Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative had been publishing specialized songbooks since the 1940s that were put together by others. Olcutt Sanders’ collection of Spanish-language songs [1] and Flora McDowell’s anthology from eastern Tennessee [2] have been mentioned in previous posts.
He also had been collecting games from international students since that period. [3] At some point, probably after tape recorders became affordable and reliable, Rohrbough began requesting songs. By the 1950s, he was well aware of the associated ethical issues. In 1959, he said he paid Van Richards “for the transcriptions and recordings of twenty songs.” [4]
Rohrbough’s initial impulse, when he was given money to create a series of small songsters for publicity, was to collect some familiar songs. The first was the Song Sampler that included “Kum Ba Yah.” [5] After that, he began organizing his released around themes or nations. In 1958, he was advertising Hungarian Songs, Songs of Asia, and Songs of Japan. He even claimed he had accompanying tape recordings that teachers would rent. [6]
CRS brought the three streams together in 1958 when it produced an African Song Sampler. This may have been the idea of the editor, Walter Anderson. It was double the size of a regular booklet, with a piece of original art on the cover.
The ambitions of the collection were trimmed by the realities of CRS’s resources. Most of the ones from southern Africa came from whites who had spent time there. [8] Anderson also included some songs from published collections. [9]
The best, according to a critic writing for the journal of the African Music Society, were the “rather epigrammic West African ones.” [10] At least some of these were collected by Bliss Wiant [11] at the Student Volunteer Movement convention discussed in the post for 31 July 2022. [12] These probably were the songs from Kenya and Ghana. [13]
Then, there were the five songs from Richards. Four were dance songs, with the drum part notated for three. [14] The other was “Come by Here.” Although it is presented as if it were sung in Liberia, I suspect this particular variant was produced when Richards was asked if he knew the song. He obviously did, and obliged his patron. However, I suspect he had learned it in Columbus where he was a student at Ohio State University.
His version had two of the verses known by Thora Dudley in Alabama in 1956. [15] The melody was in 4/4 which accommodated the pronoun “somebody.” The opening was a 1-1-3-5 adaptation of the CRS tune, rather than the 1-1-1-5-5-5 then in tradition in the South. [16]
While it is possible a Columbus version was the one Kathryn Thompson Good heard at a Buckeye Recreation Workshop in 1954, it is as likely the CRS version was in circulation in the university town. It did show people were repeating “kumbaya”—or “come by here” in this case—after every verse, rather than treating the text as a four-verse song.
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Credits
As sung in Liberia. Sung by R. Van Richards.
Songbook inside front cover, © 1958, Lynn Rohrbough, Delaware, Ohio, U.S.A. All rights reserved.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no notes
Verses: come by here, dying, needs you, praying
Pronoun: somebody
Term for Deity: Lord
Basic Form: verse-chorus
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-1-3-5-5
Time Signature: 2/4
Tempo: allegretto
Key Signature: two sharps
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one note to one syllable
Ending: none
Notes on Audience
The critic for the African Music Society complained that the songster was “obviously intended for people brought up in a Western musical tradition, many of the songs have been ‘adapted’ both in the rhythm, and, I suspect in the melodies also.” [17]
That was the nature of Rohrbough’s business. He needed to find materials people would sing. To this end, Anderson held an evening workshop at Antioch in which “75 students from Africa, Europe, and America” gathered. [18] They may have had a draft of the songbook, and their responses may have helped define the final edit. [19]
Max Exner used one song, “Johnny’s My Boy,” in his collection for Iowa 4-H groups. [20] It may only have been “of town origin” and “just the kind of songs sung by most educated Africans who visit the United States.” [21] However, this song is representative of the period when Africans were beginning to publicly criticize colonialism. The key lines are “I sent him to school, to learn how to spell John Bull.” [22]
Notes on Performance
Anderson’s booklet usually had one song on a page, with drawings filling the extra spaces.
Rohrbough reissued the collection in his usual format as African Songs. The map was moved from the back to the center, and was redone in 1961. It has 32, rather than 36 pages. He omitted Anderson’s introduction and Richards’ drawing. “Tina Singu,” mentioned in the post for 4 December 2022, was moved to a more prominent position opposite the index. [23]
Notes on Performers
The coast of Liberia was settled by freed American slaves sent by the American Colonization Society. Its efforts began in 1820. [24] The Kentucky chapter purchased land upriver from Monrovia in 1846 for what became Clay-Ashland. [25]
Ranclieff Vanjah Richards’ first known ancestor was a slave in Rockbridge County in Virginia’s Shenandoah valley. In 1849 and 1850, Othello Richards, bought freedom for himself, his wife, her child, and four others. [26] They settled in Clay-Ashland in 1850. Othello had more children in Liberia where he became a Methodist preacher. [27]
At some time, members of the family became Baptists. By 1882, Carl Burrowes said Methodists and Baptists were about equal in their numbers of members. [28] In 1887, Baptists established a boarding school, Ricks Institute, with money from a Clay-Ashland settler. [29]
Richards grew up in Clay-Ashland, and came to the United States in 1957 to attend Ohio State. He left there for the Chicago Art Institute. [30] CRS used one of his drawings, shown above, to introduce the section of songs from Liberia.
In 1978, Richards was back in this country for the African-American Fulbright Exchange program. He then was the most important sculptor in Liberia and chairman of the Department of Arts and Crafts at the University of Liberia. In a visit to the Ormand Beach Elementary School in Florida, he carved a mask and told the children that, in Liberia,
“death is a cause for celebration because the people believe a person’s troubles are over when he dies.”
He remembered watching “hundreds of people dancing at a traditional” funeral. When he asked where the body lay. He recalls his shock and surprise when told the body was sitting in a chair right next to him, observing the festivities. [31]
The power of the Americo-Liberian elite, of which Richards was a member, was challenged in 1980 when Samuel Doe overthrew the president, and established a military government. He was a member of the Krahn. [32]
Vanjah’s brother, Walter Dossen Richards, was a vocal critic of Doe. The Baptist preacher fled to Ghana in 1990, just before a death squad came looking for him in Clay-Ashland. They killed Vanjah instead. [33] He was buried in white satin. [34]
Availability
Songbook: R. Van Richards. “Come By Here.” 32 in African Song Sampler, edited by Walter F. Anderson. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1958.
Graphics
Cover: Thango. Abstract Fantasy. Thango was with the Poto Poto Group in Brazzaville; copy provided by African Music Society, Roodepoort, Transvaal, Union of South Africa.
Sketch: R. Van Richards. African Song Sampler. 19.
End Notes
1. The Sanders songbook is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
2. Flora McDowell’s songbook is discussed in the post for 12 December 2021.
3. Larry Nial Holcomb. A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service. PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 206.
4. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Shawnee Press, 16 February 1959. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene of World Around Songs.
5. Song Sampler, number 1, is discussed in the posts for 31 July 2022 and 7 August 2022.
6. African Song Sampler. 1.
7. Anderson discussed in the posts for 5 February 2023 and 4 June 2023.
8. At least two songs were contributed by C. Newton Beal, Director of Public School Music in Lancaster, Ohio. At least one came from John R. Lepke and his wife. They had spent “five years with the Zulus.” [35] The collection also reprinted “Tina Singu” from Chansons de Notre Chalet. [36]
9. “Crested Crane.” African Song Sampler. 27. From U. S. Committee for UNICEF. Hi Neighbor. New York: Hastings House, 1958, volume 1. Contributed by Akiki from Tora; attributed to Lutora Language, Western Uganda.
“Around the Cliff.” African Song Sampler. 31. From H. C. N. Williams and J. N. Maselwa. African Folk Songs. Keiskammahoek, South Africa: Saint Matthew’s College, 1947, book 1.
Described as a Xhosa Folk Song.
10. A. T. N. T. Review of African Song Sampler. African Music 2(1):86:1958. The society provided the cover art.
11. Wiant is discussed in the post for 2 October 2022.
12. Emanuel Fashade. “O Go!” 26 in African Song Sampler.
13. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Shawnee Press, 4 June 1959. “we have copies of tapes of the singing;and the Africans were from Kenya,Ghana.” Uncorrected carbon copy. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene of World Around Songs.
14. “Nana Kru.” African Song Sampler. 20. Identified as from the Kou Tribe.
“Take Time in Life.” African Song Sampler. 21.
“I Goin’ Chop Crab.” African Song Sampler. 22.
The quadrille without drums is “Kokoleolo.” African Song Sampler. 33.
15. Dudley is discussed in the post for 23 October 2022.
16. The 1-5 melody is discussed in the post for 1 September 2022.
17. A. T. N. T.
18. African Song Sampler. 34.
19. Starting in the 1940s, Rohrbough passed out “broadleaf song sheets” at his square dances “so that the Rohrboughs could test the group response to each new acquisition.” [37]
20. Exner’s collection is discussed in the post for 18 December 2022.
21. A. T. N. T.
22. E. Areequaye Hyde, Accra, Ghana. “Johnny’s My Boy.” African Song Sampler. 13.
23. African Songs. Copyrighted 1958, Lynn Rohrbough, Delaware, Ohio. No current publication information provided, beyond the 1961 map.
24. Ayodeji Olukoju. Culture and Customs of Liberia. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2006. xv.
25. “Clay-Ashland.” Wikipedia website.
26. “Rockbridge County (Va.) Free Negro and Slave Records, 1836-1864.” The Library of Virginia website.
27. Laura Bixby. An Outline History of the Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Syracuse, New York: 1876. 42-43.
“Liberia Annual Conference.” The African Repository and Colonial Journal 50:240:August 1874.
28. Carl Patrick Burrowes. Power and Press Freedom in Liberia, 1830-1970. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2004. 77.
29. Jeff Brumley. “A Passion to Serve Liberian Baptists.” Baptist News, 4 December 2013.
30. Donna Blanton. “Liberian Entrances Kids With Tales Of Homeland.” Daytona Beach Morning Journal, Daytona Beach, Florida, 8 June 1978.
31. Blanton.
32. “Samuel Doe.” Wikipedia website.
33. Howard Witt. “Descendants Of American Slaves Are Among Liberian Casualties.” Chicago Tribune, 12 June 1990.
34. Terence Samuel. “U.S. Urged To Help End Liberian War.” The Philadelphia Inquirer website, 3 September 1990.
35. Biographical information on Beal and the Lepkes from African Song Sampler. 34.
36. Chansons is discussed in the posts for 27 November 2022 and 4 December 2022. The African Song Sampler has another song, “Ingonyama,” from the same source that is not included in Chansons.
37. Mary Tolbert. Interview by Larry Nial Holcomb, 4 March 1972. Cited by Holcomb. 92.
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