Topic: Movement - Dance
John Wesley’s recommendations for a "more excellent way," discussed in the post for 30 October 2018, [1] took on new significance when the quest for contact with the Holy Spirit moved beyond Phoebe Palmer’s sense of well being to speaking in tongues. [2]
He had begun by telling his readers the reason "the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost" mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:28 were no longer reported was the church had become conventionalized by Constantine. The only way to bring their return was to follow the better method of living alluded to in 1 Corinthians 12:31. [3]
While Holiness and Pentecostal groups differed in what was acceptable evidence for a spiritual gift, they both created lists that defined acceptable behavior. Everything condemned by Wesley became taboo. By the time Earl Paulk was growing up in the Spurling-Tomlinson Church of God, the list had been expanded to exclude participation in high school sports. [4]
Celibacy was not proposed by Wesley, but his rules made courtship difficult. Play parties emerged as an alternative form of the old round dances mentioned in the post for 4 October 2018. Their primary characteristics were the music was sung by the dancers, and the steps did not include the physical contact of the waist swing. [5]
Benjamin Botkin believed they arose in isolated areas where musicians were scarce, and that the concerns of Protestant evangelists were secondary. [6] He noted, some ministers accepted them, and others did not, [7] but they universally withered when the population of an area increased. [8] He also noted that, like the slaves mentioned in the post for 4 October 2018, the clergy accepted dances if they were taught in gym classes as exercises. [9]
Religious leaders like Lynn Rohrbough began suggesting play parties for youth group meetings in the 1930s, [10] but they failed to capture the interest of most. They were been kept alive by folk-dance revivalists.
Dean Ottinger adapted Lightnin’ Hopkins’ "Needed Time" for a dance that was intended to introduce Sufi philosophy, but used the movements of a singing game. The participants at a workshop sponsored by the Community United Church of Christ in Boulder, Colorado, in 2006 didn’t mix when they formed a circle. Men stood on one side, and women on the other, with couples interspersed.
The steps were simple. They held hands and took a wide step to the left with a pause, followed by another step to the left. After repeating that to the right, they took several steps into the center with their hands crossed over their chests. They stepped back and took up hands in a circle to repeat the combination.
The singing was equally simple. They repeated two verses of Hopkins’ song following directions called out by Ottinger. He stood in the center beating a drum head. Dick Levison also stood in the center where he strummed a guitar to set the pace. The pace never changed.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: dancers
Vocal Director: Dean Ottinger
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: Dick Levison, guitar; Dean Ottinger, drum head
Credits
None given
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: needed time, come by here
Vocabulary
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: open-ended
Verse Repetition Pattern: repetitions of two verses called out by Ottinger
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Lightnin’ Hopkins
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note; a couple iterations were hummed.
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: a steel-stringed guitar was strummed to create the basic rhythm
Notes on Performance
Occasion: workshop
Location: Community United Church of Christ, Boulder, Colorado
Microphones: none
Clothing: casual
Notes on Performers
Dances of Universal Peace was organized as a Sufi dance order in San Francisco by Samuel L. Lewis, a protégée of Ruth St. Denis. [11] His followers created a formal organization in 1982 that certified leaders and dance circles. [12]
The Community United Church of Christ maintained a sanctioned dance circle. [13] It was affiliated with the descendent denomination of the Puritan’s Congregational Church, but indicated it had become "a progressive, Christian fellowship of spiritual seekers who believe there are many paths to God." [14] Its pastor was ordained as "a liberal Southern Baptist pastor in 1979," but left the ministry to work with the National Education Association. Lee Berg returned to the ministry for the UCC in 2012. [15]
Ottinger became interested in Sufism when he was a student at the University of Kansas around 1976. He then embarked on more serious study, taking the name Allaudin Ottinger and obtaining the rank of a murshid, or spiritual teacher. He settled in his native Kansas City. [16]
Levison, the guitar player, took the name Habib.
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by madzub on 23 January 2006.
End Notes
1. John Wesley. "Sermon XL." The Arminian Magazine 10:341-346:July 1787 and 10:398-406:August 1787. See the post for 30 October 2018 for details on its availability.
2. For more on Palmer and the men who introduced speaking in tongues, see the post for 7 December 2017.
3. Wesley, July. 341.
4. Paulk was discussed in the post for 14 October 2018. "According to his biography, Earl Jr. went out for football a number of times. He would make the team, only to quit when his father discovered what he had done. Finally, he was allowed to participate in the ‘low profile’ sport of track and field. His father, however, became very displeased when Earl Jr. received considerable public notoriety for his abilities. Earl Senior’s concern was that the publicity would reflect poorly upon the denomination." (Scott Thumma. "The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: Megachurches in Modern American Society." PhD dissertation. Emory University, 1996. Chapter 2, 15.)
5. B. A. Botkin. The American Play-Party Song. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1963 edition. 23.
6. Botkin. 19 and 26.
7. Botkin. 21.
8. Botkin. 19-20.
9. Botkin. 22.
10. Camp Songs. 58, 483-484, 522-523.
11. St. Denis was discussed in the post for 14 October 2018.
12. "Sufi Ruhaniat International." Dances of Universal Peace website. Neil Douglas-Klotz and Tasnim Fernandez organized the international network in 1982. (Wikipedia. "Dances of Universal Peace.")
13. "All Ongoing Dance Circles."
14. "About Community United Church of Christ." Its website
15. "Interim Pastor." Church website
16. "Murshid Allaudin Ottinger." Ruhaniat website.
Showing posts with label Hopkins Lightnin'. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hopkins Lightnin'. Show all posts
Friday, November 2, 2018
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Whiskey Headed Buddies - Needed Time
Topic: Movement - Dance
Methodists’ aversion to social dancing goes back to an article John Wesley wrote for lay readers of his Arminian Magazine in July and August of 1787 about "a more excellent way" of living. [1]
At the time he was eighty-four-years old and concerned with the structure of the church. He had begun as a reformist within the Anglican church, and still considered that to be his role. However, the successful revolution fought by the North American colonies meant the English church had ceased to exist there, and local leaders in the United States had begun ordaining themselves. At the annual meeting held in Manchester in August of that year the primary issue was the desire by English pastors for the same sort of independence. [2]
Despite his conservative loyalty to the church, Wesley remained an innovator. As mentioned in the post for 27 September 2018, he had introduced small weekly classes led by exhorters when the Methodist society in Bristol, England, became too large to be taught by one individual. In 1787, the movement had grown to 4,000 in England and 6,859 in America. [3] He resorted to the newly emerging mass media in 1778 when he began his own magazine for his followers. [4]
In many ways his sermon on "a more excellent way" was a reformulation of his 1729 attempt to create a method of appropriate behavior for the Holy Club at Oxford. [5] He began by suggesting "two orders of Christians" existed within the Anglican church. "One lived an innocent life, conforming in all things, not sinful, to the customs and fashions of the world." The other were more zealous in their intent "to attain the whole mind that was in Christ." [6]
Then, as in 1729, he itemized the ways they differed from how many hours they slept to how they conducted their business and ate their meals. However, the instructions he drew up for his first society in 1744 did not mention dancing. [7]
His reason for including the section on proper diversions in 1787 probably was stimulated by the behavior of the royal family. George III’s brother Henry had taken up residence in a seaside resort that had become popular for its baths. George’s oldest son visited Henry in 1782, and rented his own home in 1783. Both had contracted scandalous marriages, and were considered "dissipated." [8]
Wesley’s list of diversions matched the activities in Brighton: hunting, shooting, fishing, races, masquerades, plays, assemblies, balls, cards, dancing, and music. [9] Samuel Johnson had said in the 1770s: "you hunt in the morning and crowd to the rooms at night and call it diversion when your heart knows it is perishing from poverty of pleasures and your wits get blunted for want of some other mind to sharpen them on." [10]
Wesley’s conceded "balls or assemblies" were "more reputable than masquerades but must be allowed by all impartial persons to have exactly the same tendency. So undoubtedly have all public dancings. And the same tendency they must have, unless the same caution obtained among modern Christians which was observed among the ancient Heathens. With them men and women never danced together, but always in separate rooms. This was always observed in ancient Greece, and for several ages at Rome, where a woman dancing in company with men would have at once been set down for a prostitute." [11]
His instructions were taken up in this country after Phoebe Palmer introduced the concept of living a more holy life. She had never had a genuine conversion experience, and believed this would, as Wesley promised, bring her closer to the mind of Christ. [12] By then waltzes had been introduced [13] and dancing between men and women become more intimate because the man put his arm around his partner’s waist and she touched his shoulder.
Couples dancing like that done in Bristol in 2016 became taboo. At that Christmas party, a man and woman were seen standing several inches apart taking steps that traveled in varying directions. His right arm was around her waist, and hers was lain along that arm. Another man, wearing a Santa hat, had one hand extended to his partner in a pose popularized by jitterbug.
Wesley and Palmer would have been more scandalized if they knew the music was a religious song recorded by a blues musician. It was not clear if the Whiskey Headed Buddies even knew the origins of "Needed Time": they learned it from Eric Bibb. [14] They replaced the reference to "Jesus," with "please, if you don’t stay long."
For the middle-aged gathering, it was simply a pleasant tune. For Wesley and Palmer it would have been an example of an unthinking way of life that followed the conventions of the time. It would not have mattered if the woman was the man’s wife or a friend.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Keith Hodges
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: Keith Hodges, acoustic guitar; Dave Hares, electric guitar; John Jones, bass guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: Sean Hanneberry
Credits
"one of our favourite songs by Eric Bibb" [15]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: needed time, bended knee, stay long
Vocabulary
Pronoun: you
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: "please" for "Jesus"
Basic Form: three-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: ABCAC
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Lightnin’ Hopkins
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: sung verses alternated with instrumental sections at the beginning, after the third verse, and at the end
Singing Style: one syllable to one note with no ornamentations
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the band played chords during the vocal parts, and melody during the interludes with no displays of virtuosity to disturb the dancers.
Notes on Performance
Occasion: Christmas party, 11 December 2015
Location: stage, Whitchurch Community Centre, Bristol, England. The stage backdrop was a mural of rural life with Holstein cows in a fenced field.
Microphones: the vocalist had a floor mike; the electric instruments had amplifiers
Clothing: casual dark shirts and slacks; the drummer wore a tee-shirt featuring someone’s head. The male dancers wore white shirts and ties; the woman wore a sweater.
Notes on Movement
The band remained stationary. The electric bass player sometimes shifted his weight from foot to foot. The electric guitar player moved a little to the music.
Audience Perceptions
The party-goers applauded at the end.
Notes on Performers
Whiskey Headed Buddies was formed in 2009. [16] They performed together, and in combinations with others. [17]
The lead singer, Keith Hodges, was "a regular solo performer around the folk clubs of Bristol and Dorset" and played bass guitar with a Ceilidh band. [18] He inherited his father’s nursery business, where his own son, Phil, took over in 1997. [19]
David Hares had his own recording studio, [20] and worked with Christ Scott in 1990 as an acoustic blues duet. [21] In addition to electric guitar, he played mandolin and keyboard. He retired from the same volunteer fireman’s company where his father had worked, in 2011. Hares earned his steady income as an undertaker. [22]
John Jones played flute and bohdran for "theatrical productions," as well as electric bass for the Buddies. [23] Drummer Sean Henneberry was associated with the University of the West of England, Bristol, [24] and produced solo recordings in his home studio. [25]
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by David Hares on 3 January 2016
End Notes
1. John Wesley. "Sermon XL." The Arminian Magazine 10:341-346:July 1787 and 10:398-406:August 1787. Thomas Jackson called it "The More Excellent Way" and labeled it sermon 89 in The Sermons of John Wesley. Nampa, Idaho: Northwest Nazarene University, 1872. Copies are available from many sources on-line.
2. L. Tyerman. The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A. New York: Harper and Brothers, volume 3, 1872. 496-498.
3. Tyerman. 498.
4. Samuel J. Rogal. "John Wesley’s Arminian Magaine." Andrews University Seminary Studies 22:231-247:1984. 232.
5. Wikipedia. "Charles Wesley."
6. Wesley, July. 343.
7. William Henry Meredith. The Real John Wesley. Cincinnati: Jennings and Pye, 1903. 236-237.
8. Ronald Sutherland Gower described Henry, Duke of Cumberland this way in a journal published by Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill. ("Anne Lutterell, Duchess of Cumberland." The Anglo-Saxon Review 10:63-66:1901. 64.)
9. Wesley, August. 401-402.
10. Samuel Johnson. Quoted by Adam Trimingham. "Eighteenth Century Celebs Making Brighton Their Home." The [Brighton, England] Argus. 24 October 2014. Pat Rogers mentioned he was in Brighton in 1773 and 1776. ("Johnson, Samuel." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography on-line. 23 September 2004; last updated 21 May 2009.
11. Wesley, August. 402-403.
12. Phoebe Palmer was mentioned in the post for 7 December 2017.
13. The waltz was introduced in European classical music around 1800, according to Willi Apel. "Waltz." 922 in Harvard Dictionary of Music. Edited by Willi Apel. Cambridge: Belnap Press, 1969 edition.
14. Bibb’s version of "Needed Time" was discussed in the post for 18 February 2018.
15. YouTube notes.
16. "About Whiskey Headed Buddies." Facebook.
17. "Whiskey Headed Buddies. Weebly website.
18. Weebly.
19. "Almondsbury Garden Centre." Corby Fellas website.
20. Weebly.
21. Facebook, Buddies.
22. "Farewell for Vacuuming Fireman." The Weston [Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England] Mercury. 25 July 2011.
23. Weebly.
24. "About Sean Henneberry." Facebook.
25. Weebly.
Methodists’ aversion to social dancing goes back to an article John Wesley wrote for lay readers of his Arminian Magazine in July and August of 1787 about "a more excellent way" of living. [1]
At the time he was eighty-four-years old and concerned with the structure of the church. He had begun as a reformist within the Anglican church, and still considered that to be his role. However, the successful revolution fought by the North American colonies meant the English church had ceased to exist there, and local leaders in the United States had begun ordaining themselves. At the annual meeting held in Manchester in August of that year the primary issue was the desire by English pastors for the same sort of independence. [2]
Despite his conservative loyalty to the church, Wesley remained an innovator. As mentioned in the post for 27 September 2018, he had introduced small weekly classes led by exhorters when the Methodist society in Bristol, England, became too large to be taught by one individual. In 1787, the movement had grown to 4,000 in England and 6,859 in America. [3] He resorted to the newly emerging mass media in 1778 when he began his own magazine for his followers. [4]
In many ways his sermon on "a more excellent way" was a reformulation of his 1729 attempt to create a method of appropriate behavior for the Holy Club at Oxford. [5] He began by suggesting "two orders of Christians" existed within the Anglican church. "One lived an innocent life, conforming in all things, not sinful, to the customs and fashions of the world." The other were more zealous in their intent "to attain the whole mind that was in Christ." [6]
Then, as in 1729, he itemized the ways they differed from how many hours they slept to how they conducted their business and ate their meals. However, the instructions he drew up for his first society in 1744 did not mention dancing. [7]
His reason for including the section on proper diversions in 1787 probably was stimulated by the behavior of the royal family. George III’s brother Henry had taken up residence in a seaside resort that had become popular for its baths. George’s oldest son visited Henry in 1782, and rented his own home in 1783. Both had contracted scandalous marriages, and were considered "dissipated." [8]
Wesley’s list of diversions matched the activities in Brighton: hunting, shooting, fishing, races, masquerades, plays, assemblies, balls, cards, dancing, and music. [9] Samuel Johnson had said in the 1770s: "you hunt in the morning and crowd to the rooms at night and call it diversion when your heart knows it is perishing from poverty of pleasures and your wits get blunted for want of some other mind to sharpen them on." [10]
Wesley’s conceded "balls or assemblies" were "more reputable than masquerades but must be allowed by all impartial persons to have exactly the same tendency. So undoubtedly have all public dancings. And the same tendency they must have, unless the same caution obtained among modern Christians which was observed among the ancient Heathens. With them men and women never danced together, but always in separate rooms. This was always observed in ancient Greece, and for several ages at Rome, where a woman dancing in company with men would have at once been set down for a prostitute." [11]
His instructions were taken up in this country after Phoebe Palmer introduced the concept of living a more holy life. She had never had a genuine conversion experience, and believed this would, as Wesley promised, bring her closer to the mind of Christ. [12] By then waltzes had been introduced [13] and dancing between men and women become more intimate because the man put his arm around his partner’s waist and she touched his shoulder.
Couples dancing like that done in Bristol in 2016 became taboo. At that Christmas party, a man and woman were seen standing several inches apart taking steps that traveled in varying directions. His right arm was around her waist, and hers was lain along that arm. Another man, wearing a Santa hat, had one hand extended to his partner in a pose popularized by jitterbug.
Wesley and Palmer would have been more scandalized if they knew the music was a religious song recorded by a blues musician. It was not clear if the Whiskey Headed Buddies even knew the origins of "Needed Time": they learned it from Eric Bibb. [14] They replaced the reference to "Jesus," with "please, if you don’t stay long."
For the middle-aged gathering, it was simply a pleasant tune. For Wesley and Palmer it would have been an example of an unthinking way of life that followed the conventions of the time. It would not have mattered if the woman was the man’s wife or a friend.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Keith Hodges
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: Keith Hodges, acoustic guitar; Dave Hares, electric guitar; John Jones, bass guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: Sean Hanneberry
Credits
"one of our favourite songs by Eric Bibb" [15]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: needed time, bended knee, stay long
Vocabulary
Pronoun: you
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: "please" for "Jesus"
Basic Form: three-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: ABCAC
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Lightnin’ Hopkins
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: sung verses alternated with instrumental sections at the beginning, after the third verse, and at the end
Singing Style: one syllable to one note with no ornamentations
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the band played chords during the vocal parts, and melody during the interludes with no displays of virtuosity to disturb the dancers.
Notes on Performance
Occasion: Christmas party, 11 December 2015
Location: stage, Whitchurch Community Centre, Bristol, England. The stage backdrop was a mural of rural life with Holstein cows in a fenced field.
Microphones: the vocalist had a floor mike; the electric instruments had amplifiers
Clothing: casual dark shirts and slacks; the drummer wore a tee-shirt featuring someone’s head. The male dancers wore white shirts and ties; the woman wore a sweater.
Notes on Movement
The band remained stationary. The electric bass player sometimes shifted his weight from foot to foot. The electric guitar player moved a little to the music.
Audience Perceptions
The party-goers applauded at the end.
Notes on Performers
Whiskey Headed Buddies was formed in 2009. [16] They performed together, and in combinations with others. [17]
The lead singer, Keith Hodges, was "a regular solo performer around the folk clubs of Bristol and Dorset" and played bass guitar with a Ceilidh band. [18] He inherited his father’s nursery business, where his own son, Phil, took over in 1997. [19]
David Hares had his own recording studio, [20] and worked with Christ Scott in 1990 as an acoustic blues duet. [21] In addition to electric guitar, he played mandolin and keyboard. He retired from the same volunteer fireman’s company where his father had worked, in 2011. Hares earned his steady income as an undertaker. [22]
John Jones played flute and bohdran for "theatrical productions," as well as electric bass for the Buddies. [23] Drummer Sean Henneberry was associated with the University of the West of England, Bristol, [24] and produced solo recordings in his home studio. [25]
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by David Hares on 3 January 2016
End Notes
1. John Wesley. "Sermon XL." The Arminian Magazine 10:341-346:July 1787 and 10:398-406:August 1787. Thomas Jackson called it "The More Excellent Way" and labeled it sermon 89 in The Sermons of John Wesley. Nampa, Idaho: Northwest Nazarene University, 1872. Copies are available from many sources on-line.
2. L. Tyerman. The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A. New York: Harper and Brothers, volume 3, 1872. 496-498.
3. Tyerman. 498.
4. Samuel J. Rogal. "John Wesley’s Arminian Magaine." Andrews University Seminary Studies 22:231-247:1984. 232.
5. Wikipedia. "Charles Wesley."
6. Wesley, July. 343.
7. William Henry Meredith. The Real John Wesley. Cincinnati: Jennings and Pye, 1903. 236-237.
8. Ronald Sutherland Gower described Henry, Duke of Cumberland this way in a journal published by Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill. ("Anne Lutterell, Duchess of Cumberland." The Anglo-Saxon Review 10:63-66:1901. 64.)
9. Wesley, August. 401-402.
10. Samuel Johnson. Quoted by Adam Trimingham. "Eighteenth Century Celebs Making Brighton Their Home." The [Brighton, England] Argus. 24 October 2014. Pat Rogers mentioned he was in Brighton in 1773 and 1776. ("Johnson, Samuel." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography on-line. 23 September 2004; last updated 21 May 2009.
11. Wesley, August. 402-403.
12. Phoebe Palmer was mentioned in the post for 7 December 2017.
13. The waltz was introduced in European classical music around 1800, according to Willi Apel. "Waltz." 922 in Harvard Dictionary of Music. Edited by Willi Apel. Cambridge: Belnap Press, 1969 edition.
14. Bibb’s version of "Needed Time" was discussed in the post for 18 February 2018.
15. YouTube notes.
16. "About Whiskey Headed Buddies." Facebook.
17. "Whiskey Headed Buddies. Weebly website.
18. Weebly.
19. "Almondsbury Garden Centre." Corby Fellas website.
20. Weebly.
21. Facebook, Buddies.
22. "Farewell for Vacuuming Fireman." The Weston [Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England] Mercury. 25 July 2011.
23. Weebly.
24. "About Sean Henneberry." Facebook.
25. Weebly.
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Eric Bibb - Needed Time
Topic: Seminal Influences - Innovation
Lighnin’ Hopkins’ version of "Needed Time" allowed for possible innovation because he did not always play it the same way. Taj Mahal added another blessing for change when he transposed the song to the banjo at the end of Sounder.
Eric Bibb introduced three changes in the many performances uploaded to YouTube that did not obscure the outlines of Hopkins’ version. First, he converted it into an audience participation song like Pete Seeger did with "Kumbaya." Some of the longer videos included his introduction that invited the audience to sing. Most just showed them singing the "needed time" lines.
Not all audiences responded the same. The one in Thailand would not sing, or if it did, the camera microphone didn’t pick up their voices. [1] Fewer responded to his request to clap during the instrumental interludes. The only audiences that were able to sing and clap at the same time were in Amsterdam [2] and Hannover, Germany. [3]
Bibb, like the Fourth Street Gospel Band discussed in the post for 14 February 2018, was able to use different instrumental configurations. Starting around 2008 he began appearing with a drum set, string bass, and an electric guitar played by Staffan Astner. [4] A few times he appeared with Michael Jerome Browne playing a slide-style guitar. [5] In these performances he and his backup musicians played as a group.
On some videos he appeared with local musicians. In Italy, Fabrizio Poggi played harmonica, [6] and in Stockholm, Ale Möller played a horizontal member of the flute family. [7] In that Hannover show Bibb appeared with mandolin and dobro players. [3] In these performances, Bibb usually took turns with the others on solo passages.
Bibb went a step farther and wrote his own introduction to "Needed Time." In addition, when he introduced Habib Koité to "Needed Time" the African guitar player added his own verses in Bambara. [8]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Eric Bibb
Vocal Group: audience
Vocal Director: Eric Bibb
Instrumental Accompaniment: acoustic guitar, often electric guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: sometimes drum set and string bass
Credits
Bibb always credited Taj Mahal with introducing him to "Needed Time"
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: needed time, bended knee, if you don’t stay long
Vocabulary
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: Lord, Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: open-ended with "needed time" treated as a burden
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Lightnin’ Hopkins
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: alternated between sung sections and instrumental ones. The latter were introduced by the invitation to "think of someone you love" between 2008 and 2011, and with the announcement "it’s praying time" since 2010.
Singing Style: Bibb’s style was unornamented; the audiences sang in unison.
Solo-Group Dynamics: Bibb sang the verses and the audience sang the burden. He often just sang a few words in each line of the burden and let the audience carry the melody.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the accompanying instruments were subdued during the singing.
Instrumental-Rhythm Dynamics: Bibb told Keith Shadwick "having a percussionist will allow the sound of the guitar, which was my first love and something I still love, to come through." [14]
Notes on Performance
Occasion: Bibb appeared alone in remote areas like Ontario, [15] Australia, [16] and Thailand, [1] but more often appeared with other musicians.
Location: the videos ranged from small, indoor clubs to outdoor festivals. Some festivals were in tents.
Microphones: floor microphones in most places.
Clothing: Bibb dressed informally in a colored shirt that was open at the neck. He sometimes added a sports jacket and always appeared in a flat-brimmed hat.
Notes on Movement
Bibb might sit or stand while performing, but was always in motion. He used his feet to set the rhythm. In Östersund, Sweden, Astner tapped his toe twice as often as Bibb moved his feet. [4] Koité used his foot less often that Bibb, and one time crossed his ankles. Later he lifted one heel to mark time. [8]
Audience Perceptions
YouTube comments ran the gamut from praise to religious comments to questions about technique. Some recalled other concerts where they saw him perform, and add their memories of singing with him. Typical was Lani Dundore’s comment: "We needed you Eric and you played. We sang along at Laxon Chico World Music Fest." [17]
More specific was the memory of Nevada Cato, who sang backup on Bibb’s 1994 album, Spirit and The Blues. [18] He wrote:
"Awesom guy! Awesom music! Cant forget when he pulled me out out the crowd to join him on this song in Stockholm. Long live Erik Bibb." [19]
Notes on Performers
Bibb was born in New York in 1951. [20] His father, Leon Bibb had moved from Louisville, Kentucky, to New York where he performed in Broadway musicals, before turning to the folk-revival circuit. The elder Bibb was friends with Paul Robeson. [21] After Leon moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Eric went to Paris where he worked with Mickey Baker. [22] He was the Louisville-born musician mentioned in the post 17 August 2018 who worked with John Littleton.
The diversity of Bibb’s relations with other musicians like Astner was partly the result of his life in Europe. From Paris, he settled in Sweden. Around 1980, he returned to the States, but found the congenial atmosphere he remembered from Greenwich Village had been replaced by one of rugged individualism. [23] He returned to Sweden. Then, after recording for an English company, Bibb moved to London in 2003. After his marriage to Sari Matinlassi, he moved to Helsinki, Finland in 2011. [24]
Availability
I found nearly 30 concert videos on YouTube on 31 January 2018 with the search parameters "Eric Bibb Needed Time." Some are mentioned in the End Notes.
End Notes
1. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by Ed Vaughan on 31 October 2009. Phuket International Blues Rock Festival, Thailand, 2009.
2. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by DeKuijp on 28 April 2012. Staffan Astner, electric guitar. Amstel Kerk, concert, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 27 April 2012.
3. Eric Bibb and the North Country Far. "Needed time." Uploaded by snory66 on 16 December 2013. Bluesgarage Isernhagen, club, near Hannover, Germany, 15 December 2013. Petri Hakala, mandolin; Ollie Haavisto, Dobro guitar.
4. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by dreamingtree72 on 19 April 2010. Gamla Teatern, hotel, Östersund, Sweden, 2010. Staffan Astner, electric guitar.
5. Eric Bibb and Michael Jerome Browne. "Needed Time." Uploaded by randallstaffordcook on 21 January 2016. Hugh’s Room, club, Toronto, Canada, 20 January 2016.
6. Eric Bibb. "Needed time." Uploaded by Alberto Polito on 2 August 2016. Fabrizio Poggi, harmonica; Guy Davis, electric guitar. Liri Blues Festival, near Rome, Italy, 2016.
7. Ale Möller, Eric Bibb, and Knut Reiersrud. "Needed Time." Uploaded by sssler on 18 September 2010. Concert, Stockholm, Sweden, 17 October 2010. Reiersrud, electric guitar.
8. Eric Bibb and Habib Koité. "Touma Ni Kelen/Needed Time." Uploaded by Gudi0510 on 13 November 2012. Harmonie, club, Bonn, Germany, 11 November 2011. Mamadou Kone, shakers.
14. Eric Bibb. Interviewed by Keith Shadwick. "Eric Bibb: Blues with a Pedigree." [London] Independent website. 21 February 2003.
15. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by Opeongolad on 18 July 2011. Festival, Perth, Ontario, Canada, 2011.
16. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by SilkySkillsUnited on 24 December 2011. The Basement, club, Sydney, Australia.
17. Lani Dundore. Comment, 2008, on Eric Bibb and Brian Kramer. "Needed Time." Uploaded by zekezement on 30 June 2007. California club, 1999.
18. Eric Bibb. Spirit and The Blues. Opus 3 Records 19401. Sweden, 1994. (Discogs entry for the album.)
19. bangoutaorda. Comment, 2009, on Eric Bibb and Brian Kramer. (See #17 above.)
20. Wikipedia. "Eric Bibb."
21. Joshua D. Farrington. "Bibb, Charles Leon." The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia. Edited by Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, and John A. Hardin. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Robeson was mentioned in the post for 17 August 2018.
22. Wikipedia.
23. James M. Manheim. "Eric Bibb Biography - Steered Toward Blues by Jazz Musician, Moved to Sweden, Influenced by Taj Mahal." JRank website.
24. Wikipedia.
Lighnin’ Hopkins’ version of "Needed Time" allowed for possible innovation because he did not always play it the same way. Taj Mahal added another blessing for change when he transposed the song to the banjo at the end of Sounder.
Eric Bibb introduced three changes in the many performances uploaded to YouTube that did not obscure the outlines of Hopkins’ version. First, he converted it into an audience participation song like Pete Seeger did with "Kumbaya." Some of the longer videos included his introduction that invited the audience to sing. Most just showed them singing the "needed time" lines.
Not all audiences responded the same. The one in Thailand would not sing, or if it did, the camera microphone didn’t pick up their voices. [1] Fewer responded to his request to clap during the instrumental interludes. The only audiences that were able to sing and clap at the same time were in Amsterdam [2] and Hannover, Germany. [3]
Bibb, like the Fourth Street Gospel Band discussed in the post for 14 February 2018, was able to use different instrumental configurations. Starting around 2008 he began appearing with a drum set, string bass, and an electric guitar played by Staffan Astner. [4] A few times he appeared with Michael Jerome Browne playing a slide-style guitar. [5] In these performances he and his backup musicians played as a group.
On some videos he appeared with local musicians. In Italy, Fabrizio Poggi played harmonica, [6] and in Stockholm, Ale Möller played a horizontal member of the flute family. [7] In that Hannover show Bibb appeared with mandolin and dobro players. [3] In these performances, Bibb usually took turns with the others on solo passages.
Bibb went a step farther and wrote his own introduction to "Needed Time." In addition, when he introduced Habib Koité to "Needed Time" the African guitar player added his own verses in Bambara. [8]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Eric Bibb
Vocal Group: audience
Vocal Director: Eric Bibb
Instrumental Accompaniment: acoustic guitar, often electric guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: sometimes drum set and string bass
Credits
Bibb always credited Taj Mahal with introducing him to "Needed Time"
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: needed time, bended knee, if you don’t stay long
Vocabulary
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: Lord, Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: open-ended with "needed time" treated as a burden
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Lightnin’ Hopkins
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: alternated between sung sections and instrumental ones. The latter were introduced by the invitation to "think of someone you love" between 2008 and 2011, and with the announcement "it’s praying time" since 2010.
Singing Style: Bibb’s style was unornamented; the audiences sang in unison.
Solo-Group Dynamics: Bibb sang the verses and the audience sang the burden. He often just sang a few words in each line of the burden and let the audience carry the melody.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the accompanying instruments were subdued during the singing.
Instrumental-Rhythm Dynamics: Bibb told Keith Shadwick "having a percussionist will allow the sound of the guitar, which was my first love and something I still love, to come through." [14]
Notes on Performance
Occasion: Bibb appeared alone in remote areas like Ontario, [15] Australia, [16] and Thailand, [1] but more often appeared with other musicians.
Location: the videos ranged from small, indoor clubs to outdoor festivals. Some festivals were in tents.
Microphones: floor microphones in most places.
Clothing: Bibb dressed informally in a colored shirt that was open at the neck. He sometimes added a sports jacket and always appeared in a flat-brimmed hat.
Notes on Movement
Bibb might sit or stand while performing, but was always in motion. He used his feet to set the rhythm. In Östersund, Sweden, Astner tapped his toe twice as often as Bibb moved his feet. [4] Koité used his foot less often that Bibb, and one time crossed his ankles. Later he lifted one heel to mark time. [8]
Audience Perceptions
YouTube comments ran the gamut from praise to religious comments to questions about technique. Some recalled other concerts where they saw him perform, and add their memories of singing with him. Typical was Lani Dundore’s comment: "We needed you Eric and you played. We sang along at Laxon Chico World Music Fest." [17]
More specific was the memory of Nevada Cato, who sang backup on Bibb’s 1994 album, Spirit and The Blues. [18] He wrote:
"Awesom guy! Awesom music! Cant forget when he pulled me out out the crowd to join him on this song in Stockholm. Long live Erik Bibb." [19]
Notes on Performers
Bibb was born in New York in 1951. [20] His father, Leon Bibb had moved from Louisville, Kentucky, to New York where he performed in Broadway musicals, before turning to the folk-revival circuit. The elder Bibb was friends with Paul Robeson. [21] After Leon moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Eric went to Paris where he worked with Mickey Baker. [22] He was the Louisville-born musician mentioned in the post 17 August 2018 who worked with John Littleton.
The diversity of Bibb’s relations with other musicians like Astner was partly the result of his life in Europe. From Paris, he settled in Sweden. Around 1980, he returned to the States, but found the congenial atmosphere he remembered from Greenwich Village had been replaced by one of rugged individualism. [23] He returned to Sweden. Then, after recording for an English company, Bibb moved to London in 2003. After his marriage to Sari Matinlassi, he moved to Helsinki, Finland in 2011. [24]
Availability
I found nearly 30 concert videos on YouTube on 31 January 2018 with the search parameters "Eric Bibb Needed Time." Some are mentioned in the End Notes.
End Notes
1. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by Ed Vaughan on 31 October 2009. Phuket International Blues Rock Festival, Thailand, 2009.
2. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by DeKuijp on 28 April 2012. Staffan Astner, electric guitar. Amstel Kerk, concert, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 27 April 2012.
3. Eric Bibb and the North Country Far. "Needed time." Uploaded by snory66 on 16 December 2013. Bluesgarage Isernhagen, club, near Hannover, Germany, 15 December 2013. Petri Hakala, mandolin; Ollie Haavisto, Dobro guitar.
4. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by dreamingtree72 on 19 April 2010. Gamla Teatern, hotel, Östersund, Sweden, 2010. Staffan Astner, electric guitar.
5. Eric Bibb and Michael Jerome Browne. "Needed Time." Uploaded by randallstaffordcook on 21 January 2016. Hugh’s Room, club, Toronto, Canada, 20 January 2016.
6. Eric Bibb. "Needed time." Uploaded by Alberto Polito on 2 August 2016. Fabrizio Poggi, harmonica; Guy Davis, electric guitar. Liri Blues Festival, near Rome, Italy, 2016.
7. Ale Möller, Eric Bibb, and Knut Reiersrud. "Needed Time." Uploaded by sssler on 18 September 2010. Concert, Stockholm, Sweden, 17 October 2010. Reiersrud, electric guitar.
8. Eric Bibb and Habib Koité. "Touma Ni Kelen/Needed Time." Uploaded by Gudi0510 on 13 November 2012. Harmonie, club, Bonn, Germany, 11 November 2011. Mamadou Kone, shakers.
14. Eric Bibb. Interviewed by Keith Shadwick. "Eric Bibb: Blues with a Pedigree." [London] Independent website. 21 February 2003.
15. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by Opeongolad on 18 July 2011. Festival, Perth, Ontario, Canada, 2011.
16. Eric Bibb. "Needed Time." Uploaded by SilkySkillsUnited on 24 December 2011. The Basement, club, Sydney, Australia.
17. Lani Dundore. Comment, 2008, on Eric Bibb and Brian Kramer. "Needed Time." Uploaded by zekezement on 30 June 2007. California club, 1999.
18. Eric Bibb. Spirit and The Blues. Opus 3 Records 19401. Sweden, 1994. (Discogs entry for the album.)
19. bangoutaorda. Comment, 2009, on Eric Bibb and Brian Kramer. (See #17 above.)
20. Wikipedia. "Eric Bibb."
21. Joshua D. Farrington. "Bibb, Charles Leon." The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia. Edited by Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, and John A. Hardin. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Robeson was mentioned in the post for 17 August 2018.
22. Wikipedia.
23. James M. Manheim. "Eric Bibb Biography - Steered Toward Blues by Jazz Musician, Moved to Sweden, Influenced by Taj Mahal." JRank website.
24. Wikipedia.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Taj Mahal, Eric Bibb, Clive Barnes - Needed Time
Topic: Seminal Influences - Tribute
In the United States today, the ultimate tribute for an artist is a reference in a film. Lightnin’ Hopkins’ "Needed Time" was played during the opening credits of Sounder in 1972. At the end, a banjo version by Taj Mahal was played while the final credits scrolled across the screen. During the film, it was alluded to several times.
Mahal began learning blues guitar from friends when he was an adolescent, but developed what he called his "basic building blocks" when he heard the older bluesmen play at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. In 1964 he formed the Rising Sons with Ry Cooder and Jessie Lee Kincaid. While their single did not sell well, it led to their becoming an opening act for some of the older men. [1] By 1970, he was touring with Hopkins. [2]
One artist who was inspired by Sounder was Eric Bibb, the son of folk-revival musician Leon Bibb. He paid his first tribute to Mahal in 1994 when he recorded "Needed Time" with a backup group he called Needed Time." [3] Once, when he as touring in France with Clive Barnes, [4] he had a chance to play "Needed Time" with Mahal. The video posted by Barnes showed how tradition was perpetuated: Mahal had worked with Hopkins, Bibb had worked with Mahal, and Barnes was working with Bibb.
The three were sitting backstage and had just finished playing something referred to as "Cool on John." One of them suggested "Needed Time." After debating whether to use the key of E or E flat, Mahal played the melody through once in E. Then the other two began playing an accompaniment with Bibb sometimes singing some lines. During the instrumental breaks, the men took turns playing lead, but during the verses, Mahal transposed the music into jazz and then blues variations.
Mahal said when they started, he had never heard Hopkins play "Needed Time." I haven’t seen anything that indicated why it was selected as the theme song for Sounder, or, for that matter how Mahal became involved in the project. Another composer, Alex North, wrote an initial score that was rejected. [5]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Eric Bibb
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: Taj Majal, Eric Bibb, acoustic guitars; Clive Barnes, acoustic slide guitar.
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
None provided
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: fragments of "come if you don’t stay long" and "now is the needed time"
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Lightnin’ Hopkins
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: repetition of basic melody with variations
Notes on Performance
Occasion: Clive Barnes was touring with Eric Bibb in France.
Location: back stage following a performance
Microphones: none
Clothing: casual
Notes on Movement
The three were seated on folding chairs. Taj Mahal either tapped his left foot or nodded his head to mark time.
Audience Perceptions
Sounder introduced Hopkins and "Needed Time" to a new audience. Marc Nerenberg, a Toronto banjo player, wrote:
"learned this from Taj Mahal’s playing of this tune in the soundtrack of the movie ‘Sounder’ in 1972. His version showed up on the radio for a few days. Imagine that: clawhammer banjo on pop music radio! I actually learned it from the radio - the only song I’ve ever done so with." [6]
A couple people who learned the song from Daddy Stovepipe commented they were motivated by Sounder, [7] [8] while another discovered the song was more widely known than a film tribute. He remembered:
"First heard this on the ‘Sounder’ film soundtrack. Much later, playing it on a blues harp on a late night Cambridge MA subway platform, a Bahamian preacher approached me, telling me he knew that tune (with different words) from his own gospel tradition. Amen!" [9]
Notes on Performers
Mahal was born in 1942 in Harlem. His father, Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, was a West Indian jazz musician who moved his family to Springfield, Massachusetts. Young Fredericks adopted his stage name around the time he entered the University of Massachusetts to study agriculture. [10]
In 2008, Jimmy Leslie asked him what was "the most interesting guitar culture?" He responded
"Recordings by Lightnin’ Hopkins, Skip James, and John Lee Hooker are amazing because two-thirds of what they’re playing is in the African mold, and one-third articulates the American experience. The density of African music without blues notes is incredible, because it wasn’t disconnected by slavery." [11]
When Leslie asked him how he felt about becoming an elder statesman for the blues, he answered:
"None of that means anything. What matters is that I can pick up my instrument and use it to go wherever I want with the music. There was a time when some nights the music would play me, and I couldn’t do anything wrong. There were other nights when I couldn’t buy a vibe. Now it’s consistent. The instrument sings every time I pick it up because I stopped wrestling over who’s in charge. It’s the music. She is in charge." [12]
Availability
Film: Sounder. Directed by Martin Ritt. Twentieth Century Fox. 24 September 1972.
Album: Sounder. Columbia S31944. 1972.
YouTube: Sounder album. Lightnin’ Hopkins. "Needed Time." Uploaded by Sony Music Entertainment on 13 February 2017.
YouTube: Sounder album. Taj Mahal. "Needed Time (Hummin’ and Pickin’)." Uploaded by Sony Music Entertainment on 25 August 2016.
YouTube: Sounder album. Taj Mahal. "Needed Time (Guitar)." Uploaded by Sony Music Entertainment on 13 February 2017.
YouTube: Sounder album. Taj Mahal: "Needed Time (Banjo and Hand Clapping)." Uploaded by Sony Music Entertainment on 25 August 2016.
YouTube: Clive Barnes, Eric Bibb, and Taj Mahal. "Needed Time." Uploaded by Clive Barnes on 16 March 2010.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Taj Mahal (Musician)."
2. Alan B. Govenar. Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010. 194.
3. Eric Bibb and Needed Time. Spirit and The Blues. Opus 3 Records CD 19401. Recorded and released in Sweden in 1994. (Discogs website)
4. Clive Barnes was an Irish guitarist who worked with Bibb in 2005 and 2006. (Press release for Clive Barnes’ The Ghost Country. 2009.)
5. Alex North Music uploaded part of his score for Sounder to YouTube on 11 July 2014.
6. Marc Nerenberg. "Needed Time." Uploaded to YouTube on 20 September 2014
7. Pelu Maad commented on the first Daddy Stovepipe lesson discussed in the post for 4 February 2018. In 2011 he asked: "Didn’t anyone see ‘Sounder’ with Taj Mahal’s soundtrack? I’ve wanted to learn this song ever since. Thanks Daddy..."
8. In 2009, HOTROD74GremlinX wrote on Daddy Stovepipe’s first lesson "Fantastic sir.Thank you so much for posting this lesson.This is a song I’ve ALWAYS loved from the movie ‘Sounder’ and from one of my fav Blues musicians ‘Lightnin Hopkins’."
9. Comment by MrMusicguyma uploaded to this video in August 2017.
10. Wikipedia.
11. Taj Mahal. Quoted by by Jimmy Leslie. Guitar Player website. 31 October 2008.
12. Taj Mahal, quoted by Leslie.
In the United States today, the ultimate tribute for an artist is a reference in a film. Lightnin’ Hopkins’ "Needed Time" was played during the opening credits of Sounder in 1972. At the end, a banjo version by Taj Mahal was played while the final credits scrolled across the screen. During the film, it was alluded to several times.
Mahal began learning blues guitar from friends when he was an adolescent, but developed what he called his "basic building blocks" when he heard the older bluesmen play at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. In 1964 he formed the Rising Sons with Ry Cooder and Jessie Lee Kincaid. While their single did not sell well, it led to their becoming an opening act for some of the older men. [1] By 1970, he was touring with Hopkins. [2]
One artist who was inspired by Sounder was Eric Bibb, the son of folk-revival musician Leon Bibb. He paid his first tribute to Mahal in 1994 when he recorded "Needed Time" with a backup group he called Needed Time." [3] Once, when he as touring in France with Clive Barnes, [4] he had a chance to play "Needed Time" with Mahal. The video posted by Barnes showed how tradition was perpetuated: Mahal had worked with Hopkins, Bibb had worked with Mahal, and Barnes was working with Bibb.
The three were sitting backstage and had just finished playing something referred to as "Cool on John." One of them suggested "Needed Time." After debating whether to use the key of E or E flat, Mahal played the melody through once in E. Then the other two began playing an accompaniment with Bibb sometimes singing some lines. During the instrumental breaks, the men took turns playing lead, but during the verses, Mahal transposed the music into jazz and then blues variations.
Mahal said when they started, he had never heard Hopkins play "Needed Time." I haven’t seen anything that indicated why it was selected as the theme song for Sounder, or, for that matter how Mahal became involved in the project. Another composer, Alex North, wrote an initial score that was rejected. [5]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Eric Bibb
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: Taj Majal, Eric Bibb, acoustic guitars; Clive Barnes, acoustic slide guitar.
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
None provided
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: fragments of "come if you don’t stay long" and "now is the needed time"
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Lightnin’ Hopkins
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: repetition of basic melody with variations
Notes on Performance
Occasion: Clive Barnes was touring with Eric Bibb in France.
Location: back stage following a performance
Microphones: none
Clothing: casual
Notes on Movement
The three were seated on folding chairs. Taj Mahal either tapped his left foot or nodded his head to mark time.
Audience Perceptions
Sounder introduced Hopkins and "Needed Time" to a new audience. Marc Nerenberg, a Toronto banjo player, wrote:
"learned this from Taj Mahal’s playing of this tune in the soundtrack of the movie ‘Sounder’ in 1972. His version showed up on the radio for a few days. Imagine that: clawhammer banjo on pop music radio! I actually learned it from the radio - the only song I’ve ever done so with." [6]
A couple people who learned the song from Daddy Stovepipe commented they were motivated by Sounder, [7] [8] while another discovered the song was more widely known than a film tribute. He remembered:
"First heard this on the ‘Sounder’ film soundtrack. Much later, playing it on a blues harp on a late night Cambridge MA subway platform, a Bahamian preacher approached me, telling me he knew that tune (with different words) from his own gospel tradition. Amen!" [9]
Notes on Performers
Mahal was born in 1942 in Harlem. His father, Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, was a West Indian jazz musician who moved his family to Springfield, Massachusetts. Young Fredericks adopted his stage name around the time he entered the University of Massachusetts to study agriculture. [10]
In 2008, Jimmy Leslie asked him what was "the most interesting guitar culture?" He responded
"Recordings by Lightnin’ Hopkins, Skip James, and John Lee Hooker are amazing because two-thirds of what they’re playing is in the African mold, and one-third articulates the American experience. The density of African music without blues notes is incredible, because it wasn’t disconnected by slavery." [11]
When Leslie asked him how he felt about becoming an elder statesman for the blues, he answered:
"None of that means anything. What matters is that I can pick up my instrument and use it to go wherever I want with the music. There was a time when some nights the music would play me, and I couldn’t do anything wrong. There were other nights when I couldn’t buy a vibe. Now it’s consistent. The instrument sings every time I pick it up because I stopped wrestling over who’s in charge. It’s the music. She is in charge." [12]
Availability
Film: Sounder. Directed by Martin Ritt. Twentieth Century Fox. 24 September 1972.
Album: Sounder. Columbia S31944. 1972.
YouTube: Sounder album. Lightnin’ Hopkins. "Needed Time." Uploaded by Sony Music Entertainment on 13 February 2017.
YouTube: Sounder album. Taj Mahal. "Needed Time (Hummin’ and Pickin’)." Uploaded by Sony Music Entertainment on 25 August 2016.
YouTube: Sounder album. Taj Mahal. "Needed Time (Guitar)." Uploaded by Sony Music Entertainment on 13 February 2017.
YouTube: Sounder album. Taj Mahal: "Needed Time (Banjo and Hand Clapping)." Uploaded by Sony Music Entertainment on 25 August 2016.
YouTube: Clive Barnes, Eric Bibb, and Taj Mahal. "Needed Time." Uploaded by Clive Barnes on 16 March 2010.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Taj Mahal (Musician)."
2. Alan B. Govenar. Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010. 194.
3. Eric Bibb and Needed Time. Spirit and The Blues. Opus 3 Records CD 19401. Recorded and released in Sweden in 1994. (Discogs website)
4. Clive Barnes was an Irish guitarist who worked with Bibb in 2005 and 2006. (Press release for Clive Barnes’ The Ghost Country. 2009.)
5. Alex North Music uploaded part of his score for Sounder to YouTube on 11 July 2014.
6. Marc Nerenberg. "Needed Time." Uploaded to YouTube on 20 September 2014
7. Pelu Maad commented on the first Daddy Stovepipe lesson discussed in the post for 4 February 2018. In 2011 he asked: "Didn’t anyone see ‘Sounder’ with Taj Mahal’s soundtrack? I’ve wanted to learn this song ever since. Thanks Daddy..."
8. In 2009, HOTROD74GremlinX wrote on Daddy Stovepipe’s first lesson "Fantastic sir.Thank you so much for posting this lesson.This is a song I’ve ALWAYS loved from the movie ‘Sounder’ and from one of my fav Blues musicians ‘Lightnin Hopkins’."
9. Comment by MrMusicguyma uploaded to this video in August 2017.
10. Wikipedia.
11. Taj Mahal. Quoted by by Jimmy Leslie. Guitar Player website. 31 October 2008.
12. Taj Mahal, quoted by Leslie.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Lightnin’ Hopkins - Jesus Won’t You Come By Here
Topic: Seminal Versions
It is tempting to see the difference in white and African-America concepts of songs as a function of cultures isolated by race. That obscures the fact the white definition only dates back to the Anglo-Scots Reformation, and was a divergence from attitudes about music shared by Europeans and Africans.
At the simplest level, the Calvinists replaced Roman Catholic rituals with sermons explicating scripture. The contact with the word became the talisman of religious experience, not contact with the spirits through the Eucharist. Music was eliminated.
Later, Jean Calvin reintroduced psalms sung without instrumental accompaniment after he saw the ways Lutherans were using music in Strasbourg. [1] The English and Scots accepted his innovation, but with much stricter rules for melodies. Music existed solely to make it easier to sing the words of scripture, with one note to one syllable. [2] Rhythm did not exist. Psalms lines contained six or eight syllables. The song leader matched psalms with tunes whose lines contained the same numbers of notes.
To ensure fidelity to the word, the Scot’s parliament ordered churches that did not possess psalters in 1645 to appoint someone to read out the lines before they were sung, [3] lest any deviation enter from oral tradition or faulty human memory.
Quite simply, the ability to learn music by singing was bred out of congregations, and reading scores became the mark that distinguished accomplished musicians. This contributed to the idea that songs had immutable texts, that could be orchestrated in different ways.
When Lightnin’ Hopkins began performing for white audiences on the folk revival circuit, he navigated the chasm by distilling de rigeur lyrics and melody from his 1952 rendition of "Come by Here," but keeping fluid the instrumentation and interplay between parts. In 1964 he used a piano and sang most of the words with Barbara Dane humming along. In 1969, he sang the first words of each of his three verses, and let the organ complete them.
The underlying cultural differences persisted. Individuals interested in playing blues guitar listened to, and mastered, the way Hopkins had played the acoustic guitar on "Needed Time." They sang all, some, or few of his verses, depending on their abilities. If the words changed, it was because of demands stemming from ways impromptu groups of musicians came together.
His unique phrase, "come if you don’t stay long," was accepted into the pool of verses African-American religious singers drew upon to sing "Come by Here." He also may have reinvigorated the use of the phrase "needed time."
Performers
1964 Dane
Vocal Accompaniment: Barbara Dane
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano
1969 Organ
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ
Credits
1964 Dane
Arranged by Hopkins
Notes on Lyrics
Verses: Hopkins kept the sestet structure, but converted what had been an improvisation done to fill three minutes into a set, three-verse song.
1964 Dane: come by here, needed time, don’t stay long
1969 Organ: come by here, needed time, don’t stay long
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: two verses, an instrumental interlude, and a final verse. The similarity between the piano version and the organ one done five years later suggested Hopkins, by then, had performed so many times on programs with time limits that he had created musical units that could be combined into circumscribed sets. He then improvised within those limits with elements like musical phrasing.
Solo-Group Dynamics:
1964 Dane
Dane, no doubt, had seen Hopkins perform enough times to know his basic style. On the first line of the first verse she attempted to sing harmony, but she could not match his timing. As a soloist who controlled his accompaniment, he was able to sustain or shorten notes to fit his mood without losing his basic cadence. As Alan Grovenor observed, this created problems for drummers and bass players. [4]
On the second line of the first verse Dane switched to humming in ways borrowed from 1920s blues singers. Once she realized which parts he was not singing, she joined the instrument in singing those phrases. The kinesics of playing ensured the rhythm would be constant.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the instrument was treated as an equal voice. Hopkins would begin a line, and let the instrument continue the melody. The transfers between parts was the same in both versions, indicating this too had acquire a form through repetition. In the second line, he sang the first part of the line, and the piano or organ took over. On the third line, he sang the first word.
1964 Dane: the accompaniment used motifs from ragtime or stride piano styles, with a low bass and flourishes played by the right hand. This was especially prominent in the instrumental interlude.
1969 Organ: the organ played melody and chords. In the instrumental interlude Hopkins played twice as many notes to the same rhythmic pattern.
Notes on Performance
Both were described as live performances, although no background noise or audience reaction could be heard.
Notes on Performers
Hopkins cultivated the image of the hard-drinking, hard-living blues man. He only recorded one gospel song, [5] and Dane was surprised "he was dead serious with his religiosity." [6]
His mother was a religious woman, and the family attended picnics sponsored by the General Association of Baptist Churches. He told Sam Charters:
"the organ used to be the real family instrument, you know. We’d play on Sundays if we didn’t go to church, we’d have church at home. And, I was the organ player, sang them old Christian songs and mamma she’d [ne’er] get happy, you know." [7]
Barbara Dane’s parents moved from Arkansas to Detroit after World War I. She moved to San Francisco in 1949 where she began singing in jazz clubs. Later, in the 1960s, she opened her own club in a tourist district to expand the audience for the blues, and became involved in political protests. [8]
Availability
1964 Dane
Album: Lightnin’ Hopkins and Barbara Dane. "Jesus Won’t You Come By Here." Lightnin’ Hopkins. Arhoolie F1022. Cabale Club, 1964, Berkeley, California; released 1966.
YouTube: uploaded by Warner Music Group, 8 November 2014.
1969 Organ
Album: Lightnin’ Hopkins. "Jesus, Would You Come By Here." California Mudslide (And Earthquake). Vault Records SLP-129. Los Angeles, 1969.
YouTube: uploaded by Fede Corchero, 29 August 2015.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Psautier de Genève."
2. Archibald T. Davison. "Psalter." In Harvard Dictionary of Music. Edited by Willi Apel. Cambridge: Belnap Press, 1969 edition. 704.
3. Scotland. Act of Parliament to establish The Directory for The Publick Worship of God. Edinburgh, 6 February 1645. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics website. It ordained:
"That the whole congregation may join herein, every one that can read is to have a psalm book; and all others, not disabled by age or otherwise, are to be exhorted to learn to read. But for the present, where many in the congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling officers, do read the psalm, line by line, before the singing thereof."
4. Alan B. Govenar. Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010. viii.
5. Govenar. 11.
6. Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger. Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 15.
7. Lightnin’ Hopkins. "I Growed Up with the Blues." My Life in Blues. Prestige 7370. 1965. Interviewed by Sam Charters. My transcription; not sure of words in brackets. See previous post for reissue information.
8. Wikipedia. "Barbara Dane."
It is tempting to see the difference in white and African-America concepts of songs as a function of cultures isolated by race. That obscures the fact the white definition only dates back to the Anglo-Scots Reformation, and was a divergence from attitudes about music shared by Europeans and Africans.
At the simplest level, the Calvinists replaced Roman Catholic rituals with sermons explicating scripture. The contact with the word became the talisman of religious experience, not contact with the spirits through the Eucharist. Music was eliminated.
Later, Jean Calvin reintroduced psalms sung without instrumental accompaniment after he saw the ways Lutherans were using music in Strasbourg. [1] The English and Scots accepted his innovation, but with much stricter rules for melodies. Music existed solely to make it easier to sing the words of scripture, with one note to one syllable. [2] Rhythm did not exist. Psalms lines contained six or eight syllables. The song leader matched psalms with tunes whose lines contained the same numbers of notes.
To ensure fidelity to the word, the Scot’s parliament ordered churches that did not possess psalters in 1645 to appoint someone to read out the lines before they were sung, [3] lest any deviation enter from oral tradition or faulty human memory.
Quite simply, the ability to learn music by singing was bred out of congregations, and reading scores became the mark that distinguished accomplished musicians. This contributed to the idea that songs had immutable texts, that could be orchestrated in different ways.
When Lightnin’ Hopkins began performing for white audiences on the folk revival circuit, he navigated the chasm by distilling de rigeur lyrics and melody from his 1952 rendition of "Come by Here," but keeping fluid the instrumentation and interplay between parts. In 1964 he used a piano and sang most of the words with Barbara Dane humming along. In 1969, he sang the first words of each of his three verses, and let the organ complete them.
The underlying cultural differences persisted. Individuals interested in playing blues guitar listened to, and mastered, the way Hopkins had played the acoustic guitar on "Needed Time." They sang all, some, or few of his verses, depending on their abilities. If the words changed, it was because of demands stemming from ways impromptu groups of musicians came together.
His unique phrase, "come if you don’t stay long," was accepted into the pool of verses African-American religious singers drew upon to sing "Come by Here." He also may have reinvigorated the use of the phrase "needed time."
Performers
1964 Dane
Vocal Accompaniment: Barbara Dane
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano
1969 Organ
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ
Credits
1964 Dane
Arranged by Hopkins
Notes on Lyrics
Verses: Hopkins kept the sestet structure, but converted what had been an improvisation done to fill three minutes into a set, three-verse song.
1964 Dane: come by here, needed time, don’t stay long
1969 Organ: come by here, needed time, don’t stay long
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: two verses, an instrumental interlude, and a final verse. The similarity between the piano version and the organ one done five years later suggested Hopkins, by then, had performed so many times on programs with time limits that he had created musical units that could be combined into circumscribed sets. He then improvised within those limits with elements like musical phrasing.
Solo-Group Dynamics:
1964 Dane
Dane, no doubt, had seen Hopkins perform enough times to know his basic style. On the first line of the first verse she attempted to sing harmony, but she could not match his timing. As a soloist who controlled his accompaniment, he was able to sustain or shorten notes to fit his mood without losing his basic cadence. As Alan Grovenor observed, this created problems for drummers and bass players. [4]
On the second line of the first verse Dane switched to humming in ways borrowed from 1920s blues singers. Once she realized which parts he was not singing, she joined the instrument in singing those phrases. The kinesics of playing ensured the rhythm would be constant.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the instrument was treated as an equal voice. Hopkins would begin a line, and let the instrument continue the melody. The transfers between parts was the same in both versions, indicating this too had acquire a form through repetition. In the second line, he sang the first part of the line, and the piano or organ took over. On the third line, he sang the first word.
1964 Dane: the accompaniment used motifs from ragtime or stride piano styles, with a low bass and flourishes played by the right hand. This was especially prominent in the instrumental interlude.
1969 Organ: the organ played melody and chords. In the instrumental interlude Hopkins played twice as many notes to the same rhythmic pattern.
Notes on Performance
Both were described as live performances, although no background noise or audience reaction could be heard.
Notes on Performers
Hopkins cultivated the image of the hard-drinking, hard-living blues man. He only recorded one gospel song, [5] and Dane was surprised "he was dead serious with his religiosity." [6]
His mother was a religious woman, and the family attended picnics sponsored by the General Association of Baptist Churches. He told Sam Charters:
"the organ used to be the real family instrument, you know. We’d play on Sundays if we didn’t go to church, we’d have church at home. And, I was the organ player, sang them old Christian songs and mamma she’d [ne’er] get happy, you know." [7]
Barbara Dane’s parents moved from Arkansas to Detroit after World War I. She moved to San Francisco in 1949 where she began singing in jazz clubs. Later, in the 1960s, she opened her own club in a tourist district to expand the audience for the blues, and became involved in political protests. [8]
Availability
1964 Dane
Album: Lightnin’ Hopkins and Barbara Dane. "Jesus Won’t You Come By Here." Lightnin’ Hopkins. Arhoolie F1022. Cabale Club, 1964, Berkeley, California; released 1966.
YouTube: uploaded by Warner Music Group, 8 November 2014.
1969 Organ
Album: Lightnin’ Hopkins. "Jesus, Would You Come By Here." California Mudslide (And Earthquake). Vault Records SLP-129. Los Angeles, 1969.
YouTube: uploaded by Fede Corchero, 29 August 2015.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Psautier de Genève."
2. Archibald T. Davison. "Psalter." In Harvard Dictionary of Music. Edited by Willi Apel. Cambridge: Belnap Press, 1969 edition. 704.
3. Scotland. Act of Parliament to establish The Directory for The Publick Worship of God. Edinburgh, 6 February 1645. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics website. It ordained:
"That the whole congregation may join herein, every one that can read is to have a psalm book; and all others, not disabled by age or otherwise, are to be exhorted to learn to read. But for the present, where many in the congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling officers, do read the psalm, line by line, before the singing thereof."
4. Alan B. Govenar. Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010. viii.
5. Govenar. 11.
6. Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger. Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 15.
7. Lightnin’ Hopkins. "I Growed Up with the Blues." My Life in Blues. Prestige 7370. 1965. Interviewed by Sam Charters. My transcription; not sure of words in brackets. See previous post for reissue information.
8. Wikipedia. "Barbara Dane."
Monday, August 21, 2017
Lightnin’ Hopkins - Needed Time
Topic: Seminal Versions
The copyright law inherited English precedents that went back before Haydn when the only recognized compositions were made for the court or church. It then was assumed the folk tradition was a corrosive process that took those compositions, broke them down, and preserved bits.
When white folklorists confronted African-American traditions they applied that same concept. In 1937, Ruby Pickens Tartt was asked by the WPA to provide spirituals from Sumter County, Alabama. She wrote a friend she "knew how little" her supervisor "knew of the time it would take to get the verses to eight songs."
"I told her spirituals don’t thrive around the courthouse square, that I might drive all day in the country and never find one complete song. One person would know one verse, one another, and on. [1]
Tartt knew different individuals all sang versions that were recognizably related, but each differed in the verses included. She assumed there once had been a standard version of which each only retained a part.
She did not comprehend that instead of an immutable song that could be transcribed for piano, African Americans had collections of verses they grouped into song clusters, and that anyone, at anytime, could sing any or all of the verses in any order, and the next time that person sang it, he or she could create a different combination. There was no restriction against including a verse from another cluster.
Lightnin’ Hopkins tried to explain the difference to a white film-maker. He claimed the churches
"didn’t teach me the song. Nuh uh, they made them up. Fact of the business, the way it goes, they sang the songs and I played them. Whatever they sing, I played it. All they do is get into tune just like they [plays]." [2]
When Hopkins recorded his version of "Come by Here" in 1952, he used variations on three phrases that had been used in earlier recordings, [3] and added his own. "Come if you don’t stay long" was an abbreviated form of the Southern invitation, "come, even if you can’t stay long" shortened to fit the length of the musical line.
The early recordings of "Come by Here," made primarily by people from the southeastern United States, had repeated one line six times, with little variation. Hopkins was a blues musician from cotton country in the upper reaches of the Trinity river in Texas. He kept the sestet form, but alternated a three-line AAA verse with three repetitions of "now is the needed time." He then reverted to the AAB blues stanza, with "Jesus, will you come by here" as the commentary (AAB-CCC).
His version of "Come by Here" may not have been long enough for a three-minute recording. [4] He began with three variations on the "come" theme, then played the melody on the guitar. Next he reversed the pattern and began with three repetitions of "needed time," which he followed with a repetition of the "stay long" verse. He already had said he was praying for Jesus to come. He reworded that verse by repeating he was down on his knees twice, and finished by singing come by here four times (AAB-BBB).
He made the recording for a company owned by the Bihari brothers. The label gave him credit as the composer, but the music publisher also was owned by the brothers. It was a small operation that diverted royalties whenever it could. [5]
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: acoustic guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: acoustic guitar
Credits
Written-by - Lightnin’ Hopkins [6]
Mod Music Pub Co. (BMI) [7]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: a loose coupling between music and text allowed Hopkins to emphasize the important word "come" rather than the one that ended the sentence or phrase, "here."
Verses: come by here, needed time, come if you don’t stay long, praying, praying on my knees
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: Jesus
Jesus: in the form of the Holy Spirit
Now: this is not a premillennial reference to the second coming of Christ, but a request for the Holy Spirit to materialize immediately.
Down on my knees: refers both to the common habit of getting on one’s knees to pray and older African-American initiation rituals where an individual went out in the wilderness to contact the spirits.
Format: sestet
Line Meter: varies around a basic iambic trimeter
Line Repetition Pattern: AAB-CCC
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: repetition of first verse with few changes.
Singing Style: fundamentally one syllable to one note. The sustained words like come, Lord, and Oh occasionally shifted to a second tone toward the end, sometime shading into a hum of the extended vowel. Many African languages did not end in consonants, and the emphasis on the vowel here is one way Black American English perpetuated older pronunciation patterns. [8]
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: rhythmic accompaniment to vocal parts and an instrumental interlude when the guitar replaced the voice.
The general pattern was simple chords on the first two lines, with the guitar playing a parallel melody on the last phrase of the third line. In the interlude, the guitar played the melody with chords. Base runs were used between melodic phrases.
Notes on Performer
Sam Hopkins, who lived from 1911 to 1982, had two recording careers: one on labels marketed to African-American audiences in the 1940s and 1950s, and another on albums aimed at whites interested in the rural blues. He was a link with early musicians, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, and thus was interviewed numerous times. Sam Charters released one set of interviews on a Prestige record, and Les Blank and PBS captured others on films. Blank made his unused footage available to biographers.
Lightnin’ Hopkins. My Life in Blues. Prestige 7370. 1965. Interviewed by Sam Charters. Fantasy, Inc reissued it as the seventh CD in The Complete Prestige/Bluesville Recordings in 1991.
Les Blank. The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins. El Cerrito, California: Flower Films, 1968.
PBS. Artists in America, 1971, program 6, "Sam ‘Lightnin’’ Hopkins." Produced by KUHT, Houston.
Availability
78/45 rpm: RPM Records 359. Recorded in Houston, 1952.
Reissue: No Blues for Young Men. Leicester, UK: Broken Audio Recordings. 19 September 2013.
Reissue: In God We Trust. Zürich, Switzerland: Brownsville Records. 15 November 2015.
YouTube: uploaded by stompingsevens, 10 February 2013.
End Notes
1. Ruby Pickens Tartt. Letter to Janie Long Allen, undated. Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection, Julia Tutwiler Library, University of West Alabama University. Reprinted by Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981. 13.
The WPA program was the Federal Writer’s Project sponsored by the federal government’s Works Progress Administration.
2. Lightnin’ Hopkins. Transcribed by Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger. Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 15. Credit to the PBS documentary.
Hopkins’ separation of the roles of accompanying and participating in a church service was the same distinction made about trance rituals by Gilbert Rouget that was discussed in the post for 3 August 2017.
3. I will be discussing the early recordings in later posts.
4. The three-minute record form was discussed in the post for 2 August 2017.
5. Wikipedia. "Bihari Brothers."
6. "Lightning Hopkins And His Guitar – One Kind Favor / Needed Time." Discogs website. It reproduced the label for the other song on the recording, and implied the information was the same for both.
7. RPM was a subsidiary of Modern Records, and Modern Music Publishing was one of the Bihari’s properties.
8. Lorenzo Dow Turner. Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2002 edition. 247.
The copyright law inherited English precedents that went back before Haydn when the only recognized compositions were made for the court or church. It then was assumed the folk tradition was a corrosive process that took those compositions, broke them down, and preserved bits.
When white folklorists confronted African-American traditions they applied that same concept. In 1937, Ruby Pickens Tartt was asked by the WPA to provide spirituals from Sumter County, Alabama. She wrote a friend she "knew how little" her supervisor "knew of the time it would take to get the verses to eight songs."
"I told her spirituals don’t thrive around the courthouse square, that I might drive all day in the country and never find one complete song. One person would know one verse, one another, and on. [1]
Tartt knew different individuals all sang versions that were recognizably related, but each differed in the verses included. She assumed there once had been a standard version of which each only retained a part.
She did not comprehend that instead of an immutable song that could be transcribed for piano, African Americans had collections of verses they grouped into song clusters, and that anyone, at anytime, could sing any or all of the verses in any order, and the next time that person sang it, he or she could create a different combination. There was no restriction against including a verse from another cluster.
Lightnin’ Hopkins tried to explain the difference to a white film-maker. He claimed the churches
"didn’t teach me the song. Nuh uh, they made them up. Fact of the business, the way it goes, they sang the songs and I played them. Whatever they sing, I played it. All they do is get into tune just like they [plays]." [2]
When Hopkins recorded his version of "Come by Here" in 1952, he used variations on three phrases that had been used in earlier recordings, [3] and added his own. "Come if you don’t stay long" was an abbreviated form of the Southern invitation, "come, even if you can’t stay long" shortened to fit the length of the musical line.
The early recordings of "Come by Here," made primarily by people from the southeastern United States, had repeated one line six times, with little variation. Hopkins was a blues musician from cotton country in the upper reaches of the Trinity river in Texas. He kept the sestet form, but alternated a three-line AAA verse with three repetitions of "now is the needed time." He then reverted to the AAB blues stanza, with "Jesus, will you come by here" as the commentary (AAB-CCC).
His version of "Come by Here" may not have been long enough for a three-minute recording. [4] He began with three variations on the "come" theme, then played the melody on the guitar. Next he reversed the pattern and began with three repetitions of "needed time," which he followed with a repetition of the "stay long" verse. He already had said he was praying for Jesus to come. He reworded that verse by repeating he was down on his knees twice, and finished by singing come by here four times (AAB-BBB).
He made the recording for a company owned by the Bihari brothers. The label gave him credit as the composer, but the music publisher also was owned by the brothers. It was a small operation that diverted royalties whenever it could. [5]
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: acoustic guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: acoustic guitar
Credits
Written-by - Lightnin’ Hopkins [6]
Mod Music Pub Co. (BMI) [7]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: a loose coupling between music and text allowed Hopkins to emphasize the important word "come" rather than the one that ended the sentence or phrase, "here."
Verses: come by here, needed time, come if you don’t stay long, praying, praying on my knees
Vocabulary:
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: Jesus
Jesus: in the form of the Holy Spirit
Now: this is not a premillennial reference to the second coming of Christ, but a request for the Holy Spirit to materialize immediately.
Down on my knees: refers both to the common habit of getting on one’s knees to pray and older African-American initiation rituals where an individual went out in the wilderness to contact the spirits.
Format: sestet
Line Meter: varies around a basic iambic trimeter
Line Repetition Pattern: AAB-CCC
Notes on Music
Basic Structure: repetition of first verse with few changes.
Singing Style: fundamentally one syllable to one note. The sustained words like come, Lord, and Oh occasionally shifted to a second tone toward the end, sometime shading into a hum of the extended vowel. Many African languages did not end in consonants, and the emphasis on the vowel here is one way Black American English perpetuated older pronunciation patterns. [8]
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: rhythmic accompaniment to vocal parts and an instrumental interlude when the guitar replaced the voice.
The general pattern was simple chords on the first two lines, with the guitar playing a parallel melody on the last phrase of the third line. In the interlude, the guitar played the melody with chords. Base runs were used between melodic phrases.
Notes on Performer
Sam Hopkins, who lived from 1911 to 1982, had two recording careers: one on labels marketed to African-American audiences in the 1940s and 1950s, and another on albums aimed at whites interested in the rural blues. He was a link with early musicians, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, and thus was interviewed numerous times. Sam Charters released one set of interviews on a Prestige record, and Les Blank and PBS captured others on films. Blank made his unused footage available to biographers.
Lightnin’ Hopkins. My Life in Blues. Prestige 7370. 1965. Interviewed by Sam Charters. Fantasy, Inc reissued it as the seventh CD in The Complete Prestige/Bluesville Recordings in 1991.
Les Blank. The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins. El Cerrito, California: Flower Films, 1968.
PBS. Artists in America, 1971, program 6, "Sam ‘Lightnin’’ Hopkins." Produced by KUHT, Houston.
Availability
78/45 rpm: RPM Records 359. Recorded in Houston, 1952.
Reissue: No Blues for Young Men. Leicester, UK: Broken Audio Recordings. 19 September 2013.
Reissue: In God We Trust. Zürich, Switzerland: Brownsville Records. 15 November 2015.
YouTube: uploaded by stompingsevens, 10 February 2013.
End Notes
1. Ruby Pickens Tartt. Letter to Janie Long Allen, undated. Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection, Julia Tutwiler Library, University of West Alabama University. Reprinted by Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981. 13.
The WPA program was the Federal Writer’s Project sponsored by the federal government’s Works Progress Administration.
2. Lightnin’ Hopkins. Transcribed by Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger. Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 15. Credit to the PBS documentary.
Hopkins’ separation of the roles of accompanying and participating in a church service was the same distinction made about trance rituals by Gilbert Rouget that was discussed in the post for 3 August 2017.
3. I will be discussing the early recordings in later posts.
4. The three-minute record form was discussed in the post for 2 August 2017.
5. Wikipedia. "Bihari Brothers."
6. "Lightning Hopkins And His Guitar – One Kind Favor / Needed Time." Discogs website. It reproduced the label for the other song on the recording, and implied the information was the same for both.
7. RPM was a subsidiary of Modern Records, and Modern Music Publishing was one of the Bihari’s properties.
8. Lorenzo Dow Turner. Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2002 edition. 247.
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