Topic: Early Versions
"Kumbaya" developed as a version within the "Come by Here" song cluster in the 1950s. Chee Hoo Lum [1] and Stephen Winick [2] have established the original song was circulating in coastal Georgia and South Carolina in the 1920s where an African-American creole language called Gullah survived from slavery times.
It then existed in two forms. One repeated a single line six times: AAAAAA. The other repeated a single line three times, with a different fourth line: AAAB. The sestet was the more widely diffused.
Floyd Thorp combined four stanzas describing Daniel in the lion’s den with "Lord, I am worthy now" and "Lordy won’t you come by here." He was recorded in 1926 near Darien, Georgia, by Robert Winslow Gordon. [3]
None of his verses used the statement-refrain format. The inclusion of verses from other songs was characteristic of this improvised form. "Daniel was recorded as a separate song by the Norfolk Jubilee Quartet in 1927. [4]
The six-line verse was then known in Atlanta where Clara Hudman recorded a commercial version in 1930. She began with "needed time" and ended with "won’t you come by here." Another sestet asked the Lord if He would hear her pray. When she began humming, a man in the background sang "won’t you hear my cry" while two women made comments. [5]
It had been recorded earlier in Chicago by Charles Henry Pace who was born in Atlanta and moved to Chicago around 1900. [6] Verses sung in 1927 by the Pace Jubilee Singers included "this is a needed time," "won’t you stop by here," and "oh Lordy, won’t you hear my cry." One verse referred to a gambler. [7]
The next year Daniel Brown recorded a version in Chicago with the verse "Lord won’t you come by here." The others were entreaties to the Lord to hear him pray, groan, and cry, along with a line from "Standing in the Need of Prayer." [8] Nothing more is known about him.
Even less is known about another version recorded in Camden, New Jersey, in 1923 by the Bethel Jubilee Quartet. Victor never released "Now Is the Needy Time." [9] All that survived were the names of the men paid to sing: Thomas H. Wiseman, H. S. Allen, A. C. Brogdon, and J. C. Eubanks. [10] Wiseman was a minister in Chicago when he organized the group. [11]
The six-line form also moved into Alabama where Ruby Pickens Tartt collected a version in Sumpter County that combined three of Pace’s verses with "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "I’m goin’ down in your name." Her unidentified source began the third lines with "Oh Lord." The other five started with just "Lord." [12]
Lightnin’ Hopkins recorded this version in Houston in 1952 as "Needed Time." Like the other sestets it was a loose combination of repeated verses: "come by here," "come if you don’t stay long," "praying," "praying on my knees."
It differed from the others because Hopkins was a blue musician, who was more familiar with the AAB blue format. As mentioned in the post for 21 August 2018, he began singing the AAAAAA form, but then changed to AAABBB. At one point, he adopted the blue form within the sestet. [13]
Hopkins’s recording crystalized into a distinct version like "Kumbaya." Inez Andrews’ "It’s a Needed Time" became a similar node in the cluster. Her 1965 performance was discussed in the post for 27 August 2018.
End Notes
These versions will be discussed in more detail in future posts.
1. Chee Hoo Lum. "A Tale of ‘Kum Ba Yah’." Kodaly Envoy 33(3):5-11:2007. Copy provided by Lum.
2. Stephen Winick. "The World’s First ‘Kumbaya’ Moment: New Evidence about an Old Song." Folklife Center News 34(3-4):3-10:2010.
3. Floyd Thorp. "Daniel in the Lion’s Den." Collected by Robert Winslow Gordon near Darien, Georgia, 1926. Archives of American Folk Song.
4. Norfolk Jubilee Quartet. "Daniel In The Lion’s Den." Paramount 12499. New York. February1927.
5. Clara Hudman. "Lordy Won’t You Come by Here." Okeh. Atlanta, Georgia. 12 December 1930.
6. Cassandra Pritts. "Charles Henry Pace Gospel Music Collection." University of Pittsburgh library website. April 2003.
7. Pace Jubilee Singers. "Lawdy Won’t You Come By Here." Brunswick 7009. 1927.
8. Daniel Brown. "Now Is the Needy Time." Paramount 12663. Chicago. May 1928.
9. Bethel Jubilee Quartet. "Now Is the Needy Time." Victor B-28188. Camden, New Jersey, 13 July 1923. Not issued and the masters were destroyed.
10. Craig Martin Gibbs. Black Recording Artists, 1877-1926: An Annotated Discography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 2013.
University of California, Santa Barbara, Library. Discography of American Historical Recordings. Library website.
11. Dave Lewis. "Uncle Dave Lewis presents Rainbow 1092: Homer Rodeheaver & and the Wiseman Sextet." YouTube. 2 January 2014
12. "Lord, Won’t You Come by Here." Alabama Department of Archives and History. "Lyrics and some musical scores" folder 3. Unnumbered typescript. 60.
13. See post for 21 August 2018 for recording details.
Showing posts with label Andrews Inez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andrews Inez. Show all posts
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir - Right Now Jesus Is a Needed Time
Topic: Origins - Ring Shout
Ring shouts may no longer follow Protestant ceremonies in African-American churches, but many churches allow special music at the ends of services. George Nesbitt led the singing "after the preached word" at Trinity Missionary Baptist Church north of Charleston, South Carolina, in 2013.
His version of "Right Now Jesus" was borrowed from one by Henry Dixon that in turn was based on the variant by Inez Andrews discussed in the post for 27 August 2017. The seven-minute video began while he was singing and ended before the music stopped. Six rows of pews were between the altar where Nesbitt sang and the camera.
Dixon’s recording used a choir to repeat key phrases while he sang the opening chorus five times. By the time the Goose Creek church video began, Nesbitt was singing the chorus and a couple seated women were clapping as were a few women in the choir. On the second iteration, two other middle-aged women stood in front of their pew bench. One swung her arms while the other clapped.
At the end of the first minute, others were standing to clap and Nesbitt bent forward a little while he sang, then straightened. After another half minute, he began to shift from diagonal to diagonal but remained in place.
Fifteen seconds later, the drums became louder and he started using vocables. One of the standing women was patting her thigh. Half a minute after that, on the other side of the church, a man in a dark suit, who might have been an usher or deacon, stood. Either the bass drum changed to a dull thud or a wood block was used [1] to play double time, while Nesbitt’s torso moved up and down. He may have been bending his knees, but it was impossible to see anything below his waist. [2]
As the wood block became louder, the choir sometimes could be heard. More often, the camera microphone only picked up Nesbitt’s vocables. He bent more, and his shifts to the left and right were more pronounced. He soon began waving his free hand, then let it swing.
At about the half-way point in the video, three women walked in front of the camera, and began double clapping. He leaned forward forty-five degrees from his hips, while the usher moved to the edge of the altar to clap. Twenty seconds later, the sound of the block was more pronounced and Nesbitt had one hand on his hip. The other man turned to face the congregation and bent his knees in synch with Nesbitt.
A bit later, the woman who had been waving her arms at her sides, raised them over her head. He stayed tilted forward from the hips as he sang. Occasionally he was silent, so only the drums and hand claps could be heard. The woman began shifting her weight from foot to foot.
After almost five minutes, everyone was double clapping, including women in the choir and the usher. Nesbitt’s arms were bent at the elbows and his body tilted further forward as it rose and fell. Around the sixth minute of the video, he was standing again, and the tambourine played by a woman in the chorus could be seen by the camera.
Then, he set the mike down, and moved toward the center where he was lost from the view of the lens. The wood block, tambourine, and clapping were continuing with no singing when the video stopped.
The camera’s view was limited, but the increased sounds of clapping suggested others in the church had joined the polyrhythm. The women in front of the camera were dressed in Sunday clothes and probably were wearing nylon hose and shoes with low heels that constrained their ability to move. [3] It was impossible to know what was occurring on the other side of the center aisle.
During the singing, a man stood behind the pulpit. He joined the clapping early, bringing one hand down on the other, then switching hands between claps. Later he moved from left to right from the waist.
Performers
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Vocal Soloist: George Nesbitt
Vocal Group: Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ [4]
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand claps, tambourine, wood block, drum
H. E. Dixon
Vocal Soloist: Henry Dixon
Vocal Group: Truth Tabernacle Choir
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ, synthesizer
Rhythm Accompaniment: drums, cymbal, hand claps
Credits
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
"a song by Pastor H.E. Dixon" [5]
H. E. Dixon
(C) OPHIRGOSPEL
Notes on Lyrics
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Language: English
Phrases: right now Jesus, it’s a needed time
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: open-ended
Verse Repetition Pattern: repeated one verse, with some comments
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
H. E. Dixon
Language: English
Phrases: right now Jesus, it’s a needed time
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: prelude-denouement
Prelude: five repetitions of "it’s a needed time" chorus
Transition: three verses that listed reasons we needed Jesus against repetitions of "it’s a needed time;" ended with a repetition of the Prelude chorus
Denouement: repeated the phrase "it’s a needed time," followed by the Prelude chorus
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Opening Phrase: Inez Andrews
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: repetition with variations in rhythm
Singing Style: Nesbitt began singing, then only repeated phrases that were hard to hear from where the camera’s microphone was located.
Solo-Group Dynamics: the choir began by repeating "needed time," then stopped and let the instruments support him.
Vocal-Instrumental Dynamics: organ maintained a continuo; toward the end, when no one was singing, it played the melody with a strong rhythm.
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: it took over the functions of the chorus as a continuo for the organ and soloist, and then was all that was heard.
H. E. Dixon
Opening Phrase: Inez Andrews
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: tripartite. Organ introduction was followed by synthesizer and drums; the drum beat pattern changed with the same instruments in the second part; hand claps and musical interlude occurred before third part with same instrumentation as second.
Solo Singing Style: occasional use of guttural pronunciations; he made interjections like "tell it" to begin lines.
Group Singing Style: generally timbraic harmony; at the ends of verses the choir used diverging chords.
Solo-Group Dynamics: the group sang one phrase over and over. Dixon began by singing with them, then began to start a little before or after with slightly different words.
Vocal-Instrumental Dynamics: remained constant
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: changes in rhythm demarcated segments
Notes on Performance
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Occasion: church service
Location: Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, Goose Creek, South Carolina
Microphones: Nesbitt had a hand-held microphone with a cord.
Clothing: the women in the choir were dressed in black. Nesbitt was wearing a red shirt and black vest.
Notes on Audience
H. E. Dixon
Some applause at end.
Notes on Performers
Trinity Missionary Baptist Church was on Old State Road in Goose Creek, South Carolina, north of Charleston. Nesbitt and Dixon were from Huger and Cordesville. The communities were about five miles apart of the edge of the Francis Marion National Forest, and about 35 miles from Goose Creek. [6]
The area was not part of the Goose Creek community that dominated South Carolina trade and politics in the early years, but a bit upstream. Men probably grew indigo and rice, until the introduction of flood irrigation. The land probably was just beyond the area that could be flooded, and land owners either planted cotton or other less-commercial crops.
The State Road was opened in 1747 to connect Charleston with the capital at Columbia and Scots-Irish settlements in the interior. It served as the route to the frontier for those immigrants from the British Isles who arrived by ship. [7] No doubt the traffic may have supported small farms and local tradesmen.
The early slaves would have come from the same shipments as those that supplied the coast. Many may have left the area with emancipation after the Civil War. Much of the area reverted to forest that was logged at the end of the nineteenth century. [8] African Americans were the primary timber workers in those years, [9] and ones who stayed in the area would have been hired. They might have been joined by those from the coast and islands were rice was no longer a commercial crop. [10]
There were indications a Nesbitt Plantation had existed in the area of Huger, but its location was unknown. A Nesbitt family cemetery survived. [11] George Nesbitt remained a common name in the area.
Goose Creek was incorporated in 1961 as a navy town. [12] The first dates on Trinity Missionary Baptist Church’s website were from the 1990s when Idelphia Salley was pastor. [13] The choir sang for church services and was available, for a price, for "your next: Choir Anniversary, Gospel Concert, Birthday Celebration, Service, Revival, etc." Its photograph showed four men and ten women. [14]
The man who uploaded the video, Tyre Singleton, played with the choir in 2013 when the video was made, [15] and performed for the Johnson Temple Church in Huger on 14 May 2017. [16] He posted more videos of music from other local churches.
The songwriter, Henry Dixon, was from the Saw Mill section of Cordesville. In 1973 he received a prophecy that led him to organize the Truth Tabernacle. He performed with some members of his choir for other events, and was available as an evangelist. In 2007, he began selling CDs. [17]
Availability
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
YouTube: uploaded by Ty Singleton on 20 May 2013.
H. E. Dixon
Album: Pastor H. E. Dixon and Truth Tabernacle. "A Need It Time." Sweetwater Series, Volume 1. 2011. CD.
YouTube: uploaded by Music Video Distributors Inc. on 17 September 2017.
End Notes
1. Ty Singleton uploaded a video of in which a woman was using a drum stick to beat a small wooden box or block. ("Homegoing Celebration for Aunt Jackie." Uploaded to YouTube on 11 July 2013.)
2. LanGuide TV posted a video of "Brother George Nesbitt singing at Trinity Baptist Church." He was surrounded by a group of men, but it sometimes was possible to seem him move. (Uploaded to YouTube on 1 January 2018.)
3. The women who were dancing in Keith Johnson’s video wore slacks and tops to the concert. They either wore athletic shoes or were free to take off their shoes to move. Johnson’s video was discussed on 23 September 2018.
4. The choir won two organs in the McDonald Choir Showcases in 2013 and 2014. ("Trinity Missionary Baptist Church Inspirational Choir." Church website.)
5. YouTube notes for Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir.
6. Distances from Huger to Goose Creek, and from Huger to Cordesville calculated by Distance Cities website.
7. "Old South Carolina State Road." Family Search website sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
8. Al Hester. "Prelude to a National Forest: Cooperative Forestry in the Lowcountry, 1901-1918." 26 June 2001. United States Forest Service website, "History of the Francis Marion Ranger District."
9. Logging, saw and planing mills were the major industrial employer of Blacks in the Southeast from 1880. William Jones said, 83,000 were working for such mills in 1910. Indeed, he said "before World War II, no other industry employed more African Americans." (William Powell Jones. The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005. 1.)
10. Charleston began losing its rice markets in the Civil War when new supplies were developed in Asia. By the end of the century, rice was being grown less expensively in Louisiana and Arkansas with Artesian wells pumping from the aquifer; few growers were left in South Carolina.
11. "Berkeley County SC Cemetery GPS Mapping Project" listed Nesbitt Gardens and Nesbitt House Plantation, but said it had no location information for them. (South Carolina Genealogical Society website) A man named George Nesbitt, Junior, was buried in Nesbitt Gardens in 2016. (His obituary. Tributes website.)
12. Wikipedia. "Goose Creek, South Carolina." It noted, "most of the Naval Weapons Station Charleston is in Goose Creek."
13. "Church History." Trinity church website.
14. Trinity church website, choir page.
15. Rickey Ciapha Dennis Jr. "Not the Average Church Choir." The [Summerville, South Carolina] Gazette website. 14 February 2018.
16. "Johnson Temple Church." Facebook. 16 May 2017.
17. "About Henry Dixon." Facebook.
Ring shouts may no longer follow Protestant ceremonies in African-American churches, but many churches allow special music at the ends of services. George Nesbitt led the singing "after the preached word" at Trinity Missionary Baptist Church north of Charleston, South Carolina, in 2013.
His version of "Right Now Jesus" was borrowed from one by Henry Dixon that in turn was based on the variant by Inez Andrews discussed in the post for 27 August 2017. The seven-minute video began while he was singing and ended before the music stopped. Six rows of pews were between the altar where Nesbitt sang and the camera.
Dixon’s recording used a choir to repeat key phrases while he sang the opening chorus five times. By the time the Goose Creek church video began, Nesbitt was singing the chorus and a couple seated women were clapping as were a few women in the choir. On the second iteration, two other middle-aged women stood in front of their pew bench. One swung her arms while the other clapped.
At the end of the first minute, others were standing to clap and Nesbitt bent forward a little while he sang, then straightened. After another half minute, he began to shift from diagonal to diagonal but remained in place.
Fifteen seconds later, the drums became louder and he started using vocables. One of the standing women was patting her thigh. Half a minute after that, on the other side of the church, a man in a dark suit, who might have been an usher or deacon, stood. Either the bass drum changed to a dull thud or a wood block was used [1] to play double time, while Nesbitt’s torso moved up and down. He may have been bending his knees, but it was impossible to see anything below his waist. [2]
As the wood block became louder, the choir sometimes could be heard. More often, the camera microphone only picked up Nesbitt’s vocables. He bent more, and his shifts to the left and right were more pronounced. He soon began waving his free hand, then let it swing.
At about the half-way point in the video, three women walked in front of the camera, and began double clapping. He leaned forward forty-five degrees from his hips, while the usher moved to the edge of the altar to clap. Twenty seconds later, the sound of the block was more pronounced and Nesbitt had one hand on his hip. The other man turned to face the congregation and bent his knees in synch with Nesbitt.
A bit later, the woman who had been waving her arms at her sides, raised them over her head. He stayed tilted forward from the hips as he sang. Occasionally he was silent, so only the drums and hand claps could be heard. The woman began shifting her weight from foot to foot.
After almost five minutes, everyone was double clapping, including women in the choir and the usher. Nesbitt’s arms were bent at the elbows and his body tilted further forward as it rose and fell. Around the sixth minute of the video, he was standing again, and the tambourine played by a woman in the chorus could be seen by the camera.
Then, he set the mike down, and moved toward the center where he was lost from the view of the lens. The wood block, tambourine, and clapping were continuing with no singing when the video stopped.
The camera’s view was limited, but the increased sounds of clapping suggested others in the church had joined the polyrhythm. The women in front of the camera were dressed in Sunday clothes and probably were wearing nylon hose and shoes with low heels that constrained their ability to move. [3] It was impossible to know what was occurring on the other side of the center aisle.
During the singing, a man stood behind the pulpit. He joined the clapping early, bringing one hand down on the other, then switching hands between claps. Later he moved from left to right from the waist.
Performers
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Vocal Soloist: George Nesbitt
Vocal Group: Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ [4]
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand claps, tambourine, wood block, drum
H. E. Dixon
Vocal Soloist: Henry Dixon
Vocal Group: Truth Tabernacle Choir
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ, synthesizer
Rhythm Accompaniment: drums, cymbal, hand claps
Credits
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
"a song by Pastor H.E. Dixon" [5]
H. E. Dixon
(C) OPHIRGOSPEL
Notes on Lyrics
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Language: English
Phrases: right now Jesus, it’s a needed time
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: open-ended
Verse Repetition Pattern: repeated one verse, with some comments
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
H. E. Dixon
Language: English
Phrases: right now Jesus, it’s a needed time
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: prelude-denouement
Prelude: five repetitions of "it’s a needed time" chorus
Transition: three verses that listed reasons we needed Jesus against repetitions of "it’s a needed time;" ended with a repetition of the Prelude chorus
Denouement: repeated the phrase "it’s a needed time," followed by the Prelude chorus
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Opening Phrase: Inez Andrews
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: repetition with variations in rhythm
Singing Style: Nesbitt began singing, then only repeated phrases that were hard to hear from where the camera’s microphone was located.
Solo-Group Dynamics: the choir began by repeating "needed time," then stopped and let the instruments support him.
Vocal-Instrumental Dynamics: organ maintained a continuo; toward the end, when no one was singing, it played the melody with a strong rhythm.
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: it took over the functions of the chorus as a continuo for the organ and soloist, and then was all that was heard.
H. E. Dixon
Opening Phrase: Inez Andrews
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: tripartite. Organ introduction was followed by synthesizer and drums; the drum beat pattern changed with the same instruments in the second part; hand claps and musical interlude occurred before third part with same instrumentation as second.
Solo Singing Style: occasional use of guttural pronunciations; he made interjections like "tell it" to begin lines.
Group Singing Style: generally timbraic harmony; at the ends of verses the choir used diverging chords.
Solo-Group Dynamics: the group sang one phrase over and over. Dixon began by singing with them, then began to start a little before or after with slightly different words.
Vocal-Instrumental Dynamics: remained constant
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: changes in rhythm demarcated segments
Notes on Performance
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Occasion: church service
Location: Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, Goose Creek, South Carolina
Microphones: Nesbitt had a hand-held microphone with a cord.
Clothing: the women in the choir were dressed in black. Nesbitt was wearing a red shirt and black vest.
Notes on Audience
H. E. Dixon
Some applause at end.
Notes on Performers
Trinity Missionary Baptist Church was on Old State Road in Goose Creek, South Carolina, north of Charleston. Nesbitt and Dixon were from Huger and Cordesville. The communities were about five miles apart of the edge of the Francis Marion National Forest, and about 35 miles from Goose Creek. [6]
The area was not part of the Goose Creek community that dominated South Carolina trade and politics in the early years, but a bit upstream. Men probably grew indigo and rice, until the introduction of flood irrigation. The land probably was just beyond the area that could be flooded, and land owners either planted cotton or other less-commercial crops.
The State Road was opened in 1747 to connect Charleston with the capital at Columbia and Scots-Irish settlements in the interior. It served as the route to the frontier for those immigrants from the British Isles who arrived by ship. [7] No doubt the traffic may have supported small farms and local tradesmen.
The early slaves would have come from the same shipments as those that supplied the coast. Many may have left the area with emancipation after the Civil War. Much of the area reverted to forest that was logged at the end of the nineteenth century. [8] African Americans were the primary timber workers in those years, [9] and ones who stayed in the area would have been hired. They might have been joined by those from the coast and islands were rice was no longer a commercial crop. [10]
There were indications a Nesbitt Plantation had existed in the area of Huger, but its location was unknown. A Nesbitt family cemetery survived. [11] George Nesbitt remained a common name in the area.
Goose Creek was incorporated in 1961 as a navy town. [12] The first dates on Trinity Missionary Baptist Church’s website were from the 1990s when Idelphia Salley was pastor. [13] The choir sang for church services and was available, for a price, for "your next: Choir Anniversary, Gospel Concert, Birthday Celebration, Service, Revival, etc." Its photograph showed four men and ten women. [14]
The man who uploaded the video, Tyre Singleton, played with the choir in 2013 when the video was made, [15] and performed for the Johnson Temple Church in Huger on 14 May 2017. [16] He posted more videos of music from other local churches.
The songwriter, Henry Dixon, was from the Saw Mill section of Cordesville. In 1973 he received a prophecy that led him to organize the Truth Tabernacle. He performed with some members of his choir for other events, and was available as an evangelist. In 2007, he began selling CDs. [17]
Availability
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
YouTube: uploaded by Ty Singleton on 20 May 2013.
H. E. Dixon
Album: Pastor H. E. Dixon and Truth Tabernacle. "A Need It Time." Sweetwater Series, Volume 1. 2011. CD.
YouTube: uploaded by Music Video Distributors Inc. on 17 September 2017.
End Notes
1. Ty Singleton uploaded a video of in which a woman was using a drum stick to beat a small wooden box or block. ("Homegoing Celebration for Aunt Jackie." Uploaded to YouTube on 11 July 2013.)
2. LanGuide TV posted a video of "Brother George Nesbitt singing at Trinity Baptist Church." He was surrounded by a group of men, but it sometimes was possible to seem him move. (Uploaded to YouTube on 1 January 2018.)
3. The women who were dancing in Keith Johnson’s video wore slacks and tops to the concert. They either wore athletic shoes or were free to take off their shoes to move. Johnson’s video was discussed on 23 September 2018.
4. The choir won two organs in the McDonald Choir Showcases in 2013 and 2014. ("Trinity Missionary Baptist Church Inspirational Choir." Church website.)
5. YouTube notes for Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir.
6. Distances from Huger to Goose Creek, and from Huger to Cordesville calculated by Distance Cities website.
7. "Old South Carolina State Road." Family Search website sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
8. Al Hester. "Prelude to a National Forest: Cooperative Forestry in the Lowcountry, 1901-1918." 26 June 2001. United States Forest Service website, "History of the Francis Marion Ranger District."
9. Logging, saw and planing mills were the major industrial employer of Blacks in the Southeast from 1880. William Jones said, 83,000 were working for such mills in 1910. Indeed, he said "before World War II, no other industry employed more African Americans." (William Powell Jones. The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005. 1.)
10. Charleston began losing its rice markets in the Civil War when new supplies were developed in Asia. By the end of the century, rice was being grown less expensively in Louisiana and Arkansas with Artesian wells pumping from the aquifer; few growers were left in South Carolina.
11. "Berkeley County SC Cemetery GPS Mapping Project" listed Nesbitt Gardens and Nesbitt House Plantation, but said it had no location information for them. (South Carolina Genealogical Society website) A man named George Nesbitt, Junior, was buried in Nesbitt Gardens in 2016. (His obituary. Tributes website.)
12. Wikipedia. "Goose Creek, South Carolina." It noted, "most of the Naval Weapons Station Charleston is in Goose Creek."
13. "Church History." Trinity church website.
14. Trinity church website, choir page.
15. Rickey Ciapha Dennis Jr. "Not the Average Church Choir." The [Summerville, South Carolina] Gazette website. 14 February 2018.
16. "Johnson Temple Church." Facebook. 16 May 2017.
17. "About Henry Dixon." Facebook.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Inez Andrews - It’s A Needed Time
Topic: Seminal Versions
Concerts rather than recordings were traditionally the way musicians earned money. For religious artists, they were doubly important because they were a substitutes for church services, while records were only a reminder - rather like the difference between the mass and a rosary.
During the 1930s, artists who could afford automobiles traveled from town to town, staying with local church people when they could. Into the 1960s, segregation laws precluded the use of trains and hotels. Albertina Walker remembered:
"On the road, we couldn’t go into white hotels or white restaurants. We couldn’t do none of that then. We had to go to the back door to get food. [. . .] We drove in cars during that time, six of us going all across the country." [1]
Promoters in Word War II put together packages of entertainers to perform at military installations and in cities with war production factories. These continued after the war: sometimes a single person would put together a group that went from place to place, sometimes an entrepreneur in a single location would schedule a number of acts together. They often filled out the program with local performers.
Artists were not responsible for performing an entire evening, but only for a portion. Shorn of the need to handle everything, they concentrated on their most popular songs. When they were scheduled between artists with different styles, they did not need to vary their pace as much. That is, if they were between two groups who featured slow songs, they could concentrate on up-tempo ones.
These tours were cauldrons that exposed artists to each other’s work, and created friendships beyond the regional ones that already existed. Inez Andrews’ mother died when she was two. [2] Her father [3] and Lil McGriff [4] raised her in Birmingham, Alabama. She began singing in his Baptist church, and worked with a local group that toured the "Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia region." [5]
Meantime, McGriff’s daughter, Dorothy Love was singing with the Original Gospel Harmonettes [6]. One time when Andrews was substituting for Love in Nashville, James Cleveland heard her sing, [7] and recommended her to Albertina Walker. He then was the pianist for Walker’s group, the Gospel Caravans. [8] In 1957, Andrews moved to Chicago to join the group. [9]
The Newport Folk Festivals of the middle-1960s created a taste among the educated for programs that featured unfamiliar artists and styles. Two European promoters put together a package to introduce Germans to contemporary African-American religious music. [10] It included a minister and some of his parishioners from a Church of God in Christ church, the Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, and Andrews. By then, she had her group, the Andrewettes.
One of the songs Andrews sang was "It’s a Needed Time." She never recorded it, but it became known through the concert circuit. In 1968, the Mighty Gospel Giants recorded it, [11] and since it has been sung by both professionals like Melvin Couch [12] and local groups.
Andrews’ version reused phrases popularized by Lightnin’ Hopkins, but with a different melody and a truncated verse structure. The phrase "it’s a needed time" became its distinctive feature.
Performers
Vocal Accompaniment: Bettie Jones Sims, Elaine Davis, Mildred Span, Elizabeth Dargan
Instrumental Accompaniment: James Conley, piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano, tambourine
Credits
I. Andrews
(P) 1981 [13]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verse Phrases: needed time, don’t stay long, oh Lord
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord, Lordy
God is real: this phrase in Andrew’s first spoken line was a reference to a theological movement exploring the consequences of the secularization of morality, especially after Auschwitz. A Time magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" on 8 April 1966, and turned what was then an academic debate into a popular slogan for the religious. Andrews may not have been aware when she made her statement in Bremen that it was a German, Friedrich Nietzsche, who first raised the problem. [14]
Format: verse-chorus within ritual prelude-denouement structure
Prelude
Andrews introduced the song by saying God was the world’s greatest healer, with an invitation for Him to come make "everything all right." Then, she and the Andrewettes repeated the "Oh Lord" chorus with fragments of Hopkins’ verses.
Denouement: repetitions of "Oh Lord" in sets that began or ended with a variant of "needed time."
Notes on Music
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: call-response followed by group singing with soloist making comments
Singing Style:
Solo: by the time Andrews was performing in Bremen, she recognized people "don’t pay me to sing, they like to hear me holler." [15]
Group: chordal harmony
Solo-Group Dynamics:
Prelude: Andrews and the group sang a phrase. They began together, then Andrews paused after "right now," then continued "is a needed after time" just a bit after them.
Denouement: the group repeated phrases in even timing, which allowed Andrews to sing her high notes independently. They often were emphasized by extending beyond the group’s tones.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the piano primarily played rhythm, but used chordal progressions that were melodic. The tambourine was loud on the downbeat, softer on the upbeat. Both were loud at the ends of verses, and the piano played through the pauses between verses.
Notes on Performance
Recorded live at Die Glocke, a 1920s Bremen concert hall with excellent acoustics. [16] Tony Cummings said the concert also was taped in Baden Baden by SWR TV in an empty church "where the artists were asked to whip up Holy Spirit fervour before rows of empty pews. Some succeeded better than others, none more so than Inez Andrews And The Andrewettes." [17]
Audience Perceptions
Siegfried Schmidt-Joos noticed "some members of the audience exclaimed rather bewilderedly that they have not been able to differentiate between mere ‘show’ and genuine fervour" in the three acts presented. He then essayed a cultural gulf by explaining, "the screams, gesticulations, and the dancing, which Europeans would only produce designedly, self-consciously and hence spuriously, are quite genuine expressions of religious fervour." [18]
The Andrewettes responded with amens and other comments during the pauses in Andrew’s spoken introduction. The only audience response on the record was applause at the end.
Notes on Performers
Andrews formed the Andrewettes in 1962, but was working as a solo artist in 1967. [19] Tony Heilbut noted, "it was an artistic advance but financially, a rear-guard action." [20]
She died in 2012. Her homegoing was held at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. [21]
Availability
Album: The Famous Spiritual + Gospel Festival of 1965. Bremen, Germany, 25 January 1965. L+R Records 44.005. 1981.
YouTube: uploaded by Reneesaskia, 16 February 2012.
End Notes
1. Interview published by Billboard. Quoted by Tony Cummings. "Inez Andrews: Gospel Roots - Remembering the Caravans’ lead singer." Cross Rhythms website.
2. Dennis Hevesi. "Inez Andrews, Gospel Singer, Dies at 83." The New York Times, 21 December 2012.
3. Her parents were Theodore and Pauline McConico. Andrews was briefly married to Robert Andrews; they divorced when she was 18. (Hevesi)
4. Tony Heilbut. The Gospel Sound. Garden City: Anchor Press, 1975 edition. 325.
5. Cummings. The group was Carter’s Choral Ensemble.
6. Cummings.
7. JM. "Updated: Inez Andrews of The Caravans Dead at Age 83." The Golden Era Gospel website, 19 December 2012.
8. JM.
9. Wikipedia. "Inez Andrews."
10. Siegfried Schmidt-Joos. Liner notes, Famous Spiritual. The promoters were Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau.
11. The Mighty Gospel Giants. "It’s a Needed Time." Veep Gospel VPS 16534. 1968.
12. The Golden Wings of Atlanta, Georgia. "It’s a Needed Time." It’s a Needed Time. Grammercy Records. Gram 345. 2010.
13. (P)is the symbol for a copyright protected recording. It was introduced in Europe in the 1960s, and was brought here in 1971. (Wikipedia. "Sound Recording Copyright Symbol.")
14. Wikipedia. "God Is Dead."
15. Cummings.
16. Wikipedia. "Die Glocke (Bremen)."
17. Cummings.
18. Schmidt-Joos.
19. Wikipedia, Andrews.
20. Heilbut. 326.
21. JM.
Concerts rather than recordings were traditionally the way musicians earned money. For religious artists, they were doubly important because they were a substitutes for church services, while records were only a reminder - rather like the difference between the mass and a rosary.
During the 1930s, artists who could afford automobiles traveled from town to town, staying with local church people when they could. Into the 1960s, segregation laws precluded the use of trains and hotels. Albertina Walker remembered:
"On the road, we couldn’t go into white hotels or white restaurants. We couldn’t do none of that then. We had to go to the back door to get food. [. . .] We drove in cars during that time, six of us going all across the country." [1]
Promoters in Word War II put together packages of entertainers to perform at military installations and in cities with war production factories. These continued after the war: sometimes a single person would put together a group that went from place to place, sometimes an entrepreneur in a single location would schedule a number of acts together. They often filled out the program with local performers.
Artists were not responsible for performing an entire evening, but only for a portion. Shorn of the need to handle everything, they concentrated on their most popular songs. When they were scheduled between artists with different styles, they did not need to vary their pace as much. That is, if they were between two groups who featured slow songs, they could concentrate on up-tempo ones.
These tours were cauldrons that exposed artists to each other’s work, and created friendships beyond the regional ones that already existed. Inez Andrews’ mother died when she was two. [2] Her father [3] and Lil McGriff [4] raised her in Birmingham, Alabama. She began singing in his Baptist church, and worked with a local group that toured the "Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia region." [5]
Meantime, McGriff’s daughter, Dorothy Love was singing with the Original Gospel Harmonettes [6]. One time when Andrews was substituting for Love in Nashville, James Cleveland heard her sing, [7] and recommended her to Albertina Walker. He then was the pianist for Walker’s group, the Gospel Caravans. [8] In 1957, Andrews moved to Chicago to join the group. [9]
The Newport Folk Festivals of the middle-1960s created a taste among the educated for programs that featured unfamiliar artists and styles. Two European promoters put together a package to introduce Germans to contemporary African-American religious music. [10] It included a minister and some of his parishioners from a Church of God in Christ church, the Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, and Andrews. By then, she had her group, the Andrewettes.
One of the songs Andrews sang was "It’s a Needed Time." She never recorded it, but it became known through the concert circuit. In 1968, the Mighty Gospel Giants recorded it, [11] and since it has been sung by both professionals like Melvin Couch [12] and local groups.
Andrews’ version reused phrases popularized by Lightnin’ Hopkins, but with a different melody and a truncated verse structure. The phrase "it’s a needed time" became its distinctive feature.
Performers
Vocal Accompaniment: Bettie Jones Sims, Elaine Davis, Mildred Span, Elizabeth Dargan
Instrumental Accompaniment: James Conley, piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano, tambourine
Credits
I. Andrews
(P) 1981 [13]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verse Phrases: needed time, don’t stay long, oh Lord
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord, Lordy
God is real: this phrase in Andrew’s first spoken line was a reference to a theological movement exploring the consequences of the secularization of morality, especially after Auschwitz. A Time magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" on 8 April 1966, and turned what was then an academic debate into a popular slogan for the religious. Andrews may not have been aware when she made her statement in Bremen that it was a German, Friedrich Nietzsche, who first raised the problem. [14]
Format: verse-chorus within ritual prelude-denouement structure
Prelude
Andrews introduced the song by saying God was the world’s greatest healer, with an invitation for Him to come make "everything all right." Then, she and the Andrewettes repeated the "Oh Lord" chorus with fragments of Hopkins’ verses.
Denouement: repetitions of "Oh Lord" in sets that began or ended with a variant of "needed time."
Notes on Music
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: call-response followed by group singing with soloist making comments
Singing Style:
Solo: by the time Andrews was performing in Bremen, she recognized people "don’t pay me to sing, they like to hear me holler." [15]
Group: chordal harmony
Solo-Group Dynamics:
Prelude: Andrews and the group sang a phrase. They began together, then Andrews paused after "right now," then continued "is a needed after time" just a bit after them.
Denouement: the group repeated phrases in even timing, which allowed Andrews to sing her high notes independently. They often were emphasized by extending beyond the group’s tones.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the piano primarily played rhythm, but used chordal progressions that were melodic. The tambourine was loud on the downbeat, softer on the upbeat. Both were loud at the ends of verses, and the piano played through the pauses between verses.
Notes on Performance
Recorded live at Die Glocke, a 1920s Bremen concert hall with excellent acoustics. [16] Tony Cummings said the concert also was taped in Baden Baden by SWR TV in an empty church "where the artists were asked to whip up Holy Spirit fervour before rows of empty pews. Some succeeded better than others, none more so than Inez Andrews And The Andrewettes." [17]
Audience Perceptions
Siegfried Schmidt-Joos noticed "some members of the audience exclaimed rather bewilderedly that they have not been able to differentiate between mere ‘show’ and genuine fervour" in the three acts presented. He then essayed a cultural gulf by explaining, "the screams, gesticulations, and the dancing, which Europeans would only produce designedly, self-consciously and hence spuriously, are quite genuine expressions of religious fervour." [18]
The Andrewettes responded with amens and other comments during the pauses in Andrew’s spoken introduction. The only audience response on the record was applause at the end.
Notes on Performers
Andrews formed the Andrewettes in 1962, but was working as a solo artist in 1967. [19] Tony Heilbut noted, "it was an artistic advance but financially, a rear-guard action." [20]
She died in 2012. Her homegoing was held at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. [21]
Availability
Album: The Famous Spiritual + Gospel Festival of 1965. Bremen, Germany, 25 January 1965. L+R Records 44.005. 1981.
YouTube: uploaded by Reneesaskia, 16 February 2012.
End Notes
1. Interview published by Billboard. Quoted by Tony Cummings. "Inez Andrews: Gospel Roots - Remembering the Caravans’ lead singer." Cross Rhythms website.
2. Dennis Hevesi. "Inez Andrews, Gospel Singer, Dies at 83." The New York Times, 21 December 2012.
3. Her parents were Theodore and Pauline McConico. Andrews was briefly married to Robert Andrews; they divorced when she was 18. (Hevesi)
4. Tony Heilbut. The Gospel Sound. Garden City: Anchor Press, 1975 edition. 325.
5. Cummings. The group was Carter’s Choral Ensemble.
6. Cummings.
7. JM. "Updated: Inez Andrews of The Caravans Dead at Age 83." The Golden Era Gospel website, 19 December 2012.
8. JM.
9. Wikipedia. "Inez Andrews."
10. Siegfried Schmidt-Joos. Liner notes, Famous Spiritual. The promoters were Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau.
11. The Mighty Gospel Giants. "It’s a Needed Time." Veep Gospel VPS 16534. 1968.
12. The Golden Wings of Atlanta, Georgia. "It’s a Needed Time." It’s a Needed Time. Grammercy Records. Gram 345. 2010.
13. (P)is the symbol for a copyright protected recording. It was introduced in Europe in the 1960s, and was brought here in 1971. (Wikipedia. "Sound Recording Copyright Symbol.")
14. Wikipedia. "God Is Dead."
15. Cummings.
16. Wikipedia. "Die Glocke (Bremen)."
17. Cummings.
18. Schmidt-Joos.
19. Wikipedia, Andrews.
20. Heilbut. 326.
21. JM.
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