Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) was the second youth group to include “Kum Ba Yah” in 1957. We know it came after the Girl Guides’ book, because one page of graces is described as “from CHANSONS DE NOTRE CHALET” [1].
In this case, Augustus D. Zanzig’s role is clearer: he is listed as an editor. In addition, he translated or arranged 15 of the 63 international songs.
It is not known if he contacted the organization, which may not have placed an order since 1954. On the other hand, it may decided it was time to issue a revised songster and lacked the resources after Marie Oliver left in 1952. In the 1965 revision, Zanzig is credited with arranging the music. [2]
As mentioned in the post for 20 March 2022, the impression was Oliver was the victim of Harvey Matusow’s claim the organization was infiltrated by the Communist Party. The 1957 songster has 13% fewer songs from countries controlled by the Soviet Union or which fought against us in World War II. However, many of the labor songs were reprinted, including the most controversial, “Joe Hill.”
Although some of the songs the caused problems for Oliver were kept, her presence was excised. Zanzig redid her arrangements for “The Silver Moon Is Shining” and “Golden Day Is Dying.” This leads to questions about bureaucratic and budgetary decisions that cannot be answered.
Otherwise, the selection of songs remained the same. It dropped 46 songs from the earlier edition and added 54. If such changes were not made, no one would have a reason to buy it.
The major change had occurred between the 1941 and 1951 editions, when the number of religious songs increased by nearly 40%. [3] They came at the expense of what were called “general songs.” That class included camp songs. This edition dropped two songs then in active camp tradition, “French Cathedrals” and “Hark to the Chimes.” The first is a round; the second is a grace.
The songbook’s intended audience was Y-Teen clubs for high-school and college aged young women. This is a group that would be more likely to sing religious songs at its meetings. The songbook offered 52 hymns, of which 10 were new. Among the 8 spirituals, “He’s Got the Whole World” and “Let Us Break Bread Together” replaced “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
The group drew its members from the same main-line denominations that ordered songbooks from Cooperative Recreation Service. Sing Along, or the owner of CRS, Lynn Rohrbough, did not offer popular gospel songs like “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” or the “Old Rugged Cross.” It certainly did not include the raucous ones like “Do Lord. The closest the songbook came was “Green Grow the Rushes.”
Spirituals may have been used as a substitute for the popular religious songs. [16] “Kum Ba Yah” had the good fortune to be presented in the “Folk Song” section where it replaced “As the Sun Goes Down” as the token African song.
Since the Y was a Protestant organization, it was interested in converting the heathen of Asia, rather than Spanish-speaking Roman Catholics. Thus, the editors were still trying to find songs from China, Japan, and Korea that were singable by girls trained in western music. There were 5 from Asia and 6 from Latin America.
The interest in Jewish settlements in the Holy land continued with “Shalom Chaverim” and “Zum Gali Gali.” The first still only had the English words by Zanzig, and so was not the source for that song in tradition.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Credits
African (Angola)
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: “Koom-bah-yah,” same as that published in Indianola Sings, which is reproduced in the post for 29 May 2022
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying; same verses and same order as those published in Indianola Sings
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; the melody is the same as Indianola Sings
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: slowly
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final “Lord”
Ending: none
Notes on Performance
Cover: Five-line music at top and bottom of with YWCA logo at bottom left
Color Scheme: the cover uses dark blue ink on medium gray stock; inside the pages employ faded navy ink on white paper
Plate: The songster was reprinted several times, and each time the plate change. The first issued had the one made by Jane Keen for Indianola Sings.
Notes on Performers
Lura Marie Barnes was born in 1897, [4] and raised in Topeka, Kansas, where she sang in the chorus of The Messiah in 1915. [5] She married Byron Mohrbacher in 1921, when he was working for the Santa Fe Railroad. At the time, they planned to attend Kansas State Agricultural College. She expected she would study music and home economics. [6]
The next public notice came in 1924 when they were living in Wichita, Kansas, where he managed the United Warehouse. They both were singing in glee clubs. [7] By 1942, they were living in Ithaca, New York. He ran the Cooperative Consumers Society grocery store there. [8]
Her first known contact with the YWCA came in 1943, when she wrote a letter to Oliver that said the composer of “Witchcraft” had been her accompanist in 1940. [9] This song is mentioned in the post for 5 December 2021.
Around 1945, the Mohrbachers moved to Hazardville, near Enfield, Connecticut, where they remained. [10] She was representing the Y on colleges in 1949, when she was a member of the national music committee. [11] In 1950, she put on a program for the Y in Hartford where she sang and played accordion. [12] The following year the soprano gave a concert in Thompsonville, a village near Enfield. [13]
Her first known contact with CRS came after 1954, when she set down an Indonesian song she heard at the Y’s summer school. Rohrbough’s wife, born Katharine Ferris, translated it and he copyrighted it in 1956. [14]
After that she disappears from public view. She died in 1977. [15]
I could find nothing about Mary B. Wheeler. It is a common name. Posts about Zanzig are listed in the index to the right.
Availability
Songbook: “Kum Ba Yah.” 7 in Sing Along, edited by Mary Wheeler, Lura Mohrbacher, and Augustus D. Zanzig for the National Board of the YWCA in New York. Delaware, Ohio: Coop. Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1957.
End Notes
1. Sing Along. 61. Chansons is discussed in the posts for 27 November 2022 and 4 December 2022.
2. Sing Along, edited by Mary Wheeler for the National Board of the YWCA in New York. Delaware, Ohio: Coop. Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1965. Inside front cover.
3. Earlier YWCA songbooks are discussed in the posts for 5 December 2021, 13 March 2022, and 20 March 2022.
4. “Lura Mohrbacher.” Ancient Faces website.
5. Item. The Topeka Daily Capital, Topeka, Kansas, 8 April 1917. 3. Uploaded to the internet by fritzabq on 18 January 2015.
6. Item in “Among Ourselves.” The Santa Fe Magazine, 13:96:1921.
7. Item. The Marysville Advocate, Marysville, Kansas, 24 April 1924. 5. Uploaded to the internet by araywatson on 4 August 2020.
8. Ithaca Directory, 1942. Bellows Falls, Vermont: H. A. Manning Company, 1942. 237.
9. Marie Oliver. Let’s Have Music. 1945. 47. When I was copying pages from the book in the 1970s, I did not get the complete publication information, and it is not in WorldCat. Presumably it was issued by the YWCA’s Woman’s Press in New York City.
10. Lura Mohrbacher. “Three Stories about Music and People.” Music Journal 9(6):15:1 October 1951.
11. “Sara Swartz Heads Membership Week Committee for S. C. M.” The Etownian, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, 44(1):3:15 September 1947.
12. “About Town.” Manchester Evening Herald, Manchester, Connecticut, 13 September 1950. 14.
13. “Plan Concert.” The Thompsonville Press, Enfield, Connecticut, 72(27):5:4 October 1951.
14. “Sarimandé.” 39 in Sing Along.
15. Obituary for Lura Mohrbacher. Manchester Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Connecticut, 10 June 1977.
16. The one group who used evangelistic songs was Pioneer Girls. As mentioned in the post for 4 December 2022, their songbook, Pioneer Girls Sing, contained no spirituals. It had more hymns than many CRS songsters along with the words to a Fanny Crosby song. “Good-bye, Our God Is Watching O’er You” was composed by Wendell P. Loveless. He lived in Wheaton, Illinois, and had a radio program on the Moody Bible Institute’s station in Chicago. [17]
17. “Wendell P. Loveless.” Hope Publishing company website.
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