Bethel Jubilee Quartet - Now Is the Needy Time

Topic: Early Versions
The first commercial recording of what would become “Kumbaya” was made 13 July 1923 in Camden, New Jersey, by the Bethel Jubilee Quartet of Columbia, South Carolina.  While the Victor Talking Machine Company had been recording for more than two decades, [1] it was a strange experience for the four men.

The challenges began when they planned their journey to New Jersey from the Jim Crow South.  It is possible they had access to an automobile, [2] but a train would have been the safest transportation.

More than likely they stayed with friends or relatives in Philadelphia, across the Delaware river from Camden.  Willa Ward-Royster recalled it was known as a “‘friendly city’ to blacks” [3] when her parents left Anderson, South Carolina, in 1920, to stay with relatives who already had migrated. [4]

The technician who recorded the four men would not have been the one who contacted them. [5] Harry Sooy said Victor employed nine men in 1922 to handle recording sessions [6] in one of two studios in Camden. [7]  Since the number of performers was small, they probably used Studio A, the second floor of a converted church. [8]

Recording still was done acoustically.  Musicians stood in front of horns that transmitted sound waves to wooden boxes where the vibrations of a glass diaphragm moved a stylus that cut grooves into wax platters called matrices.  The horn was in the room with the performers, and everything else in a separate room where the technician watched the physical movement of the stylus. [9]

Sergio Ospina Romero indicated that, while publicity photographs showed groups huddled in front of single large horns, by the 1920s recorders had a choice of horns and diaphragms that were selected to best capture the timbres of different types of sounds.  They could, when necessary, use several horns that were connected by rubber hoses to the one sound box. [10]

Probably whoever [11] recorded the Bethel Quartet began by having them sing.  After hearing their sound, he would have made technical decisions and told them where to stand and how to hold their bodies.  Then, he would have disappeared into the other room to direct the recording. [12]

Artists had to be adaptable when patterns of non-verbal communication were disrupted.  Sooy remembered problems with the “green” musicians in the La Scala orchestra who could not comprehend what they were expected to do. [13]  They had similar problems in China. [14]

The quartet must have done well enough.  They recorded eight songs on Thursday, July 12, then returned on Friday to record four more.  If the first recordings were poor, one suspects they second session would have been cancelled. [15]

Engineers could tell from looking at the wax if a recording was usable.  They could not control street noises, and so many factors could affect the quality of a matrix.  Of the twelve songs recorded by the quartet, half only required two recordings.  One took seven tries, and another eight. [16]

The best matrix for each song was sent to the electroplating department that made a metal overlay.  Ten recordings made it to step two.  The ones that did not happened to be the last recorded each day. [17]  Anything could have been a factor, including increased street noises later in the day or deteriorating wax conditions as temperatures rose above those required for recording.

Sooy said the staff met every morning to listen to the masters from the day before to select those that met their quality standards.  He recalled:

“There is always a lot of competition on every date, that is, with the Recording Staff, as each member has his own recordings and the anxiety creeps in to know whose recorders are making the best records, and which one will be chosen for a master record.” [18]

Six of Bethel’s songs were released.  Unfortunately, “Now Is the Needy Time” was not one of them.  Victor had so many masters to manage, any that were not released were destroyed.  The matrices, of course, probably did not survive the plating process.

Performers
A. C. Brogdon, lead tenor
Henry S. Allen, second tenor [19]
J. C. Eubanks, baritone
Thomas H. Wiseman, bass

Notes on Lyrics
We do not know anything more about the Bethel Jubilee Quartet version than the song was known in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1923, and was using the “needed time” verse.

Notes on Music
Sung a capella

Availability
Unused matrix, take 1.  Bethel Jubilee Quartet. “Now is the needy time.”  Camden, New Jersey, 13 July 1923.  Not survive.

Unused master B-28188.  Bethel Jubilee Quartet. “Now is the needy time.”  Camden, New Jersey, 13 July 1923.  Destroyed.

Graphics
 Wiseman’s picture appears on the Photos C tab.

End Notes
1.  Eldridge Reeves Johnson began producing recordings using wax matices in 1900.  After settling a copyright lawsuit, he reorganized as Victor Talking Machine in 1901. [20]

2.  A local newspaper reported in 1921 that Wiseman and others “drove” to “Union, S. C. where he (Dr. Wiseman) delivered a telling address.  On returning they stopped at Newberry and other towns.” [21]

3.  Willa Ward-Royster.  How I Got Over: Clara Ward and the World-Famous Ward Singers.  Told to Toni Rose.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.  9.  I use Ward-Royster as an illustration because her sister, Clara Ward, recorded “Come by Here” in 1962.

4.  Ward-Royster.  11.

5.  Victor did not yet have a formal Artists and Repertoire (A&R) department.  Calvin George handled the function until 1923.  He seems to have relied on reports and requests from retailers to identify new markets and artists. [22]

6.  Harry O. Sooy.  “Memoir of My Career.”  Unpublished manuscript in collection of Hagley Museum and on their website.  86.

7.  Sooy.  91.  Not all nine were in Camden.  Victor also had a studio in New York, and constantly was sending men to foreign countries to make recordings.

8.  The company had purchased the Trinity Baptist Church building in 1918. [23]  According to the Victor Records website, Studio B, the ground floor was used for symphonies and other large groups.

9.  The clearest discussion of the technology is by Sergio Daniel Ospina Romero. “Recording Studios on Tour: the Expeditions of the Victor Talking Machine Company Through Latin America, 1903-1926.”  PhD dissertation.  Cornell University, May 2019.  143–144.

10.  Ospina Romero.  145.

11.  Recorders kept meticulous records; however such minutia either was not recorded in the Camden ledgers, or was not transcribed by The University of California, Santa Barbara, for its Discography of American Historical Recordings on-line database. [24]  Today, of course, such information routinely is included with the credits.

12.  Ospina Romero.  151–152.
13.  Sooy.  85.
14.  Sooy.  31–32.

15.  Recording dates and song lists from UCSB.  The liner notes for the Wiseman anthology [25] differ slightly.

16.  “Hush, somebody’s calling my name” took seven tries; “I couldn’t hear nobody pray” took eight according to UCSB.

17.  The songs that did not survive the first review are “Oh rocks dont fall on me” and “Were you there when they crucified my Lord.” [UCSB]

18.  Sooy.  86.

19.  His complete name is from T. H. Wiseman.  Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, 26 August 1923.  Held by Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries, and reproduced on its website.

20.  Wikipedia.  “Eldridge R. Johnson.”
21.  Item.  The Southern Indicator, Columbia, South Carolina, 9 July 1921.  3.
22.  Sooy.  103.
23.  Phil Cohen.  “Trinity Baptist Church.”  DVRBS website.
24. The initial work on Victor recordings was done by Ted Fagan.

25.  Chris Smith.  Liner notes for Johnny Parth.  Wiseman Sextette/Quartet.  Vienna: Document Records DOCD-5520.  CD.  1997.