Topic: Religious Uses
Folklorists first collected "Come by Here" in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. The earliest descriptions by whites of slave quarter religion in that area have been identified as ring shouts. One such report was made by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the first commander of the African-American First South Carolina Volunteers near Beaufort in 1862. Every night he saw some enter a hut made from palm leaves where they began chanting, stamping their feet, and clapping their hands.
"Then the excitement spreads: inside and outside the enclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre; some ‘heel and toe’ tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on, others stoop and rise, others whirl, others caper sideways, all keep steadily circling like dervishes." [1]
Ring shouts began as independent rituals like the ones in the army camp. When Protestant services were introduced, shouts followed the sermons. Daniel Payne described one at a bush meeting near Philadelphia in 1878:
"About this time I attended a ‘bush meeting,’ where I went to please the pastor whose circuit I was visiting. After the sermon they formed a ring, and with coats off sung, clapped their hands and stamped their feet in a most ridiculous and heathenish way. I requested the pastor to go and stop their dancing. At his request they stopped their dancing and clapping of hands, but remained singing and rocking their bodies to and fro. This they did for about fifteen minutes." [2]
The bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal church, whose parents were free Blacks in Charleston before the Civil War, [3] remembered he had remonstrated with the preacher, but was told:
"‘Sinners won’t get converted unless there is a ring.’ Said I: ‘You might sing till you fell down dead, and you would fail to convert a single sinner, because nothing but the Spirit of God and the word of God can convert sinners.’ He replied: ‘The Spirit of God works upon people in different ways. At camp-meeting there must be a ring here, a ring there, a ring over yonder, or sinners will not get converted’." [4]
The post-sermon shouts served the same purpose as the earlier rituals: they allowed participants to contact the spirits, redefined as the Holy Ghost. As suggested by the comments of Evelyn Turrentine-Agee [5] and Jerome Williams of the Evereadys,[6] "Come by Here" became one of the songs used to invite the Holy Spirit to manifest itself in modern services and concerts.
Beneath the common desire to contact the spirit, the differences between denominations led by assimilationist leaders like Payne and more emotional groups remain. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion church formed in New York about the same time Payne’s AME was expanding in Philadelphia, [7] and remained Methodist in disposition when Holiness groups became more radical at the end of the nineteenth century. Estrelda Alexander said the denomination is still less open to charismatic forms of worship. [8]
The Reeves Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church in Concord, North Carolina, was traditional in form in 2012, but had some elements of what Alexander called "Black Neo-Pentecostalism." [9] The pastor, identified as William Starnes, still was robed, but his choir was labeled "Gospel Singers." Instead of an organ, they used a drum. Most important, while they sang "Come by Here," they used it as a communal prayer to the Lord, rather than as a request for a physical presence. The soloist’s emphasis on Christ as a healer, however, was more common in sects that emphasized faith healing.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: one man and the pastor
Vocal Accompaniment: three women and two men
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Notes on Lyrics
Pronoun: somebody
General Format: three parts
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: statement-refrain
Verse Phrases: come by here, praying, now is the needed time, come if you don’t stay long, needs a blessing, needs your healing power
Prelude: the choir began the request to the Holy Spirit with three repetitions of come by here verse. One time, the third line was changed to "right now is the needing time."
Transition: the soloist made the request to the Holy Spirit more explicit when he sang the "somebody’s praying" verse.
Denouement: no verses. The soloist dramatized the prayer with single lines that were not repeated. He either said somebody was praying or gave a reason why somebody needed the Lord.
At the end, the choir said "amen."
Influences: key phrases were used by Lightnin’ Hopkins [10]
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-5
Tempo: slow
Basic Structure: call-response and soloist supported by group
Solo-Group Dynamics:
Prelude: The solist sang a statement, and the choir finished "come by here." On the final line, he sang "Oh" and they completed "come by here."
Transition: The solist sang a statement, and the choir sang "come by here." On the final line, he twice sang "Oh Lord" and they answered "Oh Lord." Then he sang "Come" and they responded "come by here."
Denouement: the chorus repeated their "Come by here" parts following the logic of when they should occur, while the soloist sang or spoke phrases that sometimes carried over their singing. Near the end, the soloist’s phrases become shorter and the choir changed to repetitions of "Oh Lord."
Singing Style:
Soloist: he sang during the prelude and transition, when he ornamented the "Lord" in the third line and "Oh." During the denouement, his voice sometimes went into a higher register or became harsher, and he ornamented more words.
Choir: used chordal harmony. Sometime when he sang "Oh Lord" on several notes, they followed his example.
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics:
The choir began a capella. When the pastor spoke during the prelude, a brushed snare began. Toward the end of the prelude, the rhythm became louder; a block and possibly a cymbal were added. The rhythm continued through the transition and denouement.
Notes on Performance
The pastor wore a green stole with black robe. In traditional churches, green is used during the "Ordinary Time between Trinity Sunday (first Sunday after Pentecost) and the beginning of Advent." [11] In 2012 that period went from 27 May to 2 December. This service was in November.
The soloist wore a white jacket, brown shirt, and yellow tie. The other men wore suits or jackets with ties. The women wore blouses that came to their hips, and dark slacks or skirts.
The pastor’s podium was on the left side of the church in the video and the choir was on the right. The soloist stood behind a rostrum set on a table, with a floor microphone in front. A woman stood on each side. In back, a woman stood between two men. The drummer was never seen, and sounded like he was somewhere to the left.
The video began with the pastor sitting down. When the soloist reached "Oh" in the last line of the first repetition of the "come by here" verse, someone, presumably the pastor, began the invocation by saying "If you’re here today ... [life in Christ,] won’t you come?" Then he said, "Let us stand," the drums began, and the congregation stood. Some of his words were unintelligible because the camera’s microphone was pointed at the soloist.
On the third line of the last "come by here" verse of the prelude, the congregation sat. The reason was not obvious. Perhaps the pastor sat or gave some hand signal.
While the soloist was singing the "Oh Lords," the pastor said words that indicated it was a prayer, and the drum grew louder. The words I understood included "you come to pray to God" and "the altar gate is open." After the speaker finished, and while the choir still was singing the last line, one women in the first row began to clap as she sang.
During the denouement, the rhythm and vocal accompaniment were constant and unchanged, creating a hypnotic effect for the soloist’s prayer.
Notes on Movement
The choir and soloist shifted their weight from foot to foot, moving together. The soloist initiated the movement, and the women in front followed him more than the choir members in back. When the congregation stood, the two visible women, both wearing peacock blue, also moved, though not together.
Different choir members used their hands to keep time. The soloist beat the table with his fists. One woman slapped her thigh, with two beats and a pause. The woman in back hit a chair with the same pattern, two beats and a pause.
Toward the end of the prelude one woman began clapping: clap pause clap longer pause. The woman who had been hitting the chair joined her for a short time, then resumed beating time on the chair.
During the denouement the soloist began using his right hand to gesture. Otherwise, he continued hitting the table.
Notes on Performers
Concord, North Carolina, is located on the piedmont near Charlotte. The first settlers were Germans and Scots-Irish. Before the Civil War, plantations raised cotton. [12] Bernard Davis found records of 3,129 slaves in Cabarrus County in 1863 and 115 freedmen. The area was not in the path of the Union Army, so African-Americans probably had little contact with outsiders until Reconstruction. In 1867, a white Presbyterian church founded a secondary school for "women of color." Grace Lutheran church opened the first elementary school for Black children in 1891. [13]
The first textile mills arrived in 1888, but only whites were hired. Warren Clay Coleman, a former slave from Concord, open his own mill in 1897 that did hire African Americans. About once a generation the town jailed a Black man for raping or otherwise being too familiar with a white woman. [14] In this period, the white-led Wilmington Insurrection [15] spread to Concord in 1898 where freedmen’s business were destroyed. Coleman’s partner left, and the mill failed in 1904, after Coleman died. [16] Coleman supported another A.M.E. Zion church and helped it buy the local burying ground that had been used for African Americans and Native Americans. [17]
The white economy expanded with the fortunes of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, which hosted NASCAR events. [18] No new business hired many African Americans until Philip Morris opened a tobacco plant in 1984. [19] The town’s population increased from 55,977 to 79,066 between 2000 and 2010, with the percentage of Blacks and individuals from two or more races rising from 16.3% to 20.1%. [20] I have no idea how many of the newcomers joined this particular A.M.E. Zion church. I also have no idea if any of them introduced "Come by Here" or if it already was known.
Mute testimony to the community’s economic history appears in the Reeves Chapel cemetery. T. McManaway has been photographing its headstones for Find a Grave. He documented six between 1912 and 1931, and then nothing until 1974. [21] Some of the older ones had been reset in concrete, suggesting others existed that were too hard to read. When the economy failed in the 1930s, wooden or other sorts of grave markers may have been used. These may be among the ones not yet documented.
The alternative explanation for the gap in graves was the original church ceased to exist, and the land later was reclaimed as already sacred by the Reeves Chapel. Davis described the Reeves Chapel building as the "current" one, implying an earlier one had existed. His photograph showed a long rectangular building with four windows along the side. A steeple was built toward the entrance; a tall chimney rose on one side toward the rear. An enclosed entrance porch was centered below the peaked gable. [22] The interior was white with a simple brown cross on the wall behind the preacher. A solid railing separated his area from the congregation, which sat on wooden benches. A brown support post in front of the choir suggested at least one row of interior supports. There was a double-hung window behind them.
Availability
YouTube: Sunday Morning Service, 11 November 2012. Reeves Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, Concord, North Carolina. Uploaded by videoqueen444 on 16 November 2012.
End Notes
1. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Army Life in a Black Regiment. Boston: Fields, Osgood, and Company, 1870. 17-18.
2. Daniel Alexander Payne. Recollections of Seventy Years. Compiled and arranged by Sarah C. Bierce Scarborough; edited by C. S. Smith. Nashville: Publishing House of the A. M. E. Sunday School Union, 1888. 253.
3. Wikipedia. "Daniel Payne."
4. Payne. 254.
5. Evelyn Turrentine-Agee. See post for 6 August 2017.
6. Jerome Williams. See post for 3 August 2017 on The Evereadys.
7. Wikipedia. "African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church." Richard Allen founded the AME church in 1794. The first church that would become A.M.E. Zion church was built in 1800.
8. Estrelda Y. Alexander. Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism. Downers Grove, Illinois: InverVarsity Press, 2011. 363-364.
9. Alexander. 356.
10. Lightnin’ Hopkins. "Needed Time." RPM 359. Houston, 1952.
11. Dennis Bratcher. "The Meaning of Church Colors." Christian Resource Institute website.
12. Wikipedia. "Concord, North Carolina."
13. Bernard Davis Jr. Portraits of the African-American Experience in Concord-Cabarrus, North Carolina. Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris, 2010. No pages in on-line version.
14. Davis.
15. Wikipedia. "Wilmington insurrection of 1898."
16. Wikipedia, Concord.
17. Davis.
18. Wikipedia, Concord.
19. Davis.
20. Wikipedia, Concord.
21. T. McMannaway. "Reeves Chapel AME Zion Church Cemetery." Find a Grave website.
22. Davis
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