Irwin Silber - Kum Ba Ya

Topic: Commercial Folk Music Revival
The commercial folk-music revival moved from college campuses to the mass media on 6 April 1963 when ABC television broadcast the first program of a variety series called Hootenanny. [1] At the time, Peter, Paul and Mary had two albums in Billboard’s top ten, while the Kingston Trio’s sixteenth album was in eighth place. [2]

Hootenanny featured several acts performing at a college campus, with the performers and schools changing each week. The first week drew 26% of the reporting audience; the second drew 32%. [3] Look magazine declared it was the "final proof that folk music has gone big-time." [4]

Pete Seeger said he first heard the term "hootenanny" in 1940 [5] at a political event sponsored by the Washington Commonwealth Federation in Seattle. [6] He popularized the word when he applied it to rent parties held by the Almanac Singers in New York City. [7]

Long before the ABC program, other folk-music revival singers were using the word to describe their singing sessions. After April 1963, "hootenanny" became a marketing word applied to any item remotely connected to folk-revival music.

In 1963, Irwin Silber edited the Hootenanny Song Book for a commercial publisher. It was subtitled: "Reprints from Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine." Silber had been editing Sing Out! since 1951. [8] Before the ABC program, he had reprinted collections from the magazine through Oak Publications, which he owned with Moses Asch. [9]

The modifications necessary to make Sing Out! palatable to the general public were editorial, rather than musical. The Spring 1958 issue had included 16 songs, three of which appeared in an anthology in 1961. [10] The Hootenanny Song Book also included three songs from 1958.

Many of the omitted songs were copyrighted, like Malvina Reynolds’ "The Battle of Maxton Field." Others had known authors, who might have expected royalty payments, or were versions of public domain people performed by popular artists like Odetta.

In discussing problems with copyrights for another collection, Jerry Silverman said he only included songs written before 1922

"because after that they’re not in the public domain, and it becomes a hassle with copyright clearances, with payment royalties, with getting permissions. And it’s just not worth it. There were so many good songs that are in the public domain that it doesn’t pay to look for trouble trying to get the one extra song that will land you in a lawsuit for infringement." [11]

If he wasn’t already aware of the problems with the 1909 copyright law, the music editor for the Hootenanny Song Book would have been educated by the lawyers at Consolidated Music Publishers.

The anthology used the original plates from Sing Out! The only change was with "St. James Hospital." In the magazine, it had appeared with an advertisement. That was replaced with more verses. Silverman retranscribed the music for Hootenanny.

What changes were made between Sing Out! and its commercial sibling were done in the head notes. Silber still indicated the version of "Twelve Gates to the City" came from Marion Hicks, but dropped the references to recordings of the song made by Gary Davis and Sonny Terry. In the earlier collection he had kept the promotion for The Weavers’ version of "Done Laid Around."

Similarly, Silber no longer mentioned its version of "Sinner Man" came from a Folkways album by The Folksmiths. It still repeated information from Cecil Sharp that it was a Holiness hymn, but dropped the reference to him.

When Sing Out! published "Kum Ba Yah," it had reproduced an image of the version included in the Girl Guides’ Chansons de Notre Chalet, with a nod to the publisher, Cooperative Recreation Service. [12] The Hootenanny headnote no long acknowledged its source was CRS. Instead, Silber introduced the idea that the African-American "spiritual, ‘Come by Here’," was "first cousin to this Nigerian song."

The original Sing Out! publication introduced the standard version of the "Kumbaya" to people who knew it only from the singing of Pete Seeger. The Hootenanny version was the one used in the Canadian junior high school music book discussed in the post on 14 August 2018. However, while Colin Walley included the "Nigerian Folk Song" attribution, his arrangement was more complex.

Credits
None given

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom-bah-yah
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: not indicated
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Guitar Chords: C F G⁷
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note, except for final "Lord"

Notes on Performers
Sing Out! was the successor to the Peoples Songs’ Bulletin, discussed in the post for 18 August 2019. It released its last issue in February 1949. [13] Sing Out! Appeared in May 1950, under the editorship of Robert Wolfe. [14]

Silber was born in 1925, but the only thing he ever said about his life before he joined the Communist Party was that his parents were working class Jews [15] who lived on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. [16] Although he left the United States party in 1955, Silber remained a Marxist. He married Barbara Dane in 1964, [17] who had the distinction of having been rejected by the Party. [18]

It was the period when protests against the War in Vietnam had spawned radical groups like SDS. Silber left Sing Out! to work for The Guardian in 1967. After he became the editor in 1972, it began supporting the Maoist Revolution in China. [19] He remained politically active until his death in 2010.

Silverman’s parents migrated to the United States from London and Russia, and married in this country. His father supplied fabrics to Broadway shows, and perhaps, because of that, he was sent to Wo-Chi-Ca in 1945. When he returned to the Bronx, he began taking guitar lessons. He started doing transcriptions for Sing Out! in 1951 while he was earning a degree in music from City College of New York. He wrote his master’s thesis on blues guitar, and since has edited collections and written instruction manuals. [20]

Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Ya." Hootenanny Song Book. Edited by Irwin Silber and Jerry Silverman. New York: Consolidated Music Publishers, 1963. 139.

End Notes
1. Tim Brooks and Earle F. Marsh. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. New York: Ballantine Books, 2007 edition. 633.

2. Dave McAleer. The All Music Book of Hit Albums. San Francisco: Miller Freeman, 1995. 39.

3. "‘Hootenanny’ Looms As Hour ’63-’64 Entry; Ratings Start To Swing" Variety. 24 April 1963. Cited by Wikipedia. "Hootenanny (American TV Series)."

4. "Folk Singers and Their Fans." Look. 27 August 1963. Cited by Wikipedia, Hootenanny.

5. Seeger’s trip was discussed in the post for 18 August 2019.
6. Wikipedia. "Terry Pettus."

7. Peter Tamony. "‘Hootenanny’: the Word, its Content and Continuum." John Edwards Memorial Foundation Quarterly 16:95–98:1980. Reprinted from Western Folklore 22:165–170:1963. 95. This is the best article on the word’s origins.

8. Ken Hunt. "Irwin Silber (1925-2010)." Folk Music Journal. 20 December 2011.

9. Richie Unterberger. "Irwin Silber Interview." June 2002. Furious website. Asch was discussed in the post for 14 October 2017.

10. Irwin Silber. Reprints from Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine. New York: Oak Publications, 1962. Volume 3.

11. Carl Wiser. "Jerry Silverman on Baseball Songs." Song Facts. 27 November 2008.

12. "Kum Ba Yah." Sing Out! Spring 1958. 18. The second edition of Chansons was published in 1959 by CRS. Marion A. Roberts was the editor.

13. Richard A. Reuss. American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics, 1927 – 1957. With JoAnne C. Reuss. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2000. 288.

14. Hunt.
15. Wikipedia. "Irwin Silber."

16. Hunt. Silber’s family may have wished to remain anonymous to avoid harassment by the FBI and self-appointed vigilantes.

17. Wikipedia, Silber. Dane was discussed in the post for 23 August 2017.
18. Ben Fong-Torres. "A Life of the Blues." SF Gate website. 22 July 2007.
19. Max Elbaum. Revolution in the Air. London: Verso, 2002. 107–108.
20. Wikipedia. Jerry Silverman. Wo-Chi-Ca was mentioned in the post for 14 July 2019.