Tony Saletan - Kumbaya

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Tony Saletan introduced “Kumbaya” to the nascent folk revival movement in the spring of 1957 when he sang it at the Swarthmore College Folk Festival. [1]

As mentioned in the post for 11 August 2019, the movement had begun to emerge in the 1930s and become more recognizable with benefit concerts in 1940 for refugees from the Spanish Civil War and drought in Oklahoma that brought together artists like Burl Ives, Josh White, and Woody Guthrie.

Anthony David Saletan was born to Russian immigrants in New York City in 1931. [2]  He grew up surrounded by the kind of people who contributed to those causes. [3]  Barbara Witemeyer remembers her father was friends with Saletan’s dad and that “as children we would go into New York City to have our teeth cared for.  Lenonard Bernstein (‘Lenny’) was a good friend as he also went to Dr. Saletan who often charged his artist patients very little for his work.  Lenny taught David’s son Tony to play jazz on the piano; and we three girls, a few years younger than Tony, always made him play for us.” [4]

Saletan was a freshman at Harvard in 1950 when the recording of  “Goodnight Irene” by the Weavers [5] became the most popular song in the country. [6]  By his junior year, he was the music director for Dunster House and arranging music for the dormitory. [7]  His senior yearbooks listed his interests as: “Vocal, Jazz, Classical” and “Folk Dancing.” [8]

The summer he graduated, 1953, Saletan worked as a counselor at Buck’s Rock Work Camp outside New Milford, Connecticut. [9]  It had been founded in 1942 by Ernst and Ilse Bulova, who had been trained by Maria Montresori in London.  After they arrived in this country, Bulova worked at the Walden School in New York [10] where both Tony and his sister became students. [11]

The next summer Saletan worked at the Shaker Village Work Camp, [12] where Margot Mayo was responsible for folk music. [13]  This may have fit his interests better than Buck’s Rock since she was a founding member of the American Square Dance Group, and taught in New York City. [14]

During this period, Harvey Matusow denounced Peter Seeger as a communist, and the Weavers lost their recording contract in 1953.  The group stopped touring in the spring, [15] and Seeger began performing in New England summer camps.  It’s not known when he first appeared at Buck’s Rock, [16] but he definitely appeared at Shaker Village when Saletan was there. [17]

Seeger became a role model for many aspiring folk singers, especially after he refused to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955.  Apart from politics, he pioneered supporting a professional career by performing for children. [18]

Saletan began working on a Masters in Education from Harvard after he graduated. [19]  In 1955, he appeared on a children’s show produced by the Tufts University Nursery Training School.  Come and See was the very first program broadcast by Boston’s public television station, WGBH. [20]  Saletan accompanied himself with a small guitar. [21]

From there, he became the music consultant for the Newton, Massachusetts, public schools. [22]  This was less a full-time job than it was an opportunity to perform in schools when invited.  For instance, he appeared for second graders in Plainville, Massachusetts, in 1958 [23]  Three years later he gave a concert in Newton. [24]

The programs and the television show not only gave him opportunities to perfect his performing techniques, but probably brought him into contact with Augustus D. Zanzig.  Zanzig retired from the Brookline, Massachusetts, schools in 1956, and began working for Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative Recreation Service. [25]  Saletan had to have learned “Kum Ba Yah” from him, either directly or through someone like Marion Roberts who was working with Zanzig in Boston on the songbook for the Girl Guides mentioned in the post for 27 November 2022.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: Tony Saletan
Instrumental Accompaniment: he probably used a guitar

Notes on Lyrics
I have no idea how Saletan sang “Kumbaya”; he may have added his own verses or instrumental flourishes.

This surmise is based on the changes he made to “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.”  In the winter before he worked at Shaker Village, he was looking through folksong collections in the Harvard library and found Slave Songs of the United States. [26]  Number 31 is the version of “Michael” collected by Charles Pickard Ware from boatmen working in the Port Royal Islands near Beaufort, South Carolina. [27]

Saletan recalls: “I judged that the tune was very singable, added some harmony (a guitar accompaniment) and thought the one-word chorus would be an easy hit with the teens (it was).  But a typical original verse consisted of one line repeated once, and I thought a rhyme would be more interesting to the teenagers at Shaker Village Work Camp, where I introduced it.  So I adapted traditional African-American couplets in place of the original verses.” [28]

The changes were slight.  “Michael” is one of the few songs in the original collection to have two part harmony on the second line.  The original had 16 verses.  Many dealt with dying in Biblical imagery which would not have interested adolescents.  Verses 10 through 12 became popular: “Brudder, lend a helpin’ hand,” “Sister, help to trim dat boat,” and “Jordan stream is wide and deep.”

Notes on Performance
Occasion: Swarthmore Folk Festival, Sunday, 14 April 1957

Location: Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles from Philadelphia and reachable by rail

The Swarthmore Folk Festival began in 1945 with a strong emphasis on folk ballads of Appalachia.  Richard Dyer-Bennett was the first guest artist.  Pete Seeger appeared in 1953.  The festival became so popular by 1955, that the administration cancelled the festival because it attracted too many outsiders.  Students claimed the president was offended by the fact many wore jeans. [29]

The administration allowed the festival to resume in 1957 on two conditions: fewer artists and no outside visitors. [30]  John Jacob Niles [31] appeared all three days, with Mike and Peggy Seeger joining him on Saturday and Sunday. [32]  The Sunday concert added Tom Paley [33] and Saletan. [34]

Notes on Performers
In 1958, Saletan worked on a record of Japanese folk songs for Rohrbough. [35]  It supported a collection by Albert Ichiro Suzuki that was edited by Zanzig. [36]  Suzuki earned a masters from Boston University in 1952, [37] and the other singers were BU students. [38]  Zanzig played piano.  Saletan spent the next year on an Asian tour sponsored by the International Recreation Association, and later worked on other CRS records. [39]

Throughout the florescence of the commercial folk-music revival, Saletan remained an active performer.  He also continued to work on projects for second graders.  At the time, the performances were probably the most satisfying.  In retrospect, his work with elementary school music had the more lasting impact.  Kathryn Bornhauser recalled:

“You taught me that I can make up new verses and new songs myself, and that my made-up songs count as REAL songs, too!  I passed that awareness on to my children.  We loved our time with you.  One son took up guitar and still plays for personal enjoyment.  You, your voice and your songs are still in our hearts and on our lips.  Thank you, for your gift to the world.  You did and are making a huge difference.” [40]

Saletan now lives in University Place, Washington, and still performs.

End Notes
1.  Joseph C. Hickerson.  Letter, 8 November 1977.

2.  “Rose Saletan in the 1940 Census.”  Ancestry website; his mother.

“David Saletan.”  Geni website; last updated 2 November 2014.  His father.

“Saul Saletan.”  Geni website; last updated 2 November 2014.  His grandfather, who was born in what is now Latvia.

3.  In 2004, Saletan provided the music for George and Ruth, a play about the Spanish Civil War based on letters written by the parents of one of the authors, Dan Lynn Watt. [41]  A blurb for the book version began: “Recently, Tony Saletan learned that his father, David Saletan, who had a dental practice in New York, provided pro bono dental work for ...” [42]

4.  Barbara Witemeyer.  “Dentist to the Stars.”  Leonard Bernstein website, page 5 of “Memories.

5.  Gordon Jenkins And His Orchestra And The Weavers.  “Goodnight Irene.”  Decca 27077.  Released 1950.  [Discogs entry.]

6.  “Goodnight, Irene.”  Wikipedia website; accessed 19 March 2023.

7.  Milton S. Gwirtzman.  “Dunster Dunces---Charms to Soothe the Savage.”  The Crimson, Harvard University, 9 May 1952.

8.  Red Book, Harvard University yearbook, 1953.  79.
9.  “Tony Saletan.”  Wikipedia website; accessed 17 March 2023.

10.  Douglas Martin.  “Ernst Bulova, 98, Founder Of Camp With a Free Spirit.”  The New York Times, 28 January 2001.

11.  Wikipedia, Saletan.

“Rhoda (Saletan) Goldberger.”  2022 obituary on North Jersey website.

12.  Wikipedia, Saletan.

13.  “Shaker Village Work Camp Is Novel Camping Experience.”  The Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 13 August 1947.

14.  “Margot Mayo.”  Wikipedia website; accessed 19 March 2023.
15.  Pete Seeger and The Weavers are discussed in the post for 6 October 2019.

16.  In 1957, campers attended a Weaver’s concert at the Berkshire Music Barn. [43]

17.  Saletan recalled he taught “Michael Row the Boat Shore” to Pete Seeger during the summer of 1954. [44]

18.  The influence of Ruth Crawford Seeger’s American Folk Songs for Children is discussed in the post for 18 August 2019.  She was Pete’s stepmother.  The book was published in 1948 by Doubleday.

19.  “Dirty Old Boston.”  Facebook website, 2 May 2021.
20.  “WGBH-TV.”  Wikipedia website; accessed 18 March 2023.

21.  The photograph for the “Dirty Old Boston” entry shows Saletan and his co-host, Mary Lou Adams.  He is sitting behind her with his guitar.  Later photographs show him with a banjo.

22.  Telecourse Catalog 1967.  Bloomington, Indiana: National Center for School and College Television, 1967.

23.  Harriet F. Washburn.  “Music.”  Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Town Officers of Plainville, Mass Year Ending 31 Dec 1958.  131.

24.  Item.  The Newton Graphic, Newton, Massachusetts, 9 November 1961.

25.  L. R.  “Dedication.”  65 Friendly Songs.  Delaware, Ohio: CRS, Inc, 1963.  Edition for Ohio Music Education Convention, 12 January 1963.  L. R. is Lynn Rohrbough.  For more on Zanzig, see the column at the right of the screen.

26.  Wikipedia, Saletan.

27.  “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.”  31 in The Slave Songs of the United States.  Edited by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison.  New York: A. Simpson and Company, 1867.

28.  Wikipedia, Saletan.  It gives no source; by now Saletan probably has told the story so often he has an internal script he uses.

29.  Will Treece.  “The Swarthmore Folk Festival.”  The Phoenix, Swarthmore College, 31 March 2011.

30.  Treece.
31.  Niles is mentioned in note 24 of the post for 28 April 2019.
32.  Mike and Peggy are children of Pete’s father by his second wife, Ruth Crawford.

33.  Paley was interested in the string-band music recorded in the 1920s and 1930s by Southern white artists.  He, Mike Seeger, and John Cohen formed the New Lost City Ramblers in 1958 to perform that music. [45]

34.  “Swarthmore College Folk Festival 1957 Setlists.”  Setlist website.

35.  A Sampler of Japanese Folk Songs.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1959.  10" LP.

36.  Albert Ichiro Suzuki.  A Sampler of Japanese Songs for Group Singing, edited by Augustus D. Zanzig.  Delaware, Ohio: Informal Music Service, 1958.

37.  Boston University website.

38.  Taeko and Masako Fijii were Fulbright Scholars at BU;  San'ichi Kesen was a graduate student in psychology. [46]

39.  Larry Nial Holcomb.  A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.  PhD dissertation.  University of Michigan, 1972.  145-146.

40.  Kathryn Bornhauser.  “38 thoughts on ‘Tony Saletan’.”  WGBH Alumni website.  Comment added 20 January 2019.

41.  Molly Lynn Watt and Dan Lynn Watt.  George and Ruth: Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: Educational Alternatives, 2004.  CD.

42.  “George & Ruth-Songs & Letters of the Spanish Civil.”  Deep Discount website, 27 April 2004.  The website no longer is available.

43.  Buck’s Rock Work Camp Yearbook.  New Milford, Connecticut: Buck’s Rock Work Camp, 1957.  44, 61, 65.

44.  Wikipedia, Saletan.
45.  “Tom Paley.”  Wikipedia website; accessed 20 March 2023.
46.  Holcomb.  145.

Gospel Rock - Kum-Ba-Yah (Come By Here)

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The boundary between secular and religious music always has been more important to vocal spokesmen for denominations than it has been to singers and their audiences.  Dick Weissman recalled it took only one minister in Boston to destroy The Journeymen’s recording of “Kumbaya” in 1963 with a campaign to stop radio stations from playing it because they used the phrase “Oh Lordy.” [1]

Music company executives knew well the power of boycotts and negative publicity when Decca Records executives in London agreed in 1968 to record a cantata [2] by an unknown composer that had been commissioned for a school recital [3] and published by the education arm of a major music publisher. [4]  It helped that The Sunday Times described it as “making a breakthrough for pop.” [5]  Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat [6] got some good reviews, but not many sales. [7]

Still it provided an entrée for Andrew Lloyd Webber to pitch his idea for a rock opera to Decca’s American counterpart, MCA. [8]  By then, Word Records was making money from folk musicals by Kurt Kaiser and Ralph Carmichael. [9]  However, before MCA invested in an album, it decided to test the market with a release of a single record in 1969. [10]  “Superstar” entered the Billboard popular music chart, dropped, entered, dropped, and finally reentered to rise to 14th place. [11]  That was enough to justify studio time for an album. [12]

The response to the album, and subsequent staging of Jesus Christ Superstar, [13] exposed the chasm that had been deepening in this country since German scholars began using linguistic tools in the late nineteenth century to understand the Bible.  Fundamentalism had emerged in the 1920s to deny the implications of that research.  It produced an alternative narrative that asserted the Bible was the literal truth received directly from God. [14]

John Johnson claimed Lloyd Webber and his lyricist, Tim Rice, “had grown up attending the Church of England, but neither accepted the truth of the Bible, so they adopted the perspective of Judas Iscariot as the narrator.  The musical basically served as a sort of nihilistic passion play, ending with Christ dead, not resurrected.” [15]

Financial men, who are hesitant to gamble on an unknown artist, are more willing to promote imitators after the unknown has succeeded.  Thus, Angela Lansbury’s brother found a student production at the Carnegie Mellon University to bring to a small New York theater in 1971. [16] Godspell [17] was criticized for committing the same heresy as Superstar by men from the evangelical Westmont College. [18]

“Godspell is not a Christian opera.  It may indeed be a sincere attempt at modern theater, but the absence of any understanding of the divinity of Christ precludes Godspell’s classification, as some have assumed, as the avant-garde of a new Christian consciousness in contemporary musical drama.” [19]

It was not a denomination or a religious publisher that issued an anthology containing four songs from Godspell under the title Gospel Rock in 1974.  They not only would not have been able to get their boards to accept religious songs that used popular music, but they lacked the financial resources to pay for publication rights.

Screen Gems, the publisher of Gospel Rock, was owned by Columbia Pictures, [20] who distributed the film version of Godspell in 1973. [21]  It and its rivals contacted composers of every song that entered a Billboard chart to get rights to publish sheet music and folios. [22]  With very few exceptions, [23] every song in Gospel Rock had reached the top fifty, and most had reached the top twenty-five weekly best sellers in their genres.

The collection included a wide range of styles.  Of course, it had some by country-music artists, but it lacked some of the more popular like Kris Kristofferson’s “Why Me?” [24]  While this particular song was represented by a rival publisher, [25] there also may have been an aesthetic decision to avoid lyrics saturated with the theology of abasement and atonement.  George Jones’ “I Wonder How John Felt” [26] was closer to the philosophy of Superstar and Godspell.

Gospel Rock did include some actual rock arrangements, including Three Dog Night’s “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog” [27] and the Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus Is Just Alright.” [28]

Contemporary African-American music was less represented.  The only Soul song was recorded in London by an Jamaican-born artist living in Germany. [29]  It may be that Barry Gordy [30] and other Black entrepreneurs were less willing to cede control of any of their material to outsiders, than were other copyright holders.

As compensation, Gospel Rock included some spirituals, but only those that had made the Billboard charts.  Jestor Hairson’s original arrangement for “Amen” [31] was used, as well as his “Elijah Rock” that was recorded by Mahalia Jackson. [32]  Hairston had sung in Hall Johnson’s chorus, and later worked with Dimitri Tiomkin in Hollywood. [33]

Many of the other African-American songs were arranged by Albert Gamse, discussed in the post for 12 January 2020.  These included “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” [34] Edwin Hawkin’s “Oh, Happy Day,” [35] and the Highwaymen’s “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.” [36]  The version of “Kum-Ba-Ya” [37] was the one that used the pseudonym Bernardo Gasso.

It is ironic that the men who wrote the original musical productions for conservative churches were left behind by Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell.  Carmichael wanted to do something after he saw rehearsals for Brigadoon [38] at the auditorium owned by the Baptist church which employed him in Los Angeles. [39]  John Peterson was thinking about composing a Christian musical when Singspiration asked him to do a cantata instead. [40]  By the time Lloyd Webber was able to realize their vision, the musical style again had moved beyond the limits accepted by their audiences.

Performers
Same as post for 26 April 2020.

Credits
Same as post for 26 April 2020.

Notes on Lyrics
Same as post for 26 April 2020.

Notes on Music
Same as post for 26 April 2020.

Notes on Performance
The songbook cover featured a drawing of the Godspell cast done in wood-block style by Judith Ann Benedict.

Notes on Performers
Charles Hansen Music, discussed in the post for 12 January 2020, was the most important sheet music publisher in 1970. [41]  Screen Gems was established in 1971 in Miami, Florida, where Hansen had its production operations. [42]  Columbia Pictures sold the company to EMI in 1976. [43]

Screen Gem’s head, Frank Hackinson, [44] was recruited from Hansen. [45]  He stayed with the company through several transfers of ownership, but left just before it was sold to Sony in 1989. [46]  He then founded the FJH Music Company, which specialized in music for public school music programs. [47]

The editor of Gospel Rock seems to have been one of the many nearly anonymous technicians needed by publishing companies.  Bill Radics was described as a “business and creative production manager.” [48]  When Screen Gems was sold, he and Richard Bradley formed their own company, RBR Communications, to issue piano and organ arrangements. [49]

Availability
Book: Bernardo Gasso.  “Kum-Ba-Yah (Come By Here).  Gospel Rock.  Edited by Bill Radics.  Miami, Florida: Screen Gems-Columbia Productions, 1974.  20–21.

End Notes
Billboard sales information is from Wikipedia articles on the songs, unless otherwise noted.

1.  For more details, see the post for 13 October 2019.

2.  Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Unmasked.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2018.  96.  Decca was a British company that had separated from the American company of the same name in 1937. [50]

3.  Lloyd Webber.  79–80.
4.  Lloyd Webber.  92.  The publisher was Novello.
5.  Lloyd Webber.  96.

6.  The Joseph Consortium.  Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  KSKC 4973.  1968. [Discogs entry]  This was not the version that opened in New York City at the Royale Theatre on 27 January 1982.

7.  Lloyd Webber.  104–105.
8.  Lloyd Webber.  113.
9.  For more information, see the post for 13 December 2020.
10.  Murray Head.  “Superstar.”  MCA MKS 5019.  1969.  [Discogs entry.]
11.  Wikipedia.  “Superstar (Jesus Christ Superstar Song).”

12.  Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.  Jesus Christ Superstar - A Rock Opera.  Decca DXSA 7206.  1970.  Recorded in London.  [Discogs entry.]

13.  Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.  Jesus Christ Superstar.  Mark Hellinger Theatre, New York City.  12 October 1971–30 June 1973. [51]

14. Wikipedia.  “Historical Criticism” and “Christian Fundamentalism.”

15. John J. Thompson.  Raised by Wolves: The Story of Christian Rock & Roll.  Toronto: ECW Press, 2000.  26.  Thompson’s mother “became a Christian at the end of the Jesus Movement in 1973.” [52]

16.  Wikipedia.  “Godspell.”  Edgar Lansbury was the producer.

17.  Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak.  Godspell.  Cherry Lane Theater, New York City.  17 May 1971. [53]

18.  Westmont College is mentioned briefly in the post for 27 November 2017.

19.  Ronald M. Enroth, Edward E. Ericson, Jr., and C. Breckinridge Peters.  The Jesus People.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eermans Publishing Company, 1972.  154.

20.  Wikipedia.  “Screen Gems.”

21.  Godspell.  Directed by David Greene.  Columbia Pictures.  21 March 1973. [54]

22.  Russell Sanjek.  American Popular Music and Its Business: From 1900 to 1984.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.  541.

23.  The major exception was four songs composed by Gershon Kinglsey.  He was best known at the time for his work with the Moog synthesizer, but he also wrote Jewish liturgical music. [55]  One song, “Shepherd Me, Lord,” [56] later became a favorite of Southern Baptist convention choirs. [57]  I could find no evidence any had been recorded at the time.

24.  Kris Kristofferson.  “Why Me.”  Monument ZS7 8571.  45 rpm.  February 1973.  [Discogs entry.]

25.  Kris Kristofferson.  “Why me?”  Nashville, Tennessee: Resaca Music Publishing Company, 1972; distributed by Big 3.  [WorldCat entry.]

26.  George Jones.  “I Wonder How John Felt (When He Baptized Jesus).”  In A Gospel Way.  Epic KE 32562.  1974.  [Discogs entry.]

27.  Three Dog Night.  “Joy To The World.”  ABC/Dunhill Records.  45-D-4272.  45 rpm.  1971.  It reached #1 on popular chart.

28.  The Doobie Brothers.  “Jesus Is Just Alright.”  Toulouse Street.  Warner Brothers.  BS 2634.  1972.  It reached #35 on popular chart.

29.  Family Child.  “He.”  Anthem AN-203.  45 rpm.  1973.  [Discogs website.]  The album listed Tony Gregory and Family Child. [58]  “He” was described as a “million seller single” for Gregory. [59]  The reason it wasn’t mentioned by Wikipedia was that website was only reporting on Billboard charts for the most popular genres.  International reports rarely were mentioned.

30.  Barry Gordy owned Motown Records.
31.  See the post for 12 July 2020 for details.

32.  Mahalia Jackson.  “Elijah Rock.”  Columbia 4-41322.  45 rpm.  1958.  [Discogs entry.]  Hairston said he learned the key phrase when he and Johnson were collecting songs together. [60]

33.  Wikipedia.  “Jester Hairston.”

34.  “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” entered the popular repertoire after it was published by Kenneth Morris in 1940. [61]

35.  The Edwin Hawkins Singers.  “Oh Happy Day.”  Pavilion Records PBS 20,001.  45 rpm.  1969.  [Discogs entry.]  It was a version of Edward F. Rimbault’s revision [62] of a hymn published in 1755 by Philip Doddridge. [63]  It reached #4 on the popular, #22 on Easy Listening chart, and #2 on the Rhythm and Blues chart.

36.  “Michael” is discussed in the post for 13 October 2019.  It reached #1 on the popular and Easy Listening charts.

37.  Tommy Leonetti’s version reached #54 on the popular chart and #4 on the Easy Listening chart.  The Sandpiper’s version reached #9 on the popular chart and #3 on the Easy Listening chart.

38.  Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.  Brigadoon.  Ziegfeld Theater, New York City.  13 March 1947–31 July 1948. [64]

39.  Ralph Carmichael.  He’s Everything to Me.  Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1986.  84.  Carmichael is discussed in the post for 15 December 2017.

40.  John W. Peterson.  The Miracle Goes On.  With Richard Engquist.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976.  170.  Peterson is discussed in the post for 2 August 2020.

41.  Sanjeck.  541.  “So dominant was Hansen’s market position that they once controlled the print rights for 99 of the 100 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles chart.” [65]

42.  Jim Melanson.  “Hansen, Screen Gems-Columbia Expand Their Publishing Influences.”  Billboard 86:F-6, F-12:23 March 1974.

43.  Herbert Koshetz.  “Columbia Pictures in Pact To Sell Music Unit to EMI.”  The New York Times.  24 June 1976.  45.

44.  Melanson.
45.  “Frank J. Hackinson.”  FJH Music Company website.
46.  Wikipedia, Screen Gems.
47.  FJH.
48.  “Bradley and Radics Bow New Print Co.”  Record World.  29 January 1977.  20.
49.  Item. [Decatur, Illinois] Herald and Review.  18 August 1984.  6.
50.  Wikipedia.  “Decca Records.”
51.  Wikipedia.  “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
52.  Thompson.  13.
53.  Wikipedia, Godspell.
54.  Wikipedia.  “Godspell (Film).”
55.  Wikipedia.  “Gershon Kingsley.”

56.  Samuel Rosenbaum and Gershon Kingsley.  “Shepherd Me, Lord.”  New York: Bourne Company, 1971.

57.  “Gershon Kingsley.”  Milken Archive of Jewish Music website.

58.  Tony Gregory and Family Child.  “He.”  One More Time.  Polydor 2396 104.  Recorded in London, 1973.  [Discogs entry.]

59.  Tony Gregory (Jamaica).  Ochos Rios Jazz Festival website.  2017.

60.  Notes for Rogue Community College, Grants Pass, Oregon, winter concert on 16 March 2014.

61.  Horace Clarence Boyer.  How Sweet the Sound.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. 75.  Morris is mentioned in the post for 14 February 2021.

62.  William McDonald.  Wesleyan Sacred Harp.  Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1854.  Cited by “[O happy day that fixed my choice] (Rimbault).”  Hymnary website.  Its source was William Jensen Reynolds.  Companion to Baptist Hymnal.  Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1976.

63.  John Julian.  “Doddridge, Philip.”  Dictionary of Hymnology.  Edited by Julian.  London: John Murray, 1907 edition. 305–306.

64.  “Brigadoon.”  Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) website.
65.  FJH

Dick Bolks - Kum Ba Yah

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.

The Re’Generation - Kum-by-ah

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The Church of the Nazarene was organized as a Pentecostal alternative to the Assembly of God that spoke in tongues.  It reaffirmed its anti-glossolalia position in 1976 after the Charismatic Movement began spreading. [1]

Many Assembly of God churches remained open to popular music.  In 1971, Ralph Carmichael, who was raised in the church, said “as a Christian composer, I feel I must write in whatever idiom will be most effective for Jesus’ sake.”  He added: “our message stands the same, but the vernacular and communication tools must change in order to stay relevant.” [2]

Benson Publishing had thrived on Nazarenes’ willingness to buy songbooks. [3]  Thus, when Capitol Records couldn’t sell its copies of Larry Norman’s first album, it leased its rights to Benson’s Impact Records, where it became an “instant hit.” [4]

Benson was aware that the audience for its records was composed of groups with different tastes.  Some considered Frank Sinatra too popular, some thought that of Elvis Presley, and some so deemed Bill Gaither’s Trio.  It had established the Impact label in 1968 for the more modern Southern Gospel groups that used electric instruments and arrangements influenced by Nashville musicians. [5]

Still, On This Rock was a bit more than Impact could digest.  Norman said he did a “special re-mix” that he hoped would “soften the cultural blow by lessening the distortion and percussion in favour of the lyrics and harmonies.” [6]  Later, he said “I’m rather happy that the album sounded so benign instead of embodying the ferocious rock statement I wanted to make” because it “traveled well.” [7]

Thurlow Spurr’s parents had been evangelists in Fulton County, New York, [8] where they used drums in their services in the late 1940s. [9]  He organized a choral group in 1963 that staged high-school assemblies on drivers’ education for Chrysler.  In the evenings, the Spurlows presented a different program, the Splendor of Sacred Sounds, in local churches. [10]

Larnelle Harris played drums for the group between 1969 and 1971.  He described its program as “creating smooth harmonies in the Fred Waring tradition and playing modern arrangements.”  In particular, he remembered the subterfuges they used to smuggle his drums into churches so they could present them as a fiat accompli. [11]

The Chrysler program ended in 1971, and Spurr used his experience organizing tours to foster other groups, including one directed by Derric Johnson. [12]  As mentioned in the post for 8 March 2020, Johnson had released records by Skyline Methodist Church through the Nazarene’s Lillenas Publishing Company in 1968 and 1970.  Re’Generation’s 1971 album-songbook package was sold by Lilleanas’ Tempo Records. [13]

Re’generation made its first record for Impact in 1972. [14]  The same year an agent for DisneyWorld heard the group and hired it to perform at the Magic Kingdom in 1973. [15]

Johnson was still producing song collections for youth groups in 1974 that were marketed with accompanying albums.  One contained a version of “Kum-by-yah.”  The words were slightly different than his 1970 version: in keeping with the emphasis on personal salvation that was derived from the Jesus Movement, he changed “come by here” to “come by me” in the refrain of the third verse.

The choral parts were more demanding.  Re’Generation would strike a chord on a syllable and then, as a group, change chords, sometimes several times.  “Lord” and “ah” in the last line went through four modifications.  The last syllable was held for more than two measures (9 beats).

The most striking innovation was in instrumentation.  The New Sounds used a banjo, which someone in the group played.  Re’Generation was an a capella group.  Bob MacKenzie [16] provided the musicians. [17]

Benson had moved beyond the stereophonic technology used by Hope.  The liner notes, indicated track recording sessions were scheduled in South Carolina, while overdub and remix sessions occurred in Indiana and Tennessee.  

The choral group probably recorded the written arrangements with a pianist and possibly a drummer.  MacKenzie, then, could add other instruments in the pauses between lines and verses.  He used a banjo on “Young Believers” and jazz instruments on “Greater Is He That Is in Me.”  For “Kumbaya,” Henry Slaughter [18] created the sound of a blues harmonica with a clavietta. [19]

Churches who wished to perform “Kum-ba-yah” had two choices.  Their pianists could play the arrangements provided in the songbook, which were chords no different than were heard with hymns.  If they wanted something livelier, they could purchase the “pre-recorded orchestral accompaniment tape.” [20]

Performers
Book
Vocal Soloist: soprano
Vocal Group: soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Album
Vocal Soloists: one woman, one man
Vocal Group: men and women
Vocal Director: Derric Johnson

Instrumental Accompaniment: piano; [21] clavietta played by Henry Slaughter; xylophone type instrument played by Farrell Morris

Rhythm Accompaniment: muted drums played by Buster Phillips

Credits
Book
Arranged by Derric Johnson
Arr. ©1974 by Dimension Music.

Album
Traditional
Arr. D. Johnson/Dimension SESAC

Notes on Lyrics
Both
Language: English
Pronunciation: not indicated
Verses: kumbaya, prayin’, singin’, happy

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

Book
Basic Form: verse-chorus
Ending: repeat refrains as a verse

Album
Basic Form: five-verse song
Ending: none

Both
Unique Features: refrain varies by verse: kum by ah, come by here, come by me

Notes on Music
Book
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: not specified
Key Signature: five flats; final chorus two sharps

Both
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Ending: hold final note
Harmonic Structure: parallel octaves

Singing Style: several notes to one syllable for last syllable of “kumbaya” and final “Lord”; change notes as group in harmony

Solo-Group Dynamics: group echoes text of soloist; the New Sounds had repeated “kumbaya” as an echo

Album
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: clavietta plays a counter melody; drums constant beat

Unique Features: use of clavietta

Notes on Performance
The cover for a 1971 Re’Generation songbook showed three young women with long, straight hair, and two older women with more formal hairstyles.  The hair of the five men was short; however, several had long forelocks like the Beatles.  The men were wearing colored, long-sleeve shirts with neckties, while the women were wearing brightly colored dresses or tops. [22]

Nine years later, at an appearance at Nashville’s Nazarene College, five man were wearing three piece suits and five women were in white pant suits.  The women’s hair was less formal, while the men’s was about the same, perhaps with shorter forelocks.  There were no signs of musical instruments on stage. [23]

Audience Perceptions
The Trevecca College yearbook described “their cherry smiles, stage personality, and smooth flowing music” as a “counter-statement” to the “the nightmares of the past.”  The group embodied “oneness in a strong heritage of faith and freedom, a musical unit that emphasizes positive attitudes and actions.” [24]

Notes on Performers
The style of Re’Generation became more middle-of-the-road, Easy Listening after Johnson became associated with Disney.  Its name was changed to Voices of Liberty when it began performing at Epcot Center in 1982. [25]

Johnson stayed with Disney as a consultant until he reached age 75 in 2005, [26] but had begun directing a choral group at the Quaker’s George Fox University [27] in 1994.  He taught there from 1996 [28] to 2005. [29]   He’s been a worship leader at Downtown Baptist Church in Orlando, Florida, since 2015. [30]

Alicia C. warned “this church isn’t for you if you like a praise group and a rock band.”  Instead, “this church is the way it used to be: good hymns sung by people who really care about each other.”  The congregation was described as older, with few members under age forty-five. [31]

Availability
Book: Derric Johnson.  “Kum-by-ah.” Fun ’n Easy, Volume 2.  Nashville: John T. Benson Company, 1974.  6–10.

Album: The Re’Generation.  “Kum-ba-yah.”  Fun ’n Easy, Volume 2.  Impact R3285 1974.  It also was available as a cassette (C9285) and an 8-track tape (T9285).

End Notes
1.  Charles L. Perabeau.  “The Church of the Nazarene in the U.S.: Race, Gender, and Class in the Struggle with Pentecostalism and Aspirations Toward Respectability, 1895-1985.”  PhD dissertation.  Drew University, May 2011.  45–63, especially 53.

2.  Ralph Carmichael.  Quoted by Mary Violet Burns.  “The New Sound.”  91–99 in Jesus People Come Alive.  Edited by Walker L. Knight.  Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1971.  97.

3.  The history of the Benson companies is sketched in the post for 19 July 2020.

4.  Gregory Alan Thornbury.  Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?  New York: Convergent Books, 2018.  57.  He noted that Benson did not pay the required royalties on sales.  Norman was introduced in the post for 4 October 2020.

5.  Ivan M. Tribe.  “Heart Warming Records.”  183 in Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music.  Edited by W. K. McNeil.  New York: Routledge, 2005.

6.  Larry Norman.  “The Growth Of The Christian Music Industry.”  Cross Rhythms website.  11 October 2006.   Page 3.

7.  Thornbury.  57.  He gave no source for the 2002 quotation.
8.  Item.  The [Troy, New York] Times Record.  18 May 1950.  4.

9.  “Past President of the Gospel Music Association and 8-year Board Member - History.”  Thurlow Spurr’s website.

10.  Herb Wood.  “Spurrlows Spur Safety with Musical Message.”  Billboard.  3 December 1966.  60–61.

11.  Larnelle Harris.  Shaped Notes.  With Christine Schaub.  Nashville, Tennessee: Morgan James Faith, 2018.  Chapter 3.

12. [Decatur, Illinois] Herald and Review.  24 November 1971.  3.  Posted by HeraldReview.  18 May 2018.  “The Re’Generation, presented by the Spurlows, will perform at 7 p.m. today at Peoples Church of God [. . .] along with their evening concerts, the group is active during the day in special presentations for high schools, colleges, and service organizations.”

13.  Songbook: Derric Johnson.  Re’Generation Songs.  Kansas City, Missouri: Lillenas, 1971.  [WorldCat Entry.]

Album: The Re’Generation.  Tempo/Impact.  [World Cat entry.]

Album: The Re’Generation II.  Tempo/Impact.  [WorldCat entry.]

14.  Re’Generation.  Believe.     Nashville, Tennessee: Impact Records, 1972.  [WorldCat entry.]

15.  Bill Iadonisi.  “Interview with Derric Johnson-Founder of ‘Voices of Liberty’.”  Disney by the Numbers website.  2018.

16.  MacKenzie was profiled in the post for 26 July 2020.

17.  Johnson was not a trained musician.  As mentioned in the post for 8 March 2020, he learned by doing from Orval Butcher.  Otis Skilling did the orchestrations for the 1971 albums. [32]  He was probably the link between Spurr and Johnson.  He had worked as an arranger for the Spurlows, [33] at the same time he had a vocal group performing in San Bernadino [34] and Costa Mesa, California. [35]  He later worked on the music staff at Skyline. [36]

18.  Henry Slaughter was music director at Rex Humbard’s Cathedral of Tomorrow.  He later played piano for the Southern Gospel quartet, The Imperials, and then worked for Bill Gaither. [37]

19.  Claviettas were André Borel’s version of Hohner’s melodica.  It was a reed instrument with a 34-note keyboard that was played by blowing into it. [38]

20.  Item Y1029.
21.  The liner notes listed two pianists: Otis Forrest and Bill Purcell.

22.  Derric Johnson.  Re’Generation Songs, Book Two.  Kansas City, Missouri: Lillenas Publishing Company, 1971.  It was subtitled “as sung by The Spurrlows and Re’Generation.”

23.  “Nashville Based Re’Generation Performs in Gym.”  The Darda.  Trevecca Nazarene College yearbook, 1979 edition.  48.

24.  Darda.  48.
25.  Iadonisi.
26.  “Derric Johnson.”  LinkedIn website.

27.  The Portland, Oregon, school is affiliated with the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends. [39]  It wasn’t clear if Johnson commuted from Orlando, Florida, or lived there.  His wife was raised in Portland. [40]

28.  Kari Godel.  “George Fox To Host Music Workshop Friday Evening.”  The [George Fox University] Crescent.  20 September 1996.  1.

29.  “Derric Johnson.”  His website.

30.  Carolyn Nichols.  “Jim Henry Breathes Life into Downtown Baptist.”  Baptist Press website.
16 February 2015.

31.  Alicia C.  “Downtown Baptist Church.”  Yelp website.  3 January 2016.
32.  World Cat entries cited in note 13 above.
33.  Harris.
34.  Item.  San Bernardino [California] Sun. 10 May 1969.  A9.

35.  “Pickens, DeRose Announce Entertainment for Banquet.” [Vanguard University] Clarion.  4 December 1969.  3.

36.  Item. The Pasadena [California] Star-News.  27 October 1973.  4.
37.  David Bruce Allen.  “Henry Slaughter.”  Southern Gospel History website.

38.  Wikipedia.  “Melodica.”

“Borel Clavietta.”  Melodica World website.

39.  Wikipedia.  “George Fox University.”
40.  “Debbie Johnson.”  Downtown Baptist Church, Orlando, Florida, website.

agápe - Kum Ba Yah~

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The Methodist Church South sired Pentecostal denominations when it renounced the Holiness movement in 1894. [1]  The United Methodist Church was more circumspect with the Charismatic Movement, if for no other reason than its membership had begun to drop in 1964. [2]  Of those who remained, 18% “identified” with the movement in 1972. [3]

That year, 1972, the General Conference appointed a commission to investigate speaking in tongues.  Its 1976 report distinguished between Methodist and Pentecostal theology, and said charismatic manifestations were acceptable, so long as they fell within the Wesleyan framework.  Specifically, the authors condemned substituting “experience for doctrine.” [4]

The commission noted that at the time Pentecostalism arose in the Azusa Street revival, some northern Methodist churches were promoting the Social Gospel. [5]  The erosion of membership in the 1960s coincided with the Civil Rights movement and the withdrawal of people into churches that operated segregated, private, Christian schools.

The two impulses, the one toward social activism and the other toward a religion of personal experience, led to two different responses by the Methodist-Presbyterian Hope Publishing company [6] in 1973.

Carlton Young’s Genesis Songbook contained a number of secular songs suitable for youth meetings and coffeehouses, while John Wilson only used songs with religious themes. [7]  Wilson’s Folk Encounter was subtitled “the Now hymnal,” while Young described his as “songs for getting it all together.” [8]

Both used material from Presbyterian and Roman Catholic liturgical reform composers like Richard Avery, David Marsh, [9] and Ray Repp, [10] and both reprinted the versions of “Kum Ba Yah” they had used in earlier publications. [11]

The counterculture that appeared in San Francisco in 1967 was not interested in Civil Rights or the war in Vietnam.  Individuals were protesting the emptiness of middle-class expectations for good grades and good jobs that demanded delayed gratification.  The Now Generation got its name from wanting some pleasures immediately.

The Genesis Songbook included Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes” [12] and six songs recorded by Simon and Garfunkle. [13]  In addition, Young included two songs by Bob Dylan, [14] two by the Beatles, [15] and two religious songs popularized by commercial folk-music revival singers: Judy Collins’ “Amazing Grace” [16] and Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken.” [17]

Wilson used two songs from the Jesus Movement, Larry Norman’s “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” [18] and Marsha Stevens’ “For Those Tears I Died. [19]   He used nine songs from Word composers Ralph Carmichael, Kurt Kaiser, and Sonny Salsbury, mentioned in the post for 13 December 2020.  In addition he published “Put Your Hand in the Hand” [20] and “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” [21]

This was as far as Hope would go. [22]  Genesis was the last songbook Young published for youth under the agápe imprint he had established to reach that group. [23]  His Exodus Songbook of 1976 was for adults with easy listening tastes. [24]

When Jesus music began using electric instruments and techniques borrowed from acid rock, agápe turned to the British hymnody revival that began in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1962.  It was a reaction against contemporary hymns that used tunes influenced by popular music, but with texts and imagery that did not reflect changes introduced by Dunblane’s 1961 translation of the New Testament. [25]

The group’s secretary had served as a “minister of Congregational and reformed churches in England and Scotland.” [26]  Erik Routley believed songs should advance theological goals.  He criticized Charles Wesley for focusing “hymn writing too narrowly on the ‘evangelical’ themes of personal salvation.” [27]

The emphasis on theology over experience anticipated UMC’s pronouncements on speaking in tongues.  In 1974, agápe published a work by Routley [28] and a setting of two Charles Wesley communion anthems by Young. [29]

Routley moved to Princeton, New Jersey in 1975. [30]  Two years later agápe introduced many of the British songs to the United States in the Ecumenical Songbook. [31]  Fourteen hymns used the word “Christ” in their titles, but only two used “Jesus.”  Another three used “Jesus Christ.”

Young became less active with agápe.  Two of his last releases were choir songs accompanied by handbells. [32]  Eventually, the label only published handbell arrangements [33] like the version of “Kumbaya” by Wilson that is discussed in the post for 16 December 2018.

Young’s next project was editing the next release of the Methodist hymnal.  As mentioned in the post for 14 February 2019, it included “Kumbaya.”  He also included five works by Routley and one by Sydney Carter, who influenced the Dunblane group. [34]

The hymnal included Collins’ “Amazing Grace,” but “Simple Gifts” appeared as the tune for Carter’s “Lord of the Dance.” [35]  Young only included one song by Avery and Marsh, “We Are the Church,” [36] and one song from the religious repertoire that immediately preceded Jesus music, Kurt Kaiser’s “Pass It On.” [27]

Presbyterians retreated from the worship innovations of Avery and March.  The 1990 hymnal, which included “Kum ba Yah,” used their “Gloria Patria” and rhythmic “Doxology,” but did not list them in its index of composers.  The collection also used “Amazing Grace,” “Morning Has Broken,” and two works with Routley’s name. [38]

The 2012 revision replaced both their works with others, and added five more songs composed, arranged, or translated by Routley.  It retained “Kum ba Yah,” “Amazing Grace,” and “Morning Has Broken.”

Performers
Same as post for 9 August 2020

Credits
Same as post for 9 August 2020

Notes on Lyrics
Same as post for 9 August 2020

Notes on Music
Same as post for 9 August 2020

Notes on Performance
Hope produced albums to accompany the songbooks that exploited stereophonic technology: one track contained the vocal part, the other the instrumental.  The liner notes gave instructions on manipulating phonographs to hear just one track.  It also indicated the length of the instrumental introductions and the verses recorded. [39]

Neither included “Kumbaya,” but the instrumental styles for other songs suggest the aesthetics of the collections.  Genesis [40] used simple unison vocal arrangements, while Encounter [41] illustrated settings suitable for young choirs.  They included male and female parts, variations in dynamics, and changes in key.

Both albums relied primarily on piano accompaniments, supplemented with guitars, drums, and electric guitars and bases.  Wilson’s arrangements on Encounter were more influenced by Easy Listening music than either the commercial folk-music revival or Jesus music.  Wilson’s concern was with the reactions of adults in an audience.

Young hired Fred Bock to produce the Genesis record.  He was then on the music staff at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, [42] where the pastor had been one of the first to allow charismatic manifestations among his congregation. [43]  Many of the piano accompaniments used techniques borrowed from Southern Gospel music. [44]  Both the vocal and instrumental parts were syncopated, while only Wilson’s accompaniments were rhythmic.  Bock wished to engage the interests of participants.

Notes on Performers
Wilson was featured in the posts for 16 December 2018 and 19 December 2018.  Young is mentioned in the post for 14 February 2019.

Bock’s early career with Word Records is mentioned in the post for 12 July 2020.  He left Word in 1971 to work as a freelance arranger and editor.  In 1973, he had works published by the Nazarenes, Baptists, and Singspiration. [45]  He also was working closely with Benson Publishing and Bill Gaither, who is discussed in the post for 17 December 2017.

He later moved to Hollywood Presbyterian, under the pastor who replaced the one who supported the coffee houses. [46]  Lloyd Ogilvie was more restrained about speaking in tongues.  Bock died in 1993.  His widow established a music institute in his name at Fuller Seminary. [47]

Availability
Book: “Kum Ba Yah.”  The Genesis Songbook.  Edited by Carlton R. Young.  Carol Stream, Illinois: agápe, 1973.  46.

Book: “Kum Ba Yah.”  Folk Encounter.  Carol Stream, Illinois: Hope Publishing Company, 1973.  34.

End Notes
1.  For more on the reaction of Methodist hierarchies to Phoebe Palmer’s theory of Holiness, see the post for 9 February 2020.

 2.  “The Methodist Church: Recent Membership Trends.”  True Discipleship website.  It absorbed the Evangelical Brethren Church in 1968, which broadened its theological heritage.  The church also may have realized that, because of all those missionary drives, the church had members in Africa and the Philippines who had very different interpretations of the Holy Spirit.

3.  Gallop poll cited by Charles Yrigoyen, Jr.  T & T Clark Companion to Methodism.  London: T and T Clark, 2010.  286.

4.  “The Charismatic Movement: Its Historical Base and Wesleyan Framework.”  The UMC revised its guidelines in 2004.  Seeking 4 Truth website claimed it was posting the 1976 version in its post “Guidelines: The United Methodist Church and the Charismatic Movement.”

5.  Seeking 4 Truth.
6.  Hope Publishing is discussed in the post for 9 August 2020.

7.  Wilson didn’t mention the Jesus movement.  On the inside front cover, he wrote “The emergence of a new song, as well as an increase appreciation of our musical heritage, has resulted in ‘New Music’ for Christians.”

8.  The National Conference of Christians and Jews had used the Youngbloods’ version of “Get Together” [48] in 1969 “in a radio public service announcement as a call for brotherhood.” [49]

9.  Avery and March are discussed in the post for 9 August 2020.
10.  Repp is discussed in the post for 16 August 2020.
11.  See the post for 9 August 2020.

12.  Malvina Reynolds.  “Little Boxes.”  Copyrighted by Schroeder Music Company in 1962.  Pete Seeger popularized it on We Shall Overcome.  Columbia CS 8901.  Recorded 8 June 1963; released 1965.  [Discogs entry.]

13.  They only printed lyrics for three.
14.  “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’!”
15.  “Imagine” and “Let It Be.”
16.  Details are provided in the post for 13 December 2020.

17.  Cat Stevens.  “Morning Has Broken.”  Teaser and The Firecat.  A&M Records 8T-4313.  1971.  Camp Songs, Folk Songs traced the history of the tune used for Eleanor Farjeon’s words in 1931.

18.  Larry Norman is discussed in the post for 4 October 2020.
19.  Marsha Stevens is discussed in the post for 4 October 2020.
20.  Details are provided in the post for 13 December 2020.
21.  Details are provided in the post for 2 August 2020.

22.  Generalizations on agápe are based on a WorldCat search conducted 7 June 2020 with the keywords “Agape” and “Young.”

23.  For more on the origins of Hope’s agápe imprint, see the post for 9 August 2020.

24.  Carlton R Young.  Exodus Songbook.  Carol Stream, Illinois: agápe, 1976.  For example, it included “Alfie,” “Mack the Knife,” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”

25.  Robin A. Leaver.  “British Hymnody Since 1950.”  555–599 in The Hymnal 1982 Companion.  Edited by Raymond F. Glover.  New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1990.  1:567–568.  The translation was done by the Joint Committee on the New Translation of the Bible.  The New English Bible.  Cambridge, England: Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1961.

26. “Routley, Erik.”  An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church.  Edited by Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum.  New York: Church Publishing, 2000.  Republished on the Episcopal Church website.

27.  Erik Routley.  “The Case Against Charles Wesley.”  Bulletin of the Hymn Society.  88:252–259:1960.  257.   Quoted by Margaret Anne Leask.  “The Development of English-Language Hymnody and Its Use in Worship: 1960-1995.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Durham, 2000.  10.

28.  Carlton R Young and Erik Routley.  “New Songs of Celebration: Concertato for Two Part Mixed Choir, Congregation, Brass and Organ.”  Carol Stream, Illinois: agápe, 1974.  [WorldCat entry.]

29.  Carlton R Young and Charles Wesley.  “Two Communion Anthems.”  Carol Stream, Illinois: agápe, 1974.  [WorldCat entry.]

30.  Wikipedia.  “Erik Routley.”

31.  Carlton R. Young.  Ecumenical Praise.  Carol Stream, Illinois: agápe, 1977.  [WorldCat entry.]

32.  Carlton R Young and Christian H Bateman.  “Ring and Sing Alleluia: Two Part Mixed Voices and Handbells.”  Carol Stream, Illinois: agápe, 1977.  [WorldCat entry.]

Samuel Sebastian Wesley and Carlton R Young.  “Lead me Lord: For SA(T)B Voices with Handbells and Optional Accompaniment.”  Carol Stream, Illinois: agápe, 1978.  [WorldCat entry.]

33.  “Hope Publishing Company History.”  Its website.
34.  Carter talked at the Dunblane meeting in 1964. [50]

35.  Sydney Carter.  “Lord of the Dance.”  Copyrighted by Galliard in 1963.  The tune was identified as a “19th cent. Shaker tune; adapt. By Sydney Carter, 1963.  The post for 13 December 2020 has more details.

36.  Richard K. Avery and Donald S. Marsh.  “We Are the Church.”  Copyrighted by Hope Publishing in 1972.  This became their most popular song. [51]

37.  “Pass It On” is discussed in the posts for 4 October 2020 and 13 December 2020.
38.  The Presbyterian hymnals are discussed in the post for 17 December 2019.
39.  As mentioned in the post for 13 August 2020, Word used this technique in 1972.

40.  The Genesis Singalong.  agápe Records ARS-1013.  1973.  Produced by Fred Bock.

41.  Folk Encounter Singalong.  Hope Recordings HCP-2030.  1973.  Produced by John F. Wilson.

42.  Notice about Easter service.  Van Nuys Valley News And Green Sheet [Los Angeles, California].  9 April 1971.  91 “Music will be by the combined children’s and Chancel choirs under the direction of Dr. Keith Clark with Fred Bock at the organ.”

“Indianapolis Nov. Gospel Site.”  Billboard 87:56:6 September 1975.  “Fred Bock, minister of music at Bel Air Presbyterian Church.”

43.  Louis Evans, Jr, is discussed in the post for 27 September 2020.

44.  The album liner notes did not list musicians, but Bock was an accomplished piano and organ player.  I suspect he was the pianist, if, for no other reasons, than to save money.  The album was recorded by Toby Foster at Whitney Studios.  That studio was established to support Loren Whiney and the Haven of Rest Quartet. [52]

Wilson used the Sound Studios in Chicago.  The engineer, Stu Black, previously had worked with Chess Records and knew local blues musicians. [53]

45.  This is based on a search of works by Fred Bock in WorldCat conducted 18 June 2020.  He also had arrangements distributed by Theodore Presser.

46.  Lloyd John Ogilvie replaced Raymond Lindquist in 1972.  I suspect Bock moved when Ogilvie began a weekly television program in 1978. [54]

47.  Post about Fred Bock Institute of Music on Fuller Theological Seminary Facebook page.  2 January 2017.

48.  The Youngbloods.  “Get Together.”  The Youngbloods.  RCA Victor LSP-3724.  1967.  It was reissued as a single on RCA Victor 47-9752 in June 1969.  [Discogs entries.]

49.  Wikipedia.  “Get Together (Youngbloods Song).”
50.  Leask.  106.

51.  “Presbyterian Pastor, Songwriter Richard Avery Dies.”  Presbyterian Church of USA, Presbytery Mission Agency website.  23 March 2020.

52.  “Whitney Recording Studios.”  Discogs website.  The Haven of Rest Quartet is mentioned in the posts for 27 November 2017 and 21 October 2018.

53.  Bruce Iglauer and Patrick A. Roberts.  Bitten by the Blues.  Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018.  45.

54.  “Our History.”  First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood website.

Campus Crusade for Christ - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The Jesus Movement grew from work by local Pentecostal groups in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco. [1]  As it attracted publicity, it, like their blue jeans, became a brand too valuable to be left to the people who created it.

Billy Graham was one of the first to attempt coopting the label.  He noticed people working the crowds of the Rose Bowl parade, when he was Grand Marshall in 1971. [2]  Later that year he wrote a book about The Jesus Generation. [3]  The publisher said it didn’t sell well. [4]

Campus Crusade for Christ’s efforts to engage students in San Francisco followed the Human Be-In that initiated the Jesus Movement, but were driven by a desire to condemn the political activities on the Berkley campus that were critical of the United States government. [5]

The group had volunteers call every person on campus to invite them to concerts and other alternative events, including a speech by Graham. [6]  Meantime, its Christian World Liberation Front had reserved space on campus for an event that happened to coincide with firing of the university’s president by the governor, Ronald Reagan.  It adopted the techniques of leftist organizers to outmaneuver them that day. [7]

The Liberation Front parted ways with Campus Crusade, because its leader, Jack Sparks, felt hampered by the Campus Crusade bureaucracy. [8]  On the other side, Bill Bright, head of Campus Crusade, was afraid some of his wealthy donors would be offended by the group’s dress and tactics. [9]

Bright seemed more interested in restoring a society in which people like his family, Republican ranchers in Oklahoma, [10] were the leaders than in implementing any particular Protestant interpretation of the Bible.

When he moved to Los Angeles in 1942, [11] Bright came under the influence of Harriet Mears, [12] the Baptist head of the youth department of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. [13]  Her primary concern was training a new generation of Christian leaders.  He adopted her views, indeed lived with her from 1953 [14] until her death in 1963. [15]

She believed that, if one influenced the fraternity presidents and football players, others would follow. [16]  That strategy was introduced in the late nineteenth century by Henry Drummond, and popularized by the YMCA before World War I. [17]  It coincided with Bright’s social ambitions to be part of the elite described by F. Scott Fitzgerald when he was at Princeton before World War I. [18]  Communism, which arose during World War I, was seen as the great enemy.

Campus Crusade was interested in influencing the average, middle-class students who attended state-supported public universities.  It had no interest in reaching the street people who created the Jesus Movement.

After his Berkley Blitz, Bright planned a large gathering in Dallas to recruit college students to evangelize the country. [19]  He had met Graham though Mears, [20] and Graham agreed to be honorary chairman of Explo ’72. [21]  In publicizing the event, Graham appropriated another symbol of the young.  He announced it would be a “Religious Woodstock.” [22]

Instead of college students, more than of the third of the participants were high school kids. [23]  They spent the mornings hearing lectures, the afternoons practicing evangelizing, and the evenings in the Cotton Bowl where music groups performed before speakers like Graham and Roger Staubach. [24]  One night, they had a candle light ceremony that dramatized Kurt Kaiser’s song, “Pass It On.” [25]

The final day was an open-air concert that included some Jesus Music artists like Larry Norman, [26] Randy Matthews, [27] and Love Song. [28]  The names of the other performers [29] have been eclipsed by the headliners: country music artists Johnny Cash, Kris Kristoferson, and Connie Smith. [30]

The same year as Explo, and probably as part of it, the Campus Crusade published its official songbook, Pass It On.  “Kumbaya” shared the two-page spread with Kaiser’s song. [31]

The contents reflected the neutrality of Campus Crusade’s theology.  The first section, “Praise,” contained Graham’s theme song, “How Great Thou Art” [32] along with hymns by Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, and nineteenth-century gospel songs by Fanny Crosby and William Bradbury.

The second section, “Songs of Good News,” featured works by John W. Peterson, discussed in the post for 2 August 2020.  The “Choruses” in the fourth section generally were written after World War II.  The spirituals, for the most part, were from African-American tradition, though none were so identified.

Pass It On perpetuated the repertoire as it existed, just prior to the emergence of Jesus Music.  There were no songs by Norman or others in California, while most of the folk songs were written by Kaiser or Ralph Carmichael.

Bright would not have been comfortable with the charismatic beliefs of the Jesus Movement that influenced Jesus Music.  He had tolerated speaking in tongues when his primary support came from Bob Jones University. [35]  After Jones broke with Billy Graham over the acceptance of support from mainline churches in 1957, [36] Bright turned to the Dallas Theological Seminary for recruits.  It believed supernatural gifts had ended with the apostles. [37]  In 1960, Bright banned tongue speaking by his staff. [38]

He could control his employees, but not the streets of Dallas, where vendors, including Pentecostals, set up stands.  The New York Times observed his staff did make “efforts to discourage such group from handing out literature not specifically approved by Campus Crusade or pushing ideas such as speaking in tongues.  They explained that they felt a responsibility to parents to control what their children would be encountering.” [39]

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

Credits
From Angola, Africa

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: KUM is pronounced “koom”
Verses: kumbaya, cryin’, singin’, prayin’

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

Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Repetition Pattern: repeat chorus after each stanza
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: very slowly
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar Chords: D G A A7

Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: two notes to a syllable on “yah” and the final “Lord”

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: chords on the first beat of each measure, and on “kum”

Ending: none

Notes on Performance
The cover of the spiral-bound book dramatized Bright and Mear’s beliefs that men were more important than women, and that sorority girls and beauty queens were more desirable than others.  A drawing of a young man singing and playing a guitar was on an olive-green background.  He had on a long-sleeved, white shirt and striped tie, with sideburns and a short mustache.  Inside the inset, at the bottom, were drawings of four women; one was dark skinned, two were brunettes, and the largest was a blonde.  One of the two men was dark skinned.

Notes on Performers
Bright was born in 1921, and raised on a cattle ranch located between Tulsa and Muskogee, Oklahoma. [40]  He graduated from Northeastern State College, [41] where he pledged a new fraternity spreading in former normal schools. [42]  After spending a short period working in a county extension office, [43] he moved to Los Angeles.

Campus Crusade for Christ was founded in 1951.  Bright retired in 2001, and the name was changed to Cru in 2011. [44]  He died in 2003. [45]

Availability
Book: “Kum Ba Yah.”  Pass It On.  San Bernadino, California: Campus Crusade for Christ International, 1972.  85.

End Notes
1.  For more on the Jesus Movement, see the post for 27 September 2020.

2.  Larry Eskridge.  “God’s Forever Family: the Jesus People Movement in America, 1966-1977.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Stirling, July 2005. 185–186.

3.  Billy Graham.  The Jesus Generation.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1971.

4.  James E. Ruark.  The House of Zondervan.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2006.  72.

5.  John G. Turner.  Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008.  122.

6.  Turner.  122–123.
7.  Turner.  119.

8.  Ronald M. Enroth, Edward E. Ericson, Jr., and C. Breckinridge Peters.  The Jesus People.  Grand Rapids. Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972.  108.

9.  Turner.  129.  I could find nothing specific on his donors at this time.  Turner cited several Campus Crusade employees from the time who said he drew on conservative businessmen who were members of Hollywood Presbyterian.  Many also supported the John Birch Society. [46]  After the success of Explo, he attracted the support of conservative foundations like those of the Hunt and Pew families. [47]

10.  Turner.  13–14.
11.  Turner.  16.
12.  Turner.  19.
13.  First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood was discussed in the post for 4 October 2020.
14.  Turner.  49.
15.  Turner.  116.
16.  Turner.  46.

17.  David C. Belden.  “The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament).”  D. Phil Thesis.  St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976.  116.

Daniel Sack.  Moral Re-Armament.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.  13.

18.  Bright was a student at Princeton Seminary in the fall of 1946. [48]  While he has mentioned his unhappiness with some of his classes, one wonders if his attitudes against universities were formed when he encountered the closed social world of the Ivy League that ignored, rather than rejected, outsiders.  While he got in trouble with the university president when he left religious leaflets everywhere on campus, [49] he remembered kneeling together in prayer with the head of the seminary. [50]

19.  Paul Eschleman, the man who produced Explo, said Bright got his idea from the U. S. Congress on Evangelism in 1969. [51]  Eshleman was the son of a Baptist minister who opened a religious retreat for snowbirds in Boca Raton in 1950. [52]  While he says he didn’t commit himself to Christ until later, [53] he learned management here before he earned an MBA from Michigan State University. [54]  Graham had visited his father in 1949 when both were just starting. [55]

20.  Graham had been at Mear’s retreat center before his 1949 crusade. [56]

21.  Turner.  139.

22.  Edward B. Fiske.  “‘Religious Woodstock’ Draws 75,000.”  The New York Times website.  16 June 1972.

23.  Turner.  141.

Paul Eshelman.  The Explo Story.  With Norman Rohrer.  Glendale, California: Regal Books, 1972.  16, 19.

24.  Fiske.

25.  Paul Baker.  Contemporary Christian Music.  Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1985.  54–55.  This ritual was taken back to camps, or was reinvented in them.  John Duffy remembered: “At my camp, we sang it to close out each week.  We stood on a hill under a rugged pine cross, held candles, and passed the flame as we sang from one person to the next until the entire circle, some 150 people, was lit.” [57]  Paul Eshler remembered that Graham introduced the candles at Explo to signify a commitment to Christ, and that they sang Graham’s “How Great Thou Art.” [58]

26.  Larry Norman was discussed in the post for 4 October 2020.
27.  Randy Matthews was discussed in the post for 13 December 2020.
28.  Love Song was discussed in the post for 4 October 2020.

29.  Campus Crusade produced an album to consolidate the image of Explo.  It included Armageddon Experience, Great Commission Company, Danny Lee and Children of Truth, and the Forerunners. [59] Paul Baker mentioned Barry McGuire. [60]

30.  The album also included African American singers, Willa Dorsey and Andraé Crouch, and a Southern Gospel group, the Speer Family.  Paul Baker mentioned another Southern Gospel singer, Reba Rambo. [61]

31.  “Pass It On” was discussed in the posts for 4 October 2020 and 13 December 2020.
32.  “How Great Thou Art” was discussed in the post for 1 March 2020.
35.  Turner.  75–76.
36.  Turner.  77.
37.  Turner.  88.
38.  Turner.  90.
39.  Fiske.
40.  Turner.  13.
41.  Turner.  15–16.
42.  Wikipedia.  “Sigma Tau Gamma.”
43.  Turner.  16.
44.  Wikipedia.  “Cru (Christian Organization).”
45.  Wikipedia.  “Bill Bright.”
46.  Turner.  107–108, 110–111.

47.  Deborah Huntington and Ruth Kaplan.  “Whose Gold Is Behind the Altar?  Corporate Ties to Evangelicals.”  Contemporary Marxism :62–94:Winter 1981/1982.  They used financial reports to compile a list of Campus Crusade’s major donors from 1976 [pages 83–84].

48.  Turner.  24.
49.  Turner.  24.
50.  Richard Quebedeaux.  I Found It.  New York: Harper and Row, 1979.  12.
51.  Eshelman, Explo,  95–96.

52.  James D. Davis.  “Church Founder’s Son Has a ‘Crusade’.”  [Deerfield Beach, Florida] Sun-Sentinel website.  2 June 2000.

53.  Paul Eshleman.  1978.  Quoted in Evangelical-Unification Dialogue.  Edited by Richard Quebedeaux and Rodney Sawatsky.  New York: The Rose of Sharon Press, 1979.  14–15.

54.  Eshelman, Explo.  96.

55.  Billy Graham.  Just As I Am.  New York: HarperCollins, 2001 digital edition.  127–128.

56.  Turner.  34–36.

57.  John Duffy.  “Kurt Kaiser’s Music Changed My Life and Moved a Generation.”  Sojourner magazine website.  27 November 2018.

58.  Eshler, Explo.  67, 69.
59.  Jesus Sound Explosion.  Campus Crusade For Christ.  1972. [Discogs entry.]
60.  Baker.  55.
61.  Baker. 55.