owned 213 slaves on three plantations. Turkey Hill and Oatland were south of The Oaks, which was immediate south of Joshua Ward’s Brook Green. Richmond Hill was farther north on the Waccamaw. [31]
15. Elizabeth. Quoted by Easterby. 207.
16. Saratoga. “Catherine Jones ‘Mamma’ Ward LaBruce.” Find a Grave website, 5 September 2008.
17. “Oak Hill Plantation – Georgetown – Georgetown County.” South Carolina Plantations website.
18. Ben Horry, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler. 2:219–236 in Slave Narratives. 2:234. He is mentioned in the posts for 6 August 2023 and 10 September 2023.
19. Ben Horry. 2:223. Lillie Knox, who was present at the interview, worked for Chandler. For more on Knox, see the post for 25 December 2022.
20. Ben Horry. 2:228.
21. Georgie. 2:236. For more on their relationship, see the post for 10 September 2023.
22. Ben Horry. 2:225.
23. Georgie. 2:236.
24. Georgie. 2:236.
25. Genevieve Willcox Chandler. 2:225 in Slave Narratives.
26. Chandler. 2:225.
27. Ben Horry. 2:224.
28. Ben Horry. 2:226. There may have been a rivalry underlying this incident. On plantations, overseers directed drivers who directed other slaves. Paris may have been jealous of Horry’s father, or Horry’s father may not have been as submissive as Paris would have liked.
29. Ben Horry. 2:224.
30. Robert Walden Coggeshall. Ancestors and Kin. Spartanburg, South Carolina: The Reprint Company, 1988. 172.
31. Charles Joyner. Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984. Map on page 17, which is “based on map compiled by Henry A. M. Smith, May, 1923, in SCHM, 14 (1913), ff. p. 74.” SCHM is the South Carolina Historical Magazine.
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Harry Harter - Koom Ba Yah SSA
Topic: Choral Arrangements
Harry Harter published a revision of his 1958 arrangement of “Koom Ba Yah” for women’s voices in 1960. The key modifications are those required for the different vocal ranges of sopranos in a female group and tenors in a mixed-gender ensemble. The highest note on the first page [1] for the SABT tenors is a D. In the SSA arrangement, the same note for the first sopranos is an E.
The parts for male voices are the most changed: women have no equivalent voices to basses. Their melodic line is taken over by the second sopranos while the altos follow the tenor’s basic line.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: first soprano in one section
Vocal Group: first and second sopranos, alto
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
Music: Harry H. Harter
Text: based on an African Negro Spiritual
Dedication: “To the Maryville College Choir and Mabel”
© Copyright MCMLVIII, MCMLX, SHAWNEE PRESS, Inc., Delaware Water Gap, Pa.
First collected in the U. S. by Cooperative Recreation Service, Inc., Delaware, Ohio.
Notes on Lyrics
Same as SATB arrangements discussed in post for 24 September 2023.
Notes on Music
Generally the same as SATB arrangement discussed in post for 24 September 2023, with the following modifications.
Key Signature: four flats changes to no sharps or flats, then to three flats and a return to no sharps or flags
Harmonic Structure: when all three groups are singing, first sopranos generally carry the melody and second sopranos sing reverse lines with the altos repeating “koom ba yah, mah Lawd”
Notes on Performance
Cover: long African mask of face in center
Color Scheme: black ink on white paper
Audience Perceptions
A 1962 review in the Choral Journal told readers it is “an effective setting of an African Negro Spiritual. Makes use of piano accompaniment plus a passage for solo voice or a few solo voices.” [2]
Notes on Audience
The Fontbonne Chorus of the all-girls’ Roman Catholic college in Clayton, Missouri, performed Harter’s arrangement in 1962. “Koom Ba Yah” was the opening number. It was described as an “African Spiritual.”
Notes on Performers
Harry Harold Harter grew up in San Jose, California, where he graduated from San Jose State College. While a student, he began working as a tenor and arranger for The King’s Men quartet. [3] The group had been formed in 1929, and worked for Paul Whiteman between 1934 and 1937. When Harter joined them, they had just begun working for Fibber McGee and Molly on NBC radio. [4]
Presumably after graduation he served as a chaplain’s assistant in the Air Force from 1943 to 1946. [5] He earned a master’s in music from the University of Nebraska in 1947, [6] and began working at Maryville College the next year. [7]
Like Varner Chance and other musicians teaching in academic schools, he probably was forced to take on other jobs to supplement a low salary. [8] He directed the New Providence Presbyterian Church choir [9] and sold arrangements to a number of publishers beside Shawnee. [10] Beyond income, these compositions may have been accepted as publications before he earned a PhD in sacred music from Union Theological Seminary in 1961. [11]
Although Maryville College was sponsored by the Presbyterian Church (USA), [12] Harter and his wife were members of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Maryville. [13]
Availability
Sheet Music: Harry Harter. “Koom Ba Yah.” Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, Inc., 1960 edition for SSA.
Concert: Harry Harter, arranger. “Koom Ba Yah.” Fontbonne Chorus, Clayton, Missouri, 23 March 1962. Reported by the school newspaper, The Font, on 26 February 1962.
End Notes
1. The copy of the SABT arrangement of “Koom Ba Yah” that I purchased on the internet is missing pages 3–6.
2. George Gansz. “Choral Reviews.” Choral Journal 2(4):15:1 March 1962.
3. Keni Lanagan. “College Mourns Loss of Dr. Harry Harter.” Maryville College press release, 11 August 2004.
4. “All the King’s Men.” Radio Life, 10 July 1940; reprinted by Return with Us Now, 19 (9):5–6:April 1994.
5. Lanagan.
6. “Harry Harold Harter.” 134 in Chilhowean, Maryville College yearbook, 1977.
7. Lanagan.
8. Varner Chance is discussed in the posts for 21 March 2021 ande 28 March 2021.
9. Lanagan.
10. Obituary. McCammon-Ammons-Click Funeral Home, Marysville, Tennessee, 2004.
11. Lanagan.
12. “Maryville College.” Wikipedia website; accessed 30 September 2023.
13. Lanagan.
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Kumbaya Copyrights
Topic: Choral Arrangements
Fred Waring’s Shawnee Press was the first music publisher to challenge Lynn Rohrbough’s publication of “Kumbaya.” The exact chronology is lost; only some letters between Rohrbough and Shawnee representatives remain, and they appear to come toward the end of the correspondence.
Rohrbough’s company, Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS), first published “Kum Ba Yah” in a songbook prepared in 1955 [1] by Kathryn Thompson Good and John Blocher, Jr., for Indianola, a Columbus, Ohio, Methodist family camp. Blocher did the transcription from Good’s singing. [2]
No copyright was registered, and no ownership notice was appended. The law dictated that copyright owners print a notice under a song in every publication to maintain a copyright. As seen in the reproduction of Indianola Sings posted on 29 May 2022, this did not occur.
The lawyer for later owners of CRS told them that, under the law in effect in 1955, “the printing of one book (one copy) with out proper Copyright notice can lose you the copyright.” He added that “some folks judged a little less strictly than others, but certainly if more than one whole printing has gone out with songs uncredited, he feels that there is no question; the song has fallen in to the public domain.” [3]
Instead, Rohrbough included “Come By Here: Kum Ba Yah,” without an ownership notice, in a Song Sampler published in January 1956 that was distributed to “200 organizations in every state and to correspondents in 60 overseas countries.” He informed recipients that “bulk lots are available to organizations for mailing lists, in conferences, and try-outs.” [4]
Rohrbough believed the next publication of “Kum Ba Yah” was in a collection compiled in February and March 1956 for the North East Ohio Conference of the Methodist Church. Bliss Wiant, one of the editors, created a four-part arrangement that did carry a copyright notice.
This only asserted ownership of the arrangement, and did not cover the original song. A copy is included in the post for 2 October 2022, and I have yet to see another publication reproduce this particular version.
Shawnee published a version of “Koom Ba Yah” in 1958 by Harry Harter. The sheet music carried a notice at the bottom of the first page.
Shawnee’s editors apparently learned about the CRS version soon after it released Harter’s arrangement. It must have contacted the company about copyright infringement because Rohrbough included the following credit in a 1958 songbook produced for Lake Poinsett: [5]
Meantime, Shawnee was publishing another version of “Koom Ba Yah” in 1959 by Livingston Gearhart for boys’ vocal ensembles. The book carried a notice on the title page, which was intended to cover all the songs in it. [6]
Rohrbough may then have written back to Shawnee to assert his prior publication of “Kumbaya.” This is where the evidence begins. In the first letter saved in a CRS file on the song, the company’s editor wrote Rohrbough on 13 February 1959:
“Our contributor, Hr. Harter maintains that he learned the song directly from an African missionary, who said it was widely sung in Africa. Its popularity there is further attested to by the fact that one of our editorial assistants learned it at a church camp from another African missionary. It would appear that this song may be a true folk song, which can be collected any number of times from authentic but different sources - namely the folk themselves. Our understanding of such songs is that they can be published by anyone who gets them from an original source, and does not use another publishers’ printed version for a source. (In this instance, Hr. Harter was under the impression that he was the first person to write down the song, so was unaware of the existence of a printed source.)” [7]
At this point, Rohrbough did not seem to be aware that “Kumbaya” was an original publication of CRS. Indeed, he seems to have fully accepted the history of the song that was presented by Larry Eisenberg at Davidson College in 1957. [8] This is where Peter Seeger heard the song, and he subsequently spread the legend about an African missionary. [9]
On 16 February 1959, Rohrbough wrote: “Of course this song was widely known by missionaries. Probably it is only a question of who first published it.” [10]
However, Rohrbough noted: “The fact that your contributor followed the spelling “Koom” in our footnote would indicate that your missionary friend had seen our printed copy. [11]
Shawnee’s lawyer then contacted Harter, and wrote back on 14 May 1959: “Our contributor, Harry Harter learned of the spiritual in 1957 from an African missionary. However, we have determined that the missionary actually first heard the selection in a recreational laboratory workshop in Minnesota about 1954 but the missionary also had the understanding that Rosa Page Welch heard the work while travelling in Africa and brought the song to America. Tracking that down, we have determined that Rosa Page Welch actually first heard the work at the World Christian Student conference at Athens, Ohio about 1956 when an African student led the conference in singing it.” [12]
Rohrbough responded on 4 June 1959 that “we did the Northland Songs for the Rec. Lab. at St. Paul.” [13] When I contacted members of the Northland Recreation Laboratory, they indicated Rohrbough had not attended their annual workshops since 1936. [14] The group published collections from workshops, and there was no evidence that the song ever was sung there in the middle-1950s. One member, however, did remember learning the song at the annual conference of the Methodist Church, which was held in 1956 in Minneapolis. [15] That may be the source for Harter’s reference to Minnesota.
Rohrbough also described the Student Volunteer Movement meeting in Athens, Ohio, and Welch’s role as a song leader. [16]
At this point, Shawnee’s lawyer realized that Harter was an unreliable source and that oral tradition had engulfed the song. He wrote Rohrbough: “we are agreeable to making acknowledgment in our reprints of KOOM BA YAH to your organization as first collectors of this spiritual in the U. S. and in consideration of your position as said first collector of the selection we would pay you a nominal fee of $1.00 with the understanding that in making such acknowledgment to you we do so without prejudice to our copyright in KOOM BA YAH.” [17]
Shawnee was able to publish Harter’s version for women’s voices later that year. [18] The following credits appeared at the bottom of the page.
The Poinsett note was used for a reprint of the Young Women’s Christian Associations’ Sing Along that originally had been published in 1957. CRS simply used the current plate. [19]
Rohrbough did not reprint the reference to Shawnee Press again in his songbooks. The closest he came in 1962 was to follow Shawnee’s hint about sources and list the first dates for Wiant’s arrangement of “Kum Ba Yah” and Van Richards’ “Come by Here.” The latter, published in 1958, is discussed in the post for 15 January 2023.
Graphics
1. “Kum Ba Yah.” 31 in Hymns of Universal Praise, edited for North East Ohio Conference of the Methodist Church by Bliss Wiant and Carlton Young. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1956.
2. Harry Harter. “Koom Ba Yah.” Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, Inc., 1958 edition for SATB.
3. “Kum Ba Yah.” 50 in Lake Poinsett Fellowship Songs. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service Cooperative Song Service, revised 1958.
4. “Koom Ba Yah.” 59–61 in Gentlemen Songsters, edited by Livingston Gearhart. Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, Inc., 1959.
5. Harry Harter. “Koom Ba Yah.” Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, Inc., 1960.
6. “Kum Ba Yah.” 11 in Songs to Keep, edited by Augustus Zanzig. Delaware, Ohio: Informal Music Service. © 1962, Cooperative Recreation Service, Inc., Delaware, O.
End Notes
Bruce Greene, owner of World Around Songs, has sent the surviving papers, songbooks, and other documents of CRS to the Library of Congress, who now has the originals. I kept scans of all the papers in the company’s “Kumbaya” folder, which Mr. Greene lent to me in 2016.
1. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Shawnee Press, 16 February 1959. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene.
2. Patricia Averill with John Blocher, Jr. “‘Kumbaya’ and Dramatizations of an Etiological Legend.” Voices 46:26–32:Spring–Summer 2020. Copy available from Academia.edu.
3. Letter from one owner of World Around Songs to another, 3 May 1979. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene.
4. Song Sampler number 1, January 1956. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1956. B. The post for 31 July 2022 reproduces the Song Sampler variant.
5. Lake Poinsett is discussed in the post for 9 July 2023.
6. Gearhart’s is discussed in the post for 8 October 2023.
7. Shawnee Press editor. Letter to Lynn Rohrbough, 13 February 1959. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene.
8. For more on the event at Davidson College, see the post for 16 October 2022.
9. Averill and Blocher.
10. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Shawnee Press editor, 16 February 1959. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene.
11. Rohrbough, 16 February 1959.
12. Shawnee Press lawyer to Lynn Rohrbough, 14 May 1959. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene.
13. Lynn Rohrbough, letter to Shawnee Press lawyer, 4 June 1959. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene.
14. For more on Northland Recreation Workshop, see the post for 26 September 2021.
15. For more on the Methodist conference, see the post for 9 October 2022.
16. Rohrbough, 4 June 1959. The post for 31 July 2022, has more on the Athens meeting.
17. Shawnee Press lawyer.
18. Harter’s arrangement is discussed in the post for 29 October 2023.
19. Sing Along is discussed in the post for 11 December 2022.
Sunday, October 8, 2023
Livingston Gearhart - Koom Ba Yah
Topic: Choral Arrangements
Following the publication of Harry Harter’s SATB arrangement of “Koom Ba Yah” in 1958, Fred Waring published a version for boys’ choirs the next year. It appeared in Gentlemen Songsters, a choral collection edited by Livingston Gearhart.
The arrangement was the first published one to use vocal melodic and rhythmic parts. The upper voices sang the tune in unison while the lower ones repeated “koom by yah” in a dotted-quarter-note/eighth note/quarter-note pattern. The first two notes were the same, and the third was a step lower. The second part of the arrangement used two melodies.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: two parts
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: vocal part
Credits
Headnote: African Spiritual
Footnote: “Koom ba ya,” is derived from the words “Come by here.”
Title Page: © Copyright MCMLIX by Shawnee Press, Inc., Delaware Water Gap, Pa.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: dialect for “mah,” “Lawd”; drops terminal G’s
Verses: those published by Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) – kumbaya, prayin’, cryin’, singin’
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lawd, Savior
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 4-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: Savior for Lord in last line
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5; same melody as that published by CRS
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: fast, quarter note = ca 138
Rhythm: introduction is “very short; brittle”; first section rhythm part is “hushed, but strongly percussive”; second section is “subtito”
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Dynamics: first section soft (“pp”), second section loud (“f”), ending soft (“pp”)
Basic Structure: two sections
Singing Style: one syllable to one note; “savior” used in place of “Lord” in final line
Harmonic Structure: verses 1 and 2 use one melodic line for upper voices and rhythmic repetition of “koom ba yah” for lower voices; verses 3 and 4 use two melodic lines
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano alternates two-note right-hand chords with two-note left-hand chords
Ending: last note held by vocal parts as accompaniment gets progressively softer
Notes on Performance
Cover: four male figures with staffs of music across their bodies
Color Scheme: cover is vanilla with taupe and black printing; black ink on white paper inside
Notes on Audience
Gentlemen Songsters used “spirited rhythmic drive” to attract and keep “the interest of men and boys.” The arrangements were “tested by the Fred Waring Music Workshop and in a high school boys chorus.” [1]
At least one school is known to have performed Gearhart’s arrangement in 1962: the Essex District High School in Ontario, Canada.
Notes on Performers
The publisher of Gentlemen Songsters, Fred Waring, was best known in 1959 as the director of the Fred Waring Singers, who appeared on television from 1948 to 1954. [2] Partly in response to choir directors wanting to learn from him and use his arrangements, he organized his own workshops. [3] From those he discovered what worked with youth, and began publishing arrangements through his Shawnee Press. [4]
Livingston Gearhart, who made the arrangements in the collection, had a long and sometimes complicated relationship with Waring. He was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916. His mother, the former Lillian Hawley, was a trained pianist. Gearhart learned piano, violin, and oboe as a child, and sang in church choirs. At Curtis Institute, he began with oboe in 1935, then changed to piano. [5]
While he was studying in Paris he met Virginia Clotfelter. They toured as the piano duet Gearhart and Morley, and married in 1940. They began working with Fred Waring in 1943, and he began making arrangements for Waring. [6]
Gearhart made his first foray into music methods with Clarinet Sessions in 1945. [7] The arrangements were made by him and Dan Cassal, whom he knew from oboe classes at Curtis. [8] Waring was the publisher.
The following year Shawnee issued Gearhart’s most popular arrangement, “Dry Bones.” [9] It was described as a “rhythmic spiritual” for “percussion, two bass voice, piano, and string break.” [10] Waring’s Pennsylvanians recorded a version for Decca in 1947 that featured the men singing in unison with percussive sounds at the end of phrases. [11] The arrangement still is in print, and several versions are available of YouTube.
In 1954, Gearhart and Morley divorced and she married Waring. He moved to the University of Buffalo where he taught music until he retired in 1985. [12] The break was not complete because he continued to do work for Shawnee Press like Gentlemen Songsters.
After his death in 1996, his widow, the former Pamela Gerhart, gave his papers to the University of Buffalo. The finding aid recalled that “as an author and teacher, Gearhart delighted in composing lively, stimulating music for young singers and instrumentalists.” [13]
Availability
Book: “Koom Ba Yah.” 59–61 in Gentlemen Songsters, edited by Livingston Gearhart. Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, Inc., 1959.
Concert: “Koom-ba-yah.” Essex District High School, Essex, Ontario, Boys’ Glee Club. Reported in 1962 school yearbook, Argus, edited by Sharon Greenwood. Helmut Keil contributed “Boys’ Glee Club” on page 56.
End Notes
1. Gentlemen Songsters. Inside cover.
2. “Fred Waring.” Wikipedia website.
3. Virginia Waring. Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. 222–223.
4. Fred Waring and Shawnee Press is discussed in the post for 28 March 2021.
5. “Livingston Gearhart Papers 1933-1997, 1933-1997.” State University of New York at Buffalo Music Library finding aid. Available on Empire Archival Discovery website.
6. Gearhart papers.
7. Don Cassel and Livingston Gearhart. Clarinet Sessions. East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, 1945.
8. Laila Storch. Marcel Tabuteau. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. 191.
9. Livingston Gearhart. “Dry Bones: A Rhythmic Spiritual.” New York: Shawnee Press, 1946.
10. WorldCat entry for “Dry Bones.”
11. Fred Waring And His Pennsylvanians. “Dry Bones / Ole Moses Put Pharaoh In His Place.” Decca – 23948. Issued 1947. [Discogs entry.]
12. Gearhart papers.
13. Gearhart papers.
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Harry Harter - Koom Ba Yah SATB
Topic: Choral Arrangements
“Kum Ba Yah” was moving beyond music sung by groups for their own pleasure to a performance piece by 1958 when Fred Waring published a choral arrangement by Harry Harter. It was the first one to use key changes for variation.
Harter emphasized harmony at a slow tempo. Three groups sang the “kumbaya” verse four times. None carried the melody, but each had part of it at one time. After changing from one sharp to [missing page] the sopranos sang “someone’s a-cryin’” as a descant.
After moving to two sharps, the same high voices sang “someone’s a singin’.” The first time on one note, the second time with a descending contour, and the third alternating between two tones.
“Someone’s a-prayin’” coincided with a change to five sharps. It ended with “So, Savior, Savior” rather than the “Oh, Lord” that slid from one note to another.
Performers
Sheet Music
Vocal Soloist: soprano in one section
Vocal Group: soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Instrumental Accompaniment: optional piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Edward Becheras Choir
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: all male group singing arrangement for mixed voices
Vocal Director: Nelson Kwei
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
Cover: African Spiritual
Dedication: “To the Maryville College Choir and Mabel”
Footnote: African dialect meaning: “Come by here.”
© Copyright MCMLVIII by SHAWNEE PRESS, Inc., Delaware Water Gap, Pa.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: dialect for “mah”; drops terminal G’s
Verses: kumbaya verse repeated with allusions to those published by Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS)
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord, Savior
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: uses “Savior, Savior” in last line
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5; same melody as that published by CRS; appears most often in alto part
Time Signature: none specified, 4/4 implied
Tempo: largamente, quarter notes = 42; gets progressively slower
Rhythm: same as CRS version
Key Signature: one sharp changes to [missing page], then to two sharps and ends with five sharps
Dynamics: varies between soft (“p”) and normal (“mf,” “mp”)
Basic Structure: two sections with key change marking division
Singing Style: one syllable to one note; two syllables for “Lord” one time
Length: 3:15
Harmonic Structure: Emphasis is on harmony with group repeating the “kumbaya” verse; the upper voices begin to sing verses as a descant in second half
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano marks rhythm with four-part chords; Edward Becheras Choir sang a capella
Ending: slows tempo
Notes on Performance
Sheet music
Cover: long African mask of face in center
Color Scheme: black ink on white paper
Edward Becheras Choir
Occasion: 2016 concert
Location: stage with wooden surround
Microphones: none visible
Clothing: Black suits, white shirts, black ties
Notes on Movement
Edward Becheras Choir
Stand with feet apart on risers
Audience Perceptions
A sheet music footnote explains the title is an “African dialect meaning: ‘Come by Here’.” The Fort Wayne Bible College interpreted “come by here” to mean one was “inviting Christ into the home.” [1]
The Music Educators Journal told readers that “Koom Ba Yah” was “an authentic African spiritual with unique appeal.” [2]
Notes on Audience
The Music Educators Journal mentioned Harter’s arrangement in February 1959, which was early enough for it be purchased for the 1959-1960 school year. The first references I’ve found to performances are before “Kumbaya” was popularized by Joan Baez in late 1962. [3]
The arrangement must have been popular because Shawnee Press republished it for young men in 1959 and for women’s groups in 1960. These are discussed in posts for 8 October 2023 and 29 October 2023.
Notes on Performers
Fort Wayne Bible College was founded by the Mennonite Brethren Church in 1904. [4] The church became the United Missionary Church in 1948. [5]
Ballard, Washington, grew around a shipbuilding company that attracted Scandinavian immigrants. It was absorbed by Seattle in 1907, [6] but kept its local high school [7] and ethnic heritage. [8]
The Edward Becheras Choir is associated with the all-boys’ Catholic High School in Singapore, which was founded by Becheras in 1935. [9] He was born in France and trained at the Sepulchins’ Major Seminary in his native Viviers before affiliating with the Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris. [10] In 1950, the Marist Brothers took over the school’s administration and added classes for younger boys. [11]
Nelson Kwei, director of the school’s choir, was raised in Singapore and earned a master’s degree in choral conducting from the Royal Academy of Music in London. [12] The choir won its first major award under Kwei in 1999. It since has become known for have students young enough to sing the parts normally reserved for female voices. [13]
Harter is discussed in the post for 29 October 2023.
Availability
Sheet Music: Harry Harter. “Koom Ba Yah.” Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, Inc., 1958 edition for SATB. The copy I purchased was missing pages 3-7
Concert: “Koom Ba Yah.” Fort Wayne Bible College A Capella Choir, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1961. Reported by the school newspaper, the Fort Wayne Bible College Vision, in January-February 1961.
Concert: “Koom Ba Yah.” Ballard High School Concert Choir, Seattle, Washington, 28 February 1962. Reported by The Ballard News on 28 February 1962 on page 1.
Concert: Harter, arranger. “Koom ba yah.” Big Twelve Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Champaign High School Champaign, Illinois, 31 March 1962. Recorded by Century Custom Recording Service of Saugus, California. [WorldCat entry.]
Concert: Catholic High School Edward Becheras Choir, Singapore. “Koom Ba Yah.” Uploaded to YouTube website on 22 June 2016 by alex30059.
Graphics
Cover for Shawnee Press sheet music.
End Notes
1. “A Capella Choir Tour Planned.” Fort Wayne Bible College Vision, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 9(1):1:January-February 1961.
2. Item. Music Educators Journal 45(4):February-March 1959.
3. Joan Baez’s recording is discussed in the post for 9 October 2017.
4. “Taylor University.” Wikipedia website; accessed 23 September 2023.
5. “Missionary Church.” Wikipedia website; accessed 23 September 2023.
6. “Ballard, Seattle.” Wikipedia website, accessed 23 September 2023.
7. “Ballard High School (Seattle).” Wikipedia website; accessed 23 September 2023.
8. Wikipedia, “Ballard.”
9. “Catholic High School, Singapore.” Wikipedia website; accessed 23 September 2023.
10. “Father Edouard Becheras, MEP.” History of the Catholic Church in Singapore website.
11. Wikipedia, “Catholic High School.”
12. “Nelson Kwei.” Wikipedia website; accessed 23, September 2023.
13. “Catholic High School Edward Becheras Choir.” VY Maps website.
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Waccamaw Civil War
Topic: Early Versions - Waccamaw Neck
The Civil War on South Carolina’s Waccamaw Neck accelerated the unification of plantation cultures into a local one that had been occurring whenever slaves from one locale met those from another. [1] It began as soon as the state seceded from the Union on December 20, 1861. [2]
On December 30, South Carolina’s governor asked the area to erect “batteries to protect and defend the entrance to Winyah Bay and Santee River.” [3] Welcome Bees told Genevieve Willcox Chandler that he had “gone to make a battery to Little River and to Charleston and to Florence.” [4] The carpenter lived at Oatland, which was owned by Martha Allston Pyatt [5] and was located south of Brook Green on the Waccamaw River. [6]
At the same time, the governor was asking for military volunteers. [7] The state’s Tenth Regiment elected Arthur Middleton Manigault its colonel. [8] The company defending the Waccamaw Neck was commanded by Thomas West Daggett [9] Below him was Captain Joshua Ward. His younger brother, Mayham Ward. was first lieutenant and his youngest brother, Benjamin Huger Ward, was second lieutenant. [10]
Georgie remembered that her father, Define Horry, “have to go. Have to go ditch and all and tend his subshun.” [11] As mentioned in the post for 10 September 2023, Georgie appears to be the sister of Ben Horry, who lived on Joshua Ward’s Brook Green plantation.
Late in 1861, on November 11, Union forces took control of Port Royal, including Saint Helena Island in southern South Carolina. Management of the abandoned plantations and slaves was given over to missionaries from the North, like Laura Matilda Towne and Harriet Ware. [12]
Once the United States navy had a Southern port, it began patrolling the coast. In December, it stationed two vessels off the mouth of Winyah Bay. [13] Manigault warned planters in January, 1862, they should prepare to move their slaves inland with provisions for a year. [14]
The need to act became acute on April 14 when Robert E. Lee ordered the movement of South Carolina’s regiments [15] to Richmond to defend the Confederacy. [16] Manigault left Winyah Bay on March 28, leaving Ward’s local troops to defend the area [17] As soon as the troops were gone, slaves began fleeing to Union ships. [18]
Willcox did not interview any slaves who fled, for the obvious reason they did not return after the war’s end. Gabe Lance recalled: “Some my people run away from Sandy Islant. Go Oaks sea-shore and Magnolia Beach and take row-boat and gone out and join with the Yankee. Dem crowd never didn’t come back.” [19]
The Oaks [20] was the home of Hagar Brown’s parents. At nearby Brook Green, Georgie said “Time o’ the war the colored people hear ‘bout Yankee. Not a one eber understand to run way and go to Yankee boat from WE plantation.” [21]
On May 22, Union boats sailed ten miles up the Waccamaw River where they seized rice and accepted slaves. [22] They learned more about the plantations and the loyalties of the owners from those who fled. [23] On June 30, they sailed thirty miles up the river, [24] on July 21 destroyed salt works run by Joshua Ward, and on July 29 targeted the plantation of John D. Magill, who was reported to be an “unkind” master. [25] By the end of the month, the Navy had 1,700 run-away slaves. [26]
After the first foray in May, 1862, the Union commander reported: “The rebels are just now very much frightened, and are leaving their plantations in every direction, driving their slaves before them to the pine woods.” [27]
Horry told Chandler that: “Two Yankee gun boats come up Waccamaw River! Come by us Plantation. One stop to Sandy Island, Montarena landing. One gone Watsaw (Wachesaw landing). Old Marsh Josh and all the white buckra gone to Marlboro county to hide from Yankee. Gon up Waccamaw river and up Pee Dee river, to Marlboro county, in a boat by name Pilot Boy. Take Colonel Ward and all the Cap’n to hide from gun boat til peace declare.” [28]
Once they had time, planters moved their slaves on flat boats down the Waccamaw to the bay, then up the Pee Dee river. Sabe Rutledge, who lived on the Ark Plantation [29] north of Murrells Inlet, told Chandler: “Flat boat full up gone down Waccamaw. Uncle Andrew Aunt the one got his eye shot out (by patrollers) took ’em to camp on North Island. Never so much a button and pin in my life! Small-pox in camp. Had to leave ’em.” [30]
Horry recalled Ward had agents “take all the people from Brookgreen and Springfield—and carry dem to Marlboro” county. [31] Similarly, Georgie recalled: “They put you in the flat and put you over there. When they tink Yankee comin’ you take to Sandhole Crick for hide.” She added: “De Ward didn’t lose nothin’. They move out the plantation. Col. Ward took ’em in a flat to Mulbro.” [32]
Ellen Godfrey, who lived on Ward’s Longwood plantation, said it was “Flat ’em up to Marlboro! (All the slaves) Ten days or two weeks going. PeeDee bridge, stop! Go in gentlemen barn! Turn duh bridge. Been dere a week. Had to go and look the louse on we. Three hundred head o’ people been dere. Couldn’t pull we clothes off. (On flat.) Boat named Riprey. Woman confine on boat.” [33]
Hagar Brown was born during the journey. “Ma say they on flat going to islant (island), see cloud, pray God send rain!” [34] Her cousin-in-law, Louisa Brown, gave more details: “My husband mother have baby on the flat going to Marion and he Auntie Cinda have a baby on that flat.” [35]
Chandler asked about the trip, but not about life in makeshift camps. Godfrey did tell her: “Get to Marlboro where they gwine. Put in wagon. Carry to the street. Major Drake Plantation.” [36] She added, they had a “dirt camp to hide we from Yankee. Have a Street Row of house.” She indicated she continued to weave there. [37]
Marlboro County is on the border between South and North Carolina. [38] Zachariah Alford Drake [39] had land near the Scots settlement of Blenheim where he raised corn, mules, sheep, and hogs. [40]
The movement of slaves, with their owners and overseers, into Marlboro County probably benefitted the landowners whose sons, like Zachariah Jordan Drake, [41] were among the thousand men sent to the front. [42] Slaves owned by Joshua Ward and Thomas Pinckney Alston [43] had to have stayed there for more than two years, from the time of flight until Union troops liberated them on their march north at war’s end.
One guesses the displaced slaves learned more skills because they had to have had to grow their own food in a different environment. One suspects slaves from different plantations owned by Ward mingled more, which would have contributed to the developing common culture.
While the slaves were sequestered in Marlboro County, Murrells Inlet was converted into a port by blockaders who were kept from Charleston and the mouth of the Winyah Bay. They attracted more attention from the Union navy. [44]
By late November of 1864, Joshua Ward had resigned from the Confederate Army and moved to England. Mayham was left in command of the local troops. [45] He soon joined his wife and children in the North. [46]
End Notes
1. This is discussed in the posts for 3 September 2023 and 10 September 2023.
2. “South Carolina in the American Civil War.” Wikipedia website; accessed 14 September 2023.
3. George C. Rogers. The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970; reprinted by Georgetown County, South Carolina, Historical Society, 2002. 388.
4. Welcome Bees, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler. 1–10 in Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories Collected by Genevieve W. Chandler, edited by Kincaid Mills, Genevieve C. Peterkin, and Aaron McCollough. Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2008. 8.
5. Coming Through. 1.
6. Charles Joyner. Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984. Map on page 17.
7. Rogers. 387, 389, 391.
8. Rogers. 390–391.
9. Rogers. 389.
10. Rogers. 392. Rogers assumed the “Wards provided the necessary equipment and provisions.”
11. Georgie, statement provided by Ben Horry. 2:236–238 in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves – South Carolina Narratives. Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project. Washington: Library of Congress, 1941. 2:236.
12. Saint Helena Island is mentioned in the posts for 20 September 2018, 25 September 2018, and 27 September 2018.
13. Rogers. 394.
14. Rogers. 396.
15. “Robert E. Lee, Day-by-Day.” Lee Family Archive website.
16. Benjamin F. Cooling. “The Civil War; 1862.” 184–208 in American Military History. Washington, DC: United States Army, Center of Military History, 1989. 221.
17. Rogers. 397.
18. Rogers. 399.
19. Gabe Lance, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler. 274–275 in Coming Through. 275.
20. The Oaks is discussed in the posts for 23 July 2023 and 30 July 2023.
21. Georgie. 2:237.
22. Rogers. 400.
23. Rogers. 398–399, 402.
24. Rogers. 401.
25. Rogers. 402.
26. Rogers. 399.
27. George A. Prentiss, quoted by Rogers. 402–403.
28. Ben Horry, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chander. 2:219–236 in Slave Narratives. 2:227.
29. Slave Narratives. 4:49.
30. Sabe Rutledge, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler. 4:59–70 in Slave Narratives. 4:51. North Island is in Winyah Bay. [47]
31. Horry. 2:233–234.
32. Georgie. 2:237.
33. Ellen Godfrey, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chander. 2:118–127 in Slave Narratives. 2:119.
34. Hagar Brown, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler. In Slave Narratives, volume 1, no pages in on-line edition.
35. Louisa Brown, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler. In Slave Narratives, volume 1, no pages in on-line edition.
36. Godfrey. 2:119.
37. Godfrey. 2:120.
38. “Marlboro County, South Carolina.” Wikipedia website.
39. KesterDV. “MAJ Zachariah Alford Drake.” Find a Grave website, 8 June 2013. His wife, Sophia Alford, was the mother of Agenora Drake, who married James Alexander Peterkin. [48] Their son, William George Peterkin, married Chandler’s daughter. [49] Zachariah’s second wife was Susan A. Peterkin.
40. J. A. W. Thomas. A History of Marlboro County with Traditions and Sketches of Numerous Families. Atlanta, Georgia: The Foote and Davies Company, 1897. 192.
41. KesterDV. “CPT Zachariah Jordan Drake.” Find a Grave website, 9 June 2013.
42. William Light Kinney, Jr. “Marlboro County.” South Carolina Encyclopedia website, 8 June 2016; last updated 11 August 2022.
43. Jose Allston, mentioned in the post for 6 August 2023, lived on The Oaks plantation around 1854. When he died in 1855, it reverted to his maternal grandfather, William Algernon Allston. He died in 1860 and The Oaks fell to his half-brother, Thomas Pinckney Allston. [50]
44. Rogers. 408, 410.
45. Rogers. 414.
46. Rogers. 426.
47. Rogers. Map on inside back cover.
48. Herman Ruple Durr. “Agenora Drake Peterkin.” Find a Grave website, 12 July 2009.
49. Herman Ruple Durr. “William George Peterkin Sr.” Find a Grave website, 12 July 2009.
50. James L. Michie. The Oaks Plantation Revealed: An Archaeological Survey of the Home of Joseph and Theodosia Burr Alston, Brookgreen Gardens, Georgetown County, South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina: Waccamaw Center for Historical and Cultural Studies, 1993. 12.
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