Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Singspiration didn’t produce any new books or records containing “Kumbaya” in response to the Jesus Movement. The closest was a 1973 Hymnal for Contemporary Christians [1] that contained Marsha Stevens “For Those Tears I Died.” [2] The first song in the collection, Gil Moegerle’s “Alleluia,” [3] was headed “The Jesus People.”
Half the material selected by Norman Johnson and Don Wyrtzen was reprinted from the Folk Hymnal, discussed in the post for 2 August 2020. Many of new compositions had been introduced in musicals [4] by Ralph Carmichael, [5] Kurt Kaiser, [6] Otis Skillings, [7] Jimmy Owen and Philip Landgrave. John Walvoord and Wyrtzen had written some for the Grand Rapids, Michigan, company. [8]
One reason for the Singspiration’s lack of interest in Jesus Music may have been that 1971 Billy Graham book on The Jesus Generation mentioned in the post for 20 December 2020. Even though its parent company, Zondervan, promoted it and received orders from a number of bookstores, returns “ran very high after a few months.” The managers decided the Jesus Movement “had peaked.” [9]
Zondervan was more interested in another project. It had purchased Harper’s Bible division in 1966, [10] and invested in the New York International Bible Society’s translation project in 1971. The release of the New International Version of the New Testament in 1973 [11] was far more important, both to the company’s self-image and to its coffers.
One other factor may have contributed to Singspiration’s slow reaction. Its head, John Peterson, had departed in February 1971 because Michigan’s polluted air had aggravated his asthma. [12] The men he left to run the division were good musicians, but lacked his breadth of experience in music publishing. [13]
The Folk Hymnal must still have continued to sell. In 1972, Dick Bolks produced a sing-a-long companion album that could be played with just the vocals, just the instruments, or the two together. [14]
There was only one slow song on the record: the early nineteenth-century “Wondrous Love.” [15] The songs that were written by contemporary composers were given standard folk-revival accompaniments, which featured acoustic guitars and basses. They were sung at moderate tempos.
Several of the songs composed by Peterson were given jazzy, syncopated treatments with hand drums. The score for “That’s the Way to Find Happiness” [16] alternated dotted quarter notes and eight notes, but “Higher Hands” [17] was almost all quarter and half notes.
Researchers from Santa Barbara’s Westmont College noted in California in 1972, that, within the Jesus Movement, “music styles have changed from the handclapping rhythms of hepped-up versions of “Do Lord” to a subtle, more sophisticated, reflective blues.” [145]
The Folk Hymnal was published in 1970, before Jesus Music had developed much. Bolks used the songs from African-American and camp traditions to use instruments and rhythms that were shared with rock ’n’ roll. The lyrics set to “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” were accompanied by tambourine, as well as acoustic guitar, bass, and keyboard. [19]
“Somebody Touched Me” [20] had antecedents in Black gospel [21] and Southern Bluegrass [22] music. Bolks used actual drums with a piano, acoustic guitar, and bass.
“Kum Ba Yah” was identified as “African” on the record label. It began with a harpsichord, much like that used by The Sidewalk Swingers in their 1964 album Folk Swingin’ Harpsichord. [23] Then, before the third verse, Bolk changed the key and added a tambourine.
The recorded vocal parts generally were the same as those published, with unison and simple parallel harmonies that any group could sing. In a few, including “Kumbaya,” men or women sang verses alone. Only Johnson’s “Doxology” was more complex, and that was as it was published.
The most interesting aspect of “Kumbaya” was the tempo. The songbook specified it should be sung “very slowly.” Bolks used a quick pace, with no pauses between phrases or lines. Almost noone ever sings the song quickly.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: Dick Bolks Chorus
Vocal Director: Dick Bolks
Instrumental Accompaniment: harpsichord, guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: tambourine
Credits
Trad. African
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: KUM by yah
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: Someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: The songbook told singers to “repeat chorus after each stanza.” Bolks skipped the repetition between verses two and three.
Verse Repetition Pattern: AxAxxA where A = Kumbaya
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: quick
Basic Structure: strophic repetition with key change; men sang “singing” verse; everyone sang the rest
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final “Lord”
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: instruments primarily heard at beginning and end; chords dominant when group singing
Ending: none
Unique Features: tempo, instrumentation
Notes on Performance
The album cover was the same as that of the songbook.
Notes on Performers
Dick Bolks was raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is 50 miles south of Grand Rapids. His family was in the Reformed Church, [24] rather than the stricter Christian Reformed Church of the Zondervans. Both get called Dutch Reformed by outsiders.
He and his sister were active in Christian Endeavor, [25] the first successful youth group organized in this country. [26] By the time he was a high school senior in 1951, [27] he was an accompanist for the group’s state and national conventions. [28]
Fred Bock [29] recalled Bolks was “bitten by the ‘choral bug’ when he first heard Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians” and that he sang their arrangements in high school. [30]
In 1959, Bolks was singing baritone and playing piano for the Gospelaires quartet. He had met the other members in Christian Endeavor. Their repertoire included “sacred classics, old hymn of the church, some of the newer gospel song, and Negro spiritual.” [31] He was also a musician for hire. [32]
He moved to Los Angeles in 1961, where he joined the pool of ambitious young men who could perform, arrange, and conduct music. He very quickly became the local accompanist for Ethel Waters. [33] The African-American jazz singer had been saved at a Billy Graham crusade in 1957, and was performing religious music. [34]
His other activities prior to producing the Folk Hymnal album are obscure, in part because the names of support people rarely appeared in credits. By 1969, he was doing arrangements for Bock at the Sacred Songs division of Word Records. [35] In 1970, he played organ for the Dick Anthony Singers on a recording for Lillenas. [36] Anthony was music director for Richard De Haan’s Day of Discovery television program, which was headquartered in Grand Rapids. [37]
Through his work with Anthony he met other people who worked as studio backup singers. One assumes, they recommended one another because they knew the individuals understood the methods they used to rehearse and record. [38] It’s likely he used some of these people in the group he used for the Folk Hymnal.
Through the 1970s, Bolks was busy as an arranger and conductor. By 1980, he was music director for Day of Discovery. [39] He continued to create publishable arrangements and direct choruses for recordings by Lillenas, [40] while doing free-lance work for artists like the Lennon Sisters. [41] In 1990, he released a recording of his piano arrangements through CD Baby. [42]
In 2012, a friend of Bolks’ sister remembered the time he asked Bolks to introduce him to Lloyd Ogilvie at Hollywood Presbyterian church [43] because he knew Bolks was “his main music person” at the church. [44]
A few years later, one of the members of The Gospelaires asked him for some arrangements for his Fayetteville, Arkansas, church choir. He told his parishioners Bolks had been “organist and choir director of Valley Presbyterian Church, and organist at Bel Air Presbyterian Church.” [45]
Availability
Album: Dick Bolk Singers. Folk Hymnal In Sound For Sing-A Longs. Singcord Corporation ZLP 834S. 1972. [46]
End Notes
1. Hymnal for Contemporary Christians. Compiled by Norman Johnson and Don Wyrtzen. Grand Rapids: Singspiration Music, 1973; 1976 printing. It included the same version of “Kum ba Yah” as the Folk Hymnal, along with the variant mentioned in the post for 27 September 2017.
2. This is discussed in the post for 4 October 2020.
3. Gil Moegerle. “Alleluia.” Copyrighted by the composer in 1971; assigned to John T. Benson Publishing Company in 1973.
4. Religious musicals using commercial folk-revival instruments are discussed in the post for 13 December 2020.
5. Carmichael is discussed in the post for post for 15 December 2017.
6. Kaiser is discussed in the post for 15 December 2017.
7. Skillings is discussed in the post for 7 February 2021.
8. Three songs in the collection were from the 1970 What’s Is All About, Anyhow? [47] and one was from the 1973 Breakthrough. [48] John E. Walvoord was the son of John F. Walvoord, president of Dallas Theological Seminary. [49]
9. James E. Ruark. The House of Zondervan. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2006. 72.
10. Ruark. 119.
11. Ruark. 152.
12. John W. Peterson. The Miracle Goes On. With Richard Engquist. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976. 210.
13. Another factor may have been age: they were too old to be part of the Jesus Movement, and too young to have adolescent children. Wyrtzen was born in 1942, and was 31 in 1973. [50] Johnson married in 1954, and later adopted two children. [51] Peterson, on the other hand, said his three daughters “began to have an impact on my writing. They listened patiently and critically to my new words, often offering good suggestions for changes. With youngsters of my own, I made more of an effort to keep in touch with the tastes and preferences of their age group.” [52]
14. As mentioned in the post for 13 December 2020, Word had used this technique in 1971.
15. “Wondrous Love” is discussed in the post for 18 April 2021. Kip Lornell said it was “universally sung at a slow, deliberate tempo.” [53]
16. John W. Peterson. “That’s the Way to Find Happiness.” Folk Hymnal. 115. Copyrighted in 1968 by Singspiration.
17. John W. Peterson. “Higher Hands.” Folk Hymnal. 73. Copyrighted in 1966 by Singspiration.
18. Ronald M. Enroth, Edward E. Ericson, Jr., and C. Breckinridge Peters. The Jesus People. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eermans Publishing Company, 1972. 145.
19. “Come and Praise the Lord Our King.” Folk Hymnal. 30. The tune was identified as “Traditional.”
20. “Somebody Touched Me.” Folk Hymnal. 94. Text by Lillian M. Bowles and Theodore R. Frye, arranged by Kenneth Morris. Copyrighted by Bowles Music House in 1938. [WorldCat entry.] The refrain in Folk Hymnal was “O, O, O, O, somebody touched me.”
21. Bowles hired Morris to transcribe tunes being sung in Chicago. [54] That suggests the song already was in tradition in 1938. She published it in 1939. [55] The earliest reference I could find was a comment by Quincy Jones that his mother sang it when he was seven-years-old, which would have been 1940. [56] He remembered it began “ohh, ohh, ohh, ohh-oh.”
22. John Reedy recorded a version in 1949 [57] that became the standard bluegrass version. He was from Harlan County, Kentucky. [60] Doc Watson implied he had heard it sung in Holiness churches in western North Carolina. [61] This version used “glory, glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me.”
23. The Sidewalk Swingers. Folk Swingin’ Harpsichord With 12 String Guitar. Warner Bros. Records WS 1532. 1964. This was a group of session musicians that included Leon Russell [62] on harpsichord and Glen Campbell on twelve-string guitar. Harpsichords entered rock ’n’ roll with the Beatles’ 1965 recording of “In My Life” [63] because George Martin’s speeded up piano phrase sounded like a harpsichord. [64]
24. Marilyn Joan Huyser. Obituary. Kalamazoo [Michigan] Gazette. 31 May 2016.
25. Huyser.
26. Mark Houston Senter III. “The Youth for Christ Movement as an Educational Agency and Its Impact upon Protestant Churches, 1931-1979.” PhD dissertation. Loyola University of Chicago, March 1989. 17.
27. Kalamazoo, Michigan, Central High School Class of 1951 entry. Classmates website.
28. Christian Endeavor Society. 1951 International Convention, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Official Report. 30.
29. Fred Bock is discussed in the posts for 12 July 2020 and 27 December 2020.
30. “Dick Bolks.” Fred Bock Music Company website. 2016.
31. “Gospelaires Plan Concert For Sunday.” Holland [Michigan] Evening Sentinel. 19 February 1960. 7. There were some problems in the digital conversion; the quotation has not been corrected.
32. Wedding notice. Battle Creek [Michigan] Enquirer. 5 April 1959. 14. Posted by bshay2502 on 10 July 2019.
33. Item on appearance by Waters. Holland City [Michigan] News 94:4:6 May 1965. “Dick was her accompanist at the time she was forced to cancel an appearance in Holland Civic Center in 1961 because of illness.”
34. Wikipedia. “Ethel Waters.”
35. He did the arrangement for “Fill My Cup Lord” that is mentioned in the post for 5 July 2020.
36. Dick Anthony Singers. To Tell the Untold. Hosanna/Tempo Records L-202. 1970.
37. Wikipedia. “Dick Anthony (Musician).” The program was broadcast from Florida.
38. One example was Paul DeKorte, who had been in The Gospelairs. He moved to Los Angeles in 1963, worked with Waters, [65] and was hired by Hanna-Barbara after he met William Hanna through a barbershop quartet. [66] When he became music supervisor for the company, he hired Bolks to sing in the chorus for Yogi’s First Christmas in 1980. [67]
39. “Concert Slated at Christ United Presbyterian Church.” [Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania] Citizens’ Voice. 29 April 1980. 42. “Program title is ‘This Is Love’ by Dick Bolks, musical director for the TV program ‘Day of Discovery’ on Sunday mornings from Cypress Gardens, Fla.”
40. His credits were assembled from searches of WorldCat, Discogs, and Amazon conducted on 24 June 2020.
41. Lennon Sisters. 22 Songs of Faith and Inspiration. Ranwood 7027-2. 1983. WorldCat said: “All songs arr. by John Bahler and Dick Bolks.”
42. Dick Bolks. Blessed Assurance. 1990. Amazon listed it as CD Baby. YouTube associated it with Summit Sounds.
43. Hollywood Presbyterian Church is mentioned in the posts for 4 October 2020 and 27 December 2020. Ogilvie is mentioned in the one for 27 December 2020.
44. Curry Pikkaart. “It’s Who You Know.” Sermon Central website. 10 April 2012. He was pastor of Hope Reformed Church in South Haven, Michigan.
45. Lee Mekkes. “Choir News.” Covenant Church PCA, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Covenant Chronicle. December 2014. 2. Bel Air Presbyterian is mentioned in the posts for 27 September 2020 and 27 December 2020. Valley Presbyterian is in the North Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, north of Van Nuys.
46. Discogs entry. The copy I purchased was released in England as King KLPS 51.
47. Don Wyrtzen. What’s It All About, Anyhow? Now Sounds ZLP-827 S. 1970. [Discogs entry.]
48. Don Wyrtzen. Breakthrough: A Musical About Prophecy. Singcord ZLP 858S. 1973. Discogs indicated Bolks sang bass and coordinated the choral work; Paul DeKorte sang tenor; John E. Walvoord worked on the lyrics.
49. Geraldine L. Walvoord. Obituary. Dallas [Texas] Morning News. 7 September 2007. She was John E.’s mother.
50. “Donald John Wyrtzen.” Hope Publishing website.
51. Lois M. Johnson. Obituary. Grand Rapids [Michigan] Press. 11 June 2014.
52. Peterson, Miracle. 185.
53. Kip Lornell. Exploring American Folk Music. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012 edition. 122.
54. Horace Clarence Boyer. The Golden Age of Gospel. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. 73.
55. Bowles Favorite Gospel & Spiritual Songs No. 2. Chicago: Bowles Music House, 1939. Copy in Indiana University’s Blondell Hill Gospel Music Collection.
56. Quincy Jones. Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. New York: Doubleday, 2001. No pages in on-line edition.
“Oprah Talks to Quincy Jones.” O, The Oprah Magazine. October 2011. Reprinted on Oprah Winfrey’s website.
57. John Reedy and His Stone Mountain Hillbillys. “Somebody Touched Me.” Twin-City 1021. [58] March 1949. Recorded in Bristol, Virginia. [59]
58. Tammy Clemons and Timi Reedy. “Remembering the Reedys: Appalachian Music, Migration, & Memory.” Remembering Reedy website. Reedy is John’s granddaughter.
59. Lonnie Salyer. “Twin-City Records, Bristol after The Big Bang.” Birthplace of Country Music Museum website. 30 January 2018.
60. Clemons.
61. Doc Watson. “Somebody Touched Me.” Live At Club 47. Yep Roc Records YEP-2499. Recorded on 10 February 1963 at Club 47, 47 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts; released in 2018. He was from Deep Gap, North Carolina, in Watauga County.
62. Russell was listed as Russell Bridges.
63. Beatles. “In My Life.” Rubber Soul. Parlophone PCS 3075. 3 December 1965. [Discogs entry.]
64. Wikipedia. “In My Life” and “Baroque Pop.”
65. Paul DeKorte. Obituary. The [Santa Clarita, California] Signal. 16 October 1985. 17.
66. Jim Korkis. “Animation Anecdotes #357.” Cartoon Research website. 6 April 2018.
67. Wikipedia. “Yogi’s First Christmas.” He was listed as John Richard Bolks.
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