Walther League - Kum Ba Yah (Part 2)

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Continued from previous post dated 21 June 2020

Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: guitar chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
Traditional

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no comment
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying

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

Basic Form: open-ended 4-verse song; after last verse "and so on. It could end up with "Come by here, My Lord, Kum ba yah."

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"
Ending: none

Influences: Concordia Published issued a companion album with songs from the collection. [1] Three were by Ray Repp and two by Richard Koehneke and Norman Habel. "Kumbaya" was not included, but "All My Trials" was recorded in an arrangement close to that of Peter, Paul, and Mary [2] by two men and a woman.

Notes on Performance
Paul Firnhaber was the guest editor for the first two volumes. He used beige paper with photographs of people. Large-type comments were scattered around the songs to create a collage of words, music, and pictures.

For "We Shall Overcome" the text was "In every man’s heart there’s a secret place he would like to go." The photographs included an African-American boy, an Asian child, a woman who could have been a Native American, and one who might have been from Latin America.

The second volume was less daring. There were no comments, and the picture with "Kumbaya" showed people sitting on park benches in New York City. They were in shadow, so no features could be discerned. They probably were older men.

Koehneke, the editor for the third volume, used a different colored paper for every page, and often superimposed songs on photographs. Most looked to be white people. The ones who might have come from other cultures were so enlarged, their features were lost.

Audience Perceptions
The introduction to Hymns for Now II said that "in a little over two years, nearly 200,000 copies" of earlier collection had been distributed. "This is nothing short of a phenomenon considering that it was not available on the commercial market, and was reprinted and distributed solely through the subscription office of" the Walther League’s Workers Quarterly.

Notes on Performers
Dean Kell edited the Workers Quarterly that published Hymns for Now I. The native of Wausau, Wisconsin, [3] did field work with a local church and interned in Minneapolis while he was a student at Indiana’s Valparaiso University. [4] After graduating in 1960, [5] he became the youth director for a Lutheran Church in Melrose Park, Illinois. [6] Following the disestablishment of the Walther League, [7] he moved to Estes Park, Colorado, where he "taught himself to build houses while starting his general contractor company." [8]

The biographical information for the man he selected as editor for Hymns is less detailed. [9] Rolan Paul Firnhaber studied shamanism with Mircea Eliade at the University of Chicago. [10] Perhaps it was while he was a graduate student that he took photographs of a César Chávez aide at a Chicago League meeting in 1967. [11] In 1969, Firnhaber moved to Estes Park, where he worked as a "researcher, writer, editor, and photographer." [12] He later moved to Estonia.

Less still is known about Martin Steyer, the man responsible for Hymns for Now II. He was a Lutheran pastor in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1956. [13] By 1973, he was an assistant to the head of the Board of Youth in Saint Louis. [14] His last pastorate was in Santa Maria, California. [15]

Koehneke, like Steyer, worked for a congregation in North Carolina before he edited Hymns for Now III. [16] In addition to the youth album, he and Habel issued a recording of the Lutheran liturgy as a competitor to folk masses [17] for the Synod’s radio station. [18] In 1972, he wrote a Christian rock opera with John Schroeder. [19] His last appointment was in Fort Wayne. [20]

Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." Hymns for Now II. In Resources for Youth Ministry 1(3):1969. Edited by Martin W. Steyer. 2.

End Notes
1. Hymns for Now 2: How. Produced by James E. Bottom, David Dister, and Victor Growcock. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House. Concordia 79-9021.

2. Peter, Paul, and Mary. "All My Trials." In The Wind. Warner Brothers Records. WS 1507. 1963.

3. Dean C. Kell. Obituary. Loveland [Colorado] Reporter-Herald. 5 January 2018.

4. Jon Pahl. Hopes and Dreams of All. Chicago: Wheat Ridge Ministries, 1993. 222. Valparaiso is a Lutheran university unaffiliated with any synod. [21] A version of "Kumbaya" recorded by a vocal group sponsored by the school was mentioned in the post for 4 September 2018.

5. Death notice for Dean Kell in "Valpo Remembers." Valpo Magazine website. 29 January 2019.

6. "Lutheran Pastors Attend Convention." The [Maywood, Illinois] Sunday Herald. 7 July 1963. 4.

7. Kell was executive secretary of the Walther League from 1968 to 1970. [22]
8. Kell, obituary.

9. James C. Burkee. Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011. When he began research for this book, he discovered "many were unwilling to talk" about the events surrounding the rise of Jack Preus. "The reasons were diverse. For some, the emotional wounds were still fresh. Some were embarrassed by their involvement. Others had professional reasons, wanting to stay ‘neutral’ while serving in official capacities in the church. Some were afraid of reprisals. The most unsettling, however, was the stonewalling from men who did not want the truth exposed; who did not want aired the details of a veiled organization that, it was implied, still rules the synod." [23] He added, "I believe everyone knows, but few will confess." [24]

10. Gregor Taul. "Art Life outside the Capital City." Estonian Art website. The index of Eliade’s papers in the University of Chicago library does not list Firnhaber’s dissertation. [25] This suggests he did not complete work on his PhD. There is no record of it, or other professional papers on the internet.

11. Miriam Pawel. The Union of Their Dreams. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. The caption for a photograph by Firnhaber on page 50 read: Eliseo Medina "teaches a workshop for Lutheran youth at the Walther League in Chicago to enlist help in the grape boycott."

12. "R. Paul Firnhaber." Imagi Gallery, Viljandi, Estonia, website. The biographical sketch was written to accompany publication of his book, Magic in the Mountains, in 2007. [26]

13. "Lutheran Church Starts Five Mission Services." Greenbelt [Maryland] News Review. 21:1:18 October 1956. It said Steyer was giving a "special sermon for the children each evening."

14. The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. Convention Handbook for 1973. 300.
15. "Martin Steyer." LinkedIn website.
16. Gene Brunow. "Wellness." His website.

17. Richard Koehneke and Norman Habel. Invitation; The Lutheran Liturgy. KFUO, Clayton, Missouri. KRES 769. [Discogs website.]

18. KFUO is owned by the Missouri Synod and located on the campus of Concordia Seminary. [27] It originally was a project of the Walther League. [28]

19. Richard Koehneke and John E. Schroeder. Alpha Omega: Meet God Man. Concordia 79-9895. 1972. [Discogs website.]

20. Brunow.
21. Wikipedia. "Valparaiso University."
22. Pahl. 303.
23. Burkee. 4.
24. Burkee. 4.
25. "Guide to the Mircea Eliade Papers 1926-1998." University of Chicago Library website.

26. James Frank and R. Paul Firnhaber. Magic in the Mountains. Estes Park, Colorado: Our Natural Heritage Publishing, 2007.

27. Wikipedia. "KFUO (AM)."
28. Pahl. 120–121.