Notes on Music
Time Signature:
Sheet Music: 4/4
Tempo:
Sheet Music: quarter note = 72 beats a minute, joyful
Key Signature:
Sheet Music: 1 flat
Basic Structure:
Sheet Music
Part 1
Measures 1-3: djembé only
Measures 4-35: choir and djembé
Part 2
Measures 36-39: choir, djembé, and hand claps
Measures 40-45: solo, choir, djembé, and hand claps
Measures 46-48: choir, djembé, and hand claps
Measures 49-51: choir, djembé, hand claps, with one part in Zulu
Measures 52-59: choir with Zulu part, hand claps, no djembé
Measure 60: choir only
Singing Style:
Solo:
2005 Drums and 2006 Synthesizer: few words, and many syllables on several tones
Sheet Music: "should be free & improvised throughout" [1]
Group:
2005 Drums and 2006 Synthesizer: voices were generally "whispery."
Sheet Music: began with sopranos and tenors singing in unison, and altos and basses singing in octaves. When altos joined the higher voices they sang a phrase with four parts, then change to three-part chords. Other verses are sung in four-parts. The very last word was five-part harmony.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics:
2006 Synthesizer: the synthesizer began. One musician passed a shaker back and forth over one of the African drums. During the singing, the instrumentation was unobtrusive.
Rhythm:
Sheet Music: Runestad said, "the djembe player should improvise freely, reacting to the vocal soloist and the choir’s musical material." [2] He provided three patterns, with the second labeled "Slightly Easier," and the third "Or easier yet." [3] They all used three tones with "slaps" at the end of phrases.
To be more precise, he told musicians:
"Many djembe players keep the sixteenth note rhythms evenly present--i.e. they play something on every sixteenth note of the beat. Then they use accents and various parts of the drum to bring out certain accented beats more than others.
"Most percussionists also add additional rhythmic material, called "fill," at times when the other musical parts are holding notes or playing rhythms that are more static. So, when the choir is holding a longer note, the djembe player can branch out even further from the above motives. Experiment!" [4]
Notes on Performance
2006 Synthesizer: the choir was dressed in theatrically colorful native dress. They filed onto risers while the synthesizer was playing. The women stood in front with their arms low and their hands clasped. The men stood behind them with their arms at their sides. The modern musicians were on the third tier. The two African drummers sat in front to stage left.
Notes on Movement
2006 Synthesizer: in the first part, the choir stood still and faced the audience. However, a couple of the women moved their hands, spreading the out and bringing them together.
During the hand claps, both men and women alternated between facing stage right and left. While they changed positions their arms came down; on the claps they were raised chest-hand. The hands were brought together in a praying position. It looked like they bent their knees while they were turning, but the camera never showed them full-length in this section.
The soloist stood in front, with a microphone in his right hand. He moved with knees bent as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. He would raise and drop his left arm.
At the end, the women clasped hands with intertwined fingers and raised their arms to their shoulders.
Viewers’ Perceptions
A great many comments were posted on YouTube, especially for the drum version, in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Some had African names, and one made a reference to Germany. While many described the videos as heavenly or made comments on God, there were none of the Pentecostal references to anointing or blessing. Most were simply appreciations for the sound.
Notes on Performers
The choir was founded in 2002 by Beverly Bryer on behalf of some Australian promoters, Andrew Kay, Clifford Hocking, and David Vigo. [5] She worked with David Mulovhedzi, who then was director of the Holy Jerusalem Evangelical Church Choir. [6] Bok was part of the choir from its beginning as a tenor and guitar player. [7]
He was born in Kimberly [8] and raised in the Zulu part of Natal where he attended secondary school in Pietermaritzburg. [9] In 1999, he became music director of the Berea Christian Tabernacle. [10] That was three years after the Boer and African congregations of the Apostolic Faith Mission Church were reunited after the legal end of apartheid. [11] He stayed with the wealthy Pentecostal church for two years.
He earned accreditation from the School of the Prophets in North Miami Beach, Florida. [12] In 2016 he had his own choir, Africa in Praise, and was music director for Conquering Through Prayer Ministries in Durban. [13]
Bok’s father played guitar, and taught him to play when he was seven. He told Margaret von Klemperer that he could read a score, but "following music by ear comes naturally." [14] Runestad said, "the choir is based solely on an aural learning tradition. [15]
Availability
2005 Drums
CD: Blessed. Shanachie, CD. 2005.
YouTube: uploaded by matbb891, 13 April 2008.
2006 Synthesizer
DVD: Blessed Live in Concert. Australia, 2005; released 2006.
YouTube: uploaded by erastusbean, 12 March 2009.
Rehearsal
YouTube: uploaded by Wesley Rocha, 22 November 2015
Sheet Music
Lincoln, Nebraska: MusicSpoke website, 2015.
End Notes
1. Kurt Runestad. "Performing Notes on ‘Khumaya’." MusicSpoke website.
2. Runestad, Notes.
3. Runestad, Notes.
4. Runestad, Notes.
5. "Beverly Bryer." Soweto Gospel Choir website.
6. "Jimmy Mulovhedzi." Soweto Gospel Choir website.
7. Margaret von Klemperer. "From Eastwood to Hollywood." News24 [Capetown, South Africa], 24 March 2008.
8. Klemperer.
9. "Lucas Bok." Facebook.
10. Klemperer.
11. Wikipedia. "Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa." It was founded by Reform Boers with the assistance of Pentecostals from the United States.
12. Bok, Facebook. The School of Prophets was run by Steve Lyston, and preached the restoration of the primitive church. ("About RWOMI Network." Its website).
13. Runestad, Notes. The church was directed by Clive Malcolm Gopaul. He was raised in South Africa’s Chatsworth Indian Township, and educated at the Premillennial Bethesda Bible College in Mitchell Park, Australia. ("Conquering Through Prayer Ministries International." Facebook.)
14. Klemperer.
15. Runestad, Notes.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Monday, August 28, 2017
Soweto Gospel Choir - Khumbaya (Part 1)
Topic: Seminal Versions
The most popular contemporary version of "Kumbaya" was performed by the Soweto Gospel Choir of South Africa. Like the variant created by Kurt Carr, the arrangement by Lucas Deon Bok incorporated elements of "Come by Here," like the use of "somebody" rather than "someone," and expanded it into a verse-chorus format with lines like "somebody’s in despair."
Those lyrics were not as important to listeners as the way it was sung. In the beginning the sopranos and tenors sang statements in unison, and the lower voices answered kumbaya in chords. Then the sopranos, altos, and tenors began singing three-part chords against a rhythm of kumbaya’s done by the basses that started later and were repeated in pauses. There also were tenor and bass solos.
Most of the time the choir sang four-part chords with one syllable to one note. However, the notes did not have even durations. In "kumbaya," each syllable was held longer than the previous one (eighth, quarter, extended half). The first verse based on "Come by Here" used all eighth notes; the new verses mixed sixteenth with eighth notes.
In addition to the textures created by the different voices and variations in tonal length, there were drums. Most important, half way through the singers themselves began clapping on the second and fourth beats.
Choral groups loved the opportunity to sing interesting parts. I found thirty versions uploaded to YouTube in December 2016. Those groups who had African directors or were in European areas where the ability to learn by listening never died modified it for themselves. Some relied on the choir’s CD that used drums, and some watched to the DVD that employed a synthesizer and drum set.
Kurt Runestad created an arrangement for his Doane College choir, which it performed on tours in Brasil and the United States. Other choral directors asked him for his arrangement, [1] and, with the permission of the Soweto Choir, he made it available for the sight-bound in 2015.
Apart from the modifications one would expect to be made to adapt the arrangement to the voices in a group, choral directors made other aesthetic decisions about the use of drums. Soweto had used floor drums in one version, and a drum set and shaker in the other. Runestad specified the djembé, a west African goblet drum, because that was the instrument most available in the United States. [2] Some conductors used African drums, some used bongós, some used other local instruments, and some sang a capella with no rhythmic accompaniment.
The hand claps essentially divided the arrangement into two parts: one in which the choir stood still, and one in which it moved. It also revealed cultural divisions among chorale groups who sang it: some clapped and turned side to side, some clapped and stood in place, and some did not clap.
The last part of the arrangement was essentially an amen, utilizing four repetitions of "Oh Lord, Kumbaya" with the basses singing a Zulu phrase in the space between the second and third syllables. Many just ignored that low part, but some groups replaced the entire section with another tune sung in their native languages.
Performers
2005 Drums
Soloist: Vincent Jiyane
Vocal Accompaniment: men and women
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: African drum, hand claps
2006 Synthesizer
Soloist: man
Vocal Accompaniment: 10 women and 8 men
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer, electric guitar, electric bass
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set, shaker, two African floor drums played by two seated men with their hands, hand claps by group
Rehearsal
Vocal Accompaniment: group of mostly white singers directed by a white woman, presumably Beverly Bryer
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: two drums standing on the floor played by two men with their hands, hand claps by choir
Sheet Music
Vocal Solo: tenor
Vocal Accompaniment: SSATTB
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano "for rehearsal only"
Rhythm Accompaniment: djembé, hand claps
Credits
2005 Drums
Traditional arr. L. Bok. EMI Music Publishing
Sheet Music
Traditional Spiritual
Arranged for Soweto Gospel Choir by Lucas Bok
Transcribed and edited by Kurt Runestad
© 2015 Lucas Bok
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English with last section in Zulu
Pronunciation: kum-bye-yah, with accent on second syllable
Verses: crying/praying, in despair,
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: somebody, I
Term for Deity: Lord
Format:
Sheet Music
Verse Length: four lines
Verse Rhyme Pattern: end rhymes - say/today/away, despair/cares
Verse Repetition Pattern: ABACC C(shortened) DCDD
Line Meter: iambic trimeter
(To be continued in next post)
End Notes
1. Kurt Runestad. "Performing Notes on ‘Khumaya’." MusicSpoke website.
2. Djembés were used by Les Ballets Africains, a music-and-dance troupe sponsored by Sekou Touré, president of Guinea from independence in 1958 until his death in 1984. Wikipedia noted that as a consequence, some elementary commercial production and distribution began. (Wikipedia. "Djembe.")
The most popular contemporary version of "Kumbaya" was performed by the Soweto Gospel Choir of South Africa. Like the variant created by Kurt Carr, the arrangement by Lucas Deon Bok incorporated elements of "Come by Here," like the use of "somebody" rather than "someone," and expanded it into a verse-chorus format with lines like "somebody’s in despair."
Those lyrics were not as important to listeners as the way it was sung. In the beginning the sopranos and tenors sang statements in unison, and the lower voices answered kumbaya in chords. Then the sopranos, altos, and tenors began singing three-part chords against a rhythm of kumbaya’s done by the basses that started later and were repeated in pauses. There also were tenor and bass solos.
Most of the time the choir sang four-part chords with one syllable to one note. However, the notes did not have even durations. In "kumbaya," each syllable was held longer than the previous one (eighth, quarter, extended half). The first verse based on "Come by Here" used all eighth notes; the new verses mixed sixteenth with eighth notes.
In addition to the textures created by the different voices and variations in tonal length, there were drums. Most important, half way through the singers themselves began clapping on the second and fourth beats.
Choral groups loved the opportunity to sing interesting parts. I found thirty versions uploaded to YouTube in December 2016. Those groups who had African directors or were in European areas where the ability to learn by listening never died modified it for themselves. Some relied on the choir’s CD that used drums, and some watched to the DVD that employed a synthesizer and drum set.
Kurt Runestad created an arrangement for his Doane College choir, which it performed on tours in Brasil and the United States. Other choral directors asked him for his arrangement, [1] and, with the permission of the Soweto Choir, he made it available for the sight-bound in 2015.
Apart from the modifications one would expect to be made to adapt the arrangement to the voices in a group, choral directors made other aesthetic decisions about the use of drums. Soweto had used floor drums in one version, and a drum set and shaker in the other. Runestad specified the djembé, a west African goblet drum, because that was the instrument most available in the United States. [2] Some conductors used African drums, some used bongós, some used other local instruments, and some sang a capella with no rhythmic accompaniment.
The hand claps essentially divided the arrangement into two parts: one in which the choir stood still, and one in which it moved. It also revealed cultural divisions among chorale groups who sang it: some clapped and turned side to side, some clapped and stood in place, and some did not clap.
The last part of the arrangement was essentially an amen, utilizing four repetitions of "Oh Lord, Kumbaya" with the basses singing a Zulu phrase in the space between the second and third syllables. Many just ignored that low part, but some groups replaced the entire section with another tune sung in their native languages.
Performers
2005 Drums
Soloist: Vincent Jiyane
Vocal Accompaniment: men and women
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: African drum, hand claps
2006 Synthesizer
Soloist: man
Vocal Accompaniment: 10 women and 8 men
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer, electric guitar, electric bass
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set, shaker, two African floor drums played by two seated men with their hands, hand claps by group
Rehearsal
Vocal Accompaniment: group of mostly white singers directed by a white woman, presumably Beverly Bryer
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: two drums standing on the floor played by two men with their hands, hand claps by choir
Sheet Music
Vocal Solo: tenor
Vocal Accompaniment: SSATTB
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano "for rehearsal only"
Rhythm Accompaniment: djembé, hand claps
Credits
2005 Drums
Traditional arr. L. Bok. EMI Music Publishing
Sheet Music
Traditional Spiritual
Arranged for Soweto Gospel Choir by Lucas Bok
Transcribed and edited by Kurt Runestad
© 2015 Lucas Bok
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English with last section in Zulu
Pronunciation: kum-bye-yah, with accent on second syllable
Verses: crying/praying, in despair,
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: somebody, I
Term for Deity: Lord
Format:
Sheet Music
Verse Length: four lines
Verse Rhyme Pattern: end rhymes - say/today/away, despair/cares
Verse Repetition Pattern: ABACC C(shortened) DCDD
Line Meter: iambic trimeter
(To be continued in next post)
End Notes
1. Kurt Runestad. "Performing Notes on ‘Khumaya’." MusicSpoke website.
2. Djembés were used by Les Ballets Africains, a music-and-dance troupe sponsored by Sekou Touré, president of Guinea from independence in 1958 until his death in 1984. Wikipedia noted that as a consequence, some elementary commercial production and distribution began. (Wikipedia. "Djembe.")
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Inez Andrews - It’s A Needed Time
Topic: Seminal Versions
Concerts rather than recordings were traditionally the way musicians earned money. For religious artists, they were doubly important because they were a substitutes for church services, while records were only a reminder - rather like the difference between the mass and a rosary.
During the 1930s, artists who could afford automobiles traveled from town to town, staying with local church people when they could. Into the 1960s, segregation laws precluded the use of trains and hotels. Albertina Walker remembered:
"On the road, we couldn’t go into white hotels or white restaurants. We couldn’t do none of that then. We had to go to the back door to get food. [. . .] We drove in cars during that time, six of us going all across the country." [1]
Promoters in Word War II put together packages of entertainers to perform at military installations and in cities with war production factories. These continued after the war: sometimes a single person would put together a group that went from place to place, sometimes an entrepreneur in a single location would schedule a number of acts together. They often filled out the program with local performers.
Artists were not responsible for performing an entire evening, but only for a portion. Shorn of the need to handle everything, they concentrated on their most popular songs. When they were scheduled between artists with different styles, they did not need to vary their pace as much. That is, if they were between two groups who featured slow songs, they could concentrate on up-tempo ones.
These tours were cauldrons that exposed artists to each other’s work, and created friendships beyond the regional ones that already existed. Inez Andrews’ mother died when she was two. [2] Her father [3] and Lil McGriff [4] raised her in Birmingham, Alabama. She began singing in his Baptist church, and worked with a local group that toured the "Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia region." [5]
Meantime, McGriff’s daughter, Dorothy Love was singing with the Original Gospel Harmonettes [6]. One time when Andrews was substituting for Love in Nashville, James Cleveland heard her sing, [7] and recommended her to Albertina Walker. He then was the pianist for Walker’s group, the Gospel Caravans. [8] In 1957, Andrews moved to Chicago to join the group. [9]
The Newport Folk Festivals of the middle-1960s created a taste among the educated for programs that featured unfamiliar artists and styles. Two European promoters put together a package to introduce Germans to contemporary African-American religious music. [10] It included a minister and some of his parishioners from a Church of God in Christ church, the Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, and Andrews. By then, she had her group, the Andrewettes.
One of the songs Andrews sang was "It’s a Needed Time." She never recorded it, but it became known through the concert circuit. In 1968, the Mighty Gospel Giants recorded it, [11] and since it has been sung by both professionals like Melvin Couch [12] and local groups.
Andrews’ version reused phrases popularized by Lightnin’ Hopkins, but with a different melody and a truncated verse structure. The phrase "it’s a needed time" became its distinctive feature.
Performers
Vocal Accompaniment: Bettie Jones Sims, Elaine Davis, Mildred Span, Elizabeth Dargan
Instrumental Accompaniment: James Conley, piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano, tambourine
Credits
I. Andrews
(P) 1981 [13]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verse Phrases: needed time, don’t stay long, oh Lord
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord, Lordy
God is real: this phrase in Andrew’s first spoken line was a reference to a theological movement exploring the consequences of the secularization of morality, especially after Auschwitz. A Time magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" on 8 April 1966, and turned what was then an academic debate into a popular slogan for the religious. Andrews may not have been aware when she made her statement in Bremen that it was a German, Friedrich Nietzsche, who first raised the problem. [14]
Format: verse-chorus within ritual prelude-denouement structure
Prelude
Andrews introduced the song by saying God was the world’s greatest healer, with an invitation for Him to come make "everything all right." Then, she and the Andrewettes repeated the "Oh Lord" chorus with fragments of Hopkins’ verses.
Denouement: repetitions of "Oh Lord" in sets that began or ended with a variant of "needed time."
Notes on Music
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: call-response followed by group singing with soloist making comments
Singing Style:
Solo: by the time Andrews was performing in Bremen, she recognized people "don’t pay me to sing, they like to hear me holler." [15]
Group: chordal harmony
Solo-Group Dynamics:
Prelude: Andrews and the group sang a phrase. They began together, then Andrews paused after "right now," then continued "is a needed after time" just a bit after them.
Denouement: the group repeated phrases in even timing, which allowed Andrews to sing her high notes independently. They often were emphasized by extending beyond the group’s tones.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the piano primarily played rhythm, but used chordal progressions that were melodic. The tambourine was loud on the downbeat, softer on the upbeat. Both were loud at the ends of verses, and the piano played through the pauses between verses.
Notes on Performance
Recorded live at Die Glocke, a 1920s Bremen concert hall with excellent acoustics. [16] Tony Cummings said the concert also was taped in Baden Baden by SWR TV in an empty church "where the artists were asked to whip up Holy Spirit fervour before rows of empty pews. Some succeeded better than others, none more so than Inez Andrews And The Andrewettes." [17]
Audience Perceptions
Siegfried Schmidt-Joos noticed "some members of the audience exclaimed rather bewilderedly that they have not been able to differentiate between mere ‘show’ and genuine fervour" in the three acts presented. He then essayed a cultural gulf by explaining, "the screams, gesticulations, and the dancing, which Europeans would only produce designedly, self-consciously and hence spuriously, are quite genuine expressions of religious fervour." [18]
The Andrewettes responded with amens and other comments during the pauses in Andrew’s spoken introduction. The only audience response on the record was applause at the end.
Notes on Performers
Andrews formed the Andrewettes in 1962, but was working as a solo artist in 1967. [19] Tony Heilbut noted, "it was an artistic advance but financially, a rear-guard action." [20]
She died in 2012. Her homegoing was held at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. [21]
Availability
Album: The Famous Spiritual + Gospel Festival of 1965. Bremen, Germany, 25 January 1965. L+R Records 44.005. 1981.
YouTube: uploaded by Reneesaskia, 16 February 2012.
End Notes
1. Interview published by Billboard. Quoted by Tony Cummings. "Inez Andrews: Gospel Roots - Remembering the Caravans’ lead singer." Cross Rhythms website.
2. Dennis Hevesi. "Inez Andrews, Gospel Singer, Dies at 83." The New York Times, 21 December 2012.
3. Her parents were Theodore and Pauline McConico. Andrews was briefly married to Robert Andrews; they divorced when she was 18. (Hevesi)
4. Tony Heilbut. The Gospel Sound. Garden City: Anchor Press, 1975 edition. 325.
5. Cummings. The group was Carter’s Choral Ensemble.
6. Cummings.
7. JM. "Updated: Inez Andrews of The Caravans Dead at Age 83." The Golden Era Gospel website, 19 December 2012.
8. JM.
9. Wikipedia. "Inez Andrews."
10. Siegfried Schmidt-Joos. Liner notes, Famous Spiritual. The promoters were Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau.
11. The Mighty Gospel Giants. "It’s a Needed Time." Veep Gospel VPS 16534. 1968.
12. The Golden Wings of Atlanta, Georgia. "It’s a Needed Time." It’s a Needed Time. Grammercy Records. Gram 345. 2010.
13. (P)is the symbol for a copyright protected recording. It was introduced in Europe in the 1960s, and was brought here in 1971. (Wikipedia. "Sound Recording Copyright Symbol.")
14. Wikipedia. "God Is Dead."
15. Cummings.
16. Wikipedia. "Die Glocke (Bremen)."
17. Cummings.
18. Schmidt-Joos.
19. Wikipedia, Andrews.
20. Heilbut. 326.
21. JM.
Concerts rather than recordings were traditionally the way musicians earned money. For religious artists, they were doubly important because they were a substitutes for church services, while records were only a reminder - rather like the difference between the mass and a rosary.
During the 1930s, artists who could afford automobiles traveled from town to town, staying with local church people when they could. Into the 1960s, segregation laws precluded the use of trains and hotels. Albertina Walker remembered:
"On the road, we couldn’t go into white hotels or white restaurants. We couldn’t do none of that then. We had to go to the back door to get food. [. . .] We drove in cars during that time, six of us going all across the country." [1]
Promoters in Word War II put together packages of entertainers to perform at military installations and in cities with war production factories. These continued after the war: sometimes a single person would put together a group that went from place to place, sometimes an entrepreneur in a single location would schedule a number of acts together. They often filled out the program with local performers.
Artists were not responsible for performing an entire evening, but only for a portion. Shorn of the need to handle everything, they concentrated on their most popular songs. When they were scheduled between artists with different styles, they did not need to vary their pace as much. That is, if they were between two groups who featured slow songs, they could concentrate on up-tempo ones.
These tours were cauldrons that exposed artists to each other’s work, and created friendships beyond the regional ones that already existed. Inez Andrews’ mother died when she was two. [2] Her father [3] and Lil McGriff [4] raised her in Birmingham, Alabama. She began singing in his Baptist church, and worked with a local group that toured the "Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia region." [5]
Meantime, McGriff’s daughter, Dorothy Love was singing with the Original Gospel Harmonettes [6]. One time when Andrews was substituting for Love in Nashville, James Cleveland heard her sing, [7] and recommended her to Albertina Walker. He then was the pianist for Walker’s group, the Gospel Caravans. [8] In 1957, Andrews moved to Chicago to join the group. [9]
The Newport Folk Festivals of the middle-1960s created a taste among the educated for programs that featured unfamiliar artists and styles. Two European promoters put together a package to introduce Germans to contemporary African-American religious music. [10] It included a minister and some of his parishioners from a Church of God in Christ church, the Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, and Andrews. By then, she had her group, the Andrewettes.
One of the songs Andrews sang was "It’s a Needed Time." She never recorded it, but it became known through the concert circuit. In 1968, the Mighty Gospel Giants recorded it, [11] and since it has been sung by both professionals like Melvin Couch [12] and local groups.
Andrews’ version reused phrases popularized by Lightnin’ Hopkins, but with a different melody and a truncated verse structure. The phrase "it’s a needed time" became its distinctive feature.
Performers
Vocal Accompaniment: Bettie Jones Sims, Elaine Davis, Mildred Span, Elizabeth Dargan
Instrumental Accompaniment: James Conley, piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano, tambourine
Credits
I. Andrews
(P) 1981 [13]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verse Phrases: needed time, don’t stay long, oh Lord
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord, Lordy
God is real: this phrase in Andrew’s first spoken line was a reference to a theological movement exploring the consequences of the secularization of morality, especially after Auschwitz. A Time magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" on 8 April 1966, and turned what was then an academic debate into a popular slogan for the religious. Andrews may not have been aware when she made her statement in Bremen that it was a German, Friedrich Nietzsche, who first raised the problem. [14]
Format: verse-chorus within ritual prelude-denouement structure
Prelude
Andrews introduced the song by saying God was the world’s greatest healer, with an invitation for Him to come make "everything all right." Then, she and the Andrewettes repeated the "Oh Lord" chorus with fragments of Hopkins’ verses.
Denouement: repetitions of "Oh Lord" in sets that began or ended with a variant of "needed time."
Notes on Music
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: call-response followed by group singing with soloist making comments
Singing Style:
Solo: by the time Andrews was performing in Bremen, she recognized people "don’t pay me to sing, they like to hear me holler." [15]
Group: chordal harmony
Solo-Group Dynamics:
Prelude: Andrews and the group sang a phrase. They began together, then Andrews paused after "right now," then continued "is a needed after time" just a bit after them.
Denouement: the group repeated phrases in even timing, which allowed Andrews to sing her high notes independently. They often were emphasized by extending beyond the group’s tones.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the piano primarily played rhythm, but used chordal progressions that were melodic. The tambourine was loud on the downbeat, softer on the upbeat. Both were loud at the ends of verses, and the piano played through the pauses between verses.
Notes on Performance
Recorded live at Die Glocke, a 1920s Bremen concert hall with excellent acoustics. [16] Tony Cummings said the concert also was taped in Baden Baden by SWR TV in an empty church "where the artists were asked to whip up Holy Spirit fervour before rows of empty pews. Some succeeded better than others, none more so than Inez Andrews And The Andrewettes." [17]
Audience Perceptions
Siegfried Schmidt-Joos noticed "some members of the audience exclaimed rather bewilderedly that they have not been able to differentiate between mere ‘show’ and genuine fervour" in the three acts presented. He then essayed a cultural gulf by explaining, "the screams, gesticulations, and the dancing, which Europeans would only produce designedly, self-consciously and hence spuriously, are quite genuine expressions of religious fervour." [18]
The Andrewettes responded with amens and other comments during the pauses in Andrew’s spoken introduction. The only audience response on the record was applause at the end.
Notes on Performers
Andrews formed the Andrewettes in 1962, but was working as a solo artist in 1967. [19] Tony Heilbut noted, "it was an artistic advance but financially, a rear-guard action." [20]
She died in 2012. Her homegoing was held at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. [21]
Availability
Album: The Famous Spiritual + Gospel Festival of 1965. Bremen, Germany, 25 January 1965. L+R Records 44.005. 1981.
YouTube: uploaded by Reneesaskia, 16 February 2012.
End Notes
1. Interview published by Billboard. Quoted by Tony Cummings. "Inez Andrews: Gospel Roots - Remembering the Caravans’ lead singer." Cross Rhythms website.
2. Dennis Hevesi. "Inez Andrews, Gospel Singer, Dies at 83." The New York Times, 21 December 2012.
3. Her parents were Theodore and Pauline McConico. Andrews was briefly married to Robert Andrews; they divorced when she was 18. (Hevesi)
4. Tony Heilbut. The Gospel Sound. Garden City: Anchor Press, 1975 edition. 325.
5. Cummings. The group was Carter’s Choral Ensemble.
6. Cummings.
7. JM. "Updated: Inez Andrews of The Caravans Dead at Age 83." The Golden Era Gospel website, 19 December 2012.
8. JM.
9. Wikipedia. "Inez Andrews."
10. Siegfried Schmidt-Joos. Liner notes, Famous Spiritual. The promoters were Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau.
11. The Mighty Gospel Giants. "It’s a Needed Time." Veep Gospel VPS 16534. 1968.
12. The Golden Wings of Atlanta, Georgia. "It’s a Needed Time." It’s a Needed Time. Grammercy Records. Gram 345. 2010.
13. (P)is the symbol for a copyright protected recording. It was introduced in Europe in the 1960s, and was brought here in 1971. (Wikipedia. "Sound Recording Copyright Symbol.")
14. Wikipedia. "God Is Dead."
15. Cummings.
16. Wikipedia. "Die Glocke (Bremen)."
17. Cummings.
18. Schmidt-Joos.
19. Wikipedia, Andrews.
20. Heilbut. 326.
21. JM.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Kurt Carr - Kumbaya
Topic: Seminal Versions
Kurt Carr was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1964, too late to have sung "Kumbaya" as an adolescent and too far from the South to have heard "Come by Here" in church. Indeed, he said, he did not start spending time in church until he was thirteen, [1] and his first musical influence was Walter Hawkins. [2]
The African American spent his teen years in a private school where most of the students were Jewish, [3] and studied classical music at the University of Connecticut, where he pledged Phi Beta Sigma. [4] He did not have any real contact with Black gospel music until he was hired as a pianist by James Cleveland, and met artists like Albertina Walker, Dorothy Norwood, and Inez Andrews. [5]
He also worked for Andrae Crouch, who told him, "I believe that you have something that is not too ‘black’, and is going to reach the world; not just our own people." [6] This isolation from both the "Kumbaya" and "Come by Here" traditions meant that, when Carr did record "Kumbaya," he was able to alter the melody and write additional words. The most memorable were ones asking the Lord to "shower down" blessings.
Carr was primarily a chorale director. His vision for his group was that it be composed of "unique" individuals who were genuinely religious and could work with one another. [7] Yvette Williams remembered he wanted individuals who were committed to God, not to their art. [8]
This view emanated from an older African belief that individuals only flourished when they were members of communities, and that communal life directed, but did not eliminate their specialness. [9] There were no solos in "Kumbaya." Instead, Sherron Bennett emphasized what the group said by echoing it with embellishments.
Despite this emphasis on the group, the lyrics did not treat "Kumbaya" as the stereotype that underlaid references to the kumbaya moment. Carr emphasized its older "Come by Here" verses that petitioned the Holy Spirit for a blessing.
His version has been especially popular in Asia. Partly, this may be because he had successful tours to places like Japan. He told Dwayne Lacy that at one concert, with an unidentified set of songs,
"God used us that night. The anointing fell. People were speaking in tongues, and didn’t realize what they were doing. They don’t even understand what I am saying, but it’s the music —the substance and the heart of the music —that’s going to change them and lead them to conversion." [10]
The other possible reason for its popularity was five of the six members of the Kurt Carr Singers were women. The African-American gospel quartet tradition was primarily male; women who became famous were soloists. This rendition provided a singing opportunity for groups of young women who wished to perform together.
Performers
Soloists: Sherron Bennett and Kurt Carr
Vocal Accompaniment: Kurt Carr Singers
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer dominant
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Credits
Adapted melody and lyrics by Kurt Carr
© 1997 K. Cartunes/Lily Mack Music (BMI)
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: kum-bye-ya, with the accent on the second syllable
Verses: kumbaya, needs you, praying, need a blessing, need a miracle, shower down on me
Vocabulary:
Pronouns: somebody, I
Term for Deity: Lord
Down on me: this phrase was popularized by Janis Joplin in 1967. It came from a religious song recorded in Livingston, Alabama, by Dock Reed in the 1930s. [11]
Line Meter: iambic trimeter
Line Repetition Pattern: ABAB
Line Form: statement-refrain.
Format: ritual prelude-denouement structure
Prelude: verses were sung
Transition: repetitions of "Oh Lord"
Denouement: phrases were used
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: choral group with subdued instrumental accompaniment
Singing Style: solos were highly ornamented
Solo-Group Dynamics
Prelude: Carr spoke the first line before each verse began, as if he were a song leader, then the group sang the verse. On the second line, an extended "oh" was sung in an arc of notes.
Denouement: the group sang a phrase that Bennett repeated in a higher register with embellishments; many were wordless high-pitched sounds.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: before the choir began, the synthesizer played the melody with the drums. Then, they both faded into the background. After the choir was finished and the audience was applauding, the drums continued until the group began the coda.
Notes on Performance
Recorded in the West Los Angeles Church of God in Christ church where Carr was the choir director. [12] Applause could sometimes be heard, especially during the denouement when Bennett was particularly masterful, and again throughout the coda.
Viewers’ Perceptions
Several of the YouTube comments on "Kumbaya" were about the song.
One man said in 2013: "This is a real 1997 praise party song right here." [13]
That same year, another said: "Can’t wait for IVOP to sing this to close out Black History Month at First AME Zion in Brooklyn USA!" [14]
Earlier, another man wrote: "I remember when I was little my parents used to always play this cd and this song would come on. And even though I was little I would sit there and jam cause I loved this song. Its been about 12 years since I heard this song, and I still know every single word." [15]
When I searched for information on the lead singer, Sherron Bennett, I came across the following comments posted for another song she recorded with the Kurt Carr Singers.
"that was Sherron because no one can sound like her." [16]
"sherron knew how to sang and praise God." [17]
Curious, I checked for information on the other singers and found the same pattern: they were remembered as having unique voices while they were part of the Kurt Carr Singers.
Jackie Boyd
"I Remember Her From The kurt Carr Singers Years back She Was One Of The Best In That Group I Was Wondering Was She Still Singing With That Great Voice I Am Glad That She Is Still Lefting Up The Name Of Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!" [18]
Kesha Ealy
"She’s still powerful." [19]
Shervonne Wells and Yvette Williams
"G5’s and G#5’s for days. She just sang that made me think of her with the Kurt Carr Singers...She and Yvette were the core of his Soprano sound." [20]
For whatever reason, I found no comments about the tenor, Corey Briggs.
Notes on Performers
Carr has made few comments on his denominational affiliation. He worked for Baptist churches in Connecticut and Houston, Texas, and for a Church of God in Christ congregation in California. Perhaps, like any modern performer and any evangelist, he wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible, and learned the best way to overcome sectarian bias was not to be identified with any faction. After his tour in Japan, he began talking about the universal aspects of Christ’s message. He told Rene Williams:
"Though I never want to forsake my base—which is the black church, the Pentecostal movement, the Charismatic movement—this time, it’s time for Kurt Carr to reach out to the world." [21]
Availability
Album, CD: No One Else. Gospel Centric Records. 1997.
YouTube: uploaded by onedadou1984, 16 April 2009.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Kurt Carr."
2. Margena A. Christian. "Kurt Carr Receives His Blessing." Ebony website. 5 February 2015.
3. Dwayne Lacy. "Kurt Carr Interview." Gospel Flava website.
4. Wikipedia, Carr.
5. Christopher Heron. "Interview with Kurt Carr." Black Gospel website. November 2008.
6. Lacy.
7. Heron.
8. Yvette Williams. Interviewed by Edward Donalson, III, on Genius Show. Uploaded to YouTube 18 May 2013.
9. John S. Mbiti wrote Africans believed "to be human is to belong to the whole community." African Religions and Philosophies. New York: Praeger Publications, 1970. 2-16. Quoted by Margaret Washington Creel. "A Peculiar People." New York: New York University Press, 1988. 59.
10. Lacy. As mentioned in the previous post, the division between religious groups who relied on text for conversion and those who depended on contact with the spirit is fundamental in Anglo-American Protestantism. One man wrote an article severely criticizing Carr for thinking it was possible for anything but the word to be useful. David J. Stewart was more critical than the Presbyterians were of the Baptists in the post for 12 August 2017. "Kurt Carr's Music EXPOSED!" Jesus Is Savior website.
11. Wikipedia. "Down on Me (Traditional Song)."
12. Wikipedia, Carr.
13. chrispleasantable. "Kumbaya." YouTube. 2013.
14. EM Rollins. "Kumbaya." YouTube. 2013.
15. Jordan Gregory. "Kumbaya." YouTube. 2008.
16. im4Christ4life. "The Kurt Carr Singers-Send The Holy Ghost." YouTube, uploaded 27 January 2010. Comment posted 2012.
17. male alto1. "Send The Holy Ghost." Comment posted 2001.
18. Rita Coleman. "Jackie Boyd de Raat RAW." YouTube, uploaded 29 December 2010. Comment posted 2013.
19. marquis halsell. "Original Kurt Carr Singer Kesha Ealy Marvelous at West Angeles COGIC HD!" YouTube, uploaded 15 March 2016. Comment posted 2016.
20. Marvin McCoy. "Shervonne Wells’ Praise Medley." YouTube, uploaded 23 January 2013. Comment posted 2013.
21. "Kurt Carr’s One Church." Gospel City website. 16 September 2005. No longer available. Quoted by "Kurt Carr Biography." JRank website.
Kurt Carr was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1964, too late to have sung "Kumbaya" as an adolescent and too far from the South to have heard "Come by Here" in church. Indeed, he said, he did not start spending time in church until he was thirteen, [1] and his first musical influence was Walter Hawkins. [2]
The African American spent his teen years in a private school where most of the students were Jewish, [3] and studied classical music at the University of Connecticut, where he pledged Phi Beta Sigma. [4] He did not have any real contact with Black gospel music until he was hired as a pianist by James Cleveland, and met artists like Albertina Walker, Dorothy Norwood, and Inez Andrews. [5]
He also worked for Andrae Crouch, who told him, "I believe that you have something that is not too ‘black’, and is going to reach the world; not just our own people." [6] This isolation from both the "Kumbaya" and "Come by Here" traditions meant that, when Carr did record "Kumbaya," he was able to alter the melody and write additional words. The most memorable were ones asking the Lord to "shower down" blessings.
Carr was primarily a chorale director. His vision for his group was that it be composed of "unique" individuals who were genuinely religious and could work with one another. [7] Yvette Williams remembered he wanted individuals who were committed to God, not to their art. [8]
This view emanated from an older African belief that individuals only flourished when they were members of communities, and that communal life directed, but did not eliminate their specialness. [9] There were no solos in "Kumbaya." Instead, Sherron Bennett emphasized what the group said by echoing it with embellishments.
Despite this emphasis on the group, the lyrics did not treat "Kumbaya" as the stereotype that underlaid references to the kumbaya moment. Carr emphasized its older "Come by Here" verses that petitioned the Holy Spirit for a blessing.
His version has been especially popular in Asia. Partly, this may be because he had successful tours to places like Japan. He told Dwayne Lacy that at one concert, with an unidentified set of songs,
"God used us that night. The anointing fell. People were speaking in tongues, and didn’t realize what they were doing. They don’t even understand what I am saying, but it’s the music —the substance and the heart of the music —that’s going to change them and lead them to conversion." [10]
The other possible reason for its popularity was five of the six members of the Kurt Carr Singers were women. The African-American gospel quartet tradition was primarily male; women who became famous were soloists. This rendition provided a singing opportunity for groups of young women who wished to perform together.
Performers
Soloists: Sherron Bennett and Kurt Carr
Vocal Accompaniment: Kurt Carr Singers
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer dominant
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Credits
Adapted melody and lyrics by Kurt Carr
© 1997 K. Cartunes/Lily Mack Music (BMI)
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: kum-bye-ya, with the accent on the second syllable
Verses: kumbaya, needs you, praying, need a blessing, need a miracle, shower down on me
Vocabulary:
Pronouns: somebody, I
Term for Deity: Lord
Down on me: this phrase was popularized by Janis Joplin in 1967. It came from a religious song recorded in Livingston, Alabama, by Dock Reed in the 1930s. [11]
Line Meter: iambic trimeter
Line Repetition Pattern: ABAB
Line Form: statement-refrain.
Format: ritual prelude-denouement structure
Prelude: verses were sung
Transition: repetitions of "Oh Lord"
Denouement: phrases were used
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: choral group with subdued instrumental accompaniment
Singing Style: solos were highly ornamented
Solo-Group Dynamics
Prelude: Carr spoke the first line before each verse began, as if he were a song leader, then the group sang the verse. On the second line, an extended "oh" was sung in an arc of notes.
Denouement: the group sang a phrase that Bennett repeated in a higher register with embellishments; many were wordless high-pitched sounds.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: before the choir began, the synthesizer played the melody with the drums. Then, they both faded into the background. After the choir was finished and the audience was applauding, the drums continued until the group began the coda.
Notes on Performance
Recorded in the West Los Angeles Church of God in Christ church where Carr was the choir director. [12] Applause could sometimes be heard, especially during the denouement when Bennett was particularly masterful, and again throughout the coda.
Viewers’ Perceptions
Several of the YouTube comments on "Kumbaya" were about the song.
One man said in 2013: "This is a real 1997 praise party song right here." [13]
That same year, another said: "Can’t wait for IVOP to sing this to close out Black History Month at First AME Zion in Brooklyn USA!" [14]
Earlier, another man wrote: "I remember when I was little my parents used to always play this cd and this song would come on. And even though I was little I would sit there and jam cause I loved this song. Its been about 12 years since I heard this song, and I still know every single word." [15]
When I searched for information on the lead singer, Sherron Bennett, I came across the following comments posted for another song she recorded with the Kurt Carr Singers.
"that was Sherron because no one can sound like her." [16]
"sherron knew how to sang and praise God." [17]
Curious, I checked for information on the other singers and found the same pattern: they were remembered as having unique voices while they were part of the Kurt Carr Singers.
Jackie Boyd
"I Remember Her From The kurt Carr Singers Years back She Was One Of The Best In That Group I Was Wondering Was She Still Singing With That Great Voice I Am Glad That She Is Still Lefting Up The Name Of Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!" [18]
Kesha Ealy
"She’s still powerful." [19]
Shervonne Wells and Yvette Williams
"G5’s and G#5’s for days. She just sang that made me think of her with the Kurt Carr Singers...She and Yvette were the core of his Soprano sound." [20]
For whatever reason, I found no comments about the tenor, Corey Briggs.
Notes on Performers
Carr has made few comments on his denominational affiliation. He worked for Baptist churches in Connecticut and Houston, Texas, and for a Church of God in Christ congregation in California. Perhaps, like any modern performer and any evangelist, he wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible, and learned the best way to overcome sectarian bias was not to be identified with any faction. After his tour in Japan, he began talking about the universal aspects of Christ’s message. He told Rene Williams:
"Though I never want to forsake my base—which is the black church, the Pentecostal movement, the Charismatic movement—this time, it’s time for Kurt Carr to reach out to the world." [21]
Availability
Album, CD: No One Else. Gospel Centric Records. 1997.
YouTube: uploaded by onedadou1984, 16 April 2009.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Kurt Carr."
2. Margena A. Christian. "Kurt Carr Receives His Blessing." Ebony website. 5 February 2015.
3. Dwayne Lacy. "Kurt Carr Interview." Gospel Flava website.
4. Wikipedia, Carr.
5. Christopher Heron. "Interview with Kurt Carr." Black Gospel website. November 2008.
6. Lacy.
7. Heron.
8. Yvette Williams. Interviewed by Edward Donalson, III, on Genius Show. Uploaded to YouTube 18 May 2013.
9. John S. Mbiti wrote Africans believed "to be human is to belong to the whole community." African Religions and Philosophies. New York: Praeger Publications, 1970. 2-16. Quoted by Margaret Washington Creel. "A Peculiar People." New York: New York University Press, 1988. 59.
10. Lacy. As mentioned in the previous post, the division between religious groups who relied on text for conversion and those who depended on contact with the spirit is fundamental in Anglo-American Protestantism. One man wrote an article severely criticizing Carr for thinking it was possible for anything but the word to be useful. David J. Stewart was more critical than the Presbyterians were of the Baptists in the post for 12 August 2017. "Kurt Carr's Music EXPOSED!" Jesus Is Savior website.
11. Wikipedia. "Down on Me (Traditional Song)."
12. Wikipedia, Carr.
13. chrispleasantable. "Kumbaya." YouTube. 2013.
14. EM Rollins. "Kumbaya." YouTube. 2013.
15. Jordan Gregory. "Kumbaya." YouTube. 2008.
16. im4Christ4life. "The Kurt Carr Singers-Send The Holy Ghost." YouTube, uploaded 27 January 2010. Comment posted 2012.
17. male alto1. "Send The Holy Ghost." Comment posted 2001.
18. Rita Coleman. "Jackie Boyd de Raat RAW." YouTube, uploaded 29 December 2010. Comment posted 2013.
19. marquis halsell. "Original Kurt Carr Singer Kesha Ealy Marvelous at West Angeles COGIC HD!" YouTube, uploaded 15 March 2016. Comment posted 2016.
20. Marvin McCoy. "Shervonne Wells’ Praise Medley." YouTube, uploaded 23 January 2013. Comment posted 2013.
21. "Kurt Carr’s One Church." Gospel City website. 16 September 2005. No longer available. Quoted by "Kurt Carr Biography." JRank website.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Lightnin’ Hopkins - Jesus Won’t You Come By Here
Topic: Seminal Versions
It is tempting to see the difference in white and African-America concepts of songs as a function of cultures isolated by race. That obscures the fact the white definition only dates back to the Anglo-Scots Reformation, and was a divergence from attitudes about music shared by Europeans and Africans.
At the simplest level, the Calvinists replaced Roman Catholic rituals with sermons explicating scripture. The contact with the word became the talisman of religious experience, not contact with the spirits through the Eucharist. Music was eliminated.
Later, Jean Calvin reintroduced psalms sung without instrumental accompaniment after he saw the ways Lutherans were using music in Strasbourg. [1] The English and Scots accepted his innovation, but with much stricter rules for melodies. Music existed solely to make it easier to sing the words of scripture, with one note to one syllable. [2] Rhythm did not exist. Psalms lines contained six or eight syllables. The song leader matched psalms with tunes whose lines contained the same numbers of notes.
To ensure fidelity to the word, the Scot’s parliament ordered churches that did not possess psalters in 1645 to appoint someone to read out the lines before they were sung, [3] lest any deviation enter from oral tradition or faulty human memory.
Quite simply, the ability to learn music by singing was bred out of congregations, and reading scores became the mark that distinguished accomplished musicians. This contributed to the idea that songs had immutable texts, that could be orchestrated in different ways.
When Lightnin’ Hopkins began performing for white audiences on the folk revival circuit, he navigated the chasm by distilling de rigeur lyrics and melody from his 1952 rendition of "Come by Here," but keeping fluid the instrumentation and interplay between parts. In 1964 he used a piano and sang most of the words with Barbara Dane humming along. In 1969, he sang the first words of each of his three verses, and let the organ complete them.
The underlying cultural differences persisted. Individuals interested in playing blues guitar listened to, and mastered, the way Hopkins had played the acoustic guitar on "Needed Time." They sang all, some, or few of his verses, depending on their abilities. If the words changed, it was because of demands stemming from ways impromptu groups of musicians came together.
His unique phrase, "come if you don’t stay long," was accepted into the pool of verses African-American religious singers drew upon to sing "Come by Here." He also may have reinvigorated the use of the phrase "needed time."
Performers
1964 Dane
Vocal Accompaniment: Barbara Dane
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano
1969 Organ
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ
Credits
1964 Dane
Arranged by Hopkins
Notes on Lyrics
Verses: Hopkins kept the sestet structure, but converted what had been an improvisation done to fill three minutes into a set, three-verse song.
1964 Dane: come by here, needed time, don’t stay long
1969 Organ: come by here, needed time, don’t stay long
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: two verses, an instrumental interlude, and a final verse. The similarity between the piano version and the organ one done five years later suggested Hopkins, by then, had performed so many times on programs with time limits that he had created musical units that could be combined into circumscribed sets. He then improvised within those limits with elements like musical phrasing.
Solo-Group Dynamics:
1964 Dane
Dane, no doubt, had seen Hopkins perform enough times to know his basic style. On the first line of the first verse she attempted to sing harmony, but she could not match his timing. As a soloist who controlled his accompaniment, he was able to sustain or shorten notes to fit his mood without losing his basic cadence. As Alan Grovenor observed, this created problems for drummers and bass players. [4]
On the second line of the first verse Dane switched to humming in ways borrowed from 1920s blues singers. Once she realized which parts he was not singing, she joined the instrument in singing those phrases. The kinesics of playing ensured the rhythm would be constant.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the instrument was treated as an equal voice. Hopkins would begin a line, and let the instrument continue the melody. The transfers between parts was the same in both versions, indicating this too had acquire a form through repetition. In the second line, he sang the first part of the line, and the piano or organ took over. On the third line, he sang the first word.
1964 Dane: the accompaniment used motifs from ragtime or stride piano styles, with a low bass and flourishes played by the right hand. This was especially prominent in the instrumental interlude.
1969 Organ: the organ played melody and chords. In the instrumental interlude Hopkins played twice as many notes to the same rhythmic pattern.
Notes on Performance
Both were described as live performances, although no background noise or audience reaction could be heard.
Notes on Performers
Hopkins cultivated the image of the hard-drinking, hard-living blues man. He only recorded one gospel song, [5] and Dane was surprised "he was dead serious with his religiosity." [6]
His mother was a religious woman, and the family attended picnics sponsored by the General Association of Baptist Churches. He told Sam Charters:
"the organ used to be the real family instrument, you know. We’d play on Sundays if we didn’t go to church, we’d have church at home. And, I was the organ player, sang them old Christian songs and mamma she’d [ne’er] get happy, you know." [7]
Barbara Dane’s parents moved from Arkansas to Detroit after World War I. She moved to San Francisco in 1949 where she began singing in jazz clubs. Later, in the 1960s, she opened her own club in a tourist district to expand the audience for the blues, and became involved in political protests. [8]
Availability
1964 Dane
Album: Lightnin’ Hopkins and Barbara Dane. "Jesus Won’t You Come By Here." Lightnin’ Hopkins. Arhoolie F1022. Cabale Club, 1964, Berkeley, California; released 1966.
YouTube: uploaded by Warner Music Group, 8 November 2014.
1969 Organ
Album: Lightnin’ Hopkins. "Jesus, Would You Come By Here." California Mudslide (And Earthquake). Vault Records SLP-129. Los Angeles, 1969.
YouTube: uploaded by Fede Corchero, 29 August 2015.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Psautier de Genève."
2. Archibald T. Davison. "Psalter." In Harvard Dictionary of Music. Edited by Willi Apel. Cambridge: Belnap Press, 1969 edition. 704.
3. Scotland. Act of Parliament to establish The Directory for The Publick Worship of God. Edinburgh, 6 February 1645. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics website. It ordained:
"That the whole congregation may join herein, every one that can read is to have a psalm book; and all others, not disabled by age or otherwise, are to be exhorted to learn to read. But for the present, where many in the congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling officers, do read the psalm, line by line, before the singing thereof."
4. Alan B. Govenar. Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010. viii.
5. Govenar. 11.
6. Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger. Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 15.
7. Lightnin’ Hopkins. "I Growed Up with the Blues." My Life in Blues. Prestige 7370. 1965. Interviewed by Sam Charters. My transcription; not sure of words in brackets. See previous post for reissue information.
8. Wikipedia. "Barbara Dane."
It is tempting to see the difference in white and African-America concepts of songs as a function of cultures isolated by race. That obscures the fact the white definition only dates back to the Anglo-Scots Reformation, and was a divergence from attitudes about music shared by Europeans and Africans.
At the simplest level, the Calvinists replaced Roman Catholic rituals with sermons explicating scripture. The contact with the word became the talisman of religious experience, not contact with the spirits through the Eucharist. Music was eliminated.
Later, Jean Calvin reintroduced psalms sung without instrumental accompaniment after he saw the ways Lutherans were using music in Strasbourg. [1] The English and Scots accepted his innovation, but with much stricter rules for melodies. Music existed solely to make it easier to sing the words of scripture, with one note to one syllable. [2] Rhythm did not exist. Psalms lines contained six or eight syllables. The song leader matched psalms with tunes whose lines contained the same numbers of notes.
To ensure fidelity to the word, the Scot’s parliament ordered churches that did not possess psalters in 1645 to appoint someone to read out the lines before they were sung, [3] lest any deviation enter from oral tradition or faulty human memory.
Quite simply, the ability to learn music by singing was bred out of congregations, and reading scores became the mark that distinguished accomplished musicians. This contributed to the idea that songs had immutable texts, that could be orchestrated in different ways.
When Lightnin’ Hopkins began performing for white audiences on the folk revival circuit, he navigated the chasm by distilling de rigeur lyrics and melody from his 1952 rendition of "Come by Here," but keeping fluid the instrumentation and interplay between parts. In 1964 he used a piano and sang most of the words with Barbara Dane humming along. In 1969, he sang the first words of each of his three verses, and let the organ complete them.
The underlying cultural differences persisted. Individuals interested in playing blues guitar listened to, and mastered, the way Hopkins had played the acoustic guitar on "Needed Time." They sang all, some, or few of his verses, depending on their abilities. If the words changed, it was because of demands stemming from ways impromptu groups of musicians came together.
His unique phrase, "come if you don’t stay long," was accepted into the pool of verses African-American religious singers drew upon to sing "Come by Here." He also may have reinvigorated the use of the phrase "needed time."
Performers
1964 Dane
Vocal Accompaniment: Barbara Dane
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano
1969 Organ
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ
Credits
1964 Dane
Arranged by Hopkins
Notes on Lyrics
Verses: Hopkins kept the sestet structure, but converted what had been an improvisation done to fill three minutes into a set, three-verse song.
1964 Dane: come by here, needed time, don’t stay long
1969 Organ: come by here, needed time, don’t stay long
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: two verses, an instrumental interlude, and a final verse. The similarity between the piano version and the organ one done five years later suggested Hopkins, by then, had performed so many times on programs with time limits that he had created musical units that could be combined into circumscribed sets. He then improvised within those limits with elements like musical phrasing.
Solo-Group Dynamics:
1964 Dane
Dane, no doubt, had seen Hopkins perform enough times to know his basic style. On the first line of the first verse she attempted to sing harmony, but she could not match his timing. As a soloist who controlled his accompaniment, he was able to sustain or shorten notes to fit his mood without losing his basic cadence. As Alan Grovenor observed, this created problems for drummers and bass players. [4]
On the second line of the first verse Dane switched to humming in ways borrowed from 1920s blues singers. Once she realized which parts he was not singing, she joined the instrument in singing those phrases. The kinesics of playing ensured the rhythm would be constant.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the instrument was treated as an equal voice. Hopkins would begin a line, and let the instrument continue the melody. The transfers between parts was the same in both versions, indicating this too had acquire a form through repetition. In the second line, he sang the first part of the line, and the piano or organ took over. On the third line, he sang the first word.
1964 Dane: the accompaniment used motifs from ragtime or stride piano styles, with a low bass and flourishes played by the right hand. This was especially prominent in the instrumental interlude.
1969 Organ: the organ played melody and chords. In the instrumental interlude Hopkins played twice as many notes to the same rhythmic pattern.
Notes on Performance
Both were described as live performances, although no background noise or audience reaction could be heard.
Notes on Performers
Hopkins cultivated the image of the hard-drinking, hard-living blues man. He only recorded one gospel song, [5] and Dane was surprised "he was dead serious with his religiosity." [6]
His mother was a religious woman, and the family attended picnics sponsored by the General Association of Baptist Churches. He told Sam Charters:
"the organ used to be the real family instrument, you know. We’d play on Sundays if we didn’t go to church, we’d have church at home. And, I was the organ player, sang them old Christian songs and mamma she’d [ne’er] get happy, you know." [7]
Barbara Dane’s parents moved from Arkansas to Detroit after World War I. She moved to San Francisco in 1949 where she began singing in jazz clubs. Later, in the 1960s, she opened her own club in a tourist district to expand the audience for the blues, and became involved in political protests. [8]
Availability
1964 Dane
Album: Lightnin’ Hopkins and Barbara Dane. "Jesus Won’t You Come By Here." Lightnin’ Hopkins. Arhoolie F1022. Cabale Club, 1964, Berkeley, California; released 1966.
YouTube: uploaded by Warner Music Group, 8 November 2014.
1969 Organ
Album: Lightnin’ Hopkins. "Jesus, Would You Come By Here." California Mudslide (And Earthquake). Vault Records SLP-129. Los Angeles, 1969.
YouTube: uploaded by Fede Corchero, 29 August 2015.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Psautier de Genève."
2. Archibald T. Davison. "Psalter." In Harvard Dictionary of Music. Edited by Willi Apel. Cambridge: Belnap Press, 1969 edition. 704.
3. Scotland. Act of Parliament to establish The Directory for The Publick Worship of God. Edinburgh, 6 February 1645. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics website. It ordained:
"That the whole congregation may join herein, every one that can read is to have a psalm book; and all others, not disabled by age or otherwise, are to be exhorted to learn to read. But for the present, where many in the congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling officers, do read the psalm, line by line, before the singing thereof."
4. Alan B. Govenar. Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010. viii.
5. Govenar. 11.
6. Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger. Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 15.
7. Lightnin’ Hopkins. "I Growed Up with the Blues." My Life in Blues. Prestige 7370. 1965. Interviewed by Sam Charters. My transcription; not sure of words in brackets. See previous post for reissue information.
8. Wikipedia. "Barbara Dane."
Monday, August 21, 2017
Lightnin’ Hopkins - Needed Time
Topic: Seminal Versions
The copyright law inherited English precedents that went back before Haydn when the only recognized compositions were made for the court or church. It then was assumed the folk tradition was a corrosive process that took those compositions, broke them down, and preserved bits.
When white folklorists confronted African-American traditions they applied that same concept. In 1937, Ruby Pickens Tartt was asked by the WPA to provide spirituals from Sumter County, Alabama. She wrote a friend she "knew how little" her supervisor "knew of the time it would take to get the verses to eight songs."
"I told her spirituals don’t thrive around the courthouse square, that I might drive all day in the country and never find one complete song. One person would know one verse, one another, and on. [1]
Tartt knew different individuals all sang versions that were recognizably related, but each differed in the verses included. She assumed there once had been a standard version of which each only retained a part.
She did not comprehend that instead of an immutable song that could be transcribed for piano, African Americans had collections of verses they grouped into song clusters, and that anyone, at anytime, could sing any or all of the verses in any order, and the next time that person sang it, he or she could create a different combination. There was no restriction against including a verse from another cluster.
Lightnin’ Hopkins tried to explain the difference to a white film-maker. He claimed the churches
"didn’t teach me the song. Nuh uh, they made them up. Fact of the business, the way it goes, they sang the songs and I played them. Whatever they sing, I played it. All they do is get into tune just like they [plays]." [2]
When Hopkins recorded his version of "Come by Here" in 1952, he used variations on three phrases that had been used in earlier recordings, [3] and added his own. "Come if you don’t stay long" was an abbreviated form of the Southern invitation, "come, even if you can’t stay long" shortened to fit the length of the musical line.
The early recordings of "Come by Here," made primarily by people from the southeastern United States, had repeated one line six times, with little variation. Hopkins was a blues musician from cotton country in the upper reaches of the Trinity river in Texas. He kept the sestet form, but alternated a three-line AAA verse with three repetitions of "now is the needed time." He then reverted to the AAB blues stanza, with "Jesus, will you come by here" as the commentary (AAB-CCC).
His version of "Come by Here" may not have been long enough for a three-minute recording. [4] He began with three variations on the "come" theme, then played the melody on the guitar. Next he reversed the pattern and began with three repetitions of "needed time," which he followed with a repetition of the "stay long" verse. He already had said he was praying for Jesus to come. He reworded that verse by repeating he was down on his knees twice, and finished by singing come by here four times (AAB-BBB).
He made the recording for a company owned by the Bihari brothers. The label gave him credit as the composer, but the music publisher also was owned by the brothers. It was a small operation that diverted royalties whenever it could. [5]
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: acoustic guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: acoustic guitar
Credits
Written-by - Lightnin’ Hopkins [6]
Mod Music Pub Co. (BMI) [7]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: a loose coupling between music and text allowed Hopkins to emphasize the important word "come" rather than the one that ended the sentence or phrase, "here."
Verses: come by here, needed time, come if you don’t stay long, praying, praying on my knees
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: Jesus
Jesus: in the form of the Holy Spirit
Now: this is not a premillennial reference to the second coming of Christ, but a request for the Holy Spirit to materialize immediately.
Down on my knees: refers both to the common habit of getting on one’s knees to pray and older African-American initiation rituals where an individual went out in the wilderness to contact the spirits.
Format: sestet
Line Meter: varies around a basic iambic trimeter
Line Repetition Pattern: AAB-CCC
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: repetition of first verse with few changes.
Singing Style: fundamentally one syllable to one note. The sustained words like come, Lord, and Oh occasionally shifted to a second tone toward the end, sometime shading into a hum of the extended vowel. Many African languages did not end in consonants, and the emphasis on the vowel here is one way Black American English perpetuated older pronunciation patterns. [8]
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: rhythmic accompaniment to vocal parts and an instrumental interlude when the guitar replaced the voice.
The general pattern was simple chords on the first two lines, with the guitar playing a parallel melody on the last phrase of the third line. In the interlude, the guitar played the melody with chords. Base runs were used between melodic phrases.
Notes on Performer
Sam Hopkins, who lived from 1911 to 1982, had two recording careers: one on labels marketed to African-American audiences in the 1940s and 1950s, and another on albums aimed at whites interested in the rural blues. He was a link with early musicians, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, and thus was interviewed numerous times. Sam Charters released one set of interviews on a Prestige record, and Les Blank and PBS captured others on films. Blank made his unused footage available to biographers.
Lightnin’ Hopkins. My Life in Blues. Prestige 7370. 1965. Interviewed by Sam Charters. Fantasy, Inc reissued it as the seventh CD in The Complete Prestige/Bluesville Recordings in 1991.
Les Blank. The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins. El Cerrito, California: Flower Films, 1968.
PBS. Artists in America, 1971, program 6, "Sam ‘Lightnin’’ Hopkins." Produced by KUHT, Houston.
Availability
78/45 rpm: RPM Records 359. Recorded in Houston, 1952.
Reissue: No Blues for Young Men. Leicester, UK: Broken Audio Recordings. 19 September 2013.
Reissue: In God We Trust. Zürich, Switzerland: Brownsville Records. 15 November 2015.
YouTube: uploaded by stompingsevens, 10 February 2013.
End Notes
1. Ruby Pickens Tartt. Letter to Janie Long Allen, undated. Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection, Julia Tutwiler Library, University of West Alabama University. Reprinted by Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981. 13.
The WPA program was the Federal Writer’s Project sponsored by the federal government’s Works Progress Administration.
2. Lightnin’ Hopkins. Transcribed by Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger. Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 15. Credit to the PBS documentary.
Hopkins’ separation of the roles of accompanying and participating in a church service was the same distinction made about trance rituals by Gilbert Rouget that was discussed in the post for 3 August 2017.
3. I will be discussing the early recordings in later posts.
4. The three-minute record form was discussed in the post for 2 August 2017.
5. Wikipedia. "Bihari Brothers."
6. "Lightning Hopkins And His Guitar – One Kind Favor / Needed Time." Discogs website. It reproduced the label for the other song on the recording, and implied the information was the same for both.
7. RPM was a subsidiary of Modern Records, and Modern Music Publishing was one of the Bihari’s properties.
8. Lorenzo Dow Turner. Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2002 edition. 247.
The copyright law inherited English precedents that went back before Haydn when the only recognized compositions were made for the court or church. It then was assumed the folk tradition was a corrosive process that took those compositions, broke them down, and preserved bits.
When white folklorists confronted African-American traditions they applied that same concept. In 1937, Ruby Pickens Tartt was asked by the WPA to provide spirituals from Sumter County, Alabama. She wrote a friend she "knew how little" her supervisor "knew of the time it would take to get the verses to eight songs."
"I told her spirituals don’t thrive around the courthouse square, that I might drive all day in the country and never find one complete song. One person would know one verse, one another, and on. [1]
Tartt knew different individuals all sang versions that were recognizably related, but each differed in the verses included. She assumed there once had been a standard version of which each only retained a part.
She did not comprehend that instead of an immutable song that could be transcribed for piano, African Americans had collections of verses they grouped into song clusters, and that anyone, at anytime, could sing any or all of the verses in any order, and the next time that person sang it, he or she could create a different combination. There was no restriction against including a verse from another cluster.
Lightnin’ Hopkins tried to explain the difference to a white film-maker. He claimed the churches
"didn’t teach me the song. Nuh uh, they made them up. Fact of the business, the way it goes, they sang the songs and I played them. Whatever they sing, I played it. All they do is get into tune just like they [plays]." [2]
When Hopkins recorded his version of "Come by Here" in 1952, he used variations on three phrases that had been used in earlier recordings, [3] and added his own. "Come if you don’t stay long" was an abbreviated form of the Southern invitation, "come, even if you can’t stay long" shortened to fit the length of the musical line.
The early recordings of "Come by Here," made primarily by people from the southeastern United States, had repeated one line six times, with little variation. Hopkins was a blues musician from cotton country in the upper reaches of the Trinity river in Texas. He kept the sestet form, but alternated a three-line AAA verse with three repetitions of "now is the needed time." He then reverted to the AAB blues stanza, with "Jesus, will you come by here" as the commentary (AAB-CCC).
His version of "Come by Here" may not have been long enough for a three-minute recording. [4] He began with three variations on the "come" theme, then played the melody on the guitar. Next he reversed the pattern and began with three repetitions of "needed time," which he followed with a repetition of the "stay long" verse. He already had said he was praying for Jesus to come. He reworded that verse by repeating he was down on his knees twice, and finished by singing come by here four times (AAB-BBB).
He made the recording for a company owned by the Bihari brothers. The label gave him credit as the composer, but the music publisher also was owned by the brothers. It was a small operation that diverted royalties whenever it could. [5]
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: acoustic guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: acoustic guitar
Credits
Written-by - Lightnin’ Hopkins [6]
Mod Music Pub Co. (BMI) [7]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: a loose coupling between music and text allowed Hopkins to emphasize the important word "come" rather than the one that ended the sentence or phrase, "here."
Verses: come by here, needed time, come if you don’t stay long, praying, praying on my knees
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: Jesus
Jesus: in the form of the Holy Spirit
Now: this is not a premillennial reference to the second coming of Christ, but a request for the Holy Spirit to materialize immediately.
Down on my knees: refers both to the common habit of getting on one’s knees to pray and older African-American initiation rituals where an individual went out in the wilderness to contact the spirits.
Format: sestet
Line Meter: varies around a basic iambic trimeter
Line Repetition Pattern: AAB-CCC
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: repetition of first verse with few changes.
Singing Style: fundamentally one syllable to one note. The sustained words like come, Lord, and Oh occasionally shifted to a second tone toward the end, sometime shading into a hum of the extended vowel. Many African languages did not end in consonants, and the emphasis on the vowel here is one way Black American English perpetuated older pronunciation patterns. [8]
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: rhythmic accompaniment to vocal parts and an instrumental interlude when the guitar replaced the voice.
The general pattern was simple chords on the first two lines, with the guitar playing a parallel melody on the last phrase of the third line. In the interlude, the guitar played the melody with chords. Base runs were used between melodic phrases.
Notes on Performer
Sam Hopkins, who lived from 1911 to 1982, had two recording careers: one on labels marketed to African-American audiences in the 1940s and 1950s, and another on albums aimed at whites interested in the rural blues. He was a link with early musicians, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, and thus was interviewed numerous times. Sam Charters released one set of interviews on a Prestige record, and Les Blank and PBS captured others on films. Blank made his unused footage available to biographers.
Lightnin’ Hopkins. My Life in Blues. Prestige 7370. 1965. Interviewed by Sam Charters. Fantasy, Inc reissued it as the seventh CD in The Complete Prestige/Bluesville Recordings in 1991.
Les Blank. The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins. El Cerrito, California: Flower Films, 1968.
PBS. Artists in America, 1971, program 6, "Sam ‘Lightnin’’ Hopkins." Produced by KUHT, Houston.
Availability
78/45 rpm: RPM Records 359. Recorded in Houston, 1952.
Reissue: No Blues for Young Men. Leicester, UK: Broken Audio Recordings. 19 September 2013.
Reissue: In God We Trust. Zürich, Switzerland: Brownsville Records. 15 November 2015.
YouTube: uploaded by stompingsevens, 10 February 2013.
End Notes
1. Ruby Pickens Tartt. Letter to Janie Long Allen, undated. Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection, Julia Tutwiler Library, University of West Alabama University. Reprinted by Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981. 13.
The WPA program was the Federal Writer’s Project sponsored by the federal government’s Works Progress Administration.
2. Lightnin’ Hopkins. Transcribed by Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger. Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 15. Credit to the PBS documentary.
Hopkins’ separation of the roles of accompanying and participating in a church service was the same distinction made about trance rituals by Gilbert Rouget that was discussed in the post for 3 August 2017.
3. I will be discussing the early recordings in later posts.
4. The three-minute record form was discussed in the post for 2 August 2017.
5. Wikipedia. "Bihari Brothers."
6. "Lightning Hopkins And His Guitar – One Kind Favor / Needed Time." Discogs website. It reproduced the label for the other song on the recording, and implied the information was the same for both.
7. RPM was a subsidiary of Modern Records, and Modern Music Publishing was one of the Bihari’s properties.
8. Lorenzo Dow Turner. Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2002 edition. 247.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Helmut Lotti - Kumbaya My Lord
Topic: Seminal Versions
Mechanical reproduction of music began in the 1880s with piano rolls. [1] In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled they were unique creations and not subject to royalty payments. Composers responded by advocating passage of the 1909 copyright law that forced reimbursements for rolls, cylinders, and the newer photograph records. [2] Their professional organization later was able to establish their rights to reimbursement for music played by radio stations. [3]
The 1909 law was written specifically to meet the needs of professional composers working for the popular stage. It stipulated songs that were not registered with the government office and did not carry proper ownership notices fell into the public domain, available for use by anyone.
Individuals who performed traditional works would add a bit of melody, a special orchestration, or supplemental words so they could copyright their particular versions, and more important, protect themselves from some rival’s lien on their proceeds. Thus, Ralph Carmichael could copyright his version of "Kum-ba-yah" in 1969 because it had some unique words along with a piano and vocal arrangement. [4]
Sometime after the Beatles emerged, the value of copyrights increased in value and so did the number of lawsuits. In summer camps, youth sang the songs of the commercial folk revival without paying royalties, just as they had been doing with other music for generations. However, more vigilant royalties seekers began complaining. The Girl Scouts published their own songbook in 1973 that had all the correct permissions. [5] Rather than rely upon an older source for "Kumbaya," they published James Leisy’s version because it protected them from liabilities with a copyright justified by an additional verse. [6]
The law was rewritten in 1976, and copyrights came to be seen as intellectual property inherited through the generations by those who had not registered their rights properly under the previous law. Public domain turned into a dangerous swamp, and anyone singing "Kumbaya" on a record or in a live performance needed a protected version.
Most of the copyrighted additions, liked the verses added by Carmichael and Leisy, never were sung. They did not exist for that reason. People were still free to sing selected parts so long as their paid for songbooks.
I do not know if people stopped publishing or recording "Kumbaya" after that law went into effect in 1978, or if I simply have not found references to versions from the 1980s and 1990s. There was a hiatus in my research between 1980 and 2015.
While the newer copyright law had a repressive effect on public domain versions of both "Kumbaya" and "Come by Here," it also stimulated creative changes. Most innovations were forgotten soon after they were recorded or performed, but sometimes one became so popular others imitated it and it acquired a set form. They became islands in the sea of tradition surrounded by small eddies of followers. [7]
The version used by José Carreras and José Medrado was one of those special archetypes. As mentioned in the post for 4 August 2017, they used one associated with Helmut Lotti. He and Wim Boherts treated "kumbaya" as the chorus for a new song. The distinctive words included "for the sun that rises in the sky."
The lines followed no rhyme pattern. Instead they recalled phrases from a prayer to the creator of the natural world. Since English was not the primary language of either of the credited writers, I do not know if the recording was a translation of something that followed literary conventions in another language. Although Lotti said he preferred singing in English, he still might have thought in Dutch. [8]
The official credits suggested the usual tangle of business relationships that ensued from the copyright laws. Profits from most records were small, and performers were only paid for their sessions. The ones who earned the most were the composers, who were given a royalty every time a song was played by some media outlet. It was common for singers and company owners to list themselves as co-authors to earn more. In this case, Lotti was primarily a singer, while Boherts was a pianist and arranger. The company that controlled the rights was owned by Lotti’s manager, Piet Roehling.
Lotti’s version seemed to be most popular in Brazil. It also had been used by a Fox Networks subsidiary for a cartoon aimed at young children in Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, and English. [9] This version might replace earlier ones simply because it will be the first many hear.
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: Golden Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by André Walschaerts
Credits
Arrangement: Helmut Lotti and Wim Bohets
Copyright: Piet Roelen Publishing
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: cum-ba-yah with emphasis on last syllable
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Format: verse-chorus (VV C VV C VV)
Verse Rhyme Patterns: last lines have internal rhyme
Line Meter: iambic tetrameter, with strong first and last syllables
Rhetorical Devices: contrasts of sun/rain, great/small
Notes on Music
Basic structure: two repetitions of the chorus, the second beginning on a higher note, followed by a verse that returned to the original base note.
Ending: repeated last line twice, then repeated the word kumbaya with each syllable on a higher tone, with the very last sustained.
Style: one syllable to one note with the last notes of phrases sustained. Ornamentations rarely were used, and most were in the ending. He stayed in his middle range except at the end.
Solo-Group Dynamics: choral group either sang the same words and notes as Lotti, or some repeated his kumbaya’s that ended lines.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the full orchestra was used sparingly. When it was heard, it was playing the same melody at Lotti. A flute or horns provided flourishes after Lotti’s sung phrases.
Rhythm: the recording began with strong rhythmic pulses by the strings. Then, only a soft drum or voices imitating a soft drum were deployed to mark phrases, not beats.
Influences: the vocalized drum was like the one used on the 1958 recording of "The Little Drummer Boy" by the Harry Simeone Chorale. Some melodic motifs were from the Seekers.
Viewers’ Perceptions
Raphael Gutemberg uploaded a video to YouTube that featured speeded-up pictures of clouds moving over mountains behind the lyrics in Portuguese and English. Unlike most, the Brazilian translated Lord as senhor. He also was the only one to treat "kumbaya" as a translatable word. He wrote the song meant: "‘Come to us Lord or Pass by here Lord’. A Singing Praise." He described himself as someone interested in "Editing Messages, Spirituality Prayers, and Romantic Songs." [10]
Notes on Performers
Lotti was born in Ghent in 1969 where Dutch was his native language. [11] He began as an Elvis impersonator. The Belgian had the usual problem of artists who toiled for years in the lower levels of the music industry: when he changed recording companies and became successful singing classics, his previous employer flooded the market with unauthorized collections. [12]
In a 2015 interview promoting a different album, he said:
"‘I noticed that religion also reared its head in other songs,’ he says. "I wouldn’t call it an album about religion, though, more one about ways of living: What do we cling to when life turns sour? What are life’s traps? And what makes one a better human being?’" [13]
Lotti added: "The duality between good and evil is fascinating." [14]
Availability
CD: Out of Africa (Polydor) and Out of Africa (Coeur de Lion). 1999.
YouTube: uploaded by Raphael Gutemberg, 27 November 2015
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Piano Roll."
2. Wikipedia, Piano.
3. Their organization was the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which did not recognize blues, country, or gospel music writers. In 1939, radio stations formed Broadcast Music Inc, to give themselves an alternative to the ASCAP monopoly. BMI recruited non-mainstream popular music composers. The representation did not stop Black or Southern white artists from being cheated by their record companies or music publishers, but it was a step toward fairer reimbursement. (Wikipedia. "Broadcast Music, Inc.")
4. Ralph Carmichael. "Kum-ba-yah." Copyright 1969 by Lexicon Music. In Cliff Barrows Now! Waco, Texas: Lexicon Music, Inc., 1970. 21-27.
5. "Kum Ba Ya." Sing Together. Edited by Constance L. Bell, et alia. New York: Girl Scouts of the U. S. A., third edition, 1973. 143.
6. The credit line read: The Folk Song Abededary, by James F. Leisy. © 1966 by Hawthorn Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hawthorn Books, Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10911.
7. Common language changed with the 1976 copyright law. Before, when composers were primary, artists simply recorded their songs. In the 1950s white popular music performers made copies of records by blues and country artists that made slight modifications in style to sell the creative efforts as their own. They were called "covers" and more unprintable nouns. Recently, people have been using the term "cover" to refer to any song that was not originated by the performer, as if singing anything from the popular repertoire was somehow disreputable.
8. Christophe Verbiest. "Helmut Lotti Offers Hopeful Message for Dark Times." Flanders Today, 13 December 2015.
9. BabyTV. "Kumbaya." Different language versions with same animation. YouTube.
10. Translations by Google.
11. Wikipedia. "Helmut Lotti."
12. Marc Maes. "Helmut Lotti Wins Law Suit." Billboard website. 13 April 2007.
13. Verbiest.
14. Verbiest.
Mechanical reproduction of music began in the 1880s with piano rolls. [1] In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled they were unique creations and not subject to royalty payments. Composers responded by advocating passage of the 1909 copyright law that forced reimbursements for rolls, cylinders, and the newer photograph records. [2] Their professional organization later was able to establish their rights to reimbursement for music played by radio stations. [3]
The 1909 law was written specifically to meet the needs of professional composers working for the popular stage. It stipulated songs that were not registered with the government office and did not carry proper ownership notices fell into the public domain, available for use by anyone.
Individuals who performed traditional works would add a bit of melody, a special orchestration, or supplemental words so they could copyright their particular versions, and more important, protect themselves from some rival’s lien on their proceeds. Thus, Ralph Carmichael could copyright his version of "Kum-ba-yah" in 1969 because it had some unique words along with a piano and vocal arrangement. [4]
Sometime after the Beatles emerged, the value of copyrights increased in value and so did the number of lawsuits. In summer camps, youth sang the songs of the commercial folk revival without paying royalties, just as they had been doing with other music for generations. However, more vigilant royalties seekers began complaining. The Girl Scouts published their own songbook in 1973 that had all the correct permissions. [5] Rather than rely upon an older source for "Kumbaya," they published James Leisy’s version because it protected them from liabilities with a copyright justified by an additional verse. [6]
The law was rewritten in 1976, and copyrights came to be seen as intellectual property inherited through the generations by those who had not registered their rights properly under the previous law. Public domain turned into a dangerous swamp, and anyone singing "Kumbaya" on a record or in a live performance needed a protected version.
Most of the copyrighted additions, liked the verses added by Carmichael and Leisy, never were sung. They did not exist for that reason. People were still free to sing selected parts so long as their paid for songbooks.
I do not know if people stopped publishing or recording "Kumbaya" after that law went into effect in 1978, or if I simply have not found references to versions from the 1980s and 1990s. There was a hiatus in my research between 1980 and 2015.
While the newer copyright law had a repressive effect on public domain versions of both "Kumbaya" and "Come by Here," it also stimulated creative changes. Most innovations were forgotten soon after they were recorded or performed, but sometimes one became so popular others imitated it and it acquired a set form. They became islands in the sea of tradition surrounded by small eddies of followers. [7]
The version used by José Carreras and José Medrado was one of those special archetypes. As mentioned in the post for 4 August 2017, they used one associated with Helmut Lotti. He and Wim Boherts treated "kumbaya" as the chorus for a new song. The distinctive words included "for the sun that rises in the sky."
The lines followed no rhyme pattern. Instead they recalled phrases from a prayer to the creator of the natural world. Since English was not the primary language of either of the credited writers, I do not know if the recording was a translation of something that followed literary conventions in another language. Although Lotti said he preferred singing in English, he still might have thought in Dutch. [8]
The official credits suggested the usual tangle of business relationships that ensued from the copyright laws. Profits from most records were small, and performers were only paid for their sessions. The ones who earned the most were the composers, who were given a royalty every time a song was played by some media outlet. It was common for singers and company owners to list themselves as co-authors to earn more. In this case, Lotti was primarily a singer, while Boherts was a pianist and arranger. The company that controlled the rights was owned by Lotti’s manager, Piet Roehling.
Lotti’s version seemed to be most popular in Brazil. It also had been used by a Fox Networks subsidiary for a cartoon aimed at young children in Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, and English. [9] This version might replace earlier ones simply because it will be the first many hear.
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: Golden Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by André Walschaerts
Credits
Arrangement: Helmut Lotti and Wim Bohets
Copyright: Piet Roelen Publishing
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: cum-ba-yah with emphasis on last syllable
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Format: verse-chorus (VV C VV C VV)
Verse Rhyme Patterns: last lines have internal rhyme
Line Meter: iambic tetrameter, with strong first and last syllables
Rhetorical Devices: contrasts of sun/rain, great/small
Notes on Music
Basic structure: two repetitions of the chorus, the second beginning on a higher note, followed by a verse that returned to the original base note.
Ending: repeated last line twice, then repeated the word kumbaya with each syllable on a higher tone, with the very last sustained.
Style: one syllable to one note with the last notes of phrases sustained. Ornamentations rarely were used, and most were in the ending. He stayed in his middle range except at the end.
Solo-Group Dynamics: choral group either sang the same words and notes as Lotti, or some repeated his kumbaya’s that ended lines.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the full orchestra was used sparingly. When it was heard, it was playing the same melody at Lotti. A flute or horns provided flourishes after Lotti’s sung phrases.
Rhythm: the recording began with strong rhythmic pulses by the strings. Then, only a soft drum or voices imitating a soft drum were deployed to mark phrases, not beats.
Influences: the vocalized drum was like the one used on the 1958 recording of "The Little Drummer Boy" by the Harry Simeone Chorale. Some melodic motifs were from the Seekers.
Viewers’ Perceptions
Raphael Gutemberg uploaded a video to YouTube that featured speeded-up pictures of clouds moving over mountains behind the lyrics in Portuguese and English. Unlike most, the Brazilian translated Lord as senhor. He also was the only one to treat "kumbaya" as a translatable word. He wrote the song meant: "‘Come to us Lord or Pass by here Lord’. A Singing Praise." He described himself as someone interested in "Editing Messages, Spirituality Prayers, and Romantic Songs." [10]
Notes on Performers
Lotti was born in Ghent in 1969 where Dutch was his native language. [11] He began as an Elvis impersonator. The Belgian had the usual problem of artists who toiled for years in the lower levels of the music industry: when he changed recording companies and became successful singing classics, his previous employer flooded the market with unauthorized collections. [12]
In a 2015 interview promoting a different album, he said:
"‘I noticed that religion also reared its head in other songs,’ he says. "I wouldn’t call it an album about religion, though, more one about ways of living: What do we cling to when life turns sour? What are life’s traps? And what makes one a better human being?’" [13]
Lotti added: "The duality between good and evil is fascinating." [14]
Availability
CD: Out of Africa (Polydor) and Out of Africa (Coeur de Lion). 1999.
YouTube: uploaded by Raphael Gutemberg, 27 November 2015
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Piano Roll."
2. Wikipedia, Piano.
3. Their organization was the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which did not recognize blues, country, or gospel music writers. In 1939, radio stations formed Broadcast Music Inc, to give themselves an alternative to the ASCAP monopoly. BMI recruited non-mainstream popular music composers. The representation did not stop Black or Southern white artists from being cheated by their record companies or music publishers, but it was a step toward fairer reimbursement. (Wikipedia. "Broadcast Music, Inc.")
4. Ralph Carmichael. "Kum-ba-yah." Copyright 1969 by Lexicon Music. In Cliff Barrows Now! Waco, Texas: Lexicon Music, Inc., 1970. 21-27.
5. "Kum Ba Ya." Sing Together. Edited by Constance L. Bell, et alia. New York: Girl Scouts of the U. S. A., third edition, 1973. 143.
6. The credit line read: The Folk Song Abededary, by James F. Leisy. © 1966 by Hawthorn Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hawthorn Books, Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10911.
7. Common language changed with the 1976 copyright law. Before, when composers were primary, artists simply recorded their songs. In the 1950s white popular music performers made copies of records by blues and country artists that made slight modifications in style to sell the creative efforts as their own. They were called "covers" and more unprintable nouns. Recently, people have been using the term "cover" to refer to any song that was not originated by the performer, as if singing anything from the popular repertoire was somehow disreputable.
8. Christophe Verbiest. "Helmut Lotti Offers Hopeful Message for Dark Times." Flanders Today, 13 December 2015.
9. BabyTV. "Kumbaya." Different language versions with same animation. YouTube.
10. Translations by Google.
11. Wikipedia. "Helmut Lotti."
12. Marc Maes. "Helmut Lotti Wins Law Suit." Billboard website. 13 April 2007.
13. Verbiest.
14. Verbiest.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
John Littleton - Kumbaya
Topic: Art Song
Encores are a special part of the concert program, when an artist is expected to sing something light or humanizing. African-Americans uniformly are expected to perform a spiritual. If one were, instead, to offer something like Sam Cook’s "You Send Me" that would disappoint their audience by breaking protocol.
The concert spiritual repertoire is a subset limited to those songs recognized by white audiences. The corpus was set by Marion Anderson and Paul Robeson in the 1930s. Very few songs have been added since. The familiar "Kumbaya" can be used as an encore, but not "Come by Here."
John Littleton was born on a plantation in Madison parish in northeastern Louisiana [1] where the population today is more than 77% Black. [2] The African American enlisted after graduating from high school and served during World War II. He stayed in France after the war and entered the Académie Nationale de Musique of Paris for opera training in the middle-1950s. [3] The baritone mastered the roles of Boris Godunov and Faust in operas by Mussorgsky and Gounod. [4]
As a baritone Littleton faced special challenges. As a class, baritones are less likely to attract the followings necessary to generate lucrative opportunities than tenors who have the leads in most operas. In addition, he faced the unique challenges created by Robeson whose resonant baritone voice defined the sound of many spirituals for white Europeans.
Littleton worked the concert circuit and, in 1960, turned to spirituals. [5] Soon after, Mickey Baker moved to France from New York. The Louisville-born African-American sideman had played guitar on sessions for Savoy records. [6] He created Littleman’s arrangement of "Kumbaya" and directed the musicians and singers.
The encore spiritual repertoire is essentially a romantic genre. A French website devoted to Littleton said he:
"was always faithful to his origin and his roots. He never forgot the pain of his ancestor slaves, their joy when they discovered God, this God who had released the people of Israel. The black slaves sang, shouted towards those that liked them." [7]
After Littleton died in Rheims in 1998, Christian Price put together a "JLS ‘Amen’" program in Montréal based on Littleton’s most popular album. [8] It featured the deep-voiced Placide Adombi Yapo Atsé and a choir directed by Christophe Absi. Adombi was from Côte d’Ivoire. [9] Absi was white. The choir included children, one of whom had a dark-colored face.
Performers
Vocal Accompaniment: Chœur Mickey Baker
Instrumental Accompaniment: Orchestre Mickey Baker
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano, cymbal
Credits
"Kumbaya" by Mickey Baker
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: cum-bye-yah with emphasis on first syllable
Pronoun: someone
Format: four-verse song
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: statement-refrain
Verses: kumabya, singing, praying
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: tune from The Seekers
Basic Structure: repetitions of the four-line melody with increasingly more voices and instruments
Solo Style: simple, unembellished
Solo-Group Dynamics (by repetition):
1. Solo joined by men with deep voices on last line
2. Softer solo with male chorus singing "kumbaya" after he finished, and joining on final line
3. Solo with male and female chorus. On the echo of "kumbaya" the men sang "kum" and the group finished "baya."
4. Solo with chorus singing broad chords of "oh," except when following the established pattern. The last line was sung by all.
Vocal-Orchestra Dynamics: nearly a capella with cymbal on the beats, and piano chords marking the beginnings of phrases. The cymbal may have been augmented by other stringed instruments in later repetitions, and especially in the final iteration.
Notes on Performance
The Littleton video showed an album cover with a dark-skinned choir wearing white robes. Their arms were raised from the elbows and they were holding hands.
JLS "Amen" used the same vocal parts from Littleton’s recording, but employed different instruments. The credits listed a drum set, keyboards, electric bass, guitar, and flute. Everyone wore black slacks and white shirts; the girls added colored scarves. Absi wore a black suit and conducted with a baton. Except for Adombi, who walked about as he sang with a hand-held microphone, everyone stood in place.
Notes on Performers
Littleton’s father was a Baptist pastor and farmer. According to the French Wikipedia, as translated by Google, "The young John starts singing along with his father in the churches. He sings in a soloist and in choirs of gospel." [10] Another French source said he "accompanied his father when he would go in the various small Baptist Churches of the area." [11]
Availability
Album: Spirituals. Editions Studio S.M. 30-377. 1971.
YouTube: uploaded by Sing To God!, 6 June 2016.
JLS "Amen." "Kumbaya." Cathédral de Nicolet, Québec, 5 October 2013. Uploaded to YouTube 2 February 2014.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Tallulah, Louisiana."
2. "Tallulah, Louisiana." City-Data website.
3. Richard P. Sevier. "John L. Littleton, Jr., Madison Parish, Louisiana." Ancestry website.
4. French Wikipedia. "John Littleton."
5. Wikipedia, Littleton.
6. Wikipedia. "Mickey Baker."
7. Translation reprinted by Sevier.
8. John Littleton. Amen. Editions Studio S.M. SM 30 M-361. 1970. It did not have "Kumbaya." The album was devoted to songs by Odette Vercruysse, a contemporary Christian composer.
9. Nathalie Zemgbo-Djiezion. "Canada: voyage dans l’univers des patriotes pour la préparation de la victoire de Laurent Gbagbo." Abidjan.net, 18 November 2010.
10. Wikipedia, Littleton.
11. Translation reprinted by Sevier.
Encores are a special part of the concert program, when an artist is expected to sing something light or humanizing. African-Americans uniformly are expected to perform a spiritual. If one were, instead, to offer something like Sam Cook’s "You Send Me" that would disappoint their audience by breaking protocol.
The concert spiritual repertoire is a subset limited to those songs recognized by white audiences. The corpus was set by Marion Anderson and Paul Robeson in the 1930s. Very few songs have been added since. The familiar "Kumbaya" can be used as an encore, but not "Come by Here."
John Littleton was born on a plantation in Madison parish in northeastern Louisiana [1] where the population today is more than 77% Black. [2] The African American enlisted after graduating from high school and served during World War II. He stayed in France after the war and entered the Académie Nationale de Musique of Paris for opera training in the middle-1950s. [3] The baritone mastered the roles of Boris Godunov and Faust in operas by Mussorgsky and Gounod. [4]
As a baritone Littleton faced special challenges. As a class, baritones are less likely to attract the followings necessary to generate lucrative opportunities than tenors who have the leads in most operas. In addition, he faced the unique challenges created by Robeson whose resonant baritone voice defined the sound of many spirituals for white Europeans.
Littleton worked the concert circuit and, in 1960, turned to spirituals. [5] Soon after, Mickey Baker moved to France from New York. The Louisville-born African-American sideman had played guitar on sessions for Savoy records. [6] He created Littleman’s arrangement of "Kumbaya" and directed the musicians and singers.
The encore spiritual repertoire is essentially a romantic genre. A French website devoted to Littleton said he:
"was always faithful to his origin and his roots. He never forgot the pain of his ancestor slaves, their joy when they discovered God, this God who had released the people of Israel. The black slaves sang, shouted towards those that liked them." [7]
After Littleton died in Rheims in 1998, Christian Price put together a "JLS ‘Amen’" program in Montréal based on Littleton’s most popular album. [8] It featured the deep-voiced Placide Adombi Yapo Atsé and a choir directed by Christophe Absi. Adombi was from Côte d’Ivoire. [9] Absi was white. The choir included children, one of whom had a dark-colored face.
Performers
Vocal Accompaniment: Chœur Mickey Baker
Instrumental Accompaniment: Orchestre Mickey Baker
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano, cymbal
Credits
"Kumbaya" by Mickey Baker
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: cum-bye-yah with emphasis on first syllable
Pronoun: someone
Format: four-verse song
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: statement-refrain
Verses: kumabya, singing, praying
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: tune from The Seekers
Basic Structure: repetitions of the four-line melody with increasingly more voices and instruments
Solo Style: simple, unembellished
Solo-Group Dynamics (by repetition):
1. Solo joined by men with deep voices on last line
2. Softer solo with male chorus singing "kumbaya" after he finished, and joining on final line
3. Solo with male and female chorus. On the echo of "kumbaya" the men sang "kum" and the group finished "baya."
4. Solo with chorus singing broad chords of "oh," except when following the established pattern. The last line was sung by all.
Vocal-Orchestra Dynamics: nearly a capella with cymbal on the beats, and piano chords marking the beginnings of phrases. The cymbal may have been augmented by other stringed instruments in later repetitions, and especially in the final iteration.
Notes on Performance
The Littleton video showed an album cover with a dark-skinned choir wearing white robes. Their arms were raised from the elbows and they were holding hands.
JLS "Amen" used the same vocal parts from Littleton’s recording, but employed different instruments. The credits listed a drum set, keyboards, electric bass, guitar, and flute. Everyone wore black slacks and white shirts; the girls added colored scarves. Absi wore a black suit and conducted with a baton. Except for Adombi, who walked about as he sang with a hand-held microphone, everyone stood in place.
Notes on Performers
Littleton’s father was a Baptist pastor and farmer. According to the French Wikipedia, as translated by Google, "The young John starts singing along with his father in the churches. He sings in a soloist and in choirs of gospel." [10] Another French source said he "accompanied his father when he would go in the various small Baptist Churches of the area." [11]
Availability
Album: Spirituals. Editions Studio S.M. 30-377. 1971.
YouTube: uploaded by Sing To God!, 6 June 2016.
JLS "Amen." "Kumbaya." Cathédral de Nicolet, Québec, 5 October 2013. Uploaded to YouTube 2 February 2014.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Tallulah, Louisiana."
2. "Tallulah, Louisiana." City-Data website.
3. Richard P. Sevier. "John L. Littleton, Jr., Madison Parish, Louisiana." Ancestry website.
4. French Wikipedia. "John Littleton."
5. Wikipedia, Littleton.
6. Wikipedia. "Mickey Baker."
7. Translation reprinted by Sevier.
8. John Littleton. Amen. Editions Studio S.M. SM 30 M-361. 1970. It did not have "Kumbaya." The album was devoted to songs by Odette Vercruysse, a contemporary Christian composer.
9. Nathalie Zemgbo-Djiezion. "Canada: voyage dans l’univers des patriotes pour la préparation de la victoire de Laurent Gbagbo." Abidjan.net, 18 November 2010.
10. Wikipedia, Littleton.
11. Translation reprinted by Sevier.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Kyrkjebø, Aznavour, Domingo - Kum Bah Yah
Topic: Art Song
Antonín Dvorák may have been responsible for converting spirituals into motifs for classical composers, but Enrico Caruso was the one who created the image of the classical artist as man of the people able to sing both arias and popular songs. He had a voice that could be captured by early reproduction technology and was willing to make the necessary effort to learn how to make decent recordings. [1] Two of his most popular releases were "Santa Lucia" and "’O Sole Mio." [2]
He was unusual in his ability to sing both. Art song and folk song are different genres, and, as different forms, they have different internal rules for composition and make different demands on singers. While individuals can be trained to sing opera, their ability to sing folk or popular music often depends of they’re having been exposed to it when they were very young. Caruso grew up in working class Naples where he sometimes performed in cafés and resorts. [3] "’O Sole Mio" was written by a local café singer. [4]
The usual problem when individuals with highly trained voices sing folk material is they oversing it with their melliferous tones and precise enunciations. That was the less the problem with a 1994 Vienna concert that featured three soloists from different backgrounds than the fact the varying qualities of their voices threatened to overwhelm one another.
Each was accomplished in his or her field: Sissel Kyrkjebø was Norwegian popular singer, Charles Aznavour came from French clubs, and Plácido Domingo from opera. However, their voices were very different. Domingo’s was powerful because he had to project in large theaters, while Aznavour’s was softer for the more intimate milieus he first played. They could not be brought together without a great deal of expensive rehearsal by a conductor willing to balance them.
Instead, it sounded like they or the managers negotiating their contracts had agreed each would sing a verse in his or her own style, and only come together one time on the final repetition. When they repeated the last line of each verse, instead of all three singing, only two could be heard on the recording.
The use of duets rather than trios reflected another problem with expecting three soloists to sing together: they all had voices that traditionally sang melody. She was a soprano, and the men were tenors. The operatic repertoire had a number of arias written for a soprano and tenor, but not many for two tenors. [5] When more than two were brought together, the other parts tended to have lower registers like altos for women or baritones and bassos for men. There were no clear precedents in any popular or classical genre for how these three parts could be joined.
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: Vienna State Opera orchestra conducted by Vjekoslav Šutej
Rhythm Accompaniment: plucked strings
Credits
Traditional West Indies
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation:
Norwegian: coom-bye-ya with accent on second syllable. She did not sing the final d’s in Lord.
Spanish: kum-ba-ya with accent on last syllable. He emphasized the final d’s in Lord.
French: kum-bye-ya with emphasis on second syllable. He did not sing the final g’s in laughing.
Pronoun: someone
Format: four-verse song
Line Repetition Pattern: AAABB
Line Format: statement-refrain
Verses: kumbaya, crying, laughing, singing
Theme: the song was used in a Christmas concert and on a Christmas collection.
Notes on Music
Tempo: slow
Vocal Parts: two tenors and a soprano (STT)
Basic Structure: each part was heard alone, then they were combined. Thus, she went high on the last line, and Domingo were low in ways that only made aesthetic sense when they were brought together.
Solo-Solo Dynamics: each sang the complete verse with minimal accompaniment, then repeated the last line with another singer. On Kyrkjebø’s first iteration Aznavour sang the last line with her. On Domingo’s second verse, Aznavour joined on the closing line. Aznavour sang the third solo while Kyrkjebø joined him on the final line.
Style:
Solo: each was free to embellish words of his or her choice. "By" was the syllable more often ornamented, and Lord the one that was likely to be sung on several tones.
Group: chordal harmony
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: a harp with an occasion piano embellishment were used with Kyrkjebø. The plucked strings began with Domingo; sometimes a choral group or a flute could be heard. Only the plucked strings played during Aznavour. Full strings were deployed on the final repetition.
Notes on Performance
The video of the performance no longer is available on YouTube. My recollection was that it was very formal with the two mean wearing white ties and black tuxedos. The three stood next to each other with a music stand in front of each, and each looked straight ahead. Everyone seemed very careful when they were singing.
Notes on Performers
All three had childhood singing experiences that would have made them comfortable singing a wide range of material: Kyrkjebø was in a children’s choir, [6] Domingo’s parents ran a small troupe that staged musical dramas, [7] and Aznavour’s parents operated a restaurant where he was discovered by Édith Piaf. [8] In addition, two were children of immigrants who had to accommodate themselves in new cultures: Aznavour’s family were Armenians who moved to Paris, [9] Domingo’s family migrated from Madrid to México when he was eight-years-old. [10]
Availability
Amazon MP3: Various artists. I’ll Be Home For Christmas. Sony Classical. 1 November 1998. You cannot buy just the one track; you have to buy the whole album.
YouTube: Vienna Noël 94 concert, Vienna State Opera, 22 December 1994. Uploaded 26 November 2012. It since has been removed.
End Notes
1. Neil Kurtzman. "The Recordings of Enrico Caruso 1902 – 1904." His Medicine and Opera blog, 14 January 2009.
2. Wikipedia. "Enrico Caruso."
3. Wikipedia, Caruso.
4. Serena. "‘O Sole Mio." Her Transparent Language blog, 18 June 2009. The melody for "’O Sole Mio" was by Eduardo di Capua, a professional posteggiatore. A journalist, Giovanni Capurro, wrote the lyrics.
5. The Opera-Arias online database found only twelve in the repertoire for a listing of "Opera Duets for Two Tenors." No doubt there are more, but, even if that database only included the most popular, twelve was still a small number.
6. Wikipedia. "Sissel Kyrkjebø."
7. Wikipedia. "Plácido Domingo." They had a zarzuela troupe.
8. Wikipedia. "Charles Aznavour." He worked with Piaf for years.
9. Wikipedia, Aznavour. His father moved from Georgia, his mother from Turkey.
10. Wikipedia, Domingo.
Antonín Dvorák may have been responsible for converting spirituals into motifs for classical composers, but Enrico Caruso was the one who created the image of the classical artist as man of the people able to sing both arias and popular songs. He had a voice that could be captured by early reproduction technology and was willing to make the necessary effort to learn how to make decent recordings. [1] Two of his most popular releases were "Santa Lucia" and "’O Sole Mio." [2]
He was unusual in his ability to sing both. Art song and folk song are different genres, and, as different forms, they have different internal rules for composition and make different demands on singers. While individuals can be trained to sing opera, their ability to sing folk or popular music often depends of they’re having been exposed to it when they were very young. Caruso grew up in working class Naples where he sometimes performed in cafés and resorts. [3] "’O Sole Mio" was written by a local café singer. [4]
The usual problem when individuals with highly trained voices sing folk material is they oversing it with their melliferous tones and precise enunciations. That was the less the problem with a 1994 Vienna concert that featured three soloists from different backgrounds than the fact the varying qualities of their voices threatened to overwhelm one another.
Each was accomplished in his or her field: Sissel Kyrkjebø was Norwegian popular singer, Charles Aznavour came from French clubs, and Plácido Domingo from opera. However, their voices were very different. Domingo’s was powerful because he had to project in large theaters, while Aznavour’s was softer for the more intimate milieus he first played. They could not be brought together without a great deal of expensive rehearsal by a conductor willing to balance them.
Instead, it sounded like they or the managers negotiating their contracts had agreed each would sing a verse in his or her own style, and only come together one time on the final repetition. When they repeated the last line of each verse, instead of all three singing, only two could be heard on the recording.
The use of duets rather than trios reflected another problem with expecting three soloists to sing together: they all had voices that traditionally sang melody. She was a soprano, and the men were tenors. The operatic repertoire had a number of arias written for a soprano and tenor, but not many for two tenors. [5] When more than two were brought together, the other parts tended to have lower registers like altos for women or baritones and bassos for men. There were no clear precedents in any popular or classical genre for how these three parts could be joined.
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: Vienna State Opera orchestra conducted by Vjekoslav Šutej
Rhythm Accompaniment: plucked strings
Credits
Traditional West Indies
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation:
Norwegian: coom-bye-ya with accent on second syllable. She did not sing the final d’s in Lord.
Spanish: kum-ba-ya with accent on last syllable. He emphasized the final d’s in Lord.
French: kum-bye-ya with emphasis on second syllable. He did not sing the final g’s in laughing.
Pronoun: someone
Format: four-verse song
Line Repetition Pattern: AAABB
Line Format: statement-refrain
Verses: kumbaya, crying, laughing, singing
Theme: the song was used in a Christmas concert and on a Christmas collection.
Notes on Music
Tempo: slow
Vocal Parts: two tenors and a soprano (STT)
Basic Structure: each part was heard alone, then they were combined. Thus, she went high on the last line, and Domingo were low in ways that only made aesthetic sense when they were brought together.
Solo-Solo Dynamics: each sang the complete verse with minimal accompaniment, then repeated the last line with another singer. On Kyrkjebø’s first iteration Aznavour sang the last line with her. On Domingo’s second verse, Aznavour joined on the closing line. Aznavour sang the third solo while Kyrkjebø joined him on the final line.
Style:
Solo: each was free to embellish words of his or her choice. "By" was the syllable more often ornamented, and Lord the one that was likely to be sung on several tones.
Group: chordal harmony
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: a harp with an occasion piano embellishment were used with Kyrkjebø. The plucked strings began with Domingo; sometimes a choral group or a flute could be heard. Only the plucked strings played during Aznavour. Full strings were deployed on the final repetition.
Notes on Performance
The video of the performance no longer is available on YouTube. My recollection was that it was very formal with the two mean wearing white ties and black tuxedos. The three stood next to each other with a music stand in front of each, and each looked straight ahead. Everyone seemed very careful when they were singing.
Notes on Performers
All three had childhood singing experiences that would have made them comfortable singing a wide range of material: Kyrkjebø was in a children’s choir, [6] Domingo’s parents ran a small troupe that staged musical dramas, [7] and Aznavour’s parents operated a restaurant where he was discovered by Édith Piaf. [8] In addition, two were children of immigrants who had to accommodate themselves in new cultures: Aznavour’s family were Armenians who moved to Paris, [9] Domingo’s family migrated from Madrid to México when he was eight-years-old. [10]
Availability
Amazon MP3: Various artists. I’ll Be Home For Christmas. Sony Classical. 1 November 1998. You cannot buy just the one track; you have to buy the whole album.
YouTube: Vienna Noël 94 concert, Vienna State Opera, 22 December 1994. Uploaded 26 November 2012. It since has been removed.
End Notes
1. Neil Kurtzman. "The Recordings of Enrico Caruso 1902 – 1904." His Medicine and Opera blog, 14 January 2009.
2. Wikipedia. "Enrico Caruso."
3. Wikipedia, Caruso.
4. Serena. "‘O Sole Mio." Her Transparent Language blog, 18 June 2009. The melody for "’O Sole Mio" was by Eduardo di Capua, a professional posteggiatore. A journalist, Giovanni Capurro, wrote the lyrics.
5. The Opera-Arias online database found only twelve in the repertoire for a listing of "Opera Duets for Two Tenors." No doubt there are more, but, even if that database only included the most popular, twelve was still a small number.
6. Wikipedia. "Sissel Kyrkjebø."
7. Wikipedia. "Plácido Domingo." They had a zarzuela troupe.
8. Wikipedia. "Charles Aznavour." He worked with Piaf for years.
9. Wikipedia, Aznavour. His father moved from Georgia, his mother from Turkey.
10. Wikipedia, Domingo.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Stephen M. Lee - Come by Here
Topic: Art Song
Harry Burleigh, mentioned in the last post, was more responsible than anyone else for introducing African-American spirituals into classical music. He began singing them as art songs in New York in the 1890s, [1] and published a setting for "Deep River" in 1917. [2] The Library of Congress noted:
"As his spiritual arrangements become increasingly popular with concert soloists, a tradition of concluding concerts with a set of spirituals was established." [3]
He was not shunning the original forms as reminders of slavery as so many then were. Indeed, he learned the songs from his grandfather who had purchased his freedom in Maryland in 1832. [4] Instead, he was trying to present an alternative to the stereotypes then rampant in vaudeville that ridiculed Blacks while coopting some of their musical forms. [5]
Stephen Lee created a program devoted to spirituals that began with a series of songs interspersed with readings. After a brief intermission the narrator provided a brief history of the genre, then the choir sang a series of more modern spirituals. The work grew out of a commission by the American Music Therapy Association in 2005. [6]
Performers
Spelman College Glee Club, Morehouse College Glee Club, Clark Atlanta University Philharmonic Society
Instrumental accompaniment: none
Rhythm accompaniment: African-style drum, men’s voices
Credits
© 2013 Stephen M Lee
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: accent on second syllable of kumbaya
Pronoun: somebody
Line repetition pattern: AAAB
Verses:
Come by here (repeated 4 times)
Somebody needs you
Kumbaya
Come by here
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: repetitions of the four-line melody with variations in roles of men’s chorus, and of male and female choruses. Men sang rhythm and women sang melody. The repetitions fell into two groups.
Group 1 repeated one verse by adding rhythms
Verse 1. Male group sang rhythmic "come by–pause–here–pause–my Lord–come by–here–Oh Lordy. The first and third lines were sung in unison; the second was in chordal harmony with the last phrase sung "Oh Lord of mercy" by men with higher voices.
Verse 2. The group singing rhythm was joined by a single African-style drum.
Verse 3. The vocal rhythm and drum were joined by men singing "ooh."
Group 2 once the melody was added the verses changed
Verse 4-5. The vocal rhythm and drum began. Then, the women joined them singing the melody.
Verse 6. The men began the rhythm on a higher note. Then men and women sang the kumbaya verse together in harmony.
Verse 7. Men sang rhythm, and men and women sang the melody in harmony. On the last line, each word was sustained.
Notes on Performance
According to the script released online, the program began with a soloist singing "Over My Head." Then the chorus entered singing "Come by Here."
The video only showed the cover of the CD. It provided no information on when or where it was recorded.
Notes on Performers
Lee was raised in Washington, D. C. He earned music degrees from Loyola University New Orleans and Morehouse College. He was living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck, and relocated to Douglasville, Georgia. [7]
Availability
CD: Stand by Me. Portland: Oregon Catholic Press. 25 May 2013.
YouTube: uploaded by The Orchard Enterprises, 20 July 2014.
Narrator Script: Stand by Me. Portland: Oregon Catholic Press. 25 May 2013.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Harry Burleigh."
2. "H. T. Burleigh (1866-1949)." Library of Congress website.
3. Library of Congress.
4. Wikipedia.
5. Jean E. Snyder. Harry T. Burleigh. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2016. Summary of chapter 16 published on Project Muse website.
6. "Stephen Lee." Oregon Catholic Press website.
7. Oregon Catholic Press.
Harry Burleigh, mentioned in the last post, was more responsible than anyone else for introducing African-American spirituals into classical music. He began singing them as art songs in New York in the 1890s, [1] and published a setting for "Deep River" in 1917. [2] The Library of Congress noted:
"As his spiritual arrangements become increasingly popular with concert soloists, a tradition of concluding concerts with a set of spirituals was established." [3]
He was not shunning the original forms as reminders of slavery as so many then were. Indeed, he learned the songs from his grandfather who had purchased his freedom in Maryland in 1832. [4] Instead, he was trying to present an alternative to the stereotypes then rampant in vaudeville that ridiculed Blacks while coopting some of their musical forms. [5]
Stephen Lee created a program devoted to spirituals that began with a series of songs interspersed with readings. After a brief intermission the narrator provided a brief history of the genre, then the choir sang a series of more modern spirituals. The work grew out of a commission by the American Music Therapy Association in 2005. [6]
Performers
Spelman College Glee Club, Morehouse College Glee Club, Clark Atlanta University Philharmonic Society
Instrumental accompaniment: none
Rhythm accompaniment: African-style drum, men’s voices
Credits
© 2013 Stephen M Lee
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: accent on second syllable of kumbaya
Pronoun: somebody
Line repetition pattern: AAAB
Verses:
Come by here (repeated 4 times)
Somebody needs you
Kumbaya
Come by here
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: repetitions of the four-line melody with variations in roles of men’s chorus, and of male and female choruses. Men sang rhythm and women sang melody. The repetitions fell into two groups.
Group 1 repeated one verse by adding rhythms
Verse 1. Male group sang rhythmic "come by–pause–here–pause–my Lord–come by–here–Oh Lordy. The first and third lines were sung in unison; the second was in chordal harmony with the last phrase sung "Oh Lord of mercy" by men with higher voices.
Verse 2. The group singing rhythm was joined by a single African-style drum.
Verse 3. The vocal rhythm and drum were joined by men singing "ooh."
Group 2 once the melody was added the verses changed
Verse 4-5. The vocal rhythm and drum began. Then, the women joined them singing the melody.
Verse 6. The men began the rhythm on a higher note. Then men and women sang the kumbaya verse together in harmony.
Verse 7. Men sang rhythm, and men and women sang the melody in harmony. On the last line, each word was sustained.
Notes on Performance
According to the script released online, the program began with a soloist singing "Over My Head." Then the chorus entered singing "Come by Here."
The video only showed the cover of the CD. It provided no information on when or where it was recorded.
Notes on Performers
Lee was raised in Washington, D. C. He earned music degrees from Loyola University New Orleans and Morehouse College. He was living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck, and relocated to Douglasville, Georgia. [7]
Availability
CD: Stand by Me. Portland: Oregon Catholic Press. 25 May 2013.
YouTube: uploaded by The Orchard Enterprises, 20 July 2014.
Narrator Script: Stand by Me. Portland: Oregon Catholic Press. 25 May 2013.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Harry Burleigh."
2. "H. T. Burleigh (1866-1949)." Library of Congress website.
3. Library of Congress.
4. Wikipedia.
5. Jean E. Snyder. Harry T. Burleigh. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2016. Summary of chapter 16 published on Project Muse website.
6. "Stephen Lee." Oregon Catholic Press website.
7. Oregon Catholic Press.
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