Topic: Theology
During the American Civil War, northern missionaries went to the Beaufort, South Carolina, area to work with slaves abandoned on plantations by owners who fled Union troops who had seized Port Royal Sound in November, 1861. Many were struck with parallels between the history of Jews and the current situation.
One of the first men to visit abandoned plantations in early 1862 said he read "read passages of Scripture" to slaves on Lady Island, including "the 61st chapter of Isaiah, verses 1-4." [1] The first verse was:
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;" [2]
Later that year, the Unitarian minister who was commanding African-American troops on Saint Helena island thought of his situation as comparable to that of Abraham when he wrote of himself as "Dwelling in tents, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." [3]
The Emancipation Proclamation was read on January 1 of the next year. Another missionary remembered, he "read to the church full the account of the escape of the Children of Israel from Egyptian bondage. I was amazed at the impression it seemed to make. The remarks the old men made were graphic and eloquent." [4]
Margaret Washington noted many scholars came to believe "African-American slaves saw themselves primarily in the same light as the Children of Israel." However, she discovered when she looked at the primary sources, the Gullah-speaking ones in coastal South Carolina were more inclined to identify with Christ’s suffering. [5]
Old Testament references to Jews escaping bondage appeared in other places where slaves from Africa were introduced to the Bible by missionaries from Europe and the United States. In Jamaica in 1860, while Abraham Lincoln was campaigning for president, a great revival spread across the island. It began in the fall among Moravians in the west, and quickly spread to Methodists and Baptists. As it moved east, it absorbed existing Afro-Jamaican religious practices, and created a new merger of African, Afro-Jamaican, and Christian rites. [6]
Robert Stewart noted the result was both an "increase in the number of independent native congregations" and the centralization of authority among the Baptists. [7] Today, the third largest religious group on the island is the Baptists. [8] Claiming larger numbers are Warner’s Church of God, which sent its first missionary in 1907, [9] and Seventh-day Adventists, who arrived in 1894. [10]
Independent churches continued to develop wherever a man or woman could attract enough followers. Lascellas Russell claimed on Facebook to have eight Valley Christian Ministries churches, mostly in central Jamaica. He said his direction came from Isaiah 58:6-12 and that "God been doing awesome and wondrous things through his servant, by healing the sick, sending deliverance to the captives that are bound and oppressed." [11]
One of his pastors was Delroy Willis. He had been raised in Trenchtown, [12] and recorded Reggae songs that were covered by better known artists. He had a conversion experience in 1973, changed to sacred music, retired around 1984, and returned to music in 2002. [13]
The Braeton pastor recorded a version of "Come by Here" in 2010 that used Father instead of Lord. At the end, he made the Old Testament reference more explicit, when he appealed to Father Abraham, Father Jacob, and Father peace man to come.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Delroy Willis
Vocal Group: male group
Vocal Director: none identified
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer, electric guitar most obvious
Rhythm Accompaniment: drums, rattle
Credits
None given
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: not much of an accent. Willis sang "somebody crying" rather than "somebody’s crying."
Vocabulary
Pronoun: somebody
Term for Deity: Father
Special Terms: I could not understand a few words, which probably were local.
Basic Form: prelude-denouement
Prelude: used the common verses (come by here, praying, crying) and the AAAB line repetition form with slight variations in each line. The A lines followed the statement-refrain pattern.
Denouement: five verses. The second verse had three unique lines followed by the "come, come Father" refrain. They itemized the reasons people needed Him to come: they were social, rather than personal.
The third verse used incremental repetition, the fourth repeated the very first "come by here" verse, and the last was simply "come, come." They all used the statement-refrain format.
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Hightowers 1-5
Tempo: up beat
Basic Structure: two sections divided by an instrumental interlude
Singing Style: used vibrato, especially on the word "here" in the last lines of the verses. Sometimes dropped words in repetitions.
Solo-Group Dynamics: Willis sang the statements and the male group sang the "come by here" refrain, using parallel harmony. The exception was the third verse (crying), in which the group hummed rather than sang.
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: Willis used motifs borrowed from Reggae. An interviewer said he used "hardcore reggae/dancehall rhythms as a mean of sanitizing the music of Jamaica, which, seem to him, to be growing ever more ‘murky’ because of its propagation of negative themes. He thinks the blending of the genre with religious themes and lyrics will assist in moving Jamaica forward positively, under god." [14]
Notes on Performers
Willis has since renamed his church the Good News Assemblies and expanded its programs to include providing meals and other social services. [15] In March 2015, he held a mass baptism on Sugarman’s Beach. "Before the baptism, there was a praise and worship segment with special entertainment coming from a group known as the Good News Singers, who performed several popular gospel songs." [16]
Availability
Album: Early Beginnings. Three Miles Music Family. October, 2010.
End Notes
1. E. L. Pierce. "The Negroes at Port Royal." Report to Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, 3 February 1862. Boston: R. F. Wallcutt, 1862. 11.
2. King James translation. Italics in original.
3. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Army Life in a Black Regiment. Boston: Fields, Osgood, and Company, 1870. 19, diary entry for 4 December 1862.
He was thinking of Hebrews 11:9: "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:" (King James translation)
4. Edwin S. Williams. Letter to S. S. Jocelyn, 28 January 1863. Quoted by Margaret Washington Creel. "A Peculiar People." New York: New York University Press, 1988. 263.
5. Washington Creel. 263. She attributed this to the use of Jewish imagery during the Denmark Vesey controversy of the 1820s.
6. Robert J. Stewart. Religion and Society in Post-emancipation Jamaica. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1992. 145-147.
7. Stewart. 148.
8. Wikipedia. "Protestantism in Jamaica."
9. Mary R. Olson. "The Early Years." Society of the Church of God in Jamaica website.
10. Diane J. Austin-Broos. Jamaica Genesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. 55.
11. "About Bishop Lascelles Russell Crusade." Facbook. His mission statement also used Saint Matthew 28:18-20.
12. Trenchtown was a 1930s public housing project located outside Kingston on the east side of the island. It became famous as the center of Reggae and its precursors. (Wikipedia. "Trenchtown.")
13. Baldwin Howe. "Pastor Delroy ‘Zion’ Willis Puts A‘stur’ in Caribbean Gospel Music." Reggae Times website. 30 May 2008.
14. Howe.
15. Ruddy Mathison. "Good News spreads the Word." Jamaica Gleaner website. 30 May 2015.
16. Rasbert Turner. "Big Baptism at Beach." The Jamaica Star Online. 2 March 2015.
Friday, December 29, 2017
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Coral Evalo - Kumbaya my Lord
Topic: Theology
The phrase "born again" has been part of Protestant discourse since at least the time of Jonathan Edwards. In 1741 he warned those who "were never born again, and made new Creatures, and raised from being dead in Sin" of the fate that awaited them when they died. [1]
His contemporary, John Wesley cited John 3:7 [2] before addressing the question, "Why must we be born again?" [3] His usage was expanded in the post-Civil War Holiness Movement mentioned in the post for 7 December 2017.
The Oxford English Dictionary said the phrase began to be used in its modern sense [4] in England around 1962, about the time a Gallup Poll in the United States found 20% of its respondents said they had been born again. [5] By the time Jimmy Carter was elected president as a born-again Baptist in 1976, the percentage in this country had increased to 34%. [6] Today, the number hovers abound 41%. [7]
In Brazil, 73.6% of the population was Roman Catholic in 2006, down from 93.1% in 1960, and 89% in 1980. 10.4% of the population belonged to Pentecostal groups, and the rest were either what we call main-line Protestants, unaffiliated, or members of groups like the Spiritists mentioned in the post for 11 August 2017. [8] The largest Pentecostal group, Assembléia de Deus, had ten to twelve million members. [9]
While Pentecostalism grew in Brazil since the phrase Born Again entered international parlance, the Assembléia de Deus was founded among Baptists in the northeastern part of the country during the Azusa Street Revival. Two Swedish immigrants were converted in Chicago in 1909. When Daniel Berg went to visit Gunnar Vingren at his parish in South Bend, Indiana, they heard a prophetic message directing them to Para. After more prayer, they consulted an atlas and discovered Pará was a state in northern Brazil. [10]
Their activities were sponsored by Lewi Pethrus and Swedish Baptists until poor health remanded Vingren home in 1932. [11] Berg and Vingren had named their church after the Assembly of God, but did not affiliate with that group. [12] However, once Vingren left, the United States body sent missionaries to standardize its theology. Today, the Assembly considers the Assembléia to be a mission, but the Assembléia, in true Baptist fashion, considers itself autonomous. [13] It called itself the heir to Martin Luther, not John Wesley. [14]
Paradoxically, the rise of Pentecostalism in Brazil did not lead to more rigid codes of behavior in the Assembléia. Paul Freston noted, it began shedding some of the strictures of "Nordic pietism." [15] Its leaders realized "the adoption of certain rules by local churches was more a matter of custom than of doctrine, since it did not violate the foundations of the Christian faith" and began to countenance more freedom of action by members. [16]
Their two-hour services were "characterized by prayers, songs (classical and contemporary evangelical hymns), testimonies and preaching, where manifestations of spiritual gifts sometimes occur, such as spiritual (strange) prophecies and languages." They used both hymns from their own Harpa Cristã and gospel songs, and organized choirs of all sorts. [17]
The songbook was introduced by another Swedish missionary, but like every other part of the church’s inheritance, it has been updated several times. The "highest were transposed to more accessible tones of congregational song." [18]
The various conventions hold week-long youth congresses that function much as camp meetings. Mateus Silva described one in the beach town of Camboriú in the southern state of Santa Cataina. He named the main speakers on each of the five days, and described the last day when a singing pastor came with his band and preached for two hours. He added, other local and nationally-known singers were heard and dances were performed. [19]
In 2013, a youth choir naturalized Helmut Lotti’s version of "Kumbaya." Instead of submissively echoing the soloist, the group sang strong, percussive verses that had the power of Grupul Voces in Romania [20] or the Goodman Family. [21] It still used a soundtrack, but added mariachi-style trumpets [22] and a live drummer.
The dynamics of the accompaniment required a strong soloist. He was a dark-skinned man, who wore a long, blue, cotton shirt and slacks. As much as one could tell from the video uploaded to YouTube, all the singers had light-brown complexions. The girls wore sleeveless, long dresses, and the boys wore African-stripped shirts.
The man sang the kumbaya choruses, and the boys sang the verses. They stood still behind their floor mikes, but the soloist moved around the front of the stage with a wireless hand-held mike. He bent his knees deeply when he walked, and sometimes used his right arm to direct.
The result was the best version of Lotti’s arrangement I have found on YouTube, better than Lotti, José Carreras, or the soundtrack used by the Spiritist José Medrado.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: adult man
Vocal Group: adolescent male and female choir
Vocal Director: adult man
Instrumental Accompaniment: soundtrack
Rhythm Accompaniment: kettle-style drum, which the young man played with his hands. All the photographs I found of that style drum in Brazil on the internet were played with sticks.
Credits
None given. The person who uploaded the video implied the director’s belief about the song’s origin when he or she noted it was sung for a service marking the founding of the Organisation de l’Unité Africaine. [23]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English. The recorder was far from the stage and the words sung by the choir were indistinct. However, I could detect some of the English words, especially at the beginnings of phrases in the verses.
Pronunciation: koom by YAH
Verses: Helmet Lotti, with no obvious deviations
Vocabulary
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Helmut Lotti
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: alternated between solo and group sections, like a concerto
Singing Style: the unnamed soloist had a powerful deep voice that, if not trained, had been honed by listening to well-trained singers in the European style.
Notes on Performance
The only information Coral Evalo gave on the performance was "IEAD 06." The acronym referred to Igreja Evangélica Assembléia de Deus. I noticed a similar number referred to the session number for youth retreats held by other IEAD conventions.
I found one for Juventude 6 in 2013 that had the same interior: a concrete floor with concrete steps to the stage. The flats surrounding the stage were reddish-colored wood panels. That particular video showed a group rehearsing a dance. [24] Another video uploaded by the same person showed people doing the steps outdoors with the note it was the "Official Dance of the 2013 Retreat." He added the dance was "Son of God" and the sponsor was "Ass de Deus Min de Madureira." [25]
This suggested the performance was part of a 2013 youth congress sponsored by a conference located in a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. [26] The dance was a complete routine done by individuals in a group.
Notes on Audience
Applause at the end. The performers did not bow, and the soloist simply walked off stage.
Notes on Performers
Coro Evalo provided no information about itself in any of its videos. It might not even be the name of the group. Evalo literally meant "I evaluate," and might have referred to one person’s act of witnessing or testifying.
Several YouTube videos uploaded by the same person showed a youth choir being directed by a dark-skinned man. He probably was not the soloist, but the man who walked on stage, when the soloist left at the end. [27] He also was not the light-complected man dressed in the same kind of shirt as the boys in the choir who directed the start of the soundtrack and choir, then stepped back to the edge of the stage.
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by Coral Evalo on 20 May 2013.
End Notes
1. Jonathan Edwards. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Enfield, Connecticut, 8 July 1741. Edited by Reiner Smolinski for University of Nebraska website.
2. "Ye must be born again." Wesley used the King James version. The Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims had "you.
3. John Wesley. "The New Birth." Sermon 45. In The Works of John Wesley. Ed. Thomas Jackson. London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1872 reprint of 1831 edition. Version posted on UMC Global Ministries website edited by Michael Anderson with corrections by George Lyons.
4. The Oxford English Dictionary. "Born-Again." Edited by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 edition. 2:415. It defined born again as a "spiritual renewal; of a Christian: placing special emphasis on this experience as a basis for all one’s actions, evangelical." This was the period when Pentecostals, evangelicals and fundamentalists became merged into a single entity by outsiders because of the political actions of their various groups.
5. OED.
6. A Gallup Poll taken a month before the election. Cited by D. Paul Graunke. "The Rebirth of the ‘Born Again’ Movement." Plain Truth, April 1977. This was the same poll alluded to by the OED.
7. "Religion." Gallup News website. The number for 2016 was 41%, for 2015 it was 38%, and for 2014 it was 44%. It has stayed in that range since 2003.
8. "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals." Pew Research Center. October 2006. 75-76.
9. Andrew Chesnut. Interviewed by David Masci. "Why Has Pentecostalism Grown So Dramatically in Latin America?" 14 November 2014. Pew Research Center website.
10. "100 Anos de Assembleias de Deus 1911 - 2011." Assembléia de Deus, Cascavel, Paraná, website.
11. Wikipedia. "Gunnar Vingren" and "Lewi Pethrus."
12. Portuguese Wikipedia. "Assembleia de Deus (Brasil)." The Assembly of God was mentioned in the post for 7 December 2017.
13. Walter Hollenweger. The Pentecostals. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1977 edition. Cited by Wikipedia. "Assembleias de Deus." It quoted him as saying "In the mission statistics of the North American Assemblies of God, the Assembleia de Deus figure as their mission church. In contrast, the Brazilian Pentecostals regard themselves as an independent church." 82.
14. Assembléia de Deus, Cascavel.
15. Paul Freston. "Breve História do pentecostalismo brasileiro." In Nem anjos nem demônios interpretações sociológicas do pentecostalismo. Edited by A. Antoniazzi. Petrópolis, Brazil: Vozes, 1994. Cited by Portuguese Wikipedia, Assembléia.
16. Portuguese Wikipedia, Assembléia.
17. Portuguese Wikipedia, Assembléia.
18. Portuguese Wikipedia. "Harpa Cristã." Quotation translated by Google Translate.
19. Mateus Silva. "Somente do campo de Camboriú, foram 718 jovens participantes." Assembléia de Deus, Camboriú, website. He described it as "a equipe de coreografia da Assembleia de Deus da cidade de Pouso Redondo" (the choreography team of the Assembly of God of the city of Pouso Redondo according to Google Translate).
20. Grupul Voces backed Wintley Phipps. See post for 5 December 2017.
21. The Goodmans were discussed in the post for 21 December 2017.
22. Mariachi trumpets were discussed in the post for 9 September 2017.
23. It is now the African Union. (Wikipedia. "African Union.")
24. "Assembléia de Deus - Edgard Romero - Juventude 2013." Uploaded to YouTube by Vagner Jose on 9 February 2014.
25. "Dança Oficial do Retiro 2013, Juventude Shemá." Uploaded to YouTube by Vagner Jose on 3 March 2013. Quotations translated by Google Translate.
26. Wikipedia. "Madureira, Rio de Janeiro."
27. "Coral Evalo - Jesus meu guia é (Raíz Coral)." Uploaded to YouTube by Coral Evalo on 11 October 2011.
"Coral Evalo - Quão grande é o meu Deus e Tu és bom." Uploaded to YouTube by Coral Evalo on 11 October 2011. It said they were "singing with the Ministry of Praise!" ("Coral Evalo cantando com o Ministério de Louvor!")
The phrase "born again" has been part of Protestant discourse since at least the time of Jonathan Edwards. In 1741 he warned those who "were never born again, and made new Creatures, and raised from being dead in Sin" of the fate that awaited them when they died. [1]
His contemporary, John Wesley cited John 3:7 [2] before addressing the question, "Why must we be born again?" [3] His usage was expanded in the post-Civil War Holiness Movement mentioned in the post for 7 December 2017.
The Oxford English Dictionary said the phrase began to be used in its modern sense [4] in England around 1962, about the time a Gallup Poll in the United States found 20% of its respondents said they had been born again. [5] By the time Jimmy Carter was elected president as a born-again Baptist in 1976, the percentage in this country had increased to 34%. [6] Today, the number hovers abound 41%. [7]
In Brazil, 73.6% of the population was Roman Catholic in 2006, down from 93.1% in 1960, and 89% in 1980. 10.4% of the population belonged to Pentecostal groups, and the rest were either what we call main-line Protestants, unaffiliated, or members of groups like the Spiritists mentioned in the post for 11 August 2017. [8] The largest Pentecostal group, Assembléia de Deus, had ten to twelve million members. [9]
While Pentecostalism grew in Brazil since the phrase Born Again entered international parlance, the Assembléia de Deus was founded among Baptists in the northeastern part of the country during the Azusa Street Revival. Two Swedish immigrants were converted in Chicago in 1909. When Daniel Berg went to visit Gunnar Vingren at his parish in South Bend, Indiana, they heard a prophetic message directing them to Para. After more prayer, they consulted an atlas and discovered Pará was a state in northern Brazil. [10]
Their activities were sponsored by Lewi Pethrus and Swedish Baptists until poor health remanded Vingren home in 1932. [11] Berg and Vingren had named their church after the Assembly of God, but did not affiliate with that group. [12] However, once Vingren left, the United States body sent missionaries to standardize its theology. Today, the Assembly considers the Assembléia to be a mission, but the Assembléia, in true Baptist fashion, considers itself autonomous. [13] It called itself the heir to Martin Luther, not John Wesley. [14]
Paradoxically, the rise of Pentecostalism in Brazil did not lead to more rigid codes of behavior in the Assembléia. Paul Freston noted, it began shedding some of the strictures of "Nordic pietism." [15] Its leaders realized "the adoption of certain rules by local churches was more a matter of custom than of doctrine, since it did not violate the foundations of the Christian faith" and began to countenance more freedom of action by members. [16]
Their two-hour services were "characterized by prayers, songs (classical and contemporary evangelical hymns), testimonies and preaching, where manifestations of spiritual gifts sometimes occur, such as spiritual (strange) prophecies and languages." They used both hymns from their own Harpa Cristã and gospel songs, and organized choirs of all sorts. [17]
The songbook was introduced by another Swedish missionary, but like every other part of the church’s inheritance, it has been updated several times. The "highest were transposed to more accessible tones of congregational song." [18]
The various conventions hold week-long youth congresses that function much as camp meetings. Mateus Silva described one in the beach town of Camboriú in the southern state of Santa Cataina. He named the main speakers on each of the five days, and described the last day when a singing pastor came with his band and preached for two hours. He added, other local and nationally-known singers were heard and dances were performed. [19]
In 2013, a youth choir naturalized Helmut Lotti’s version of "Kumbaya." Instead of submissively echoing the soloist, the group sang strong, percussive verses that had the power of Grupul Voces in Romania [20] or the Goodman Family. [21] It still used a soundtrack, but added mariachi-style trumpets [22] and a live drummer.
The dynamics of the accompaniment required a strong soloist. He was a dark-skinned man, who wore a long, blue, cotton shirt and slacks. As much as one could tell from the video uploaded to YouTube, all the singers had light-brown complexions. The girls wore sleeveless, long dresses, and the boys wore African-stripped shirts.
The man sang the kumbaya choruses, and the boys sang the verses. They stood still behind their floor mikes, but the soloist moved around the front of the stage with a wireless hand-held mike. He bent his knees deeply when he walked, and sometimes used his right arm to direct.
The result was the best version of Lotti’s arrangement I have found on YouTube, better than Lotti, José Carreras, or the soundtrack used by the Spiritist José Medrado.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: adult man
Vocal Group: adolescent male and female choir
Vocal Director: adult man
Instrumental Accompaniment: soundtrack
Rhythm Accompaniment: kettle-style drum, which the young man played with his hands. All the photographs I found of that style drum in Brazil on the internet were played with sticks.
Credits
None given. The person who uploaded the video implied the director’s belief about the song’s origin when he or she noted it was sung for a service marking the founding of the Organisation de l’Unité Africaine. [23]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English. The recorder was far from the stage and the words sung by the choir were indistinct. However, I could detect some of the English words, especially at the beginnings of phrases in the verses.
Pronunciation: koom by YAH
Verses: Helmet Lotti, with no obvious deviations
Vocabulary
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Helmut Lotti
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: alternated between solo and group sections, like a concerto
Singing Style: the unnamed soloist had a powerful deep voice that, if not trained, had been honed by listening to well-trained singers in the European style.
Notes on Performance
The only information Coral Evalo gave on the performance was "IEAD 06." The acronym referred to Igreja Evangélica Assembléia de Deus. I noticed a similar number referred to the session number for youth retreats held by other IEAD conventions.
I found one for Juventude 6 in 2013 that had the same interior: a concrete floor with concrete steps to the stage. The flats surrounding the stage were reddish-colored wood panels. That particular video showed a group rehearsing a dance. [24] Another video uploaded by the same person showed people doing the steps outdoors with the note it was the "Official Dance of the 2013 Retreat." He added the dance was "Son of God" and the sponsor was "Ass de Deus Min de Madureira." [25]
This suggested the performance was part of a 2013 youth congress sponsored by a conference located in a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. [26] The dance was a complete routine done by individuals in a group.
Notes on Audience
Applause at the end. The performers did not bow, and the soloist simply walked off stage.
Notes on Performers
Coro Evalo provided no information about itself in any of its videos. It might not even be the name of the group. Evalo literally meant "I evaluate," and might have referred to one person’s act of witnessing or testifying.
Several YouTube videos uploaded by the same person showed a youth choir being directed by a dark-skinned man. He probably was not the soloist, but the man who walked on stage, when the soloist left at the end. [27] He also was not the light-complected man dressed in the same kind of shirt as the boys in the choir who directed the start of the soundtrack and choir, then stepped back to the edge of the stage.
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by Coral Evalo on 20 May 2013.
End Notes
1. Jonathan Edwards. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Enfield, Connecticut, 8 July 1741. Edited by Reiner Smolinski for University of Nebraska website.
2. "Ye must be born again." Wesley used the King James version. The Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims had "you.
3. John Wesley. "The New Birth." Sermon 45. In The Works of John Wesley. Ed. Thomas Jackson. London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1872 reprint of 1831 edition. Version posted on UMC Global Ministries website edited by Michael Anderson with corrections by George Lyons.
4. The Oxford English Dictionary. "Born-Again." Edited by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 edition. 2:415. It defined born again as a "spiritual renewal; of a Christian: placing special emphasis on this experience as a basis for all one’s actions, evangelical." This was the period when Pentecostals, evangelicals and fundamentalists became merged into a single entity by outsiders because of the political actions of their various groups.
5. OED.
6. A Gallup Poll taken a month before the election. Cited by D. Paul Graunke. "The Rebirth of the ‘Born Again’ Movement." Plain Truth, April 1977. This was the same poll alluded to by the OED.
7. "Religion." Gallup News website. The number for 2016 was 41%, for 2015 it was 38%, and for 2014 it was 44%. It has stayed in that range since 2003.
8. "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals." Pew Research Center. October 2006. 75-76.
9. Andrew Chesnut. Interviewed by David Masci. "Why Has Pentecostalism Grown So Dramatically in Latin America?" 14 November 2014. Pew Research Center website.
10. "100 Anos de Assembleias de Deus 1911 - 2011." Assembléia de Deus, Cascavel, Paraná, website.
11. Wikipedia. "Gunnar Vingren" and "Lewi Pethrus."
12. Portuguese Wikipedia. "Assembleia de Deus (Brasil)." The Assembly of God was mentioned in the post for 7 December 2017.
13. Walter Hollenweger. The Pentecostals. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1977 edition. Cited by Wikipedia. "Assembleias de Deus." It quoted him as saying "In the mission statistics of the North American Assemblies of God, the Assembleia de Deus figure as their mission church. In contrast, the Brazilian Pentecostals regard themselves as an independent church." 82.
14. Assembléia de Deus, Cascavel.
15. Paul Freston. "Breve História do pentecostalismo brasileiro." In Nem anjos nem demônios interpretações sociológicas do pentecostalismo. Edited by A. Antoniazzi. Petrópolis, Brazil: Vozes, 1994. Cited by Portuguese Wikipedia, Assembléia.
16. Portuguese Wikipedia, Assembléia.
17. Portuguese Wikipedia, Assembléia.
18. Portuguese Wikipedia. "Harpa Cristã." Quotation translated by Google Translate.
19. Mateus Silva. "Somente do campo de Camboriú, foram 718 jovens participantes." Assembléia de Deus, Camboriú, website. He described it as "a equipe de coreografia da Assembleia de Deus da cidade de Pouso Redondo" (the choreography team of the Assembly of God of the city of Pouso Redondo according to Google Translate).
20. Grupul Voces backed Wintley Phipps. See post for 5 December 2017.
21. The Goodmans were discussed in the post for 21 December 2017.
22. Mariachi trumpets were discussed in the post for 9 September 2017.
23. It is now the African Union. (Wikipedia. "African Union.")
24. "Assembléia de Deus - Edgard Romero - Juventude 2013." Uploaded to YouTube by Vagner Jose on 9 February 2014.
25. "Dança Oficial do Retiro 2013, Juventude Shemá." Uploaded to YouTube by Vagner Jose on 3 March 2013. Quotations translated by Google Translate.
26. Wikipedia. "Madureira, Rio de Janeiro."
27. "Coral Evalo - Jesus meu guia é (Raíz Coral)." Uploaded to YouTube by Coral Evalo on 11 October 2011.
"Coral Evalo - Quão grande é o meu Deus e Tu és bom." Uploaded to YouTube by Coral Evalo on 11 October 2011. It said they were "singing with the Ministry of Praise!" ("Coral Evalo cantando com o Ministério de Louvor!")
Monday, December 25, 2017
Iglesia Cristiana Evangélica, Catamarca - kumbaya
Topic: Theology
Baptist theology dates back to the Anabaptists in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1525, who first considered recreating the primitive church with the Lord’s Supper as a central rite. Only adults who had professed their faith and been baptized by being immersed in water were recognized as members. [1]
John Nelson Darby recreated [2] the cultural construct in 1826 with a group in Dublin. They absorbed ideas from others seeking to reform the Anglican church. Quakers influenced their elimination of musical instruments from services. [3] The banishment of Christmas celebrations came from the Free Church of Scotland. [4]
The fellowship did not organize a denomination with a centralized body to adjudicate differences in interpretation. Assembly leaders soon divided into Open and Closed or Exclusive schools, as had the Anabaptists, [5] over the appropriate relationships with non-believers and the use of shunning as a means of maintaining discipline. [6]
Darby lectured in Geneva in 1840. He later made five trips to New England and Ontario, Canada, between 1862 and 1877, [7] where his speeches sowed seeds for Charles Parham’s attempts to recreate the apostles’ church. Robert Cleaver Chapman distributed pamphlets in Madrid and Catalonia after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1868. There the fellowship became the Asambleas de Hermanos. [8]
The Open Brethren believe in evangelizing non-believers. Juan Herique Ewen arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from England in 1882. [9] At the time, British investors were building railroads, while the government was encouraging immigration to the newly opened areas. [10] The first converts were Italian immigrants. By 1911, Pablo Deiros said there were 38 active Brethren missionaries in the country using tents and open-air meetings. [11]
Ewen may have traveled as far as Catamarca [12] in the semi-arid Andes, which had been reached by a rail line in 1888. [13] In 1914, its total immigrant population was 674 Spaniards, 568 Italians, and 469 Arabs. [14] The last likely were from the Mount Lebanon region of greater Syria. Their numbers increased after World War I, [15] when Britain and France divided control of the Ottoman Empire. [16] Many who joined the brotherhood were Christians fleeing a revolt by the Islamic Druze against French occupation. [17]
In 2016, the meeting hall in Catamarca was plain. The only trim on the white wall on the right side was a chair rail. A book shelf stood on the left side, with a platform covered by a white cloth at the front. Single doors opened behind it on the left and right. Between them was an arched opening or mirror through which that most pagan of symbols could be seen, a decorated tree.
On the Sunday before Christmas three woman and a man stood in front of the platform and sang "Silent Night," "Aleluya," and two songs about the birth of Jesus in Spanish. [18] The women also performed "Kumbaya" in English. While the Spanish-language songs were accompanied by a sound track, the man played an acoustic guitar for this.
Their words and melody suggested they had learned the song locally, rather than from the mass media. They only knew two verses, and did not include the kumbaya one. The conjunto vocal did not sing the usual last line which ends with "kumba" sung on one note, and "ya" a note lower. Instead, they said the last note higher.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: three women
Vocal Director: one of the women
Instrumental Accompaniment: man played acoustic guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
None given
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: "kum" pronounced with soft initial consonant and long vowel; it was accented. They strongly emphasized the first syllables of singing and praying, and did not pronounce the final g’s.
Verses: singing, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: two-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: repeated "Oh Lord, kumbaya" three times
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderately slow, with retard at end
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: chordal harmony, with one syllable to one note except for final Lord
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: guitar played arpeggios while they were singing
Notes on Performance
Occasion: 18 December 2016
Location: YouTube identified the hall as Iglesia Cristiana Evangelica Catamarca at Caseros 214. Some directories on Google associated that address with Iglesia Cristiana Evangelica Bautista. The local Brethren website indicated its assembly met at the junction of Manuel Ponferrada and Caseros ("Junín 1180 Manuel Ponferrada y Caseros.")
Microphones: the three young women had hand-held mikes; a floor mike stood in front of the guitarist.
Clothing: the women wore sleeveless black tops and black slacks. Two had long hair that was loose, and one had her hair pulled back. The man wore a white shirt, black slacks, and no tie.
Notes on Movement
They all stood reasonably still and looked straight ahead. When they began the amen ending, one girl put her arm out in front of her where the others could see her direct the progressively slower pace of the final "Oh Lord, Kumbaya" phrases.
Notes on Audience
Congregants sat on straight-backed chairs set in rows with two aisles. Some got up or returned, and children moved about. Most were dressed up a little, neither in suits, nor in jeans. All the women and girls had long hair that hung down their backs.
They only applauded at the end of one song, presumably the last.
Notes on Performers
Noche de Paz" (silent night) featured harmony by the women on the first and third verses, with a solo by the woman who had acted as director between. She also was the only one who spoke at the ends of numbers.
"Aleluya" featured the female soloist.
"Nació Jesus" (Jesus was born) featured the male soloist. The female soloist sat in the first row.
"Nacio Jesús, Su amor se derramo" (Jesus was born, His love spilled) featured the female and male soloists. This may have been the last song, since it was followed by applause.
They had music stands in front of them, and changed the music once between songs. A man sat in front of a projector that displayed the verses on the screen. He also may have been handling the recorder that played the instrumental accompaniments.
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by pianos pianos on 20 December 2016.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Swiss Brethren."
2. Multiple inventions occur when scientists are working from the same set of data to solve similar problems. The same thing would happen in religion when individuals restricted their source of information to a few verses of the Bible.
3. Rex A. Koivisto. One Lord, One Faith. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2009 edition. 320.
4. Roger Hutchinson. Aleister Crowley. New York: Random House, 2011. No pages in on-line edition.
5. Wikipedia. "Mennonite." When the Anabaptists were being persecuted, Jakob Ammann introduced shunning to maintain loyalty to the group. They separated from the Mennonites of Menno Simons over this and other issues.
6. Wikipedia. "Plymouth Brethren."
7. Wikipedia. "John Nelson Darby."
8. Spanish-language Wikipedia. "Asambleas de Hermanos." The group’s Argentinian website used the expression Iglesias Cristianas Evangélicas en Argentina de las Asambleas de Hermanos.
9. Carlos Alberto Bisio. Nuestros Primeros Pasos. Buenos Aires: Libreria Editorial Cristiana, 1992. An extract, "Juan Herique Ewen," available on-line.
10. Wikipedia. "Argentina."
11. Pablo A. Deiros. "Protestant Fundamentalism in Latin America." 1:142-264 in Fundamentalisms Observed. Edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. 1:152.
12. Basio said that while few details of his campaigns survived, it was known Ewen had been to Córdoba, which abutted the far southern boundary of Catamarca province.
13. Wikipedia. "Catamarca Province."
14. Jill Hedges. Argentina: A Modern History. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011. 234.
15. Eliane Fersan. "Syro-Lebanese Migration (1880-Present): ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’ Factors." Middle East Institute website. 19 April 2010.
16. Wikipedia. "French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon."
17. Clifton L. Holland. "A Directory of Religious Groups in Latin America and the Caribbean: Argentina." San Pedro, Costa Rica: Programa Latinoamericano de Estudios Sociorreligiosos, 25 May 2002. 19.
18. All were uploaded to YouTube by pianos pianos on 20 July 2017 with an indication they were recorded in 2016.
Baptist theology dates back to the Anabaptists in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1525, who first considered recreating the primitive church with the Lord’s Supper as a central rite. Only adults who had professed their faith and been baptized by being immersed in water were recognized as members. [1]
John Nelson Darby recreated [2] the cultural construct in 1826 with a group in Dublin. They absorbed ideas from others seeking to reform the Anglican church. Quakers influenced their elimination of musical instruments from services. [3] The banishment of Christmas celebrations came from the Free Church of Scotland. [4]
The fellowship did not organize a denomination with a centralized body to adjudicate differences in interpretation. Assembly leaders soon divided into Open and Closed or Exclusive schools, as had the Anabaptists, [5] over the appropriate relationships with non-believers and the use of shunning as a means of maintaining discipline. [6]
Darby lectured in Geneva in 1840. He later made five trips to New England and Ontario, Canada, between 1862 and 1877, [7] where his speeches sowed seeds for Charles Parham’s attempts to recreate the apostles’ church. Robert Cleaver Chapman distributed pamphlets in Madrid and Catalonia after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1868. There the fellowship became the Asambleas de Hermanos. [8]
The Open Brethren believe in evangelizing non-believers. Juan Herique Ewen arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from England in 1882. [9] At the time, British investors were building railroads, while the government was encouraging immigration to the newly opened areas. [10] The first converts were Italian immigrants. By 1911, Pablo Deiros said there were 38 active Brethren missionaries in the country using tents and open-air meetings. [11]
Ewen may have traveled as far as Catamarca [12] in the semi-arid Andes, which had been reached by a rail line in 1888. [13] In 1914, its total immigrant population was 674 Spaniards, 568 Italians, and 469 Arabs. [14] The last likely were from the Mount Lebanon region of greater Syria. Their numbers increased after World War I, [15] when Britain and France divided control of the Ottoman Empire. [16] Many who joined the brotherhood were Christians fleeing a revolt by the Islamic Druze against French occupation. [17]
In 2016, the meeting hall in Catamarca was plain. The only trim on the white wall on the right side was a chair rail. A book shelf stood on the left side, with a platform covered by a white cloth at the front. Single doors opened behind it on the left and right. Between them was an arched opening or mirror through which that most pagan of symbols could be seen, a decorated tree.
On the Sunday before Christmas three woman and a man stood in front of the platform and sang "Silent Night," "Aleluya," and two songs about the birth of Jesus in Spanish. [18] The women also performed "Kumbaya" in English. While the Spanish-language songs were accompanied by a sound track, the man played an acoustic guitar for this.
Their words and melody suggested they had learned the song locally, rather than from the mass media. They only knew two verses, and did not include the kumbaya one. The conjunto vocal did not sing the usual last line which ends with "kumba" sung on one note, and "ya" a note lower. Instead, they said the last note higher.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: three women
Vocal Director: one of the women
Instrumental Accompaniment: man played acoustic guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
None given
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: "kum" pronounced with soft initial consonant and long vowel; it was accented. They strongly emphasized the first syllables of singing and praying, and did not pronounce the final g’s.
Verses: singing, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: two-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: repeated "Oh Lord, kumbaya" three times
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderately slow, with retard at end
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: chordal harmony, with one syllable to one note except for final Lord
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: guitar played arpeggios while they were singing
Notes on Performance
Occasion: 18 December 2016
Location: YouTube identified the hall as Iglesia Cristiana Evangelica Catamarca at Caseros 214. Some directories on Google associated that address with Iglesia Cristiana Evangelica Bautista. The local Brethren website indicated its assembly met at the junction of Manuel Ponferrada and Caseros ("Junín 1180 Manuel Ponferrada y Caseros.")
Microphones: the three young women had hand-held mikes; a floor mike stood in front of the guitarist.
Clothing: the women wore sleeveless black tops and black slacks. Two had long hair that was loose, and one had her hair pulled back. The man wore a white shirt, black slacks, and no tie.
Notes on Movement
They all stood reasonably still and looked straight ahead. When they began the amen ending, one girl put her arm out in front of her where the others could see her direct the progressively slower pace of the final "Oh Lord, Kumbaya" phrases.
Notes on Audience
Congregants sat on straight-backed chairs set in rows with two aisles. Some got up or returned, and children moved about. Most were dressed up a little, neither in suits, nor in jeans. All the women and girls had long hair that hung down their backs.
They only applauded at the end of one song, presumably the last.
Notes on Performers
Noche de Paz" (silent night) featured harmony by the women on the first and third verses, with a solo by the woman who had acted as director between. She also was the only one who spoke at the ends of numbers.
"Aleluya" featured the female soloist.
"Nació Jesus" (Jesus was born) featured the male soloist. The female soloist sat in the first row.
"Nacio Jesús, Su amor se derramo" (Jesus was born, His love spilled) featured the female and male soloists. This may have been the last song, since it was followed by applause.
They had music stands in front of them, and changed the music once between songs. A man sat in front of a projector that displayed the verses on the screen. He also may have been handling the recorder that played the instrumental accompaniments.
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by pianos pianos on 20 December 2016.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Swiss Brethren."
2. Multiple inventions occur when scientists are working from the same set of data to solve similar problems. The same thing would happen in religion when individuals restricted their source of information to a few verses of the Bible.
3. Rex A. Koivisto. One Lord, One Faith. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2009 edition. 320.
4. Roger Hutchinson. Aleister Crowley. New York: Random House, 2011. No pages in on-line edition.
5. Wikipedia. "Mennonite." When the Anabaptists were being persecuted, Jakob Ammann introduced shunning to maintain loyalty to the group. They separated from the Mennonites of Menno Simons over this and other issues.
6. Wikipedia. "Plymouth Brethren."
7. Wikipedia. "John Nelson Darby."
8. Spanish-language Wikipedia. "Asambleas de Hermanos." The group’s Argentinian website used the expression Iglesias Cristianas Evangélicas en Argentina de las Asambleas de Hermanos.
9. Carlos Alberto Bisio. Nuestros Primeros Pasos. Buenos Aires: Libreria Editorial Cristiana, 1992. An extract, "Juan Herique Ewen," available on-line.
10. Wikipedia. "Argentina."
11. Pablo A. Deiros. "Protestant Fundamentalism in Latin America." 1:142-264 in Fundamentalisms Observed. Edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. 1:152.
12. Basio said that while few details of his campaigns survived, it was known Ewen had been to Córdoba, which abutted the far southern boundary of Catamarca province.
13. Wikipedia. "Catamarca Province."
14. Jill Hedges. Argentina: A Modern History. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011. 234.
15. Eliane Fersan. "Syro-Lebanese Migration (1880-Present): ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’ Factors." Middle East Institute website. 19 April 2010.
16. Wikipedia. "French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon."
17. Clifton L. Holland. "A Directory of Religious Groups in Latin America and the Caribbean: Argentina." San Pedro, Costa Rica: Programa Latinoamericano de Estudios Sociorreligiosos, 25 May 2002. 19.
18. All were uploaded to YouTube by pianos pianos on 20 July 2017 with an indication they were recorded in 2016.
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Come by Here
Topic: Theology
Holiness was a Methodist movement, and Pentecostalism was a reaction against Methodist protocols. Even though many Baptist groups already had rituals for contacting the Holy Spirit, they were not immune to the attractions of Holiness theology.
Charles Harrison Mason was raised as a Baptist in the Memphis, Tennessee, area in the years immediate following the Civil War. He was baptized in 1880, and entered Arkansas Baptist College to train for the ministry. He left after a few months because he did not like its formal approach to religion. [1]
His interest in sanctification was intensified by reading the autobiography of Amanda Berry Smith, a Black woman who had become a Holiness leader. In 1897, he attended a regional conference in Jackson, Mississippi, led by Charles Price Jones. [2]
Jones had been born at the end of the Civil War in northwestern Georgia, where his mother had been a slave. After she died in 1882, he moved to Chattanooga, then, after a brief spell in Kansas City, to Memphis in 1884. That same year he was converted by Baptists, and began preaching. [3]
He began to feel "as a Baptist, I had doctrinal assurance, but I wanted spiritual assurance, heart peace, rest of the soul, the joy of salvation in the understanding of a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, constantly renewed and comforted by the Holy Ghost." In 1893, "after three days of fasting and praying ‘God sanctified me sweetly in his love’." [4]
The Jackson meeting was called after the General Missionary Baptist Association met in Jones’ church to discuss problems caused by recent segregation laws. [5] Jones and Mason felt the church was too concerned with social problems, and not enough with religious ones. They issued The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Churches, [6] and Mason chartered the Church of God in Christ in Memphis under Tennessee law. [7]
Baptists expelled them in 1899. By 1906, the COGIC fellowship counted more than a hundred congregations in "Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri. Almost 50 percent of the churches were in Mississippi." Jones was the General Overseer; Mason had responsibility for Tennessee. [8]
When news of Azusa Street reached the group, Mason and two others went out to investigate. Mason spoke in tongues, and returned convinced of the rightness of Seymour’s ideas. Other members of COGIC disagreed, and formed separate churches, all with very similar names. [9] Jones called his the Church of God in Christ (Holiness). [10]
Jones used the term sanctification without reference to Wesley. His second birth was preceded by the African ritual of going into the wilderness. [11] Thus, his concept of "righteousness" was grafted onto Baptist practice using the popular term. Besides providing a link between Baptists and Holiness, his other contribution to the religious experience was the use of song. He published two collections of his hymns. [12]
Because the COGIC lacked the inhibitions of Methodists who feared physical movement and emotional modes of expression, it was more open to music borrowed from the secular world than groups like the Seventh-day Adventists. Their best known musician, Rosetta Thorpe, played electric guitar.
Her technique contributed to the development of urban blues, and her version of "Come by Here" was based loosely on the recording by Lightnin’ Hopkins. It began with the guitar and an electric organ playing the verse through with a drum set. After four sung verses, she played the verse on the guitar. Then, a string bass played a verse, and the organ followed.
The instrumental passage divided the prelude from the denouement. In the first part, she adhered to the verse form, though she included repetitions of key words that lengthened the lines. Tharpe spoke, rather than sang, some words. The constant rhythmic support from the organ and drum made these variations possible.
In the denouement, she did one verse in which she started the line "come on Jesus" and the instruments completed it. Then she spoke a verse in rhymed lines that explicated why they needed Jesus to appear. This was followed by a third verse that repeated phrases within lines. Tharpe ended by just saying "come" with the guitar completing her thought.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Rosetta Tharpe
Vocal Group: none
Vocal Director: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: electric guitar, organ, string bass, piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: sometimes Tharpe did not pronounce the /d/ in "Lord"; at least once she repeated "here" as "he Are"; she said "ja" for "you."
Verses: come by here, needed time, need you
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Lord, Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: free-form based on the AAAB line-repetition pattern
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Literary Devices: one verse with three unique lines had an AAA rhyme pattern
Unique Features: no strict poetic meter; repeated phrases within lines extended their length
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-5
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: vocal sections alternated with instrumental ones
Singing Style: Tharpe held words like "Oh Lord" and varied their pitch. She switched between singing and speaking the melody.
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: when she was singing, the instrumental group played a simple accompaniment. She played some solo lines, but also let other players demonstrate their talents.
Notes on Performers
Tharpe was born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, in 1915. [13] By then, COGIC had some presence in the market town in the Arkansas river delta some eighty miles from Memphis. [14] Her mother, apparently, was already an evangelist for the denomination. [15] The church did not allow women to become pastors or elders, but allowed them every other religious role, including holding revivals. [16]
Katie Bell Nubin moved to Chicago in 1920, where Rosetta performed in the local church. From there they begin working with a touring revivalist, P. W. McGhee. Friends recommended they move to New York, which they did in the mid-1930s. [17] Tharpe made her first commercial recording in 1938. [18]
She and her mother appeared at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967. Her mother died the next year, [19] and was memorialized in the Precious Memories album that included Tharpe’s version of "Come by Here."
Availability
Album: Precious Memories. Savoy Records MG-14214. 1968. New York, late 1968. [20]
Reissue: Precious Memories. Savagos RI 5008. 1984. [21]
Reissue: Precious Memories. Savoy Records SCD 5008. 1997. [22]
YouTube: uploaded by Malaco Records on 18 November 2017.
End Notes
1. Mary Menefee. "Charles Harrison Mason 1866–1961." Encyclopedia of Arkansas. 27 October 2016.
2. Menefee.
3. J. H. Green. "Introduction." vii-xvi in Charles P. Jones. An Appeal to the Sons of Africa. Jackson, Mississippi: Truth Publishing Company, 1902. On birth, vii; on events after 1882, viii.
4. Charles Price Jones. Quoted by Calvin White, Jr. The Rise to Respectability. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2012. No pages or footnotes in online version.
5. Mississippi had removed Black children from white schools in 1890, and, in 1896, went further and decreed separate financial support with separate school districts. ("Mississippi Jim Crow Laws: Mississippi Close." Bringing History Home website. 2005.)
6. White. Chapter 1.
7. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 71.
8. David D. Daniels III. "Church of Christ (Holiness)." 219-220 in The Mississippi Encyclopedia. Edited by Ted Ownby and Charles Reagan Wilson. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017. 219.
9. Menefee.
10. Estrelda Y. Alexander. Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism. Downers Grove, Illinois: InverVarsity Press, 2011. 96.
11. Joanna Moore, a white Northern missionary who knew Jones in Arkansas, noted African-American Baptists believed to be "forgiven, the sinner must spend long days in prayers and tears." Moore. "In Christ's Stead." Chicago: Women’s Baptist Home Mission Society, 1902. 183.
12. White.
13. Gayle Wald. "Timeline: The Years of Sister Rosetta Tharpe." PBS American Masters website. 28 December 2012.
14. Wikipedia. "Woodruff County, Arkansas."
15. Gayle F. Wald did the most thorough research into Tharpe’s life in Cotton Plant. She made no mention of how Tharpe’s mother or father were converted, nor did she record if an actual church existed in the town or if they attended revivals. Shout Sister Shout! Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.
16. Wikipedia. "Church of God in Christ." Like many denominations, this exclusion of women has been challenged, and one person estimated "50 to 60 women" were serving as pastors in 1998. (John Dart. "Stage Set for Challenge to Church Policy on Women Pastors." Los Angeles Times website. 26 July 1998).
17. Horace Clarence Boyer. The Golden Age of Gospel. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1995. 154-155.
18. Cedric J. Hayes and Robert Laughton. The Gospel Discography, 1943-1970. Vancouver, British Columbia: Eyeball Productions, 2007. Reproduced by Robert Termorshuizenon Record Connexion website.
18. Wald, Timeline.
19. Haynes.
20. "Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Precious Memories." Discogs website.
21. Discogs.
Holiness was a Methodist movement, and Pentecostalism was a reaction against Methodist protocols. Even though many Baptist groups already had rituals for contacting the Holy Spirit, they were not immune to the attractions of Holiness theology.
Charles Harrison Mason was raised as a Baptist in the Memphis, Tennessee, area in the years immediate following the Civil War. He was baptized in 1880, and entered Arkansas Baptist College to train for the ministry. He left after a few months because he did not like its formal approach to religion. [1]
His interest in sanctification was intensified by reading the autobiography of Amanda Berry Smith, a Black woman who had become a Holiness leader. In 1897, he attended a regional conference in Jackson, Mississippi, led by Charles Price Jones. [2]
Jones had been born at the end of the Civil War in northwestern Georgia, where his mother had been a slave. After she died in 1882, he moved to Chattanooga, then, after a brief spell in Kansas City, to Memphis in 1884. That same year he was converted by Baptists, and began preaching. [3]
He began to feel "as a Baptist, I had doctrinal assurance, but I wanted spiritual assurance, heart peace, rest of the soul, the joy of salvation in the understanding of a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, constantly renewed and comforted by the Holy Ghost." In 1893, "after three days of fasting and praying ‘God sanctified me sweetly in his love’." [4]
The Jackson meeting was called after the General Missionary Baptist Association met in Jones’ church to discuss problems caused by recent segregation laws. [5] Jones and Mason felt the church was too concerned with social problems, and not enough with religious ones. They issued The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Churches, [6] and Mason chartered the Church of God in Christ in Memphis under Tennessee law. [7]
Baptists expelled them in 1899. By 1906, the COGIC fellowship counted more than a hundred congregations in "Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri. Almost 50 percent of the churches were in Mississippi." Jones was the General Overseer; Mason had responsibility for Tennessee. [8]
When news of Azusa Street reached the group, Mason and two others went out to investigate. Mason spoke in tongues, and returned convinced of the rightness of Seymour’s ideas. Other members of COGIC disagreed, and formed separate churches, all with very similar names. [9] Jones called his the Church of God in Christ (Holiness). [10]
Jones used the term sanctification without reference to Wesley. His second birth was preceded by the African ritual of going into the wilderness. [11] Thus, his concept of "righteousness" was grafted onto Baptist practice using the popular term. Besides providing a link between Baptists and Holiness, his other contribution to the religious experience was the use of song. He published two collections of his hymns. [12]
Because the COGIC lacked the inhibitions of Methodists who feared physical movement and emotional modes of expression, it was more open to music borrowed from the secular world than groups like the Seventh-day Adventists. Their best known musician, Rosetta Thorpe, played electric guitar.
Her technique contributed to the development of urban blues, and her version of "Come by Here" was based loosely on the recording by Lightnin’ Hopkins. It began with the guitar and an electric organ playing the verse through with a drum set. After four sung verses, she played the verse on the guitar. Then, a string bass played a verse, and the organ followed.
The instrumental passage divided the prelude from the denouement. In the first part, she adhered to the verse form, though she included repetitions of key words that lengthened the lines. Tharpe spoke, rather than sang, some words. The constant rhythmic support from the organ and drum made these variations possible.
In the denouement, she did one verse in which she started the line "come on Jesus" and the instruments completed it. Then she spoke a verse in rhymed lines that explicated why they needed Jesus to appear. This was followed by a third verse that repeated phrases within lines. Tharpe ended by just saying "come" with the guitar completing her thought.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Rosetta Tharpe
Vocal Group: none
Vocal Director: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: electric guitar, organ, string bass, piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: sometimes Tharpe did not pronounce the /d/ in "Lord"; at least once she repeated "here" as "he Are"; she said "ja" for "you."
Verses: come by here, needed time, need you
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Lord, Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: free-form based on the AAAB line-repetition pattern
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Literary Devices: one verse with three unique lines had an AAA rhyme pattern
Unique Features: no strict poetic meter; repeated phrases within lines extended their length
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-5
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: vocal sections alternated with instrumental ones
Singing Style: Tharpe held words like "Oh Lord" and varied their pitch. She switched between singing and speaking the melody.
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: when she was singing, the instrumental group played a simple accompaniment. She played some solo lines, but also let other players demonstrate their talents.
Notes on Performers
Tharpe was born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, in 1915. [13] By then, COGIC had some presence in the market town in the Arkansas river delta some eighty miles from Memphis. [14] Her mother, apparently, was already an evangelist for the denomination. [15] The church did not allow women to become pastors or elders, but allowed them every other religious role, including holding revivals. [16]
Katie Bell Nubin moved to Chicago in 1920, where Rosetta performed in the local church. From there they begin working with a touring revivalist, P. W. McGhee. Friends recommended they move to New York, which they did in the mid-1930s. [17] Tharpe made her first commercial recording in 1938. [18]
She and her mother appeared at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967. Her mother died the next year, [19] and was memorialized in the Precious Memories album that included Tharpe’s version of "Come by Here."
Availability
Album: Precious Memories. Savoy Records MG-14214. 1968. New York, late 1968. [20]
Reissue: Precious Memories. Savagos RI 5008. 1984. [21]
Reissue: Precious Memories. Savoy Records SCD 5008. 1997. [22]
YouTube: uploaded by Malaco Records on 18 November 2017.
End Notes
1. Mary Menefee. "Charles Harrison Mason 1866–1961." Encyclopedia of Arkansas. 27 October 2016.
2. Menefee.
3. J. H. Green. "Introduction." vii-xvi in Charles P. Jones. An Appeal to the Sons of Africa. Jackson, Mississippi: Truth Publishing Company, 1902. On birth, vii; on events after 1882, viii.
4. Charles Price Jones. Quoted by Calvin White, Jr. The Rise to Respectability. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2012. No pages or footnotes in online version.
5. Mississippi had removed Black children from white schools in 1890, and, in 1896, went further and decreed separate financial support with separate school districts. ("Mississippi Jim Crow Laws: Mississippi Close." Bringing History Home website. 2005.)
6. White. Chapter 1.
7. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 71.
8. David D. Daniels III. "Church of Christ (Holiness)." 219-220 in The Mississippi Encyclopedia. Edited by Ted Ownby and Charles Reagan Wilson. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017. 219.
9. Menefee.
10. Estrelda Y. Alexander. Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism. Downers Grove, Illinois: InverVarsity Press, 2011. 96.
11. Joanna Moore, a white Northern missionary who knew Jones in Arkansas, noted African-American Baptists believed to be "forgiven, the sinner must spend long days in prayers and tears." Moore. "In Christ's Stead." Chicago: Women’s Baptist Home Mission Society, 1902. 183.
12. White.
13. Gayle Wald. "Timeline: The Years of Sister Rosetta Tharpe." PBS American Masters website. 28 December 2012.
14. Wikipedia. "Woodruff County, Arkansas."
15. Gayle F. Wald did the most thorough research into Tharpe’s life in Cotton Plant. She made no mention of how Tharpe’s mother or father were converted, nor did she record if an actual church existed in the town or if they attended revivals. Shout Sister Shout! Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.
16. Wikipedia. "Church of God in Christ." Like many denominations, this exclusion of women has been challenged, and one person estimated "50 to 60 women" were serving as pastors in 1998. (John Dart. "Stage Set for Challenge to Church Policy on Women Pastors." Los Angeles Times website. 26 July 1998).
17. Horace Clarence Boyer. The Golden Age of Gospel. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1995. 154-155.
18. Cedric J. Hayes and Robert Laughton. The Gospel Discography, 1943-1970. Vancouver, British Columbia: Eyeball Productions, 2007. Reproduced by Robert Termorshuizenon Record Connexion website.
18. Wald, Timeline.
19. Haynes.
20. "Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Precious Memories." Discogs website.
21. Discogs.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Lynda Randle - Kum Ba Ya
Topic: Theology - Evangelicals
I have no idea how many young people learned "Kumbaya" from evangelical youth groups in the 1970s. It became obvious when I was surveying versions on YouTube in December 2016 that one group who had not absorbed it into its repertoire was the Southern white gospel singers who had syndicated television shows in those years.
One reason may have been the associations of the song with commercial folk music and the protests of the 1960s. In the same way the National Association of Evangelicals had defined itself as the opposite of the National Council of Churches in 1943, [1] people had begun to define themselves as not "those" people. [2] By 1978, they even had competing versions of the Bible. [3]
As Del Delker discovered when she toured Seventh-day Adventists camp meetings with The Wedgewoods in 1967, it did not matter if their demeanor was wholesome and their songs Christian. When people saw their acoustic instruments, they refused to listen. [4]
Beyond this visceral reaction, there were theological reasons for the rejection of "Kumbaya." Gospel groups sang about the wonderful things Jesus would do for them, now and in the hereafter. Even with the legends described in the post for 19 December 2017, "Kumbaya" did not fit. It used "Lord" rather than "Jesus," and "someone" instead of "I."
Even more important, the summer camp singing tradition that produced "Kumbaya" differed from the Southern gospel one. As mentioned in the post for 29 October 2017, Lowell Mason began introducing post-Bach European harmonies into church music in his song books and singing schools in 1822. After the Civil War, the center for publishing singing-school books moved west, and after the great fire in Chicago in 1871, to Cincinnati. [5]
The heirs of the Scots Reformation rejected Mason’s aesthetic that submerged the individual’s voice into a anonymous mass supervised by a conductor. William Walker produced an alternative in his 1835 Southern Harmony. [6] Benjamin Franklin White and his brother-in-law, Elisha James King, followed with Sacred Harp in 1844. [7] These had four distinct parts, with the melody carried by the tenors, the second note of chords.
By 1900, two separate group singing traditions existed. In the North, singing schools in the Midwest included songs that survived in Camp Fire Girls camps. [8] In the South, groups held singing conventions where people singing the four parts were seated in separate areas, often along the four walls of a room. [9]
Singing schools became less popular in the North after recordings and radio introduced new forms of popular music. Northern churches responded with programs for youth groups that sometimes included summer camps. In the South, Virgil Stamps modernized his Dallas, Texas, music publishing business by sponsoring quartets that performed his songs on radio. [10] The most important was the Blackwood Brothers, who defined the quartet tradition until the technology of syndication opened the way for other artists. [11]
Individuals in the two singing schools learned to listen to different things. In the North, people did not hear themselves, but the total group. In the South, individuals learned to harmonize with others in their group and not hear the other voices. [12] When Bill Gaither invited surviving members of the gospel groups to come together, [13] they instinctively grouped themselves by voice when singing featured parts: tenors with tenors, basses with basses. [14]
"Kumbaya" used the basic triad of Bachian music, and most people transcribed it in parallel thirds, with the low voices singing octaves. There simply was no place for falsettos or basses. It was not amenable to Southern gospel quartet singing.
Eventually, Southern songbooks began using some of the harmonies found in popular music. Even then, groups retained their unique singing style. They strongly attacked the words that fell on the downbeats, but immediately softened the sound as they held the notes. This strong pulse gave momentum to the a capella music.
By 2008, many of the original quartet singers who performed on Gaither’s homecoming programs had died or retired, and been replaced by younger artists he was promoting. An African-American woman sang a version of "Kumbaya" that revealed lingering traces of these regional singing traditions.
To convert "Kumbaya" into a gospel song, Lynda Randle sang it as the prelude to Thomas Dorsey’s "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." Dorsey was a Black from Atlanta who had moved to Chicago where he accompanied Ma Rainey and recorded "Tight Like That." After his wife died in 1932, he wrote this song, and concentrated on religious music. [15]
Dorsey borrowed a tune from the Northern singing-school tradition, "Maitland," that first had appeared in George Allen’s Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book in 1845. [16] Southern singing school editors criticized Mason for introducing "many new rhythmic forms" that were seen as "not only unnecessary and useless," but also as "positively injurious." [17] Michael Hawn noted Dorsey simplified Allen’s rhythm from 6/4 to 3/4. [18]
"Take My Hand" was performed by many black singers, and entered Southern tradition. Thus, when the Homecoming performance moved to this, everyone was able to sing because they knew both the words and their particular parts. Each group harmonized to produce a full sound. Further, they used the pulsing attacks to define an a capella rhythm.
The group had more trouble singing with Randle on "Kumbaya." One reason may have been the fact she actually was using the melody for "Come by Here" with somebody and the "needs you verse." Gaither, or someone, had determined in advance how they should accompany Randle’s singing. She had a resonant alto and did not incorporate the vocal flourishes used by Black sopranos.
The 1-5 melody popularized by the Hightowers was unfamiliar to those who did know the traditional form of "Kumbaya." Randle sang the first verse alone, and the group hummed while she did the two "Come by Here" verses. When she came to the familiar "Kumbaya" verses, they sang with her. To avoid problems with strange pronouns, they began on the verb in each line.
Once the group started, it fell into the sacred-harp cadences, and consistently was just a bit behind her. This was not an attempt to reproduce African-American singing practices, but was the result of each of them, Randle included, singing his or her part and ignoring the rest.
Jessy Dixon, a black gospel singer from Chicago, introduced some of the African-American embellishments, but only in the familiar "Take My Hand." He sometimes would sing above the line, especially when the group was holding a note at the end of a phrase. [19]
Gaither, who came from an area influenced by the Northern singing schools, probably hoped people would be able to harmonize on "Kumbaya" as he had done on the version described in the post for 17 December 2017. Instead, he created a medley of styles - Northern, Southern White, and African American - that were able to coexist because of the way singers in the Southern gospel tradition had learned to listen as children.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Lynda Randle, alto
Vocal Group: men and women on stage
Vocal Director: Bill Gaither
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
None for "Kumbaya." The lyrics provided on YouTube were not the ones that were sung.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: she varied the pronunciation of the first syllable of kumbaya
Verses: Randle sang kumbaya, come by here, needs you, praying, crying. YouTube listed kumbaya, singing, laughing, crying, praying, sleeping.
Vocabulary
Pronoun: Randle used somebody; YouTube gave "someone"
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: four-verse song framed by kumbaya verses at start and end. First part was "Come by Here," second was "Kumbaya."
Verse Repetition Pattern: AxxxxA
Ending: none; You Tube indicated "Oh Lord, kumbaya" was repeated twice.
Unique Features: "Come by Here" form with "Kumbaya" title combined in a medley that circumscribed its meaning.
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Hightowers 1-5
Tempo: very slow
Basic Structure: repetition with variations in vocal accompaniment.
Singing Style: Randle held notes and sometimes varied their pitch, but otherwise allotted one note to one syllable. Only a pause separated "Kumbaya" from "Take My Hand."
Solo-Vocal Accompaniment Dynamics: the group hummed while she sang some verses, and, on others, sang the same words with chordal harmony.
Notes on Performance
Occasion: videotaping session for a Bill Gaither Homecoming program
Location: the set featured a large, circular brick fireplace with a dogtrot cabin in back. Older singers sat in rocking chairs and younger ones in three tiers of bleachers placed in a wide arc around the fire pit.
Microphones: Randle and some of the other singers had hand-held mikes.
Clothing: casual; Randle wore blue jeans and a yellow shirt.
Notes on Movement
During this video the singers did not leave their places. Some had their eyes closed and arms raised. Gaither stood to direct them during "Take My Hand."
Audience Perceptions
Most of the comments were general, and many may have been intended for "Take My Hand." One man said "Lynda Randles has such a great awesome amazing manufic fantastic exotic healing and touching voice." [20]
There was one who asked the meaning of the word "kumbaya," one who gave the words in Indonesian, [21] and one who repeated "kumbaya mi Señor" with two hearts. [22]
Notes on Performers
Randle was raised in northeastern Washington DC, and attended a private Baptist secondary school in Prince George County, Maryland. [23] She met her husband when she was a student at Liberty University. [24] They now live in Kansas City, Missouri, where he heads a church whose core beliefs echo those of the NAE. [25]
Family genealogists have tracked the family back to Clarke County in southwestern Alabama where Wyatt Tate died in 1894. [26] The family moved to Mobile. [27] Later, her father, who was born in 1922, [28] moved to Washington where he became a street evangelist and later pastor of New Bible Church. [29] He also drove a taxi [30] to provide a middle-class life for his children. Randle’s brother, Michael Tait, attended the same schools and sang with Contemporary Christian groups. [31]
Race is a nagging question whenever one sees, in Randle’s words, a few chocolate chips in a sea of vanilla. [32] Ryan Harper [33] believed she deliberately downplayed her childhood in a large city and teen-age role integrating a white Christian preserve, by emphasizing it was years before "she really experienced the freedom from bondage that only God could give" from a "tumultuous and painful" childhood. [34]
It would have been impossible for her to make her white audience comfortable if they had known her great-grandfather Wyatt did not just die in Finchburg, Alabama. In 1892, when the radical Holiness movement was spreading in the South and Midwest, poor white farmers in the county ambushed merchants who were exploited them. [35] They were suppressed in 1893, the same year Wyatt killed a constable "who attempted to serve a writ of attachment on him." He became a fugitive until he was killed. [36]
Availability
DVD: "Kum Ba Ya/Take My Hand, Precious Lord (Medley)." A Campfire Homecoming. 2008.
YouTube: uploaded by GaitherVEVO, 6 September 2012.
End Notes
1. The NAE was discussed in the post for 15 December 2017.
2. The song that most defined the dichotomy between upstanding Christians and "them" was Merle Haggard’s "Okie from Muskogee" released by Capital Records in 1969. (Capital 2626).
3. The National Council of Churches sponsored the Revised Standard Version that released its Old Testament in 1952. It was criticized as too Jewish, because passages were translated in ways that did not fit Protestant views. (Wikipedia. "Revised Standard Version.")
The National Association of Evangelicals and other groups responded by underwriting their own translation. The New International Version was published in 1978. (Wikipedia. "New International Version.")
4. Delker and the Wedgewoods were discussed in the post for 3 December 2017.
5. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 483.
6. William Walker. The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. Spartanburg, South Carolina: William Walker, 1835.
7. B. F. White and E. J. King. The Sacred Harp. Philadelphia: T. K. and P. G. Collins, 1844.
8. I discovered the significance of singing schools when I was tracking down endemic camp songs. I was living in Chicago and went through all the books in the Moody Bible Institute collection of materials from camp meetings and singing schools. Camp Songs mentioned particular songs, camps, and songbooks that demonstrated the link on page 434.
9. James B. Wallace. "Stormy Banks and Sweet Rivers: A Sacred Harp Geography." Southern Spaces website. 4 June 2007.
10. Jeannette Fresne. "History of the Stamps Baxter Singing Schools and Normal School of Music." Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 30:21-38:2008. Stamps was a Methodist in the Holiness tradition. He made clear when he scheduled a singing school in a church, people from all denominations could attend.
11. James R. Goff. Close Harmony. Pub info: UNC Press Books. 2002. 135-138+. The company told the quartet to change from guitar to piano because the songbooks were scored for piano. (138). The resulting piano style was publicized by Jerry Lee Lewis.
12. You can gain some idea of the concentration required to sing independent parts by watching some videos of The Happy Goodmans singing "The Sweetest Name I Know." In the version from 1998 uploaded by sendale Braveheart on 20 June 2016, Howard Goodman was playing the piano. Another version with their sons was uploaded 21 March 2013 by newhavenvideos.
13. The Homecoming videos grew out a 1991 informal session that followed a recording by members of many of the best-known Southern gospel quartets in Nashville. (Wikipedia. "Gaither Homecoming.") The first programs maintained the spontaneity of the first session, but as more were produced a structured format with rehearsals was introduced.
14. In the session where Randle sang "Kumbaya," the group also performed the Goodman’s "Sweetest Song." During the repetitions, one could see the tenors group together as one after another sang Howard’s part. One of the soloists was Johnny Minick who joined Howard and Vestal after their sons died. It was uploaded to YouTube by GaitherVEVO on 6 September 2012 and released on the Homecoming Picnic DVD.
Some of the performance was planned, but what could not be rehearsed was the way people interacted and the obvious joy they had singing. They especially appreciated the introduction of new soloists that allowed them to continue singing.
15. Ian Hill. "‘Georgia Tom’ Dorsey (1899-1993)." New Georgia Encyclopedia website. 11 March 2005, last updated 15 April 2013.
16. George Nelson Allen. Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book. Oberlin, Ohio: J. M. Fitch, 1845.
17. J. B. Aikin. Christian Minstrel. Philadelphia: T. K. and P. G. Collins, 1846. 5.
18. C. Michael Hawn. "History of Hymns: ‘Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone’." The United Methodist Church Discipleship Ministries website.
19. Dixon was a protégé of James Cleveland, who, as mentioned in the post for 21 September, had learned from Dorsey. After religious music tastes changed, Dixon toured with Paul Simon in the 1970s. He began appearing of Gaither’s Homecoming programs in 1996. (Wikipedia. "Jessy Dixon" and "Gaither Homecoming.")
20. Murphy Mohapi. YouTube comment, October 2017.
21. "Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya! Datanglah oh Tuhan, datanglah! (Indonesian Ver.)" YouTube comment by Rillo Hans. March 2017.
22. Clady Diaz. YouTube comment, 2016.
23. "Tait, Michael." Contemporary Black Biography. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 2005.
24. Ryan P. Harper. The Gaithers and Southern Gospel. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017. 224.
25. "Our Core Convictions." Mosaic Bible Fellowship website.
26. "Wyatt Tate." Geni website. 7 November 2014.
27. Jim Harris. "The Tait Man (Wyatt Tait) Family Home Page." Genealogy website. 5 September 2000.
28. "Reverend Nathaniel)Nathel James Tait, Sr." Geni website. 18 October 2016.
29. Bill Broadway. "On Christian Rock’s Cutting Edge." The Washington Post, 20 April 1996.
30. Harper. 224.
31. Contemporary Black. He sang with dc Talk and with the Newsboys.
32. Harper. 220.
33. Harper discussed race, identity and self presentation in his chapter on Randle.
34. "Biography." Lynda Randle Ministries website.
35. Wikipedia. "Clarke County, Alabama" and "Mitcham War."
36. "The Outlaw’s End." The Monroe Journal [Claiborne, Alabama], 17 May 1894. 1.
I have no idea how many young people learned "Kumbaya" from evangelical youth groups in the 1970s. It became obvious when I was surveying versions on YouTube in December 2016 that one group who had not absorbed it into its repertoire was the Southern white gospel singers who had syndicated television shows in those years.
One reason may have been the associations of the song with commercial folk music and the protests of the 1960s. In the same way the National Association of Evangelicals had defined itself as the opposite of the National Council of Churches in 1943, [1] people had begun to define themselves as not "those" people. [2] By 1978, they even had competing versions of the Bible. [3]
As Del Delker discovered when she toured Seventh-day Adventists camp meetings with The Wedgewoods in 1967, it did not matter if their demeanor was wholesome and their songs Christian. When people saw their acoustic instruments, they refused to listen. [4]
Beyond this visceral reaction, there were theological reasons for the rejection of "Kumbaya." Gospel groups sang about the wonderful things Jesus would do for them, now and in the hereafter. Even with the legends described in the post for 19 December 2017, "Kumbaya" did not fit. It used "Lord" rather than "Jesus," and "someone" instead of "I."
Even more important, the summer camp singing tradition that produced "Kumbaya" differed from the Southern gospel one. As mentioned in the post for 29 October 2017, Lowell Mason began introducing post-Bach European harmonies into church music in his song books and singing schools in 1822. After the Civil War, the center for publishing singing-school books moved west, and after the great fire in Chicago in 1871, to Cincinnati. [5]
The heirs of the Scots Reformation rejected Mason’s aesthetic that submerged the individual’s voice into a anonymous mass supervised by a conductor. William Walker produced an alternative in his 1835 Southern Harmony. [6] Benjamin Franklin White and his brother-in-law, Elisha James King, followed with Sacred Harp in 1844. [7] These had four distinct parts, with the melody carried by the tenors, the second note of chords.
By 1900, two separate group singing traditions existed. In the North, singing schools in the Midwest included songs that survived in Camp Fire Girls camps. [8] In the South, groups held singing conventions where people singing the four parts were seated in separate areas, often along the four walls of a room. [9]
Singing schools became less popular in the North after recordings and radio introduced new forms of popular music. Northern churches responded with programs for youth groups that sometimes included summer camps. In the South, Virgil Stamps modernized his Dallas, Texas, music publishing business by sponsoring quartets that performed his songs on radio. [10] The most important was the Blackwood Brothers, who defined the quartet tradition until the technology of syndication opened the way for other artists. [11]
Individuals in the two singing schools learned to listen to different things. In the North, people did not hear themselves, but the total group. In the South, individuals learned to harmonize with others in their group and not hear the other voices. [12] When Bill Gaither invited surviving members of the gospel groups to come together, [13] they instinctively grouped themselves by voice when singing featured parts: tenors with tenors, basses with basses. [14]
"Kumbaya" used the basic triad of Bachian music, and most people transcribed it in parallel thirds, with the low voices singing octaves. There simply was no place for falsettos or basses. It was not amenable to Southern gospel quartet singing.
Eventually, Southern songbooks began using some of the harmonies found in popular music. Even then, groups retained their unique singing style. They strongly attacked the words that fell on the downbeats, but immediately softened the sound as they held the notes. This strong pulse gave momentum to the a capella music.
By 2008, many of the original quartet singers who performed on Gaither’s homecoming programs had died or retired, and been replaced by younger artists he was promoting. An African-American woman sang a version of "Kumbaya" that revealed lingering traces of these regional singing traditions.
To convert "Kumbaya" into a gospel song, Lynda Randle sang it as the prelude to Thomas Dorsey’s "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." Dorsey was a Black from Atlanta who had moved to Chicago where he accompanied Ma Rainey and recorded "Tight Like That." After his wife died in 1932, he wrote this song, and concentrated on religious music. [15]
Dorsey borrowed a tune from the Northern singing-school tradition, "Maitland," that first had appeared in George Allen’s Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book in 1845. [16] Southern singing school editors criticized Mason for introducing "many new rhythmic forms" that were seen as "not only unnecessary and useless," but also as "positively injurious." [17] Michael Hawn noted Dorsey simplified Allen’s rhythm from 6/4 to 3/4. [18]
"Take My Hand" was performed by many black singers, and entered Southern tradition. Thus, when the Homecoming performance moved to this, everyone was able to sing because they knew both the words and their particular parts. Each group harmonized to produce a full sound. Further, they used the pulsing attacks to define an a capella rhythm.
The group had more trouble singing with Randle on "Kumbaya." One reason may have been the fact she actually was using the melody for "Come by Here" with somebody and the "needs you verse." Gaither, or someone, had determined in advance how they should accompany Randle’s singing. She had a resonant alto and did not incorporate the vocal flourishes used by Black sopranos.
The 1-5 melody popularized by the Hightowers was unfamiliar to those who did know the traditional form of "Kumbaya." Randle sang the first verse alone, and the group hummed while she did the two "Come by Here" verses. When she came to the familiar "Kumbaya" verses, they sang with her. To avoid problems with strange pronouns, they began on the verb in each line.
Once the group started, it fell into the sacred-harp cadences, and consistently was just a bit behind her. This was not an attempt to reproduce African-American singing practices, but was the result of each of them, Randle included, singing his or her part and ignoring the rest.
Jessy Dixon, a black gospel singer from Chicago, introduced some of the African-American embellishments, but only in the familiar "Take My Hand." He sometimes would sing above the line, especially when the group was holding a note at the end of a phrase. [19]
Gaither, who came from an area influenced by the Northern singing schools, probably hoped people would be able to harmonize on "Kumbaya" as he had done on the version described in the post for 17 December 2017. Instead, he created a medley of styles - Northern, Southern White, and African American - that were able to coexist because of the way singers in the Southern gospel tradition had learned to listen as children.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Lynda Randle, alto
Vocal Group: men and women on stage
Vocal Director: Bill Gaither
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
None for "Kumbaya." The lyrics provided on YouTube were not the ones that were sung.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: she varied the pronunciation of the first syllable of kumbaya
Verses: Randle sang kumbaya, come by here, needs you, praying, crying. YouTube listed kumbaya, singing, laughing, crying, praying, sleeping.
Vocabulary
Pronoun: Randle used somebody; YouTube gave "someone"
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: four-verse song framed by kumbaya verses at start and end. First part was "Come by Here," second was "Kumbaya."
Verse Repetition Pattern: AxxxxA
Ending: none; You Tube indicated "Oh Lord, kumbaya" was repeated twice.
Unique Features: "Come by Here" form with "Kumbaya" title combined in a medley that circumscribed its meaning.
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Hightowers 1-5
Tempo: very slow
Basic Structure: repetition with variations in vocal accompaniment.
Singing Style: Randle held notes and sometimes varied their pitch, but otherwise allotted one note to one syllable. Only a pause separated "Kumbaya" from "Take My Hand."
Solo-Vocal Accompaniment Dynamics: the group hummed while she sang some verses, and, on others, sang the same words with chordal harmony.
Notes on Performance
Occasion: videotaping session for a Bill Gaither Homecoming program
Location: the set featured a large, circular brick fireplace with a dogtrot cabin in back. Older singers sat in rocking chairs and younger ones in three tiers of bleachers placed in a wide arc around the fire pit.
Microphones: Randle and some of the other singers had hand-held mikes.
Clothing: casual; Randle wore blue jeans and a yellow shirt.
Notes on Movement
During this video the singers did not leave their places. Some had their eyes closed and arms raised. Gaither stood to direct them during "Take My Hand."
Audience Perceptions
Most of the comments were general, and many may have been intended for "Take My Hand." One man said "Lynda Randles has such a great awesome amazing manufic fantastic exotic healing and touching voice." [20]
There was one who asked the meaning of the word "kumbaya," one who gave the words in Indonesian, [21] and one who repeated "kumbaya mi Señor" with two hearts. [22]
Notes on Performers
Randle was raised in northeastern Washington DC, and attended a private Baptist secondary school in Prince George County, Maryland. [23] She met her husband when she was a student at Liberty University. [24] They now live in Kansas City, Missouri, where he heads a church whose core beliefs echo those of the NAE. [25]
Family genealogists have tracked the family back to Clarke County in southwestern Alabama where Wyatt Tate died in 1894. [26] The family moved to Mobile. [27] Later, her father, who was born in 1922, [28] moved to Washington where he became a street evangelist and later pastor of New Bible Church. [29] He also drove a taxi [30] to provide a middle-class life for his children. Randle’s brother, Michael Tait, attended the same schools and sang with Contemporary Christian groups. [31]
Race is a nagging question whenever one sees, in Randle’s words, a few chocolate chips in a sea of vanilla. [32] Ryan Harper [33] believed she deliberately downplayed her childhood in a large city and teen-age role integrating a white Christian preserve, by emphasizing it was years before "she really experienced the freedom from bondage that only God could give" from a "tumultuous and painful" childhood. [34]
It would have been impossible for her to make her white audience comfortable if they had known her great-grandfather Wyatt did not just die in Finchburg, Alabama. In 1892, when the radical Holiness movement was spreading in the South and Midwest, poor white farmers in the county ambushed merchants who were exploited them. [35] They were suppressed in 1893, the same year Wyatt killed a constable "who attempted to serve a writ of attachment on him." He became a fugitive until he was killed. [36]
Availability
DVD: "Kum Ba Ya/Take My Hand, Precious Lord (Medley)." A Campfire Homecoming. 2008.
YouTube: uploaded by GaitherVEVO, 6 September 2012.
End Notes
1. The NAE was discussed in the post for 15 December 2017.
2. The song that most defined the dichotomy between upstanding Christians and "them" was Merle Haggard’s "Okie from Muskogee" released by Capital Records in 1969. (Capital 2626).
3. The National Council of Churches sponsored the Revised Standard Version that released its Old Testament in 1952. It was criticized as too Jewish, because passages were translated in ways that did not fit Protestant views. (Wikipedia. "Revised Standard Version.")
The National Association of Evangelicals and other groups responded by underwriting their own translation. The New International Version was published in 1978. (Wikipedia. "New International Version.")
4. Delker and the Wedgewoods were discussed in the post for 3 December 2017.
5. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 483.
6. William Walker. The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. Spartanburg, South Carolina: William Walker, 1835.
7. B. F. White and E. J. King. The Sacred Harp. Philadelphia: T. K. and P. G. Collins, 1844.
8. I discovered the significance of singing schools when I was tracking down endemic camp songs. I was living in Chicago and went through all the books in the Moody Bible Institute collection of materials from camp meetings and singing schools. Camp Songs mentioned particular songs, camps, and songbooks that demonstrated the link on page 434.
9. James B. Wallace. "Stormy Banks and Sweet Rivers: A Sacred Harp Geography." Southern Spaces website. 4 June 2007.
10. Jeannette Fresne. "History of the Stamps Baxter Singing Schools and Normal School of Music." Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 30:21-38:2008. Stamps was a Methodist in the Holiness tradition. He made clear when he scheduled a singing school in a church, people from all denominations could attend.
11. James R. Goff. Close Harmony. Pub info: UNC Press Books. 2002. 135-138+. The company told the quartet to change from guitar to piano because the songbooks were scored for piano. (138). The resulting piano style was publicized by Jerry Lee Lewis.
12. You can gain some idea of the concentration required to sing independent parts by watching some videos of The Happy Goodmans singing "The Sweetest Name I Know." In the version from 1998 uploaded by sendale Braveheart on 20 June 2016, Howard Goodman was playing the piano. Another version with their sons was uploaded 21 March 2013 by newhavenvideos.
13. The Homecoming videos grew out a 1991 informal session that followed a recording by members of many of the best-known Southern gospel quartets in Nashville. (Wikipedia. "Gaither Homecoming.") The first programs maintained the spontaneity of the first session, but as more were produced a structured format with rehearsals was introduced.
14. In the session where Randle sang "Kumbaya," the group also performed the Goodman’s "Sweetest Song." During the repetitions, one could see the tenors group together as one after another sang Howard’s part. One of the soloists was Johnny Minick who joined Howard and Vestal after their sons died. It was uploaded to YouTube by GaitherVEVO on 6 September 2012 and released on the Homecoming Picnic DVD.
Some of the performance was planned, but what could not be rehearsed was the way people interacted and the obvious joy they had singing. They especially appreciated the introduction of new soloists that allowed them to continue singing.
15. Ian Hill. "‘Georgia Tom’ Dorsey (1899-1993)." New Georgia Encyclopedia website. 11 March 2005, last updated 15 April 2013.
16. George Nelson Allen. Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book. Oberlin, Ohio: J. M. Fitch, 1845.
17. J. B. Aikin. Christian Minstrel. Philadelphia: T. K. and P. G. Collins, 1846. 5.
18. C. Michael Hawn. "History of Hymns: ‘Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone’." The United Methodist Church Discipleship Ministries website.
19. Dixon was a protégé of James Cleveland, who, as mentioned in the post for 21 September, had learned from Dorsey. After religious music tastes changed, Dixon toured with Paul Simon in the 1970s. He began appearing of Gaither’s Homecoming programs in 1996. (Wikipedia. "Jessy Dixon" and "Gaither Homecoming.")
20. Murphy Mohapi. YouTube comment, October 2017.
21. "Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya! Datanglah oh Tuhan, datanglah! (Indonesian Ver.)" YouTube comment by Rillo Hans. March 2017.
22. Clady Diaz. YouTube comment, 2016.
23. "Tait, Michael." Contemporary Black Biography. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 2005.
24. Ryan P. Harper. The Gaithers and Southern Gospel. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017. 224.
25. "Our Core Convictions." Mosaic Bible Fellowship website.
26. "Wyatt Tate." Geni website. 7 November 2014.
27. Jim Harris. "The Tait Man (Wyatt Tait) Family Home Page." Genealogy website. 5 September 2000.
28. "Reverend Nathaniel)Nathel James Tait, Sr." Geni website. 18 October 2016.
29. Bill Broadway. "On Christian Rock’s Cutting Edge." The Washington Post, 20 April 1996.
30. Harper. 224.
31. Contemporary Black. He sang with dc Talk and with the Newsboys.
32. Harper. 220.
33. Harper discussed race, identity and self presentation in his chapter on Randle.
34. "Biography." Lynda Randle Ministries website.
35. Wikipedia. "Clarke County, Alabama" and "Mitcham War."
36. "The Outlaw’s End." The Monroe Journal [Claiborne, Alabama], 17 May 1894. 1.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Temple Hills - Kumbaya
Topic: Theology
Evangelicals were not unique in their use of "Kumbaya" in the 1970s. Summer camps in general began singing it. Of all the songs I listed on my camp song questionnaire in 1976, [1] it was by far the best known. [2] Region, gender or camp philosophy did not matter, as they did with many other songs of the list. As the table at the bottom shows, at least 80% of the people who answered, indicated they had sung "Kumbaya" in camp.
When the song moved from informal gatherings to camp programs, the verse order had to be standardized. The 4-H agent at the Wyandot County day camp sometimes used stories when he introduced songs. In 1974, he told me:
"The thing I’ve been told, and we passed it on, sounds good, is that it was an old African song and that it was first developed during a storm - or earthquake - earthquake, I guess it was - what was passed on to me. I can’t say what it was really. That’s really what I think I heard first. That is, I think, it was an earthquake, the he . . . one person, was walking through a village and this is what he saw." [3]
He added, "you never know how many of those stories are true." He thought this one probably was.
I heard the same story when I visited Kitanniwa in 1974 from a counselor who had attended the United Church of Christ’s Temple Hills near Bellville in north central Ohio. Only this time, instead of a simple mnemonic, [4] it had theological overtones. She told me:
"First off, this song, the way I learned it, is supposed to be telling a story. Somebody coming into the life of Christ, or having Christ come into his life, whatever. And we learned kumbaya as the first verse, someone’s praying, someone’s singing, laughing, and so it’s supposed to be a jubilant type ending. It starts with the sad verses first and then goes on to praying as "Lord, please come to me," and then going into laughing and the singing." [5]
An Ohio State University undergraduate reported the same motif from Storer, the Toledo coed YMCA camp in 1970. She wrote, the song "told about a Christian who is crying, prays to the Lord, sings to the Lord’s glory, and then laughs with joy." [5]
I wondered if this transformation of "Kumbaya" into a ballad of redemption was occurring outside German-influenced northern Ohio. To elicit information, I asked respondents to my questionnaire if the knew the meaning of the song. At the time, I did not realize the significance of the those words to Protestants who had been told they must know what they were saying. Men seemed to feel this need more: almost 40% who knew the song said they knew its meaning, compared to almost 30% of the women.
Most either just said yes, indicated it meant "come by here," or that it came from Africa. A few mentioned the Carribean, native Americans, Brazil, or Korea. One person who mentioned it was African, said Skylark Ranch believed it was a mining song. Their verses were: laughing, working, singing, crying, and praying.
Only two described the salvation tale: one was the director of the Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Camp Fire camp, and the other was a counselor at the Long Beach, California, CFG camp. One Girl Scout heard it was about a child who was ill, whose mother cried, prayed the child would get well, then sang. She was then at Birdsall Edey located between Erie and Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania.
The problem seemed to be the generic nature of the pronoun "someone." It evoked birthright church membership, or something even more general. One woman, who learned "Kumbaya" at a Congregational church Bible camp in central California around 1967, remembered "the word ‘someone’ made me think of warmly reaching out, feeling empathy. I had a sense that that was what church was supposed to be about." [7]
For Evangelicals, salvation was not universal. It came only to those who sought it. Someone had to be a specific convert. Etiological legends were needed to gloss the text. [8]
Notes on Performers
The Wyandot County 4-H Day Camp in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, was discussed in the post for 25 October 2017.
Kitanniwa was sponsored by the Battle Creek, Michigan, Camp Fire Girls. It was mentioned in the post for 29 November 2017.
Temple Hills was organized by the Ohio Conference, United Church of Christ. It had been established by the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Bellville was in Richland County in north central Ohio.
Storer was a co-ed camp sponsored by the Toledo, Ohio, YMCA located in Jackson County, Michigan. The student also had attended Girl Scout camps, but did not name them.
Skylark Ranch was sponsored by the Santa Clara Girl Scout Council of San Jose, California. The 20-year-old counselor also had gone to the Girl Scouts’ Hidden Falls.
Hiwela, the Oshkosh CFG camp, was run for years by the late Jo Weber.
Wintaka was operated by the Long Beach Area CFG council. The counselor also had gone to Saunga.
Birdsell Edey was run by the Penn Lakes Girl Scout Council of Meadville, Pennsylvania. The 18-year-old also had spent time at Judson, Hawthorne Ridge, Happy Acres, and Conshatwba. All were GS camps in Pennsylvania. In 1975 she had attended the Girl Scout National Center West in Wyoming.
The Congregational church held its Bible camp in Chico, California. The woman, who was a Presbyterian, went with a friend. She said "I believe I thought it was vaguely foreign, maybe African. I had some image of Christian missionaries in Africa, and I thought the word might have been African." [9]
Availability
I have found no reference to the legend in published sources. Also, I have not seen a songbook or heard a version that used the crying/praying/singing verse order. Would love to know if any of you heard the legend or know more about it.
Table
Source: Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 649. The percentages were based on the number of responses to the questionnaire. Only female responses for coed camps were counted, because all the men were counted separately, regardless of the type of camp they attended. The girls’ camps included Girl Scouts and privately owned ones.
End Notes
1. The questionnaire was described in the post for 25 October 2017.
2. The only better known songs were ceremonial ones like the "Star Spangled Banner" and some graces like the "Doxology."
3. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 64
4. A mnemonic is "a system such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations which assists in remembering something" according to the Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries website.
5. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 64.
6. Peggy Hayes. "Summer Camp Folksongs, A Collection of 40." Ohio State University. English Department, Folklore Archives. 1973. She dated her version 7 June 1970.
7. Email to author. 12 April 2016.
8. Etiological myths "explain origins and causes," usually of the universe or a cultural group. Etiological legends provide the same kinds of explanations for events or objects that occurred after the original creation. (Alice Mills. "Etiological Myth." 301-302 in Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Edited by David A. Leeming, Kathryn Madden, and Stanton Marlan. New York: Springer US, 2010.)
9. Email to author. 12 April 2016.
Evangelicals were not unique in their use of "Kumbaya" in the 1970s. Summer camps in general began singing it. Of all the songs I listed on my camp song questionnaire in 1976, [1] it was by far the best known. [2] Region, gender or camp philosophy did not matter, as they did with many other songs of the list. As the table at the bottom shows, at least 80% of the people who answered, indicated they had sung "Kumbaya" in camp.
When the song moved from informal gatherings to camp programs, the verse order had to be standardized. The 4-H agent at the Wyandot County day camp sometimes used stories when he introduced songs. In 1974, he told me:
"The thing I’ve been told, and we passed it on, sounds good, is that it was an old African song and that it was first developed during a storm - or earthquake - earthquake, I guess it was - what was passed on to me. I can’t say what it was really. That’s really what I think I heard first. That is, I think, it was an earthquake, the he . . . one person, was walking through a village and this is what he saw." [3]
He added, "you never know how many of those stories are true." He thought this one probably was.
I heard the same story when I visited Kitanniwa in 1974 from a counselor who had attended the United Church of Christ’s Temple Hills near Bellville in north central Ohio. Only this time, instead of a simple mnemonic, [4] it had theological overtones. She told me:
"First off, this song, the way I learned it, is supposed to be telling a story. Somebody coming into the life of Christ, or having Christ come into his life, whatever. And we learned kumbaya as the first verse, someone’s praying, someone’s singing, laughing, and so it’s supposed to be a jubilant type ending. It starts with the sad verses first and then goes on to praying as "Lord, please come to me," and then going into laughing and the singing." [5]
An Ohio State University undergraduate reported the same motif from Storer, the Toledo coed YMCA camp in 1970. She wrote, the song "told about a Christian who is crying, prays to the Lord, sings to the Lord’s glory, and then laughs with joy." [5]
I wondered if this transformation of "Kumbaya" into a ballad of redemption was occurring outside German-influenced northern Ohio. To elicit information, I asked respondents to my questionnaire if the knew the meaning of the song. At the time, I did not realize the significance of the those words to Protestants who had been told they must know what they were saying. Men seemed to feel this need more: almost 40% who knew the song said they knew its meaning, compared to almost 30% of the women.
Most either just said yes, indicated it meant "come by here," or that it came from Africa. A few mentioned the Carribean, native Americans, Brazil, or Korea. One person who mentioned it was African, said Skylark Ranch believed it was a mining song. Their verses were: laughing, working, singing, crying, and praying.
Only two described the salvation tale: one was the director of the Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Camp Fire camp, and the other was a counselor at the Long Beach, California, CFG camp. One Girl Scout heard it was about a child who was ill, whose mother cried, prayed the child would get well, then sang. She was then at Birdsall Edey located between Erie and Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania.
The problem seemed to be the generic nature of the pronoun "someone." It evoked birthright church membership, or something even more general. One woman, who learned "Kumbaya" at a Congregational church Bible camp in central California around 1967, remembered "the word ‘someone’ made me think of warmly reaching out, feeling empathy. I had a sense that that was what church was supposed to be about." [7]
For Evangelicals, salvation was not universal. It came only to those who sought it. Someone had to be a specific convert. Etiological legends were needed to gloss the text. [8]
Notes on Performers
The Wyandot County 4-H Day Camp in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, was discussed in the post for 25 October 2017.
Kitanniwa was sponsored by the Battle Creek, Michigan, Camp Fire Girls. It was mentioned in the post for 29 November 2017.
Temple Hills was organized by the Ohio Conference, United Church of Christ. It had been established by the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Bellville was in Richland County in north central Ohio.
Storer was a co-ed camp sponsored by the Toledo, Ohio, YMCA located in Jackson County, Michigan. The student also had attended Girl Scout camps, but did not name them.
Skylark Ranch was sponsored by the Santa Clara Girl Scout Council of San Jose, California. The 20-year-old counselor also had gone to the Girl Scouts’ Hidden Falls.
Hiwela, the Oshkosh CFG camp, was run for years by the late Jo Weber.
Wintaka was operated by the Long Beach Area CFG council. The counselor also had gone to Saunga.
Birdsell Edey was run by the Penn Lakes Girl Scout Council of Meadville, Pennsylvania. The 18-year-old also had spent time at Judson, Hawthorne Ridge, Happy Acres, and Conshatwba. All were GS camps in Pennsylvania. In 1975 she had attended the Girl Scout National Center West in Wyoming.
The Congregational church held its Bible camp in Chico, California. The woman, who was a Presbyterian, went with a friend. She said "I believe I thought it was vaguely foreign, maybe African. I had some image of Christian missionaries in Africa, and I thought the word might have been African." [9]
Availability
I have found no reference to the legend in published sources. Also, I have not seen a songbook or heard a version that used the crying/praying/singing verse order. Would love to know if any of you heard the legend or know more about it.
Table
| Questionnaire Response | Male | Female |
| Yes | 5 | 12 |
| Come | 6 | |
| Africa | 5 | 18 |
| Other place | 3 | 5 |
| Other legend | 4 | |
| Total | 13 | 45 |
| Sample size | 33 | 153 |
| % sample | 0.394 | 0.294 |
Source: Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 649. The percentages were based on the number of responses to the questionnaire. Only female responses for coed camps were counted, because all the men were counted separately, regardless of the type of camp they attended. The girls’ camps included Girl Scouts and privately owned ones.
End Notes
1. The questionnaire was described in the post for 25 October 2017.
2. The only better known songs were ceremonial ones like the "Star Spangled Banner" and some graces like the "Doxology."
3. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 64
4. A mnemonic is "a system such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations which assists in remembering something" according to the Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries website.
5. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 64.
6. Peggy Hayes. "Summer Camp Folksongs, A Collection of 40." Ohio State University. English Department, Folklore Archives. 1973. She dated her version 7 June 1970.
7. Email to author. 12 April 2016.
8. Etiological myths "explain origins and causes," usually of the universe or a cultural group. Etiological legends provide the same kinds of explanations for events or objects that occurred after the original creation. (Alice Mills. "Etiological Myth." 301-302 in Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Edited by David A. Leeming, Kathryn Madden, and Stanton Marlan. New York: Springer US, 2010.)
9. Email to author. 12 April 2016.
Sunday, December 17, 2017
The Bill Gaither Trio - Kum Ba Yah
Topic: Theology - Evangelicals
Evangelical attempts to harness the commercial folk-music revival to their outreach programs for adolescents and college students led to a spate of songbooks that selected the most appropriate songs for young Christians. In 1978, Young Life used Cat Steven’s "Morning Has Broken," Peter, Paul, and Mary’s "Hammer Song," and, of course, "Kum Ba Yah." [1]
The Bill Gaither Trio included an a capella version of "Kumbaya" on a 1970 album. Heart Warming Records wanted to expand the market for gospel music, and had hired producers and arrangers familiar with Nashville recording techniques. They may have thought this song would attract the attention of new listeners, who would then buy the album to hear the rest of the Gaithers’ work.
The group originated when Bill, his brother Danny, and sister Mary Ann sang at local functions in Alexandria, Indiana. By 1970, Bill’s wife, the former Gloria Sickal, had replaced Mary Ann. She was the daughter of a Church of God minister from Missouri. [2] The Gaithers were raised in the Church of the Nazarene.
Both religious groups developed when the Holiness movement spread from the New York City area to the diverse Methodist traditions in the Midwest. John Winebrenner was born in Maryland to descendants of migrants from the German-speaking Palatinate. [3] He was ordained as a Calvinist Reformed pastor, then had a conversion experience in 1817.
Members of his Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, congregations complained in 1822 when he introduced revival techniques later promoted by Charles Finney. [4] Winebrenner continued evangelizing and allowing Methodists to speak. The synod removed him in 1827. He was rebaptized by full immersion in 1830, then organized an Eldership of the Church of God that placed religious experience and adult baptism above creed. [5]
One follower of Winebrenner was Daniel Sidney Warner. He was born in 1842 in the county north of Canton, Ohio, to a father who ran a tavern. His mother, the former Leah Dierdorf, was from York County, Pennsylvania. [6] He spent a semester at Finney’s Oberlin College in 1865, [7] and had a conversion experience. He preached in a Methodist church, then was licensed by Winebrenner’s Church of God in 1867.
He spent six years in Ohio and Indiana, then two in Nebraska, before returning to Ohio where his wife’s parents introduced him to Holiness. The Winebrenner church told him, in 1877, he could only continue under its auspices if he ceased promoting Holiness. The next year it expelled him, and he became an independent evangelist. [8]
He became the strongest voice against the existence of denominations as perversions of the original intent of the apostles. His call to people to "come out of Babylon" precipitated the Southern Methodist church ban on Holiness speakers mentioned in the post for 25 November 2017.
After news of the Azusa Street revival spread, a number of these "come-outer" Holiness groups that rejected speaking in tongues joined together in 1908 under the leadership of Phineas Bresee into the Church of the Nazarene. [9] In 1984, they joined the National Association of Evangelicals. [10]
When Warner died in 1895 in western Michigan, his followers organized the Church of God. Although it had a denominational name, it kept no rosters of members and had no organizational hierarchy. Enoch Byrum took over the publishing business, and, in 1906, moved it to Anderson, Indiana, fifteen miles from Alexandria. The reasons probably were pragmatic: it was on a river that could supply steam power to the presses, and had good rail connections for suppliers and distribution. [11]
The Holiness movement took a different form in Madison County, Indiana, than it did in Ohio, since it was settled later and drew upon other population pools. [12] Wesleyan Methodists had held camp meetings after the Civil War, but they grew less popular in the 1880s [13] when Warner was active.
In 1914, Alexandria had the usual denominations - Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic - some German congregations, and a number of smaller churches. One was a Christian Church, another a Mission church, and the third a New Light. [14] Any of them could have affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene later, or a new religious community could have formed after John Forkner published his county history.
The Warnerites and Nazarenes differed on small points of doctrine, but both were Holiness groups. Music was one area of disagreement. Warner’s congregations sang a capella, [15] while the bible school established by Bresee offered a course in instrumental music in 1908. [16] By 1960, those differences were gone: Anderson College, the school sponsored by Warner’s Church of God, installed a new pipe organ. [17]
The economics of the recording industry erased any remaining theological distinctions. Bill said that, on his first record for Heart Warming, he was required, by contract, to include songs controlled by the company owners. [18] On Back Home in Indiana, seven songs were by him and his wife Gloria and two, including "Kumbaya," were joint arrangements by "Gaither/Benson." [19]
Denominational attitudes might no longer have defined what was released on albums, but they still influenced whether or not individuals with talent ever considered singing in public. Danny once told a reporter, "It all started when we started singing with mother at the piano and my first solo was when I was three years old. My folks, Lela and George Gaither, took me to the Nazarene Church and I sang ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’." He added, his father took them to concerts by touring gospel quartets. [20]
When Gloria was a child, her father worked in a small village twenty some miles south of Battle Creek. A woman whose husband attended the Burlington church, wrote "When someone had a prayer need, the Rev. and Mrs. Sickal included their two daughters. They called the girls inside, joined hands in a circle, and the four of them started doing business with the Lord." [21]
Thus, when Mary Ann retired, Gloria was hesitant to take her place on stage. She told Bill, she could not sing. She finally agreed to appear with Bill and Danny at a Church of God concert in Ohio. During the program, he asked her to pray. He remembered, "People all over the auditorium were weeping. God had anointed that place and that crowd and His three singers, even though two of us were truly weak." [22]
After that, Bill recalled, Heart Warming let Gloria do spoken interludes and used Betty Fair [23] to sing with Bill and Danny. In 1970, their producer told Gloria that must stop; she had to sing in the studio because their fans expected to hear the same voice live and on records. [24] Perhaps a dollop of Bob MacKenzie’s evangelical Presbyterian probity was added to the blend of Holiness traditions.
Performers
Vocal Soloists: Gloria Gaither, Danny Gaither
Vocal Group: Gloria Gaither, alto; Danny Gaither, tenor; Bill Gaither, baritone
Vocal Director: produced by Bob MacKenzie
Instrumental Accompaniment: most a capella; one section with orchestra arranged by Rick Powell
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
arr. Gaither/Benson
ASCAP
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: as a group they sang koom by yah, with no syllable accented. On his solo, Danny sang "comb" once. Gloria barely pronounced the /m/.
Verses: kumbaya, singing, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: three-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: repeated "oh Lord, Kumbaya" twice
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: slow
Basic Structure: simple repetition. On the singing verse, Danny sang the statement and the group joined him on the refrain and final line. On the praying verse, an orchestra was added when Gloria sang the first two lines alone. It stopped when the two men joined her on the third and fourth lines.
Singing Style: chordal harmony with one syllable to one note, except for the final Lord. They held the last notes of each phrase so the harmony could be heard. On the final line of the first verse, they raised, then lowered the pitch for the final "ya."
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the group apparently recorded a capella in the studio, then the tape was sent to Rick Powell to add the strings. [25]
Notes on Performers
The only Gaither mentioned in the 1914 county history was Martha Gaither Dyson. Her daughter Angeline had married Washington Knopp, whose ancestors had come from the German-speaking Westphalia. [26] He was identified as a member of Warner’s Church of God. [27]
Bill and Danny’s immigrant ancestor, John Gaither settled in Norfolk County, Virginia, [28] and was likely one of the Puritans recruited to colonize Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in 1649. [29] His great-grandfather, William, moved from North Carolina to Alexandria. His wife was Mary Elizabeth Dyson, the daughter of another Martha Gaither.
There appear to have been many Gaithers and Dysons in central North Carolina in those years who intermarried. Once in Indiana, the different branches must have continued close relations. Gaither said his father’s parents "were of strong, determined German stock." [30]
He said his mother’s mother was Irish, and her father, who had an English surname, was half-Native American. They too merged into the German musical culture. They lived in the Innisdale addition, [31] where there had been a United Brethren church in 1914. [32] Burl Hartwell had been orphaned as a child, and later sang bass in the Brethren choir. [33]
Gaither had his first religious experience after he graduated from high school, when his first gospel quartet failed to attract an audience. [34] He then started college at the Methodist’s Taylor University, which he found uncongenial. [35] After a year, he transferred to the Anderson College, which was closer to his parents’ house. [36] He met Gloria when he was teaching in the local high school, and she was an Anderson student working as a substitute teacher. [37]
He absorbed Warner’s antidenominationalism. Although he and most members of his immediate family attended her church, Gaither never mentioned his religious affiliation in his autobiography. He told an interviewer, he never had been comfortable with singing in churches where his pay depended on the local minister passing the plate. As soon as the trio could command an audience, it moved into auditoriums and sold tickets. [38]
Gaither remarked, his neutral sites made it possible for "people from all church denominations gathered under one roof to hear the music and the message" and "subtly, the walls between denominations began to crumble, and Christians began to realize that they had more in common than they had ever imagined." [39]
Bob MacKenzie produced the album containing "Kumbaya." He was a trumpet player [40] raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. He moved to Nashville to manage the symphony, and went to work for the Bensons. His memorial service was held at Christ Presbyterian Church, Nashville, [41] which was affiliated with the conservative Presbyterian Church in America. [42] Wikipedia described the dissident PCA as "a blend of Reformed practice and broad evangelicalism." [43]
Rick Powell made the decision to add strings to Gloria’s solo and leave the rest a capella. He was born in Seffner, Florida, had a masters degree in composition, [44] and was an early innovator with MOOG synthesizers. In the late 1960s, he built his own studio [45], which was used for the Gaither sessions.
Availability
Album: At Home in Indiana. Heart Warming HWS 3083. Athena Recording Studio, Nashville. 1970.
End Notes
1. Sing with Young Life. Colorado Springs: Young Life, 1978. 147. It described itself as a "member of Evangelical Publishers Association" on the title page. The verses were kumbaya, singing, crying, praying, and come by here. It suggested people could add their own verses to the traditional song, and told them to sing freely. The guitar chords were: C-F-Em-G.
"If I had a hammer" was written by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, and introduced by The Weavers. "Morning Has Broken" was written by Eleanor Farjeon for Percy Dearmer’s 1931 edition of Songs of Praise to an existing tune by Mary MacDougal MacDonald.
2. The Gaithers usually said Gloria was from Battle Creek, Michigan. Her mother was from Milan, Missouri, and her sister was born in Leonard, Missouri, in 1932. Her father, served the Church of God congregation in Burlington, Michigan, from 1946 to 1956; one in Clare, a lumber town in the northern lower peninsula, from 1956 to 1961, and one of the Battle Creek congregations from 1961 to 1971. She graduated from high school in Clare, but her family was in Battle Creek by the time she was a student at Anderson College. (Obituary for Dorothy Sickal, Battle Creek Enquirer, 8 May 1993, 2, and obituary for Evelyn Sickal Baylor, Gaither website, 2015).
3. J. Harvey Gossard. "John Winebrenner: From German Reformed Roots to the Churches of God." United Church of Christ website.
4. Finney’s techniques were mentioned in the post for 12 August 2017.
5. Wikipedia. "Churches of God General Conference (Winebrenner)."
6. Penny Noneman. "Leah Dierdorf Warner." Find a Grave. 7 September 2012.
7. "Oberlin Alumni Hymn Writers Exhibit." College website.
8. Wikipedia. "Daniel Sidney Warner."
9. "History." Church of the Nazarene website.
10. Wikipedia. "National Association of Evangelicals."
11. John L. Forkner. History of Madison County, Indiana. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1914. 472.
12. Ohio had combined people from Connecticut in the northeast with Revolutionary war veterans from Virginia in the southwest and Germans remigrating from eastern Pennsylvania. While some early settlers in Madison County, Indiana, were from the east, a number came from North Carolina. Many of its German-speaking immigrants came after 1848 or after the Civil War.
13. Forkner. 233.
14. Forkner. 247.
15. Wikipedia. "Daniel Sidney Warner" and "Church of God (Anderson, Indiana)."
16. Deets Bible College advertisement. The Nazarene Messenger 12:10:2 April 1908.
17. "Park Place Church of God." Anderson University website.
18. Bill Gaither. It’s More than the Music. With Ken Abraham. New York: Warner Faith, 2003. 96.
19. Heartwarming was owned by the Bensons. Its empire was begun by John Benson, who left the Methodist church to found a Holiness church in Tennessee that later affiliated with the Nazarenes. ("John T. Benson Sr." Dove awards website.)
20. Item. The Alexandria [Indiana] Times-Tribune 25 May 1988. 1.
21. B. J. Funk. "Celebrating the Small Church." Good News website. 22 July 2011. The occasion was her father-in-law’s 95th birthday.
22. Mark Ward. The Lord’s Radio. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2017. 214-215.
23. Gaither. 98. Fair lived in Anderson. Both she and her husband were active in local Churches of God.
24. Ward. 215.
25. This was the only a capella song on the album. For the rest, Gaither said the rhythm tracks were recorded and sent to Powell in London. After he added the strings, the trio recorded its parts. 112.
26. Research by Danny Knopp and anonymous genealogists published on Geni website.
27. Forkner. 636.
28. Deborah Holsinger traced Bill’s ancestry back to their common relative, Zachariah Gaither. ("Re: Gaither Singers." Genealogy website. March 10, 2005). Ric Dickinson, Jerry Gaither, and an unidentified family genealogist tracked back from Zachariah to the immigrant on the Geni website.
29. "County History." Anne Arundel county website.
30. Gaither. 23.
31. Gaither. 22.
32. Forkner. 240.
33. Gaither. 22.
34. Gaither. 43.
35. Gaither. 49.
36. Gaither. 51.
37. Gaither. Chapter 4, "Gloria."
38. Gaither. 114-115.
39. Gaither. 115.
40. Gaither. 96.
41. Obituary for Bob MacKenzie. The [Nashville] Tennessean, 22 October 2000. 35.
42. "Our History." Christ Presbyterian Church website.
43. Wikipedia. "Presbyterian Church in America."
44. GerbLady. "Richard Dean ‘Rick’ Powell." Find a Grave website. 15 March 2010.
45. William Tyler. "Totally Wired." Nashville Scene website. 18 January 2001.
Evangelical attempts to harness the commercial folk-music revival to their outreach programs for adolescents and college students led to a spate of songbooks that selected the most appropriate songs for young Christians. In 1978, Young Life used Cat Steven’s "Morning Has Broken," Peter, Paul, and Mary’s "Hammer Song," and, of course, "Kum Ba Yah." [1]
The Bill Gaither Trio included an a capella version of "Kumbaya" on a 1970 album. Heart Warming Records wanted to expand the market for gospel music, and had hired producers and arrangers familiar with Nashville recording techniques. They may have thought this song would attract the attention of new listeners, who would then buy the album to hear the rest of the Gaithers’ work.
The group originated when Bill, his brother Danny, and sister Mary Ann sang at local functions in Alexandria, Indiana. By 1970, Bill’s wife, the former Gloria Sickal, had replaced Mary Ann. She was the daughter of a Church of God minister from Missouri. [2] The Gaithers were raised in the Church of the Nazarene.
Both religious groups developed when the Holiness movement spread from the New York City area to the diverse Methodist traditions in the Midwest. John Winebrenner was born in Maryland to descendants of migrants from the German-speaking Palatinate. [3] He was ordained as a Calvinist Reformed pastor, then had a conversion experience in 1817.
Members of his Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, congregations complained in 1822 when he introduced revival techniques later promoted by Charles Finney. [4] Winebrenner continued evangelizing and allowing Methodists to speak. The synod removed him in 1827. He was rebaptized by full immersion in 1830, then organized an Eldership of the Church of God that placed religious experience and adult baptism above creed. [5]
One follower of Winebrenner was Daniel Sidney Warner. He was born in 1842 in the county north of Canton, Ohio, to a father who ran a tavern. His mother, the former Leah Dierdorf, was from York County, Pennsylvania. [6] He spent a semester at Finney’s Oberlin College in 1865, [7] and had a conversion experience. He preached in a Methodist church, then was licensed by Winebrenner’s Church of God in 1867.
He spent six years in Ohio and Indiana, then two in Nebraska, before returning to Ohio where his wife’s parents introduced him to Holiness. The Winebrenner church told him, in 1877, he could only continue under its auspices if he ceased promoting Holiness. The next year it expelled him, and he became an independent evangelist. [8]
He became the strongest voice against the existence of denominations as perversions of the original intent of the apostles. His call to people to "come out of Babylon" precipitated the Southern Methodist church ban on Holiness speakers mentioned in the post for 25 November 2017.
After news of the Azusa Street revival spread, a number of these "come-outer" Holiness groups that rejected speaking in tongues joined together in 1908 under the leadership of Phineas Bresee into the Church of the Nazarene. [9] In 1984, they joined the National Association of Evangelicals. [10]
When Warner died in 1895 in western Michigan, his followers organized the Church of God. Although it had a denominational name, it kept no rosters of members and had no organizational hierarchy. Enoch Byrum took over the publishing business, and, in 1906, moved it to Anderson, Indiana, fifteen miles from Alexandria. The reasons probably were pragmatic: it was on a river that could supply steam power to the presses, and had good rail connections for suppliers and distribution. [11]
The Holiness movement took a different form in Madison County, Indiana, than it did in Ohio, since it was settled later and drew upon other population pools. [12] Wesleyan Methodists had held camp meetings after the Civil War, but they grew less popular in the 1880s [13] when Warner was active.
In 1914, Alexandria had the usual denominations - Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic - some German congregations, and a number of smaller churches. One was a Christian Church, another a Mission church, and the third a New Light. [14] Any of them could have affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene later, or a new religious community could have formed after John Forkner published his county history.
The Warnerites and Nazarenes differed on small points of doctrine, but both were Holiness groups. Music was one area of disagreement. Warner’s congregations sang a capella, [15] while the bible school established by Bresee offered a course in instrumental music in 1908. [16] By 1960, those differences were gone: Anderson College, the school sponsored by Warner’s Church of God, installed a new pipe organ. [17]
The economics of the recording industry erased any remaining theological distinctions. Bill said that, on his first record for Heart Warming, he was required, by contract, to include songs controlled by the company owners. [18] On Back Home in Indiana, seven songs were by him and his wife Gloria and two, including "Kumbaya," were joint arrangements by "Gaither/Benson." [19]
Denominational attitudes might no longer have defined what was released on albums, but they still influenced whether or not individuals with talent ever considered singing in public. Danny once told a reporter, "It all started when we started singing with mother at the piano and my first solo was when I was three years old. My folks, Lela and George Gaither, took me to the Nazarene Church and I sang ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’." He added, his father took them to concerts by touring gospel quartets. [20]
When Gloria was a child, her father worked in a small village twenty some miles south of Battle Creek. A woman whose husband attended the Burlington church, wrote "When someone had a prayer need, the Rev. and Mrs. Sickal included their two daughters. They called the girls inside, joined hands in a circle, and the four of them started doing business with the Lord." [21]
Thus, when Mary Ann retired, Gloria was hesitant to take her place on stage. She told Bill, she could not sing. She finally agreed to appear with Bill and Danny at a Church of God concert in Ohio. During the program, he asked her to pray. He remembered, "People all over the auditorium were weeping. God had anointed that place and that crowd and His three singers, even though two of us were truly weak." [22]
After that, Bill recalled, Heart Warming let Gloria do spoken interludes and used Betty Fair [23] to sing with Bill and Danny. In 1970, their producer told Gloria that must stop; she had to sing in the studio because their fans expected to hear the same voice live and on records. [24] Perhaps a dollop of Bob MacKenzie’s evangelical Presbyterian probity was added to the blend of Holiness traditions.
Performers
Vocal Soloists: Gloria Gaither, Danny Gaither
Vocal Group: Gloria Gaither, alto; Danny Gaither, tenor; Bill Gaither, baritone
Vocal Director: produced by Bob MacKenzie
Instrumental Accompaniment: most a capella; one section with orchestra arranged by Rick Powell
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
arr. Gaither/Benson
ASCAP
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: as a group they sang koom by yah, with no syllable accented. On his solo, Danny sang "comb" once. Gloria barely pronounced the /m/.
Verses: kumbaya, singing, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: three-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: repeated "oh Lord, Kumbaya" twice
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: slow
Basic Structure: simple repetition. On the singing verse, Danny sang the statement and the group joined him on the refrain and final line. On the praying verse, an orchestra was added when Gloria sang the first two lines alone. It stopped when the two men joined her on the third and fourth lines.
Singing Style: chordal harmony with one syllable to one note, except for the final Lord. They held the last notes of each phrase so the harmony could be heard. On the final line of the first verse, they raised, then lowered the pitch for the final "ya."
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the group apparently recorded a capella in the studio, then the tape was sent to Rick Powell to add the strings. [25]
Notes on Performers
The only Gaither mentioned in the 1914 county history was Martha Gaither Dyson. Her daughter Angeline had married Washington Knopp, whose ancestors had come from the German-speaking Westphalia. [26] He was identified as a member of Warner’s Church of God. [27]
Bill and Danny’s immigrant ancestor, John Gaither settled in Norfolk County, Virginia, [28] and was likely one of the Puritans recruited to colonize Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in 1649. [29] His great-grandfather, William, moved from North Carolina to Alexandria. His wife was Mary Elizabeth Dyson, the daughter of another Martha Gaither.
There appear to have been many Gaithers and Dysons in central North Carolina in those years who intermarried. Once in Indiana, the different branches must have continued close relations. Gaither said his father’s parents "were of strong, determined German stock." [30]
He said his mother’s mother was Irish, and her father, who had an English surname, was half-Native American. They too merged into the German musical culture. They lived in the Innisdale addition, [31] where there had been a United Brethren church in 1914. [32] Burl Hartwell had been orphaned as a child, and later sang bass in the Brethren choir. [33]
Gaither had his first religious experience after he graduated from high school, when his first gospel quartet failed to attract an audience. [34] He then started college at the Methodist’s Taylor University, which he found uncongenial. [35] After a year, he transferred to the Anderson College, which was closer to his parents’ house. [36] He met Gloria when he was teaching in the local high school, and she was an Anderson student working as a substitute teacher. [37]
He absorbed Warner’s antidenominationalism. Although he and most members of his immediate family attended her church, Gaither never mentioned his religious affiliation in his autobiography. He told an interviewer, he never had been comfortable with singing in churches where his pay depended on the local minister passing the plate. As soon as the trio could command an audience, it moved into auditoriums and sold tickets. [38]
Gaither remarked, his neutral sites made it possible for "people from all church denominations gathered under one roof to hear the music and the message" and "subtly, the walls between denominations began to crumble, and Christians began to realize that they had more in common than they had ever imagined." [39]
Bob MacKenzie produced the album containing "Kumbaya." He was a trumpet player [40] raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. He moved to Nashville to manage the symphony, and went to work for the Bensons. His memorial service was held at Christ Presbyterian Church, Nashville, [41] which was affiliated with the conservative Presbyterian Church in America. [42] Wikipedia described the dissident PCA as "a blend of Reformed practice and broad evangelicalism." [43]
Rick Powell made the decision to add strings to Gloria’s solo and leave the rest a capella. He was born in Seffner, Florida, had a masters degree in composition, [44] and was an early innovator with MOOG synthesizers. In the late 1960s, he built his own studio [45], which was used for the Gaither sessions.
Availability
Album: At Home in Indiana. Heart Warming HWS 3083. Athena Recording Studio, Nashville. 1970.
End Notes
1. Sing with Young Life. Colorado Springs: Young Life, 1978. 147. It described itself as a "member of Evangelical Publishers Association" on the title page. The verses were kumbaya, singing, crying, praying, and come by here. It suggested people could add their own verses to the traditional song, and told them to sing freely. The guitar chords were: C-F-Em-G.
"If I had a hammer" was written by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, and introduced by The Weavers. "Morning Has Broken" was written by Eleanor Farjeon for Percy Dearmer’s 1931 edition of Songs of Praise to an existing tune by Mary MacDougal MacDonald.
2. The Gaithers usually said Gloria was from Battle Creek, Michigan. Her mother was from Milan, Missouri, and her sister was born in Leonard, Missouri, in 1932. Her father, served the Church of God congregation in Burlington, Michigan, from 1946 to 1956; one in Clare, a lumber town in the northern lower peninsula, from 1956 to 1961, and one of the Battle Creek congregations from 1961 to 1971. She graduated from high school in Clare, but her family was in Battle Creek by the time she was a student at Anderson College. (Obituary for Dorothy Sickal, Battle Creek Enquirer, 8 May 1993, 2, and obituary for Evelyn Sickal Baylor, Gaither website, 2015).
3. J. Harvey Gossard. "John Winebrenner: From German Reformed Roots to the Churches of God." United Church of Christ website.
4. Finney’s techniques were mentioned in the post for 12 August 2017.
5. Wikipedia. "Churches of God General Conference (Winebrenner)."
6. Penny Noneman. "Leah Dierdorf Warner." Find a Grave. 7 September 2012.
7. "Oberlin Alumni Hymn Writers Exhibit." College website.
8. Wikipedia. "Daniel Sidney Warner."
9. "History." Church of the Nazarene website.
10. Wikipedia. "National Association of Evangelicals."
11. John L. Forkner. History of Madison County, Indiana. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1914. 472.
12. Ohio had combined people from Connecticut in the northeast with Revolutionary war veterans from Virginia in the southwest and Germans remigrating from eastern Pennsylvania. While some early settlers in Madison County, Indiana, were from the east, a number came from North Carolina. Many of its German-speaking immigrants came after 1848 or after the Civil War.
13. Forkner. 233.
14. Forkner. 247.
15. Wikipedia. "Daniel Sidney Warner" and "Church of God (Anderson, Indiana)."
16. Deets Bible College advertisement. The Nazarene Messenger 12:10:2 April 1908.
17. "Park Place Church of God." Anderson University website.
18. Bill Gaither. It’s More than the Music. With Ken Abraham. New York: Warner Faith, 2003. 96.
19. Heartwarming was owned by the Bensons. Its empire was begun by John Benson, who left the Methodist church to found a Holiness church in Tennessee that later affiliated with the Nazarenes. ("John T. Benson Sr." Dove awards website.)
20. Item. The Alexandria [Indiana] Times-Tribune 25 May 1988. 1.
21. B. J. Funk. "Celebrating the Small Church." Good News website. 22 July 2011. The occasion was her father-in-law’s 95th birthday.
22. Mark Ward. The Lord’s Radio. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2017. 214-215.
23. Gaither. 98. Fair lived in Anderson. Both she and her husband were active in local Churches of God.
24. Ward. 215.
25. This was the only a capella song on the album. For the rest, Gaither said the rhythm tracks were recorded and sent to Powell in London. After he added the strings, the trio recorded its parts. 112.
26. Research by Danny Knopp and anonymous genealogists published on Geni website.
27. Forkner. 636.
28. Deborah Holsinger traced Bill’s ancestry back to their common relative, Zachariah Gaither. ("Re: Gaither Singers." Genealogy website. March 10, 2005). Ric Dickinson, Jerry Gaither, and an unidentified family genealogist tracked back from Zachariah to the immigrant on the Geni website.
29. "County History." Anne Arundel county website.
30. Gaither. 23.
31. Gaither. 22.
32. Forkner. 240.
33. Gaither. 22.
34. Gaither. 43.
35. Gaither. 49.
36. Gaither. 51.
37. Gaither. Chapter 4, "Gloria."
38. Gaither. 114-115.
39. Gaither. 115.
40. Gaither. 96.
41. Obituary for Bob MacKenzie. The [Nashville] Tennessean, 22 October 2000. 35.
42. "Our History." Christ Presbyterian Church website.
43. Wikipedia. "Presbyterian Church in America."
44. GerbLady. "Richard Dean ‘Rick’ Powell." Find a Grave website. 15 March 2010.
45. William Tyler. "Totally Wired." Nashville Scene website. 18 January 2001.
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