Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The Civil War of the early 1860s disrupted religious practices. Church services continued where men were available to serve as pastors, but revivals and camp meetings required resources that were reallocated to the war effort. [1]
The Holiness movement led by Phoebe Palmer revived large gatherings marked by religious fervor in 1867. [2] During the depression that followed the Panic of 1893, Holiness preachers began emphasizing premillennial connections, and urging people to save themselves by leaving their established churches for new ones that promised ways to survive the coming holocaust. The Methodist Episcopal Church South closed its facilities to them in 1894, and the Northern church disdained them. [3]
Both Methodist churches retreated into a literal interpretation of John Wesley’s method that the way to Salvation was avoiding a list of tabooed activities that included dancing. [4] In the North, church members also followed Palmer’s suggestion that one should do positive things like support missions to immigrants [5] and pagans. Since freed slaves were the target of Northern missionaries after the war, the Southern church did not endorse a proactive program.
At some time before 1894, "75% of the young men in the nation were unchurched." [6] The non-denominational YMCA had become active during the Civil War, and continued to attract young men to their programs. [7] Methodists responded with Epworth Leagues in 1889. [8]
The Leagues were hampered by the prohibition against dancing, which was extended to popular music after the introduction of ragtime that was associated with the foxtrot. E. O. Harbin published a collection of games and stunts for the southern group in 1923. [9] He followed it with the group’s first song collection in 1927. As its title implied, Paradology featured humorous songs set to nineteenth-century popular songs. [10]
Lynn Rohrbough began developing a similar program with friends at Boston University in the 1920s. His parents were such strict Methodists, he didn’t sing until he was in high school and never played a musical instrument. [11] His early publications featured games and circle dances.
He discovered international folk songs at a 1931 Recreation Institute in Michigan where they were taught by Martha Cruickshank Ramsey. [12] Ramsey then was the director of the Cleveland Settlement Music School, [13] and translator of the Czech "Came a Riding." [14] Thereafter, Rohrbough focused on such songs, and began collecting them from foreign-born students at local colleges. Ernest Amy suggested he saw it as missionary effort to combat the lure of Communism. [15]
The two Methodist churches merged in 1939, and the separate Epworth Leagues became the Methodist Youth Fellowship. The emphasis on college campuses was recruiting missionaries. [16] It also sponsored caravans of students who traveled from church to church in the summer to help with Vacation Church schools [17] and perform plays. [18] High school students were encouraged to visit retirement homes and hold car washes to raise money for foreign missions. [19]
Recreation leaders still stressed alternatives to dances and popular music. Right after World War II, Harbin hired Larry Eisenberg as the recreation specialist for the denomination’s Youth Department in Nashville. [20] His primary job was training students and adult counselors in the caravans. [21] He issued a set of folk-dance records [22] and published songbooks through CRS.
More than 40% of Sing It Again’s songs were national or international folk songs like "Came a Riding." 10% were Negro spirituals and 15% were other religious songs. The remaining third of the booklet contained graces, rounds and American songs. [23] Lift Every Voice replaced the nationals songs with more religious ones and some Christmas carols. [24]
After the Civil War, Methodists faced competition from the YMCA. During World War II a number of conservative evangelistic groups developed. Jim Rayburn used club meetings with skits and lively songs to attract high school students to Young Life. [25] His summer camps encouraged attendees to commit themselves to Christ like camp meetings had done in the past. [26]
Youth for Christ became associated with Billy Graham, who had worked for the group before he became an independent evangelist. As mentioned in the post for 15 December 2017, it used popular music to make Christianity fun.
Thomas Bergler argued Methodists could not compete. They had "rejected the idea that a conversion experience should be the foundation of the Christian life" in 1894, but found nothing to replace "a personal encounter with God." Instead, adolescents were expected to lead blameless lives of devotion to others. [27]
By 1952, it was obvious this approach wasn’t working. Eisenberg resigned, [28] and Wallace Chappell was brought from Dallas in 1953. He lasted until 1958. [29] While in Nashville, he published another edition of Sing It Again with CRS, and reissued the folk dance recordings with a new manual. [30]
His version of Sing It Again devoted 48% of its space to international and national songs. Reflecting the global membership of the church, Chappell added more songs from Africa, Asia, and Spanish or Portuguese speaking areas. The number of spirituals and religious songs remained about the same. [31]
The breach between North and South had not disappeared with unification. Bergler noted MYF programs in the 1950s "often stagnated because conservative and liberal influences neutralized each other," [32] and that the earlier emphasis on social justice was "toned down." [33]
In 1957, the Methodist Church pursued both impulses. It hired a former missionary to China who was a friend of Rohrbough’s. Ohio-born Bliss Wiant lasted four years as director of the new Ministry of Music.
Simultaneously, it turned from Rohrbough to publish songbooks edited by Dallas-born James Leisy. The first, Abingdon Song Kit, used a word associated with Rohrbough, [34] but in the Southern tradition of Harbin. It had a section of stunt songs and a number of parodies. Many of the songs were published without music. [35]
Leisy edited a second book in 1959 that was more formal: it had hard covers and tunes for every songs. It used American folk songs, and nineteenth century popular lyrics. It’s international songs were national ones like "The Campbells Are Coming." The only central European song published by Rohrbough was the Czech "Walking at Night." [36]
Neither collection contained "Kumbaya."
Notes on Performers
Harbin worked for the YMCA with the army near Memphis, Tennessee, in World War I. He returned to his home in Louisville, Kentucky, where the Southern Methodist church hired him as director of the Department of Recreation and Culture. He joined the central office of the Methodist’s Epworth youth group in 1919. [37]
Rohrbough’s family moved from West Virginia to Colorado and back. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, Rohrbough went to Boston for graduate work. When he and his wife, Katharine Ferris Rohrbough, returned to Delaware in 1929, [38] they discovered the college had begun sponsoring dances. He turned his barn into an alternative recreation center, while he continued to publish games and songs. [39] The Boston Social-Recreation Union eventually became Cooperative Recreation Service. [40]
Eisenberg was raised in the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. [41] He met Rohrbough in 1936 when he was 22 years old. That inspired him to "make my ‘ministry’ social recreation." [42] He later wrote books on song leading for the YMCA, [43] and spent time in Southern Rhodesia as a missionary. [44]
Chappell trained as a chemical engineer, but his grandfather had been a Southern Methodist minister. [45] He was called to the ministry by reading Lloyd C. Douglas’ novel The Robe. [46] He was sent to Nashville after working in churches in Dallas and Wichita Falls. [47] After he returned to Dallas he directed the Methodist Student Movement in Texas. [48]
Wiant is discussed in the post for 2 October 2022. Leisy is discussed in the posts for 15 December 2019 and 22 December 2019.
End Notes
1. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 23.
2. Palmer’s Holiness Movement was discussed in the post for 7 December 2017. For more on Holiness camp meetings, see Melvin E. Dieter. The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1996 edition.
3. Synan. 39–40.
4. John Wesley’s prohibition against dancing was discussed in post for 30 October 2018.
5. Palmer’s Five Points Mission was mentioned in the posts for 25 November 2017 and 14 July 2019.
6. Jacob Embury Price. Epworth League Workers. New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1894. 18. Cited by J. Warren Smith. "Youth Ministry in American Methodism’s Mission." Methodist History 19:224-230:July 1981. 224.
7. The Intercollegiate YMCA was organized in 1877. "By the 1890’s this dominated religious life on most American campuses, a position unchallenged until the 1914-18 War." [49]
8. Smith. 225.
9. E. O. Harbin. Phunology: A Collection of Tried and Proved Plans for Play, Fellowship, and Profit. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1923.
10. E. O. Harbin. Paradology, Songs of Fun and Fellowship. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1927.
11. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 17 February 1972. Cited by Holcomb. "A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service." PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 14.
12. Holcomb. 40–41. The fifth Social Recreation Institute was held at Waldenwoods Camp from May 25 to May 31. The grounds were owned by the Michigan Council of Religious Education.
13. Sondra Wieland Howe. Women Music Educators in the United States. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2014. 192. Ramsey later worked at the Henry Street Settlement in New York.
14. Holcomb. 41. Ramsey probably heard the song in Cleveland where the Settlement Music School collected neighborhood folk songs. [50]
15. Ernest F. Amy. "Cooperative Recreation Service: A Unique Project." Midwest Folklore 12:202–260:1957. 205–206.
16. Smith. 228.
17. Smith. 229.
18. Thomas E Bergler. The Juvenilization of American Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012. 75.
19. Smith. 229.
20. Larry Eisenberg. "It’s Me, O Lord." Tulsa: Fun Books, 1992. 54.
21. Eisenberg. 56.
22. Abe Books was offering a 1947 edition of the manual that accompanied The World of Fun Series of Records for Folk Games on 29 November 2019. Discogs website listed 78-rpm records issued as M-101 through M-112 that were produced by Eisenberg for the Methodist Church. Most had two songs on a side played by Michael Herman’s Folk Orchestra. Ron Houston said Paul and Gretel Dunsing supervised the recordings. He noted they were "were responsible for introducing most of the German dances that folk dancers in the United States do today." [51] Svend Tollefsen’s name appeared on several of the records listed by Discogs.
23. Methodist Board of Education. Sing It Again!. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The second edition said the first edition was published in 1944. However, in the copy I purchased online, the latest copyright date for an included song was 1947. [52] Eisenberg identified himself as the editor. [53] The cover was light green with four heads: an African-American boy, a Native-American girl, a Spanish girl, and a blond white boy.
24. Larry Eisenberg. Lift Every Voice. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. One song in the collection was copyrighted in 1948. [54]
25. "Young Life History and Vision for the Future." Young Life website. Young Life was mentioned briefly in the post for 17 December 2017. Jeff McSwain, a Young Life leader who was expelled for heresy, said its method became "preach like Wesley and believe like Calvin." That is, they used the meetings and camps to create a friendly atmosphere, then preached original sin and the damnation of individuals. [55] Rayburn was a Presbyterian, [56] and this was simply a modernization of the methods introduced by Finney, mentioned in the posts for 12 August 2017 and 3 September 2017.
26. "Is Young Life a Cult?" Christian Agnostic website. 4 May 2012.
27. Bergler. 73–74.
28. Eisenberg. 62.
29. Notice of services at Plymouth Park Baptist Church. Irving [Texas] Daily News, 20 November 1970. 5.
30. Irving Daily News. Only the manual was listed in library catalogs. [57] The lead author, R. Harold Hipps, was active in the National Recreation and Park Association and moved to Nashville in 1963 to work as Director of Leisure/Recreation Ministries. He retired from the church’s Board of Education in 1985. [58]
WorldCat listed a 1970 package of World of Fun with seven cassette-tape recordings issued by The United Methodist Church.
Amazon offered World of Fun as a manual and three compact discs issued by Melody House on 29 November 2019.
Discogs listed two versions of record M-108, one produced by Larry Eisenberg and one produced by Wally Chappell. Their content was the same.
31. The Methodist Church. Sing it Again. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1958 revised edition. The front cover was teal green with a music staff set vertically to resemble the neck of a guitar. The four heads were on the back cover.
32. Bergler. 79.
33. Bergler. 76.
34. Rohrbough’s first publications were loose-leaf binders, Handy I and Handy II. Each was composed of kits. "Kit Y" of Handy II contained folk songs. [59] Rohrbough reused the Sing it Again title sometime after 1962. It had slightly fewer religious songs than Chappell’s edition; it did have "Kum Ba Yah." [60]
35. James F. Leisy. Abingdon Song Kit. New York: Abingdon Press, 1957.
36. James F. Leisy. Let’s All Sing. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959. "Walking at Night" was collected from Stella Marek Cushing, the daughter of Czech immigrants. She sang, played violin, and gave dance demonstrations in New Jersey. [61] Augustus D. Zanzig first published it in Singing America. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1940.
37. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 60.
38. Holcomb. On childhood, 13–14; on Ohio Wesleyan, 16–17; on Boston University, 19; on move to Delaware, 61.
39. Nancy Oldfield. "Rohrbough 22 Provides Novel Recreation Center." The Ohio Wesleyan Transcript. 14 March 1939. 1, 4.
40. Holcomb. Chapter 3, The Social-Recreation Union.
41. Eisenberg. 44, 48.
42. Eisenberg. 51–52.
43. He and his wife, Helen Eisenberg, wrote four books for the YMCA between 1953 and 1956. How To Lead Group Singing was issued by the Association Press in 1955.
44. Eisenberg. 64–71.
45. Wallace Chappell. The Call of God: Selected Sermons. Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2011. vi.
46. Lloyd C. Douglas. The Robe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.
47. "Wallace Chappell, Longtime Dallas Methodist Minister, Dies at 96." The Dallas Morning News. 11 October 2016.
48. Irving Daily News.
49. David C. Belden. "The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament)." D. Phil Thesis. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976. 38.
50. Martha Ramsey and Duane Ramsey. "The Settlement Music School." Music Supervisors’ Journal 19:21-23, 34:May 1933. 34. Cited by Anna Hamilton. "Survey of Outreach Offerings and Practices in Piano Areas of Community Music Schools Affiliated with Colleges and Universities Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music." PhD dissertation. University of South Carolina, 2012. 22.
51. Ron Houston. "Paul and Gretel Dunsing." Society of Folk Dance Historians website. 2018.
52. "Round-Up Lullaby." Words by Badger Clark. Music by Clifton W. Barnes. Copyrighted 1947 by Ralph Lyman. The poem originally appeared in Sun and Saddle Leather. Boston: Gorham Press, 1915. Page 13 in first edition of Sing It Again!
53. Eisenberg. 62.
54. "Ancient Castle." Japanese folk song arranged by Bliss Wiant; words by Ocutt Sanders. Copyright by Cooperative Recreation Service, 1948. Page 93 in Lift.
55. Jeff McSwain. "Young Life and the Gospel of All-Along Belonging." The Other Journal website. 6 January 2010.
56. Wikipedia. "Young Life."
57. R. Harold Hipps and Wallace Chappell. A World of Fun: Manual of Instructions for World of Fun Records. Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1959.
58. "R. Harold Hipps." The [Nashville] Tennessean. 12 February 2014.
59. Holcomb. 34.
60. Sing it Again. Delaware Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The most recent copyright was for "Silvery Star," an Italian song translated by by Max Exner and arranged by Augustus D. Zanzig in 1962, on page 48. The cover was medium green, with the title in a blue box. Three heads were used on the inside front cover.
61. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 57. The primary source was Dick Oakes. "Stella Marek Cushing." Phantom Ranch website.
Showing posts with label Leisy James F. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leisy James F. Show all posts
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Leon and Lynn Dallin - Kumbaya
Topic: Commercial Folk Music Revival
The ultimate sign authors or genres have been legitimatized is the purchase of their books by public libraries. That was the audience for James Leisy’s Folk Song Abecedary, mentioned in the post for 22 December 2019. It was a 6.25" x 9.25" hardcover that would fit on any shelf.
Unfortunately, it also was 1.5" thick, much to big to fit on a music stand or piano.
The used copy I purchased was discarded by a Connecticut library. The spine had been broken in two places where a reader had used too much pressure to lay it flat. It fell open to pages 146–147 with the songs "Greensleeves," "What Child Is This?" and "The Gypsy Laddie." It broke between pages 208 and 209 with "The Keeper Would a-Hunting Go," "Knaves Will Be Knaves," and the headnote to "Kum Ba Ya."
The volume was good for reading, but not for singing. Because songs were arranged alphabetically, the music often appeared on one page and the words on the back side, so one had to keep flipping the page to sing and play it.
William Brown saw a different market for an authoritative folk-song collection. He was a college textbook published in Dubuque, Iowa, who began producing workbooks for science instructors after World War II. [1] He served markets that were too small for the large companies to exploit profitably.
In the middle 1960s, Brown began issuing books for music teachers interested in the methods of Zoltán Kodály. This was before the International Kodály Society was organized in Oakland, California, in 1973. [2]
Kodály began developing his methods in Hungary in the 1920s. [3] As his ideas were developed by him and others, two sometimes contradictory impulses were merged. The one was a set of techniques for teaching music literacy that made scores the prime conduit for the transmission of tunes. The second was an emphasis on folk songs as the vehicle for preparing students to sing the work of classical composers. [4]
Émigrés from the 1956 Hungarian revolt spread his ideas. Árpád Darázs began teaching at the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York. [5] Boosey and Hawkes began publishing Kodály’s books in London in 1962. [6]
Students in college music education programs were interested in his work by the late 1960s. They were inhibited from taking his ideas into classrooms by the lack of appropriate music in public school textbooks. The first master’s theses listed by WorldCat in 1967 were ones that reviewed this particular problem. [7]
In 1972, Brown published Lawrence Wheeler and Lois Raebeck’s Orff and Kodály Adapted for the Elementary School. In 1966, he may have commissioned the Heritage Songster of "folk and familiar songs." [8] It was an 8.5" x 11" paperback.
The songs "were selected on the basis of a systematic analysis of approximately 15,000 songs contained in school music series, learned by children, remembered by adults, and sung by Americans of all ages." [9] The result was an olio of lullabies, nursery songs, singing games, and songs from the nineteenth century, including those by Stephen Foster. Most people who commented on the book on Amazon were teachers who called it a "great resource." [10]
One assumes the analysis and layout were done by someone at William Brown, and that the editors, Leon and Lynn Dallin, added comments and a soupçon of prestige. Leon had written a text on modern composition for Brown in 1957. [11]
1966 was the height of the folk revival. The next year, the Dallins published a collection of Christmas carols with another publisher [12] and a Folk Songster that included "Kumbaya." It was thinner than the Heritage Songster, .25" versus nearly 1", and better adapted to singing. The second edition of Heritage solved the bulk problem with a plastic-comb binding. [13]
The 1980 revision of Heritage added 24 songs and dropped 11. Four religious songs were replaced with two that appeared in the Folk Songster: "Kumbaya" and "Michael Row the Boat Ashore." It also included two other folk-music revival songs, Simon and Garfunkle’s "Scarborough Fair" [14] and Woody Guthrie’s "This Land Is Your Land."
The comments that accompanied songs were perfunctory in both books. There was more information on works by classical composers like Engelbert Humperdinck than there was for ones like "Clementine. The Folk Songster had the veneer of a folk song collection, with notes some were collected from Louise Pierson Nicholes, Earl Hardy Nicholes, Cordell Frizzell, and Thomas W. Meade. The first two were Lynn’s parents.
The purpose of the book was not originality or uniqueness. The arrangement of "Kumbaya" was close to that of Leisy. The note that "both the words ‘come by here, my Lord’ and their pidgin English equivalent, ‘kum ba ya, my Lord,’ are used" also was borrowed. If one wanted better information, one could consult Leisy.
The rationale for the Folk Songster was the format, an easy to use book for singers and guitar players that included many of the desired songs. The used copy I bought had a paper stuck between "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "Soon I Will Be Done" that contained the words and chords for Leonard Cohen’s "Suzanne." [15] A singer had owned the book.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Instrumental Accompaniment: guitar chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
Folk Songster
None provided.
Heritage 1980
Africa
"According to a widely circulated theory, the pidgin words resulted from attempts by native Africans to mimic the sounds of missionaries singing the song, which is traditional in Africa."
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation:
Folk Songster
no comment
Heritage 1980
koom-by-yah
Verses: kumbaya, sleeping, crying, praying, shouting, singing, worshipping
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Repetition Pattern: "kumbaya" repeated after each verse.
"the words ‘come by here, my Lord,’ and their pidgin English equivalent, ‘kum ba ya, my Lord’ are used."
Ending: none
Unique Features: the verse "someone’s worshiping"
Influences: "sleeping" and "shouting" were used by The Villagers, mentioned in the post for 29 December 2019. Their use by the Dallins suggested they were part of a general version used in the Los Angeles area.
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo:
Folk Songster
Very slowly
Heritage 1980
Slowly evenly, and with dignity
Rhythm: 2/2, even beats
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar/Autoharp Chords: D G A7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"
Group Harmony: unison
Influences: it was very close to the version published by Leisy, except it used A7 in one place where Leisy used an A chord
Audience Perceptions
Format may seem trivial, but when one is in a music store and none of the books have everything, but each is good enough, it’s a sufficient reason for selecting one over another. It’s like picking clothes that are comfortable when all the choices are equally acceptable. One Amazon customer wrote:
"I have several of more pedigreed songbooks, including Carl Sandburg’s and Alan Lomax’s, but this slimmer book is often the one I put in my satchel. I has most of the great songs, plus many obscuities that I recognise from 78RPM recordings. It gives guitar chords as well as the melody. The lyrics are quite complete. I love it!" [16]
Notes on Performers
The Dallins were Mormons. [17] Leon was raised in Utah and studied modern composition at the Eastman School of Music. Soon after he received his master’s degree in 1941, the United States entered World War II. Leon spent the next several years in the Air Force. [18]
By 1948, he was back in Utah on the faculty of Brigham Young University. Leon was in a musical community that encouraged his talents: his new works were performed by the school’s orchestra, band, and choral groups. [19] He also wrote scores for films by another faculty member, Glen Turner. [20]
Leon moved to Long Beach State College in 1955. [21] It was a new school with few established musical traditions. Leon turned from composing to criticism.
Leon may have had the contacts with William Brown, but I suspect it was his wife, Lynn Dallin, who did most of the work of the Heritage Songster. She was "an accomplished pianist" [22] who came from a family with a singing tradition. Her father, who moved to California from Utah, [23] accompanied his singing with a guitar. [24] Her mother, who was born in California, [25] sang at "many a hoedown." [26]
Why either Dallin would have had an interest in music for children is a mystery. I found nothing more about Lynn than she wrote cookbooks. [27] Her education was not recorded, so there’s no way to know if she studied music education or taught music. No children were mentioned in articles about either.
Brown’s music series editor may have been the catalyst for the Heritage Songster. Before Frederick Westphal joined the faculty of Sacramento State College, he had been active in the summer programs at Interlochen. [28] It is not known if he maintained contacts with the music camp, but in 1966 Kodály attended conferences at Stanford University and Interlochen. [29]
Lynn most likely was the moving force behind the Folk Songster.
Availability
Book: Leon and Lynn Dallin. "Kumbaya." Folk Songster. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company, 1967. 100.
Book: Leon and Lynn Dallin. "Kumbaya." Heritage Songster. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company, 1980 edition. 66.
End Notes
1. "Brown, William C." Encyclopedia Dubuque website.
2. Lois Choksy. The Kodály Method I. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1999 edition. 6. Cited by Wikipedia. "Kodály Method."
3. Wikipedia, Kodály Method.
4. Lois Choksy. The Kodály Method. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1974. 22. Sara Bidner paraphrased her to say: "Kodály believed that materials for teaching music to young children should come exclusively from three sources: (1) authentic children’s games and nursery songs, (2) authentic folk music, and (3) good composed music (music written by recognized composers)." [30]
5. Sara Baker Bidner. "A Folk Song Approach to Music Reading for Upper Elementary Levels Based on the Kodály Method." PhD dissertation. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1978. 20.
6. A search of WorldCat for the keywords "Kodaly Method" found the earliest London publication was Zoltán Kodály. Let Us Sing Correctly. London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1962.
7. Connie Lee Frame. "Evaluation of Kodály-Richards Teaching Method Used in Conjunction with Pre-existing Music Series." Masters in music thesis. Northwestern University, 1967.
Sister Saint Paul Dougherty. "A Comparative Study of Zoltan Kodaly’s Hungarian Choral Method and Making Music Your Own, Published by Silver Burdett." Masters in music thesis. Catholic University of America, 1967.
8. Leon Dallin and Lynn Dallin. Heritage Songster. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1967.
9. Dallin, Heritage, 1980. ix.
10. For example, one teacher wrote "As a teacher, I have used this extensive collection of mostly folk songs as a foundation for teaching sight-reading, rhythm, key recognition, interval training, etc. The songs do not have accompaniments -- melody line plus chord symbols only -- but that being said, there are TONS of songs, none terribly lengthy -- so it’s a really great tool to introduce and reinforce many important musical skills and concepts." [31]
Another wrote "This is a comprehensive collection of folk songs. Chord symbols make it easy to accompany on the spot. One of my favorite resources for teaching general and vocal music classes!" [32]
Amazon itself advertized the second edition was "designed to enhance elementary methods classes and to serve as a song resource for anyone who will lead young children in song. It is ideal for elementary education majors, music therapists, recreation majors, and parents." [33]
11. Leon Dallin. Techniques of Twentieth Century Composition. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1957.
12. Leon Dallin and Lynn Dallin. Christmas Caroler for Young Pianists. Westbury, New York: Pro Art, 1967.
13. One teacher told Amazon buyers "I had the 1st edition of this book many years ago and used it for all of my music classes until it fell apart. This edition is in the spiral format so it stands easily on the piano to read and play." [34]
14. Simon and Garfunkel. "Scarborough Fair/Canticle." Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Columbia CL 2563. Released 10 October 1966.
15. Leonard Cohen. "Suzanne." Songs of Leonard Cohen. Columbia CS 9533. 1967.
16. P. Mumford. Comment posted 17 May 2005. Amazon website for Folk Songster.
17. "Leon Dallin." Encyclopedia of Mormon Arts website. Both their genealogies were documented on the Mormon’s FamilySearch website.
18. "Leon Dallin." Prabook website.
19. "Catalog: Leon Dallin." Encyclopedia of Mormon Arts website.
20. Amateur Cinema website gave information on two films Leon made with Glen H. Turner: "The Barrier" and "Caineville."
21. Prabook.
22. Michael Dobkins. "March 4th in Seal Beach History." Seal Beach Founder’s Day website. 4 March 2019.
23. "Earl Hardy Nicholes." FamilySeach website.
24. "Sam Bass." Folk Songster. 10.
25. "Caroline Louise Pierson." FamilySearch website.
26. "Drunk Last Night." Folk Songster. 140.
27. Lynn Dallin. Stay Out of the Kitchen Cookbook. Garden City: Doubleday, 1968.
28. "Remembering Sac State’s Frederick Westphal." Valley Community Newspapers [Sacramento, California] website. 5 October 2011.
29. "Salty Saint of Budapest." Time. 26 August 1966. 39–40. Cited by Bidner. 21–22.
30. Bidner. 35.
31. suzysarah. Comment posted 28 April 2017. Amazon website for 1970 printing of Heritage Songster.
32. Kathryn. Comment posted 15 January 2014. Amazon website for 1980 edition of Heritage Songster.
33. Amazon website for 1980 edition of Heritage Songster.
34. karengersh. Comment posted 19 September 2015. Amazon website for 1980 edition of Heritage Songster.
The ultimate sign authors or genres have been legitimatized is the purchase of their books by public libraries. That was the audience for James Leisy’s Folk Song Abecedary, mentioned in the post for 22 December 2019. It was a 6.25" x 9.25" hardcover that would fit on any shelf.
Unfortunately, it also was 1.5" thick, much to big to fit on a music stand or piano.
The used copy I purchased was discarded by a Connecticut library. The spine had been broken in two places where a reader had used too much pressure to lay it flat. It fell open to pages 146–147 with the songs "Greensleeves," "What Child Is This?" and "The Gypsy Laddie." It broke between pages 208 and 209 with "The Keeper Would a-Hunting Go," "Knaves Will Be Knaves," and the headnote to "Kum Ba Ya."
The volume was good for reading, but not for singing. Because songs were arranged alphabetically, the music often appeared on one page and the words on the back side, so one had to keep flipping the page to sing and play it.
William Brown saw a different market for an authoritative folk-song collection. He was a college textbook published in Dubuque, Iowa, who began producing workbooks for science instructors after World War II. [1] He served markets that were too small for the large companies to exploit profitably.
In the middle 1960s, Brown began issuing books for music teachers interested in the methods of Zoltán Kodály. This was before the International Kodály Society was organized in Oakland, California, in 1973. [2]
Kodály began developing his methods in Hungary in the 1920s. [3] As his ideas were developed by him and others, two sometimes contradictory impulses were merged. The one was a set of techniques for teaching music literacy that made scores the prime conduit for the transmission of tunes. The second was an emphasis on folk songs as the vehicle for preparing students to sing the work of classical composers. [4]
Émigrés from the 1956 Hungarian revolt spread his ideas. Árpád Darázs began teaching at the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York. [5] Boosey and Hawkes began publishing Kodály’s books in London in 1962. [6]
Students in college music education programs were interested in his work by the late 1960s. They were inhibited from taking his ideas into classrooms by the lack of appropriate music in public school textbooks. The first master’s theses listed by WorldCat in 1967 were ones that reviewed this particular problem. [7]
In 1972, Brown published Lawrence Wheeler and Lois Raebeck’s Orff and Kodály Adapted for the Elementary School. In 1966, he may have commissioned the Heritage Songster of "folk and familiar songs." [8] It was an 8.5" x 11" paperback.
The songs "were selected on the basis of a systematic analysis of approximately 15,000 songs contained in school music series, learned by children, remembered by adults, and sung by Americans of all ages." [9] The result was an olio of lullabies, nursery songs, singing games, and songs from the nineteenth century, including those by Stephen Foster. Most people who commented on the book on Amazon were teachers who called it a "great resource." [10]
One assumes the analysis and layout were done by someone at William Brown, and that the editors, Leon and Lynn Dallin, added comments and a soupçon of prestige. Leon had written a text on modern composition for Brown in 1957. [11]
1966 was the height of the folk revival. The next year, the Dallins published a collection of Christmas carols with another publisher [12] and a Folk Songster that included "Kumbaya." It was thinner than the Heritage Songster, .25" versus nearly 1", and better adapted to singing. The second edition of Heritage solved the bulk problem with a plastic-comb binding. [13]
The 1980 revision of Heritage added 24 songs and dropped 11. Four religious songs were replaced with two that appeared in the Folk Songster: "Kumbaya" and "Michael Row the Boat Ashore." It also included two other folk-music revival songs, Simon and Garfunkle’s "Scarborough Fair" [14] and Woody Guthrie’s "This Land Is Your Land."
The comments that accompanied songs were perfunctory in both books. There was more information on works by classical composers like Engelbert Humperdinck than there was for ones like "Clementine. The Folk Songster had the veneer of a folk song collection, with notes some were collected from Louise Pierson Nicholes, Earl Hardy Nicholes, Cordell Frizzell, and Thomas W. Meade. The first two were Lynn’s parents.
The purpose of the book was not originality or uniqueness. The arrangement of "Kumbaya" was close to that of Leisy. The note that "both the words ‘come by here, my Lord’ and their pidgin English equivalent, ‘kum ba ya, my Lord,’ are used" also was borrowed. If one wanted better information, one could consult Leisy.
The rationale for the Folk Songster was the format, an easy to use book for singers and guitar players that included many of the desired songs. The used copy I bought had a paper stuck between "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "Soon I Will Be Done" that contained the words and chords for Leonard Cohen’s "Suzanne." [15] A singer had owned the book.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Instrumental Accompaniment: guitar chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
Folk Songster
None provided.
Heritage 1980
Africa
"According to a widely circulated theory, the pidgin words resulted from attempts by native Africans to mimic the sounds of missionaries singing the song, which is traditional in Africa."
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation:
Folk Songster
no comment
Heritage 1980
koom-by-yah
Verses: kumbaya, sleeping, crying, praying, shouting, singing, worshipping
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Repetition Pattern: "kumbaya" repeated after each verse.
"the words ‘come by here, my Lord,’ and their pidgin English equivalent, ‘kum ba ya, my Lord’ are used."
Ending: none
Unique Features: the verse "someone’s worshiping"
Influences: "sleeping" and "shouting" were used by The Villagers, mentioned in the post for 29 December 2019. Their use by the Dallins suggested they were part of a general version used in the Los Angeles area.
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo:
Folk Songster
Very slowly
Heritage 1980
Slowly evenly, and with dignity
Rhythm: 2/2, even beats
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar/Autoharp Chords: D G A7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"
Group Harmony: unison
Influences: it was very close to the version published by Leisy, except it used A7 in one place where Leisy used an A chord
Audience Perceptions
Format may seem trivial, but when one is in a music store and none of the books have everything, but each is good enough, it’s a sufficient reason for selecting one over another. It’s like picking clothes that are comfortable when all the choices are equally acceptable. One Amazon customer wrote:
"I have several of more pedigreed songbooks, including Carl Sandburg’s and Alan Lomax’s, but this slimmer book is often the one I put in my satchel. I has most of the great songs, plus many obscuities that I recognise from 78RPM recordings. It gives guitar chords as well as the melody. The lyrics are quite complete. I love it!" [16]
Notes on Performers
The Dallins were Mormons. [17] Leon was raised in Utah and studied modern composition at the Eastman School of Music. Soon after he received his master’s degree in 1941, the United States entered World War II. Leon spent the next several years in the Air Force. [18]
By 1948, he was back in Utah on the faculty of Brigham Young University. Leon was in a musical community that encouraged his talents: his new works were performed by the school’s orchestra, band, and choral groups. [19] He also wrote scores for films by another faculty member, Glen Turner. [20]
Leon moved to Long Beach State College in 1955. [21] It was a new school with few established musical traditions. Leon turned from composing to criticism.
Leon may have had the contacts with William Brown, but I suspect it was his wife, Lynn Dallin, who did most of the work of the Heritage Songster. She was "an accomplished pianist" [22] who came from a family with a singing tradition. Her father, who moved to California from Utah, [23] accompanied his singing with a guitar. [24] Her mother, who was born in California, [25] sang at "many a hoedown." [26]
Why either Dallin would have had an interest in music for children is a mystery. I found nothing more about Lynn than she wrote cookbooks. [27] Her education was not recorded, so there’s no way to know if she studied music education or taught music. No children were mentioned in articles about either.
Brown’s music series editor may have been the catalyst for the Heritage Songster. Before Frederick Westphal joined the faculty of Sacramento State College, he had been active in the summer programs at Interlochen. [28] It is not known if he maintained contacts with the music camp, but in 1966 Kodály attended conferences at Stanford University and Interlochen. [29]
Lynn most likely was the moving force behind the Folk Songster.
Availability
Book: Leon and Lynn Dallin. "Kumbaya." Folk Songster. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company, 1967. 100.
Book: Leon and Lynn Dallin. "Kumbaya." Heritage Songster. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company, 1980 edition. 66.
End Notes
1. "Brown, William C." Encyclopedia Dubuque website.
2. Lois Choksy. The Kodály Method I. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1999 edition. 6. Cited by Wikipedia. "Kodály Method."
3. Wikipedia, Kodály Method.
4. Lois Choksy. The Kodály Method. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1974. 22. Sara Bidner paraphrased her to say: "Kodály believed that materials for teaching music to young children should come exclusively from three sources: (1) authentic children’s games and nursery songs, (2) authentic folk music, and (3) good composed music (music written by recognized composers)." [30]
5. Sara Baker Bidner. "A Folk Song Approach to Music Reading for Upper Elementary Levels Based on the Kodály Method." PhD dissertation. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1978. 20.
6. A search of WorldCat for the keywords "Kodaly Method" found the earliest London publication was Zoltán Kodály. Let Us Sing Correctly. London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1962.
7. Connie Lee Frame. "Evaluation of Kodály-Richards Teaching Method Used in Conjunction with Pre-existing Music Series." Masters in music thesis. Northwestern University, 1967.
Sister Saint Paul Dougherty. "A Comparative Study of Zoltan Kodaly’s Hungarian Choral Method and Making Music Your Own, Published by Silver Burdett." Masters in music thesis. Catholic University of America, 1967.
8. Leon Dallin and Lynn Dallin. Heritage Songster. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1967.
9. Dallin, Heritage, 1980. ix.
10. For example, one teacher wrote "As a teacher, I have used this extensive collection of mostly folk songs as a foundation for teaching sight-reading, rhythm, key recognition, interval training, etc. The songs do not have accompaniments -- melody line plus chord symbols only -- but that being said, there are TONS of songs, none terribly lengthy -- so it’s a really great tool to introduce and reinforce many important musical skills and concepts." [31]
Another wrote "This is a comprehensive collection of folk songs. Chord symbols make it easy to accompany on the spot. One of my favorite resources for teaching general and vocal music classes!" [32]
Amazon itself advertized the second edition was "designed to enhance elementary methods classes and to serve as a song resource for anyone who will lead young children in song. It is ideal for elementary education majors, music therapists, recreation majors, and parents." [33]
11. Leon Dallin. Techniques of Twentieth Century Composition. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1957.
12. Leon Dallin and Lynn Dallin. Christmas Caroler for Young Pianists. Westbury, New York: Pro Art, 1967.
13. One teacher told Amazon buyers "I had the 1st edition of this book many years ago and used it for all of my music classes until it fell apart. This edition is in the spiral format so it stands easily on the piano to read and play." [34]
14. Simon and Garfunkel. "Scarborough Fair/Canticle." Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Columbia CL 2563. Released 10 October 1966.
15. Leonard Cohen. "Suzanne." Songs of Leonard Cohen. Columbia CS 9533. 1967.
16. P. Mumford. Comment posted 17 May 2005. Amazon website for Folk Songster.
17. "Leon Dallin." Encyclopedia of Mormon Arts website. Both their genealogies were documented on the Mormon’s FamilySearch website.
18. "Leon Dallin." Prabook website.
19. "Catalog: Leon Dallin." Encyclopedia of Mormon Arts website.
20. Amateur Cinema website gave information on two films Leon made with Glen H. Turner: "The Barrier" and "Caineville."
21. Prabook.
22. Michael Dobkins. "March 4th in Seal Beach History." Seal Beach Founder’s Day website. 4 March 2019.
23. "Earl Hardy Nicholes." FamilySeach website.
24. "Sam Bass." Folk Songster. 10.
25. "Caroline Louise Pierson." FamilySearch website.
26. "Drunk Last Night." Folk Songster. 140.
27. Lynn Dallin. Stay Out of the Kitchen Cookbook. Garden City: Doubleday, 1968.
28. "Remembering Sac State’s Frederick Westphal." Valley Community Newspapers [Sacramento, California] website. 5 October 2011.
29. "Salty Saint of Budapest." Time. 26 August 1966. 39–40. Cited by Bidner. 21–22.
30. Bidner. 35.
31. suzysarah. Comment posted 28 April 2017. Amazon website for 1970 printing of Heritage Songster.
32. Kathryn. Comment posted 15 January 2014. Amazon website for 1980 edition of Heritage Songster.
33. Amazon website for 1980 edition of Heritage Songster.
34. karengersh. Comment posted 19 September 2015. Amazon website for 1980 edition of Heritage Songster.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
The Villagers - Kum Ba Ya
Topic: Commercial Folk Music Revival
Oral tradition is a broad stream of communication that encompasses everything from hazing traditions in wealthy fraternities to field hollers used by African-American farm workers in the South. For years, folklorists sought to narrow the scope with sociological definitions of the deserving folk.
D. K. Wilgus’ 1954 dissertation defined the legitimate, i.e., academic, collections from the less rigorous popular ones. [1] The Kingston Trio erupted into the popular music world in 1958. [2] The next year, Rutgers published Wilgus’ Anglo-American Scholarship since 1898. [3]
Ray Lawless sped the canonization process in 1960. In Folksingers and Folksongs in America he provided short descriptions of the genuine folk artists, folk song collections, folklore societies, and recordings. While his range was broad enough to include Bradley Kincaid, who appeared on Chicago radio station WLS, it did not include the Carter Family. He accepted Harry Belafonte, but not The Kingston Trio. [4]
He issued a revision in 1965 that admitted some artists who emerged after 1960, like Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Odetta. He gave a brief mention of The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul, and Mary with the caveat:
"However much some of the above groups may have commercialized or confused the folk music scene, they at least gave something that made more sense and music than Beatlemania." [5]
Lawless’ book was the sort of reference James Leisy could have used when he was preparing The Folk Song Abecedary. [6] Indeed, he included a higher proportion of songs from Lawless’ than it did from Sandburg and Lomax combined, 55% to 35%. The ones unique to Leisy included spirituals and Southern gospel songs, as well as ones from drinking and African-American traditions.
Leisy wanted to do more than guide his readers to the better folk songs. He wanted to educate their taste by listing the more authentic recordings. For that, he probably relied on Lawless’ list of albums. The artists mentioned most often by the two men were interpreters who were popular in the 1940s: Burl Ives, Richard Dyer-Bennett, and Josh White.
This time Leisy did not mention The Weavers’ recording of "Kumbaya." Instead he listed albums by Baez and the Womenfolk. The latter made an album for RCA that included five songs by the women, five by The Villagers, and one with the two together. It was actually The Villagers who performed "Kum Ba Ya."
The recording was made in 1963 at the Ice House, a folk-music club in Pasadena, California. [7] The group followed what had become the accepted routine for "Kumbaya." The woman acting as spokesperson introduced it by repeating a variant of the legend introduced by Pete Seeger in 1957, [8] that it was an American spiritual taken to Africa by missionaries. [9]
Next she invited the audience to join them. Her technique was for the group to "sing one verse through for you first so you get a general idea of how it goes," and then shout out the verb as the group started each iteration. While this approach was popularized by Seeger, it was Baez’s 1962 recording that embedded it into the standard performance of "Kumbaya."
Their performance violated two of Leisy’s protocols. The tempo was quick, rather than slow, with the rhythm emphasized by hand claps. The Villagers treated another spiritual, "Good News," as a vehicle for comedy, rather than religion. For "Kumbaya" they added "sleeping" from Seeger and "shouting" to the usual verses. They treated "shout" as a verb for speaking as loudly as possible, rather than as a noun defining one way African Americans approached the Lord.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: Elaine Fink, Janet Perlstein, Harvey Gerst, Steve Cohen
Instrumental Accompaniment: guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand claps
Credits
Arr: Fink, Perlstein, Gerst, Cohn
ASCAP
Introduction: "The origin or the title of this song comes from American missionaries going over to South Africa in the 1800s bringing with them a Negro spiritual called ‘Come By Here’ and the African interpretation of that was ‘Kumbaya’."
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: kum Ba YAAH
Verses: kumbaya, singing, praying, sleeping, shouting
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: they used "shouting" to refer to the loudness of the voice rather than to a way African Americans addressed the Lord.
Basic Form: four-verse song framed by kumbaya repeated twice at start and end
Verse Repetition Pattern: A-A-x-x-x-x-A-A where A = kumbaya
Ending: repeated "oh Lord, Kumbaya" twice
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: quick; slowed the last "oh Lord, kumbaya"
Dynamics: uniform, except for shouting verse which was louder
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note including final "Lord"
Group: parallel chordal harmony, with no low voices
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: the guitar maintained a constant rhythmic pattern
Notes on Performance
Occasion: 1963 concert
Location: Ice House, Pasadena, California
Microphones: album photograph shows two floor mikes for the singers and one for one woman’s guitar.
Clothing: album photograph showed the group standing in order of the height with the women together and the men together. The men had short hair and wore dark suits with light-colored ties. The women were wearing identical pleated skirts, blouses, and weskits. They had bangs and their short, permed hair framed their faces.
Notes on Movement
In the album photograph, the women were standing with full-sized guitars. One man stood with a smaller guitar, and the other stood with a string bass.
Audience Perceptions
An industry trade organ said The Villagers added "humor and rousing singing to their material." [10]
Notes on Performers
The Villagers was an ephemeral group in a constellation of such groups. Harvey Gerst said he had started several groups before he met Elaine Fink. [11] He and Steve Cohen hung around the Troubadour coffeehouse in West Hollywood, where artists could perform on Monday nights. [12]
Terry Kirkman remembered one night in 1964 when a friend called people in the audience to come on stage. They sang songs they all knew: Baez’s "Banks Of The Ohio," The Highwaymen’s "Michael Row The Boat Ashore," The Kingston Trio’s "Darlin’ Corey," and Woody Guthrie’s "This Land Your Land." It was, he said, "twenty-plus minutes of the best musical fun anyone had experienced in some time." [13]
Cohen recalled "there was no planning or anything that led up to that moment. It was just unrehearsed. It just happened." [14]
Gerst and Cohen continued to sing with Kirkman’s group, which became The Men, but left in March 1965 before it became The Association. [15]
The Villagers evolved from a similar network of friends with a common repertoire who imbibed the air of Los Angeles area folk-music scene. Gerst was brought into the group by Fink, and brought in Cohen. Cohen was the most typical folknik in the group. He spent time around Washington Square in New York and was president of the Queens College folk song club. [l6]
Fink was born in Waukegan, Illinois, and studied voice and piano at the University of Illinois and University of Michigan. She met Janet Perlstein when she moved to Los Angeles to study how to score films at UCLA. [l7]
Perstein was raised in Los Angeles and studied music at Mills College in Oakland. After working for a music publisher in New York, she moved to Santa Monica to teach in a high school and study at UCLA. [18]
Gerst seems to have been the only member who remained active in professional music. He was born in Chicago and raised in California. [19] He began working with microphones and amplifiers, and was designing speakers for JBL while he was performing with The Villagers and The Men. He continued working in the technical areas of electric instruments, and in 1988 opened his own recording studio in Texas. [20]
The others had more common names, but I could find nothing more about them on the web.
Update 4 April 2020:
Laurie Burke sent me an email that identified her mother, Elaine Fink, was the spokesperson. She added Fink continued “in music (mainly as an amazing pianist and orchestrator, musical writer, etc.) and she raised an entire family of professional musicians.” Burke’s brother is a drummer and composer. Burke is a singer and voice-over coach.
Burke also said her mother remembered well “what happened when they toured through the South in the 60's and the dealings with racism they encountered against an African American group touring with them(I believe they were in Texas and since the group was being denied the same treatment as the white groups, they all refused to play.”
Availability
Album: The Villagers. "Kum Ba Yah." On The Womenfolk and The Villagers. We Give a Hoot. RCA Victor LPM-2821, Ice House, Pasadena, California, 1963.
YouTube: The Villagers. “KUM BA YA (Kumbaya).” Uploaded by PS109VanBurenHigh, 24 August 2015.
End Notes
1. D. K. Wilgus. "A History of Anglo-American Ballad Scholarship since 1898." PhD dissertation. Ohio State University, 1954.
2. The Kingston Trio was discussed in the post for 13 October 2019.
3. D. K. Wilgus. Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1959.
4. Ray McKinley Lawless. Folksingers and Folksongs in America. New York: Meredith Press, 1960.
5. Ray M. Lawless. Folksingers and Folksongs in America. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. 1965 edition. 704.
6. Leisy’s Folk Song Abecedary was discussed in the post for 22 December 2019.
7. Wikipedia. "The Ice House (Comedy Club).". It is the subject of my article in Voices. The abstract is available on the Papers tab. A copy has been uploaded to the Academia.edu website.
8. Seeger’s legend is discussed in the post for 16 October 2022. It is the subject of my article in Voices. The abstract is available on the Papers tab. A copy has been uploaded to the Academia.edu website.
9. She specified the missionaries went to South Africa in the 1800s. South Africa was divided between Dutch and British interests for most of the nineteenth century with the established churches of each jealously guardian its position. Some early attempts by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions were subverted by wars between natives and Boer farmers. Most of the missionaries did not survive. [21] Her comments are quoted in the Voice article.
It was only after the discovery of diamonds in 1871 and gold in 1886 [22] that colonial authorities saw a need to socialize Africans into becoming mine laborers. Methodist missionaries from the United States appeared in 1901, [23] toward the end of the Second Boer War. [24] The Pentecostals mentioned in the post for 29 August 2017 arrived in 1908. [25]
10. Review of We Give a Hoot. Billboard. 21 December1963. 28.
11. We Give a Hoot. Liner notes.
12. Malcolm C. Searles. The Association ‘Cherish.’ Leicester, England: Troubadour Publishing, 2018. 15–16.
13. Terry Kirkman. Quoted by Searles. 18. He was not part of The Villagers.
14. Steve Cohen. Quoted by Searles. 18.
15. Searles. 41–42.
16. We Give a Hoot, liner notes.
17. We Give a Hoot, liner notes.
18. We Give a Hoot, liner notes.
19. We Give a Hoot, liner notes.
20. "Harvey Gerst." LinkedIn website.
21. J. du Plessis. A History of Christian Missions in South Africa. London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1911. Chapter 13, The American Zulu Mission, 219–232.
22. Wikipedia. "History of South Africa."
23. du Plessis. 391.
24. Wikipedia, History of South Africa. The war was fought between 1899 and 1902.
25. Wikipedia. "Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa."
Sunday, December 22, 2019
James F. Leisy - Folk Song Abecedary
Topic: Commercial Folk Music Revival
The rapprochement between politics and the folk-music revival began to unravel in 1965. What had been dormant since the early 1950s was resurrected in 1962 when Peter, Paul, and Mary recorded "If I Had a Hammer." [1]
The relationship grew stronger in 1963 when folk revival singers performed at Martin Luther King’s March on Washington. [2] That was when the Journeymen began encountering problems touring in the South. [3]
The following year, King won the Nobel Peace Prize [4] and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. [5] In 1965 King led the march from Selma to Montgomery to enforce African-American rights. Joan Baez and Peter, Paul, and Mary again sang, this time at a concert organized by Harry Belafonte in March. [6] Congress passed the Voting Right Act in August. [7]
With those laws, the hard work of implementing them began, as the impact of the legislated changes became more obvious. People started seeing Blacks in their motels, restaurants, and shopping centers. Concrete reality clashed with latent prejudices, both in the South and in the North.
Whatever consensus that had formed around folk music began to fray. For instance, Bob Dylan performed in Washington, but not in Alabama. [8] He moved toward Nashville’s country musicians and performed with electrified instruments at the Newport Folk Festival. [9]
Academic folklorists began calling the commercial music fakelore, because not all the songs were traditional and the singing styles incorporated popular music motifs. Early supporters of Sing Out! complained about the intrusion of the profit motive. [10]
Joni Mitchell found one financial consideration that inhibited the free exchange of folk songs was that "each city’s folk scene tended to accord veteran performers the exclusive right to play their signature songs." This wasn’t limited to songs they’d written, but traditional ones as well. [11]
This attitude was different than that of apprentices in country music, who began singing the material of better known artists to develop the singing and instrumental style of the genre. When they auditioned for road bands, they were expected to already know their parts.
Mitchell said that exclusiveness forced her to write her own songs. The guardians of commercial folk music then complained about original songs that were copyrighted. Performers, or their agents, had become aware of their value and charged for reproduction. That effectively limited both other performers from singing them and editors from including them in collections without paying royalties.
James Leisy entered the fray in 1966 with his Folk Song Abecedary. Unlike his earlier collections, which included songs that were being sung, this one focused on songs that ought to be known. The anti-war songs were from Ireland, [12] not the contemporary protests against the war in Vietnam.
He included songs that had been popularized by the commercial folk music performers, but not the ones that required royalties. Thus, he included a number of the traditional ballads recorded by Baez [13] and some of the early material from The Kingston Trio. [14] The Buffy Sainte-Marie song [15] was closely related to a nineteenth century British Ballad. [16]
Instead of the popular versions of songs, Leisy offered the traditional ones. Rather than provide Kingston Trio’s "M. T. A," [17] he published Henry Clay Work’s "The Ship That Never Returned." [18] He reproduced "Man of Constant Sorrow," [19] rather than Judy Collins’ "Maid of Constant Sorrow." [20]
The exception to this exclusiveness was pre-World War II country music. He included five songs by the Carter Family [21] and two by Roy Acuff. [22] He also offered "Abilene," which had been popularized by George Hamilton IV in 1963. [23]
More than a third of his selections were English, Irish, Scots, or Southern ballads and songs, and a sixth were religious, including African-American spirituals. Occupational songs comprised another large group, including cowboy and western songs, and chanteys and sea songs. However, none were from the labor movement.
Although he disguised his selections by presenting the songs in alphabetical order, he was beholden to the collections of Carl Sandburg and John Lomax. Indeed, a third of his material came from their anthologies.
This shouldn’t have been surprising. In the biography that accompanied the collection, Leisy said Lomax and Sandburg visited his father when he was a child. [24] He added:
"I became a devoted student of the work of Francis James Child, Cecil James Sharp, Phillips Barry, Frank Clyde Brown, Vance Randolph, B. A. Botkin,"
and others. He also thanked Irwin Silber and Sing Out! for their help. [25]
He was able to reuse "Kum Ba Yah" from Folk Song Fest. He reworded the introduction, but kept the text exactly the same. He altered the change from the A to the D chord in the third line. In 1964 he changed on "kum." In this collection, he changed on "ya."
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: unison
Instrumental Accompaniment: chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
"There is a widely circulated theory that this song was based on the words ‘come by here’ as Africans attempted to imitate these words as spoken by missionaries. In any event, this fragmentary song became traditional in Africa, where it was ‘found’ and brought to America, to become part of our tradition."
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom bah yah
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying, hoping
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: "many people use the English words ‘come by here’ instead" of "kumbaya"
Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Repetition Pattern: "Many people use the English words "come by Here" instead. New verses are constantly being coined. A few examples are shown here. The chorus may be repeated after each verse."
Ending: none
Unique Features: "new verses are constantly being coined"
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/2
Tempo: "usually sung very slowly and with dignity."
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar Chords: D G A A7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"
Audience Perceptions
One Amazon customer wrote:
"The Leisy book is a wonderful resource. I use it for material in teaching music at the elementary school level, and for piano students to learn to read from a lead sheet. There are hundreds of songs with a wide variety of styles. The background notes Leisy supplies enriches the experience of the music and ties the culture to American historical." [26]
Another added:
"If you study the music that grew out of traditional songs... country, rock, blues, some jazz or modern folk... this book will strengthen your understanding. Jim Leisy explains the evolution of 200+ folk songs, describing the source, development and variations, and includes lead sheets (melody, chords and lyrics) for each tune. My edition is from 1966, I can see and hear the influence of scores of anonymous songwriters on later works, from Dave Matthews, George Strait or Bob Dylan to the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen and countless others. Almost all popular music since the 1930s mimics the structure, the stories or the actual melodies of traditional roots music. Numerous music books offer more songs, of course, but if you want to know the back story to these songs, the Folk Song Abecedary is your ticket to greater appreciation of our musical roots." [27]
Notes on Performers
This was the last folk-song collection produced by Leisy. He produced another anthology for the Methodist church, [28] and turned his attention to other forms of music. In 1967, he began playing trombone with a San Francisco dixieland band, [29] and produced a songbook for the business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi. [30]
At some point he was inducted into the Bohemian Club. [31] The association had been formed by artists and writers in San Francisco in 1872, but had been coopted by conservative businessmen and politicians. They kept a few creative people, like Leisy. One reason may have been the pretense that the theatrical production staged at their annual retreat was mounted by members. [32]
He had published "Poor Lil" in a four part arrangement in 1964. [33] He first had published the humorous, slightly naughty song in Swingin’ Housemothers." [34] In 1971, he began issuing choral arrangements of original songs [35] or traditional ones like "The Rock Island Line" [36] through Fred Waring’s Shawnee Press.
He sold his technical publishing company to a British conglomerate in 1978, [37] and wrote his first musical production for children. Scrooge was based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It lasted an hour with seven major roles, and a number of smaller speaking parts. Shawnee still provides an accompaniment tape for those who don’t have pianists or other instrumentalists available. [38]
Leisy continued to produce these musicals until 1988. Most were based on children’s stories, and varied in their ambitions. "Tiny Tim" lasted 20 minutes with few speaking parts. This version of the Dickens’ tale was suitable for "children of elementary and middle school age." [39]
Leisy died in 1989. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times focused on his business. It said he was a member of the Young Presidents Organization, but did not mention his interest in music. [40]
Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Ya." In The Folk Song Abecedary. New York: Bonanza Books, 1966. 209–210.
End Notes
1. Peter, Paul And Mary. "If I Had A Hammer." Peter, Paul And Mary. Warner Brothers Records W1449. May 1963.
2. Wikipedia. "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom."
3. See post for 20 October 2019 for details.
4. Wikipedia. "Martin Luther King Jr."
5. Wikipedia. "Civil Rights Act of 1964."
6. Rachel Hassinger. "March 24, 1965: ‘The Night the "Stars " Came Out in Alabama’." WGBH website. 24 March 2018.
7. Wikipedia. "Voting Rights Act of 1965."
8. David Hajdu. Positively 4th Street. New York: Picador, 2001. 201.
9. Wikipedia. "Bob Dylan."
10. David A. De Turk and A. Poulin, Jr., included many of these articles in a 1967 anthology. [41] It included B. A. Botkin’s "The Folksong Revival: Cult or Culture?" and Irwin Silber’s "Folk Music and the Success Syndrome." [42]
11. Wikipedia. "Joni Mitchell."
12. "Johnny I Hardly Knew You" and "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier."
13. For example, "Silver Dagger," "The House Carpenter," and "Banks of the Ohio."
14. For example, "Greenback Dollar " and "Good News."
15. Buffy Sainte-Marie. "Must I Go Bound." Many A Mile. Vanguard VSD-79171. 1965.
16. "Must I Go Bound" and "Butcher Boy, The [Laws P24]." The Traditional Ballad Index. California State University-Fresno website. Version 4.5.
17. The Kingston Trio. "M.T.A." At Large. Capitol Records T1199. Released 1 June 1959.
18. Work wrote "The Ship that Never Returned" in 1865. It was adapted for a 1924 Vernon Dalhart recording, "Wreck of the Old 97." Bess Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner reused the Dalhart version for "Charlie and the M. T. A." in 1948. [43]
19. Wikipedia. "Man of Constant Sorrow."
20. Judy Collins. "A Maid Of Constant Sorrow." A Maid Of Constant Sorrow. Elektra EKL-209. November 1961.
21. This included the two recorded by The Kingston Trio ("Tom Dooley" and "Worried Man Blues"), their two best known songs in 1966 ("Can the Circle Be Unbroken" and "Wildwood Flower"), and "I Never Will Marry."
22. "The Great Speckled Bird" and "Wabash Cannonball."
23. George Hamilton IV. "Abilene." RCA Victor 447-0717. Recorded 20 March 1963.
24. Leisy, Abecedary. Back cover.
25. Leisy, Abecedary. ix.
26. Kerry Cordell. Comment posted 22 July 2014. Amazon site for Abecedary.
27. Ross Gidcumb. Comment posted 18 April 2014. Amazon site for Abecedary.
28. James Leisy. The Good Times Songbook. Nashville: Abington Press, 1974.
29. "Franklin, James Franklin." The Writers Directory 1980–82. London: The Macmillan Press, 1979. Page 735. The band was T. Ford and the Model A’s.
30. The songbook mentioned in The Writers Directory was Alpha Kappa Psi Sings.
31. "James Franklin Leisy." Prabook website.
32. Wikipedia. "Bohemian Club."
33. James F. Leisy. "Poor Lil ." Park Ridge, Illinois: General Words and Music Company, 1964.
34. This collection was discussed in the post for 15 December 2019.
35. James F Leisy. "A Little Old Lady in Tennis Shoes." Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Malcolm Music, 1971.
36. James F. Leisy. "Rock Island Line." Delaware Water Gap: Shawnee Press Inc., 1975.
37. "James F. Leisy; Leading Textbook Publisher." Los Angeles Times. 15 July 1989. The conglomerate was International Thomson Organization.
38. James F. Leisy and Jack Lambert. Scrooge. Delaware Water Gap: Shawnee Press, 1978.
39. James Leisy and Joyce Merman. Tiny Tim’s Christmas Carol. Delaware Water Gap: Wide World Music, 1981. Quotation, 2.
40. Los Angeles Times.
41. David A. De Turk and A. Poulin, Jr. The American Folk Scene. New York: Dell Publishing, 1967.
42. Silber was discussed in the post for 13 November 2019.
43. Wikipedia. "The Ship that Never Returned."
The rapprochement between politics and the folk-music revival began to unravel in 1965. What had been dormant since the early 1950s was resurrected in 1962 when Peter, Paul, and Mary recorded "If I Had a Hammer." [1]
The relationship grew stronger in 1963 when folk revival singers performed at Martin Luther King’s March on Washington. [2] That was when the Journeymen began encountering problems touring in the South. [3]
The following year, King won the Nobel Peace Prize [4] and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. [5] In 1965 King led the march from Selma to Montgomery to enforce African-American rights. Joan Baez and Peter, Paul, and Mary again sang, this time at a concert organized by Harry Belafonte in March. [6] Congress passed the Voting Right Act in August. [7]
With those laws, the hard work of implementing them began, as the impact of the legislated changes became more obvious. People started seeing Blacks in their motels, restaurants, and shopping centers. Concrete reality clashed with latent prejudices, both in the South and in the North.
Whatever consensus that had formed around folk music began to fray. For instance, Bob Dylan performed in Washington, but not in Alabama. [8] He moved toward Nashville’s country musicians and performed with electrified instruments at the Newport Folk Festival. [9]
Academic folklorists began calling the commercial music fakelore, because not all the songs were traditional and the singing styles incorporated popular music motifs. Early supporters of Sing Out! complained about the intrusion of the profit motive. [10]
Joni Mitchell found one financial consideration that inhibited the free exchange of folk songs was that "each city’s folk scene tended to accord veteran performers the exclusive right to play their signature songs." This wasn’t limited to songs they’d written, but traditional ones as well. [11]
This attitude was different than that of apprentices in country music, who began singing the material of better known artists to develop the singing and instrumental style of the genre. When they auditioned for road bands, they were expected to already know their parts.
Mitchell said that exclusiveness forced her to write her own songs. The guardians of commercial folk music then complained about original songs that were copyrighted. Performers, or their agents, had become aware of their value and charged for reproduction. That effectively limited both other performers from singing them and editors from including them in collections without paying royalties.
James Leisy entered the fray in 1966 with his Folk Song Abecedary. Unlike his earlier collections, which included songs that were being sung, this one focused on songs that ought to be known. The anti-war songs were from Ireland, [12] not the contemporary protests against the war in Vietnam.
He included songs that had been popularized by the commercial folk music performers, but not the ones that required royalties. Thus, he included a number of the traditional ballads recorded by Baez [13] and some of the early material from The Kingston Trio. [14] The Buffy Sainte-Marie song [15] was closely related to a nineteenth century British Ballad. [16]
Instead of the popular versions of songs, Leisy offered the traditional ones. Rather than provide Kingston Trio’s "M. T. A," [17] he published Henry Clay Work’s "The Ship That Never Returned." [18] He reproduced "Man of Constant Sorrow," [19] rather than Judy Collins’ "Maid of Constant Sorrow." [20]
The exception to this exclusiveness was pre-World War II country music. He included five songs by the Carter Family [21] and two by Roy Acuff. [22] He also offered "Abilene," which had been popularized by George Hamilton IV in 1963. [23]
More than a third of his selections were English, Irish, Scots, or Southern ballads and songs, and a sixth were religious, including African-American spirituals. Occupational songs comprised another large group, including cowboy and western songs, and chanteys and sea songs. However, none were from the labor movement.
Although he disguised his selections by presenting the songs in alphabetical order, he was beholden to the collections of Carl Sandburg and John Lomax. Indeed, a third of his material came from their anthologies.
This shouldn’t have been surprising. In the biography that accompanied the collection, Leisy said Lomax and Sandburg visited his father when he was a child. [24] He added:
"I became a devoted student of the work of Francis James Child, Cecil James Sharp, Phillips Barry, Frank Clyde Brown, Vance Randolph, B. A. Botkin,"
and others. He also thanked Irwin Silber and Sing Out! for their help. [25]
He was able to reuse "Kum Ba Yah" from Folk Song Fest. He reworded the introduction, but kept the text exactly the same. He altered the change from the A to the D chord in the third line. In 1964 he changed on "kum." In this collection, he changed on "ya."
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: unison
Instrumental Accompaniment: chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
"There is a widely circulated theory that this song was based on the words ‘come by here’ as Africans attempted to imitate these words as spoken by missionaries. In any event, this fragmentary song became traditional in Africa, where it was ‘found’ and brought to America, to become part of our tradition."
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom bah yah
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying, hoping
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: "many people use the English words ‘come by here’ instead" of "kumbaya"
Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Repetition Pattern: "Many people use the English words "come by Here" instead. New verses are constantly being coined. A few examples are shown here. The chorus may be repeated after each verse."
Ending: none
Unique Features: "new verses are constantly being coined"
Time Signature: 3/2
Tempo: "usually sung very slowly and with dignity."
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar Chords: D G A A7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"
Audience Perceptions
One Amazon customer wrote:
"The Leisy book is a wonderful resource. I use it for material in teaching music at the elementary school level, and for piano students to learn to read from a lead sheet. There are hundreds of songs with a wide variety of styles. The background notes Leisy supplies enriches the experience of the music and ties the culture to American historical." [26]
Another added:
"If you study the music that grew out of traditional songs... country, rock, blues, some jazz or modern folk... this book will strengthen your understanding. Jim Leisy explains the evolution of 200+ folk songs, describing the source, development and variations, and includes lead sheets (melody, chords and lyrics) for each tune. My edition is from 1966, I can see and hear the influence of scores of anonymous songwriters on later works, from Dave Matthews, George Strait or Bob Dylan to the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen and countless others. Almost all popular music since the 1930s mimics the structure, the stories or the actual melodies of traditional roots music. Numerous music books offer more songs, of course, but if you want to know the back story to these songs, the Folk Song Abecedary is your ticket to greater appreciation of our musical roots." [27]
Notes on Performers
This was the last folk-song collection produced by Leisy. He produced another anthology for the Methodist church, [28] and turned his attention to other forms of music. In 1967, he began playing trombone with a San Francisco dixieland band, [29] and produced a songbook for the business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi. [30]
At some point he was inducted into the Bohemian Club. [31] The association had been formed by artists and writers in San Francisco in 1872, but had been coopted by conservative businessmen and politicians. They kept a few creative people, like Leisy. One reason may have been the pretense that the theatrical production staged at their annual retreat was mounted by members. [32]
He had published "Poor Lil" in a four part arrangement in 1964. [33] He first had published the humorous, slightly naughty song in Swingin’ Housemothers." [34] In 1971, he began issuing choral arrangements of original songs [35] or traditional ones like "The Rock Island Line" [36] through Fred Waring’s Shawnee Press.
He sold his technical publishing company to a British conglomerate in 1978, [37] and wrote his first musical production for children. Scrooge was based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It lasted an hour with seven major roles, and a number of smaller speaking parts. Shawnee still provides an accompaniment tape for those who don’t have pianists or other instrumentalists available. [38]
Leisy continued to produce these musicals until 1988. Most were based on children’s stories, and varied in their ambitions. "Tiny Tim" lasted 20 minutes with few speaking parts. This version of the Dickens’ tale was suitable for "children of elementary and middle school age." [39]
Leisy died in 1989. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times focused on his business. It said he was a member of the Young Presidents Organization, but did not mention his interest in music. [40]
Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Ya." In The Folk Song Abecedary. New York: Bonanza Books, 1966. 209–210.
End Notes
1. Peter, Paul And Mary. "If I Had A Hammer." Peter, Paul And Mary. Warner Brothers Records W1449. May 1963.
2. Wikipedia. "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom."
3. See post for 20 October 2019 for details.
4. Wikipedia. "Martin Luther King Jr."
5. Wikipedia. "Civil Rights Act of 1964."
6. Rachel Hassinger. "March 24, 1965: ‘The Night the "Stars " Came Out in Alabama’." WGBH website. 24 March 2018.
7. Wikipedia. "Voting Rights Act of 1965."
8. David Hajdu. Positively 4th Street. New York: Picador, 2001. 201.
9. Wikipedia. "Bob Dylan."
10. David A. De Turk and A. Poulin, Jr., included many of these articles in a 1967 anthology. [41] It included B. A. Botkin’s "The Folksong Revival: Cult or Culture?" and Irwin Silber’s "Folk Music and the Success Syndrome." [42]
11. Wikipedia. "Joni Mitchell."
12. "Johnny I Hardly Knew You" and "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier."
13. For example, "Silver Dagger," "The House Carpenter," and "Banks of the Ohio."
14. For example, "Greenback Dollar " and "Good News."
15. Buffy Sainte-Marie. "Must I Go Bound." Many A Mile. Vanguard VSD-79171. 1965.
16. "Must I Go Bound" and "Butcher Boy, The [Laws P24]." The Traditional Ballad Index. California State University-Fresno website. Version 4.5.
17. The Kingston Trio. "M.T.A." At Large. Capitol Records T1199. Released 1 June 1959.
18. Work wrote "The Ship that Never Returned" in 1865. It was adapted for a 1924 Vernon Dalhart recording, "Wreck of the Old 97." Bess Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner reused the Dalhart version for "Charlie and the M. T. A." in 1948. [43]
19. Wikipedia. "Man of Constant Sorrow."
20. Judy Collins. "A Maid Of Constant Sorrow." A Maid Of Constant Sorrow. Elektra EKL-209. November 1961.
21. This included the two recorded by The Kingston Trio ("Tom Dooley" and "Worried Man Blues"), their two best known songs in 1966 ("Can the Circle Be Unbroken" and "Wildwood Flower"), and "I Never Will Marry."
22. "The Great Speckled Bird" and "Wabash Cannonball."
23. George Hamilton IV. "Abilene." RCA Victor 447-0717. Recorded 20 March 1963.
24. Leisy, Abecedary. Back cover.
25. Leisy, Abecedary. ix.
26. Kerry Cordell. Comment posted 22 July 2014. Amazon site for Abecedary.
27. Ross Gidcumb. Comment posted 18 April 2014. Amazon site for Abecedary.
28. James Leisy. The Good Times Songbook. Nashville: Abington Press, 1974.
29. "Franklin, James Franklin." The Writers Directory 1980–82. London: The Macmillan Press, 1979. Page 735. The band was T. Ford and the Model A’s.
30. The songbook mentioned in The Writers Directory was Alpha Kappa Psi Sings.
31. "James Franklin Leisy." Prabook website.
32. Wikipedia. "Bohemian Club."
33. James F. Leisy. "Poor Lil ." Park Ridge, Illinois: General Words and Music Company, 1964.
34. This collection was discussed in the post for 15 December 2019.
35. James F Leisy. "A Little Old Lady in Tennis Shoes." Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Malcolm Music, 1971.
36. James F. Leisy. "Rock Island Line." Delaware Water Gap: Shawnee Press Inc., 1975.
37. "James F. Leisy; Leading Textbook Publisher." Los Angeles Times. 15 July 1989. The conglomerate was International Thomson Organization.
38. James F. Leisy and Jack Lambert. Scrooge. Delaware Water Gap: Shawnee Press, 1978.
39. James Leisy and Joyce Merman. Tiny Tim’s Christmas Carol. Delaware Water Gap: Wide World Music, 1981. Quotation, 2.
40. Los Angeles Times.
41. David A. De Turk and A. Poulin, Jr. The American Folk Scene. New York: Dell Publishing, 1967.
42. Silber was discussed in the post for 13 November 2019.
43. Wikipedia. "The Ship that Never Returned."
Sunday, December 15, 2019
James F. Leisy - Kum Ba Yah
Topic: Commercial Folk Music Revival
The folk revival sparked by the Kingston Trio [1] assumed people who attended colleges had parties where they sang. It was one of those self-fulfilling concepts: because people believed this was what people like themselves were doing, they began doing it. With singing, one needed songs, and if a tradition did not exist, then there was an need for someone to create a repertoire.
James Franklin Leisy produced two songbooks in 1961 that filled that void. Songs for Swingin’ Housemothers [2] and Songs for Singin’ [3] provided words and tunes to the gross and naughty songs children and adolescents sang to shock their elders. They did not include the truly obscene ones young men, including those in fraternities, sang to impress each other. [4]
Mixed in with lyrics for "Grandma’s in the Cellar" [5] and "Worms Crawl In" [6] were drinking songs like "Unfortunate Miss Bailey" [7] and "Three Jolly Coachman" [8] that were recorded by the Kingston Trio. The only folk revival songs Leisy included were the Trio’s "Tom Dooley" [9] and "Worried Man Blues," [10] and Harry Belafonte’s "Banana Boat Song." [11]
Leisy’s background was similar to the men in the Trio. While Dave Guard and Bob Shane were in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed, [12] Leisy graduated from high school in 1944 [13] and served a year in the Naval Reserve. [14] At that time, he copyrighted some songs in the popular music vein. [15]
While all three members of the Trio graduated from college with degrees in business, Leisy attended Southern Methodist University where his father was on the English faculty. [16] Leisy himself was a business major. After graduation in 1949, he was hired as an editor by Prentice Hall. In 1954, he moved to Allen and Bacon. [17]
The Kingston Trio didn’t plan to create folk music. Each of the men began with the popular music traditions they heard when they were adolescents. For Leisy, that was country music. In the early 1950s, he had some songs [18] recorded by second tier artists who had a few popular recordings and mainly toured as the opening acts for others: Hawkshaw Hawkins, [19] Hank Locklin, [20] and the Davis Sisters. [21]
Leisy’s songwriting career ended in 1957 when the popularity of Elvis Presley changed the taste in popular and country music. He had founded his own publishing company the year before in California that specialized in technical books. Wadsworth Publishing prospered after the Soviet Union launched its first satellite in 1957. [22] He indulged his interest in music by producing collections for the Methodist Church. [23] Its publishing arm was still in New York City.
The success of Leisy’s two college collections led to a contract with Fawcett Publications. That company published magazines, like True Confessions and Woman’s Day, and issued original mass-market paperbacks. [24]
In 1962, Leisy published Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’. [25] It mixed sections of "Folk Songs and Ballads" and "Campus Favorites" with "Gospel and Spiritual." While it included Roy Acuff’s "Great Speckled Bird," [26] it didn’t include "Michael Row the Boat Ashore." "Kumbaya" didn’t appear because Joan Baez hadn’t yet released her recording of it. [27]
Leisy issued another collection for Fawcett in 1964 to exploit the popularity of the ABC Television program, Hootenanny, discussed in the post for 3 November 2019. Hootenanny Tonight! included a version of "Kum Ba Ya" influenced by The Weavers. [28] He took their word it was a fragment, and printed only one verse. He described it as "lullaby-like." [29]
The same year he produced a different collection for Sam Fox, the publisher of plays. Folk Song Fest was subtitled "Songs and Ideas for Performance Artistry."
As a songwriter and publisher, he understood the copyright law. He added his own verse, "someone’s hoping," to the usual three in Fest to create a unique text. While he always used the key of D, with two sharps, he changed the rhythm from publication to publication. Hootenanny used 3/4, while Fest utilized 3/2.
His tone was that of a documentarian making polite suggestions, but not issuing decrees. He told Fest readers that "new verses are constantly being coined" and that they were free to use "use ‘kum ba ya’ or ‘come by here’." It also was the singer’s choice to treat the verses as an open ended song, a finite song, or one that alternated a "kumbaya" burden with unique stanzas.
His only requirement was that it be sung "slowly with dignity." [30]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: unison
Instrumental Accompaniment: chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
Hootenanny Tonight!
"I’ve been told the song originated in the southern United States and traveled to Africa, where this fragmentary version became traditional. According to this legend the lyrics are an attempt to imitate the words ‘come by here.’ A few years ago this song was ‘found’ in Africa and brought back to the U.S., where it has now become part of our tradition."
Folk Song Fest
"There is a widely circulated theory that this song was based by Africans on the words ‘come by here’ learned from American missionaries."
Notes on Lyrics
Hootenanny Tonight
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom bay yah
Verses: kumbaya
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Folk Song Fest
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom bay yah
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying, hoping
Pronoun : Someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: may be open-ended or finite
Verse Repetition Pattern: "New verses are constantly being coined. A few examples are shown here. It’s use to you whether you use "kum ba ya" or "come by here." You will hear it performed both ways. You may repeat the chorus after each verse."
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Hootenanny Tonight
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Rhythm: "six even beats to a measure"
Folk Song Fest
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/2
Tempo: slowly
Both
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar Chords: D G A A7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics - Song Fest: "light strumming accompaniment (down and up strum to each beat)."
Audience Perceptions
Leisy’s collections were used. One man said he bought Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’ to replace my wife’s falling-apart copy. [31] Another bought a replacement for Swingin’ Housemothers because "at sometime Ioaned" my copy "to someone (against my better judgement, and never saw it again. Was able to remember my favorites but missed the book Still play and sing. It is my ‘psychiatrist and mood elevator. And to be reunited with my book brings me peace and happiness." [32]
The books became part of family traditions. One woman said Pickin’ and Singin’ "has been a musical mainstay for my husband/family," [33] while a man told Amazon customers Swingin’ Housemothers "was a book of songs my family used to sing out of when I was a mere youth." [34]
Notes on Performers
Leisy came from a Mennonite family. His maternal great-great-grand father migrated from the Palatine [35] sometime after his son was born in 1832. [36] His grandfather edited the denomination’s newspaper [37] and helped found Bethany College. [38]
He used the name Jim Leisy for his country lyrics, James F. Leisy when he was publishing collections for Fawcett and the Methodist Church, and Frank Lynn for his college songbooks. His family moved to Dallas soon after he was born in 1927, [39] and he grew up in a Methodist social environment. This use of three pen names allowed him to isolate activities financed by the church from more secular ones. It is not known if this was a simply a businessman’s recognition of the need to keep Methodists happy by not offending their public morality, or signified some deeper ambivalence toward the various activities.
Availability
Book: James F. Leisy. "Kum Ba Ya. In Hootenanny Tonight. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1964. 39.
Book: James F. Leisy. "Kum ba ya." In Folk Song Fest: Songs and Ideas for Performance Artistry. New York: Sam Fox Publishing Company, 1964. 12.
End Notes
1. The role of the Kingston Trio was discussed in the post for 13 October 2019.
2. Frank Lynn. Songs for Swingin’ Housemothers. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1961.
3. Frank Lynn. Songs for Singin’. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1961.
4. It was only in 1959 that a Federal Court in the United States ruled books by D. H. Lawrence and Henry Miller were not obscene because of their artistic intent. [40] No one pretended bawdy college songs were sung for aesthetic reasons, and so were essentially unpublishable in the early 1960s. Gershon Legman’s books that provided a scholarly rationale for publishing erotica didn’t appear in the United States until 1970. [41]
5. "Grammaws in the Cellar." 30 in Housemothers.
6. "The Hearse Song." 60 in Housemothers.
7. "Miss Bailey." 224 in Housemothers.
Kingston Trio. "The Unfortunate Miss Bailey." Here We Go Again! Capitol Records T-1258. 1959.
8. "Landlord, Fill the Flowing Bowl." 77 in Housemothers. Also, 11 in Frank Lynn. The Beer Bust Songbook. San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1963. [42]
Kingston Trio. "Three Jolly Coachmen." The Kingston Trio. Capitol Records T-996. 1958.
9. "Tom Dooley," 167 in Housemothers; and 43 in Beer Bust.
Kingston Trio. "Tom Dooley." The Kingston Trio.
10. "Worried Man Blues," 243 in Housemothers; and 43 in Beer Bust.
Kingston Trio. "A Worried Man." Here We Go.
11. "Banana Boat Loader’s Song." 259 in Housemothers.
Harry Belafonte. "The Banana Boat Song." RCA 447-0324. Recorded 20 October 1955, released 1956.
12. See post for 13 October 2019 for discussion of World War II and the Kingston Trio.
13. Amazon advertisement for Highland Park High School [Dallas, Texas] yearbook for 1944 edited by senior James Leisy.
14. "James Franklin Leisy." Prabook website.
15. The United States Copyright Office’s Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical compositions, Part 3. Unpublished music listed ten songs by James Franklin Leisy of Dallas in 1946. The titles included: "I’ll Take a Raincheck on Love" and "In the Hills of Old Tennessee."
16. "Leisy, Ernest E. (1888-1968)." Mennonite Weekly Review 3:14 March 1968.
17. James Leisy, Prabook.
18. Leisy also had songs recorded by country artists whose names weren’t as recognizable. My list came from WorldCat, which had entries from the John Edwards Memorial Foundation collection of country music records, and Discogs, which connected Jim Leisy with James F. Leisy.
19. Hawkshaw Hawkins. "Rebound." Written by Jim Leisy and Ray Male. RCA Victor. 1954. Hawkins had just joined the Ozark Jubilee television program when this was recorded; his more famous records were made later. [43]
20. Hank Locklin. "Pinball Millionaire." Written by James F. Leisy, Hank Locklin, and Slim Willet. 4 Star Records 1466. 1950. Locklin’s biggest hit, "Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On," had been released in 1949. [44]
21. The Davis Sisters. "Fiddle Diddle Boogie." Written by Charles Grean and Jim Leisy. RCA Victor 47-6086. 1955. At this time the group consisted of Skeeter Davis and Georgia Davis. The original member, Billy Jack Davis, was killed in 1954. Skeeter had adopted the Davis name to perform, and recorded "The End of the World" as a soloist in 1962. [45]
22. "James F. Leisy; Leading Textbook Publisher." Los Angeles Times. 15 July 1989. The satellite was Sputnik. [46]
23. James F. Leisy. Abingdon Song Kit. New York: Abingdon Press, 1957.
James F. Leisy. Let’s All Sing. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959.
24. Wikipedia. "Fawcett Publications."
25. James F. Leisy. Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1962.
26. Roy Acuff. "The Great Speckled Bird." Vocalion 04252, OKeh 04252, and Conqueror 8740. 1936. [47]
27. Joan Baez’s concert album appeared later in 1962. See the post for 9 October 2017 for details.
28. The Weavers’ version was discussed in the post for 3 October 2017.
29. The Weavers treated "Kumbaya" as a lullaby.
30. Leisy, Hootenanny Tonight!.
31. AZ. Comment posted 10 October 2016. Amazon website for Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’.
32. Stuart E. Wunsh. Comment posted 13 March 2016. Amazon website for 1963 edition of Songs for Singin’ Housemothers.
33. Jeannie C. Comment posted 5 September 2013. Amazon website for Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’.
34. Badluck Bob. Comment posted 9 August 2015. Amazon website for 1961 edition of Songs for Singin’ Housemothers.
35. Barbara HARMS Craig. "Johannes ‘John’ Krehbiel." Find a Grave website. 13 March 2010. Leisy’s great-great-grandfather.
36. Barb. "Rev Christian Krehbiel." Find a Grave website. 27 August 2008. Leisy’s great-grandfather.
37. Tom Crago. "Elva Agnes Krehbiel Leisy." Find a Grave website. 12 January 2009. Leisy’s mother. Her father, Leisy’s grandfather, was Henry Peter Krehbiel.
38. "Margaret Leisy Steineger." The Kansas City Star. 25 May 2014. Leisy’s sister.
39. Ernest E. Leisy.
40. Wikipedia. "Lady Chatterley’s Lover."
41. Wikipedia. "Gershon Legman."
42. Beer Bust was published two years after Housemothers and Singin’, and included both new and previously published material. The refinements may have reflected comments he received about his first two books.
43. Wikipedia. "Hawkshaw Hawkins."
44. Wikipedia. "Hank Locklin."
45. Wikipedia. "Skeeter Davis."
46. Wikipedia. "Sputnik 1"
47. "Great Speckled Bird, The." The Traditional Ballad Index. California State University-Fresno website.
The folk revival sparked by the Kingston Trio [1] assumed people who attended colleges had parties where they sang. It was one of those self-fulfilling concepts: because people believed this was what people like themselves were doing, they began doing it. With singing, one needed songs, and if a tradition did not exist, then there was an need for someone to create a repertoire.
James Franklin Leisy produced two songbooks in 1961 that filled that void. Songs for Swingin’ Housemothers [2] and Songs for Singin’ [3] provided words and tunes to the gross and naughty songs children and adolescents sang to shock their elders. They did not include the truly obscene ones young men, including those in fraternities, sang to impress each other. [4]
Mixed in with lyrics for "Grandma’s in the Cellar" [5] and "Worms Crawl In" [6] were drinking songs like "Unfortunate Miss Bailey" [7] and "Three Jolly Coachman" [8] that were recorded by the Kingston Trio. The only folk revival songs Leisy included were the Trio’s "Tom Dooley" [9] and "Worried Man Blues," [10] and Harry Belafonte’s "Banana Boat Song." [11]
Leisy’s background was similar to the men in the Trio. While Dave Guard and Bob Shane were in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed, [12] Leisy graduated from high school in 1944 [13] and served a year in the Naval Reserve. [14] At that time, he copyrighted some songs in the popular music vein. [15]
While all three members of the Trio graduated from college with degrees in business, Leisy attended Southern Methodist University where his father was on the English faculty. [16] Leisy himself was a business major. After graduation in 1949, he was hired as an editor by Prentice Hall. In 1954, he moved to Allen and Bacon. [17]
The Kingston Trio didn’t plan to create folk music. Each of the men began with the popular music traditions they heard when they were adolescents. For Leisy, that was country music. In the early 1950s, he had some songs [18] recorded by second tier artists who had a few popular recordings and mainly toured as the opening acts for others: Hawkshaw Hawkins, [19] Hank Locklin, [20] and the Davis Sisters. [21]
Leisy’s songwriting career ended in 1957 when the popularity of Elvis Presley changed the taste in popular and country music. He had founded his own publishing company the year before in California that specialized in technical books. Wadsworth Publishing prospered after the Soviet Union launched its first satellite in 1957. [22] He indulged his interest in music by producing collections for the Methodist Church. [23] Its publishing arm was still in New York City.
The success of Leisy’s two college collections led to a contract with Fawcett Publications. That company published magazines, like True Confessions and Woman’s Day, and issued original mass-market paperbacks. [24]
In 1962, Leisy published Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’. [25] It mixed sections of "Folk Songs and Ballads" and "Campus Favorites" with "Gospel and Spiritual." While it included Roy Acuff’s "Great Speckled Bird," [26] it didn’t include "Michael Row the Boat Ashore." "Kumbaya" didn’t appear because Joan Baez hadn’t yet released her recording of it. [27]
Leisy issued another collection for Fawcett in 1964 to exploit the popularity of the ABC Television program, Hootenanny, discussed in the post for 3 November 2019. Hootenanny Tonight! included a version of "Kum Ba Ya" influenced by The Weavers. [28] He took their word it was a fragment, and printed only one verse. He described it as "lullaby-like." [29]
The same year he produced a different collection for Sam Fox, the publisher of plays. Folk Song Fest was subtitled "Songs and Ideas for Performance Artistry."
As a songwriter and publisher, he understood the copyright law. He added his own verse, "someone’s hoping," to the usual three in Fest to create a unique text. While he always used the key of D, with two sharps, he changed the rhythm from publication to publication. Hootenanny used 3/4, while Fest utilized 3/2.
His tone was that of a documentarian making polite suggestions, but not issuing decrees. He told Fest readers that "new verses are constantly being coined" and that they were free to use "use ‘kum ba ya’ or ‘come by here’." It also was the singer’s choice to treat the verses as an open ended song, a finite song, or one that alternated a "kumbaya" burden with unique stanzas.
His only requirement was that it be sung "slowly with dignity." [30]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: unison
Instrumental Accompaniment: chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
Hootenanny Tonight!
"I’ve been told the song originated in the southern United States and traveled to Africa, where this fragmentary version became traditional. According to this legend the lyrics are an attempt to imitate the words ‘come by here.’ A few years ago this song was ‘found’ in Africa and brought back to the U.S., where it has now become part of our tradition."
Folk Song Fest
"There is a widely circulated theory that this song was based by Africans on the words ‘come by here’ learned from American missionaries."
Notes on Lyrics
Hootenanny Tonight
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom bay yah
Verses: kumbaya
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Folk Song Fest
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom bay yah
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying, hoping
Pronoun : Someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: may be open-ended or finite
Verse Repetition Pattern: "New verses are constantly being coined. A few examples are shown here. It’s use to you whether you use "kum ba ya" or "come by here." You will hear it performed both ways. You may repeat the chorus after each verse."
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Hootenanny Tonight
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Rhythm: "six even beats to a measure"
Folk Song Fest
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/2
Tempo: slowly
Both
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar Chords: D G A A7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics - Song Fest: "light strumming accompaniment (down and up strum to each beat)."
Audience Perceptions
Leisy’s collections were used. One man said he bought Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’ to replace my wife’s falling-apart copy. [31] Another bought a replacement for Swingin’ Housemothers because "at sometime Ioaned" my copy "to someone (against my better judgement, and never saw it again. Was able to remember my favorites but missed the book Still play and sing. It is my ‘psychiatrist and mood elevator. And to be reunited with my book brings me peace and happiness." [32]
The books became part of family traditions. One woman said Pickin’ and Singin’ "has been a musical mainstay for my husband/family," [33] while a man told Amazon customers Swingin’ Housemothers "was a book of songs my family used to sing out of when I was a mere youth." [34]
Notes on Performers
Leisy came from a Mennonite family. His maternal great-great-grand father migrated from the Palatine [35] sometime after his son was born in 1832. [36] His grandfather edited the denomination’s newspaper [37] and helped found Bethany College. [38]
He used the name Jim Leisy for his country lyrics, James F. Leisy when he was publishing collections for Fawcett and the Methodist Church, and Frank Lynn for his college songbooks. His family moved to Dallas soon after he was born in 1927, [39] and he grew up in a Methodist social environment. This use of three pen names allowed him to isolate activities financed by the church from more secular ones. It is not known if this was a simply a businessman’s recognition of the need to keep Methodists happy by not offending their public morality, or signified some deeper ambivalence toward the various activities.
Availability
Book: James F. Leisy. "Kum Ba Ya. In Hootenanny Tonight. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1964. 39.
Book: James F. Leisy. "Kum ba ya." In Folk Song Fest: Songs and Ideas for Performance Artistry. New York: Sam Fox Publishing Company, 1964. 12.
End Notes
1. The role of the Kingston Trio was discussed in the post for 13 October 2019.
2. Frank Lynn. Songs for Swingin’ Housemothers. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1961.
3. Frank Lynn. Songs for Singin’. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1961.
4. It was only in 1959 that a Federal Court in the United States ruled books by D. H. Lawrence and Henry Miller were not obscene because of their artistic intent. [40] No one pretended bawdy college songs were sung for aesthetic reasons, and so were essentially unpublishable in the early 1960s. Gershon Legman’s books that provided a scholarly rationale for publishing erotica didn’t appear in the United States until 1970. [41]
5. "Grammaws in the Cellar." 30 in Housemothers.
6. "The Hearse Song." 60 in Housemothers.
7. "Miss Bailey." 224 in Housemothers.
Kingston Trio. "The Unfortunate Miss Bailey." Here We Go Again! Capitol Records T-1258. 1959.
8. "Landlord, Fill the Flowing Bowl." 77 in Housemothers. Also, 11 in Frank Lynn. The Beer Bust Songbook. San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1963. [42]
Kingston Trio. "Three Jolly Coachmen." The Kingston Trio. Capitol Records T-996. 1958.
9. "Tom Dooley," 167 in Housemothers; and 43 in Beer Bust.
Kingston Trio. "Tom Dooley." The Kingston Trio.
10. "Worried Man Blues," 243 in Housemothers; and 43 in Beer Bust.
Kingston Trio. "A Worried Man." Here We Go.
11. "Banana Boat Loader’s Song." 259 in Housemothers.
Harry Belafonte. "The Banana Boat Song." RCA 447-0324. Recorded 20 October 1955, released 1956.
12. See post for 13 October 2019 for discussion of World War II and the Kingston Trio.
13. Amazon advertisement for Highland Park High School [Dallas, Texas] yearbook for 1944 edited by senior James Leisy.
14. "James Franklin Leisy." Prabook website.
15. The United States Copyright Office’s Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical compositions, Part 3. Unpublished music listed ten songs by James Franklin Leisy of Dallas in 1946. The titles included: "I’ll Take a Raincheck on Love" and "In the Hills of Old Tennessee."
16. "Leisy, Ernest E. (1888-1968)." Mennonite Weekly Review 3:14 March 1968.
17. James Leisy, Prabook.
18. Leisy also had songs recorded by country artists whose names weren’t as recognizable. My list came from WorldCat, which had entries from the John Edwards Memorial Foundation collection of country music records, and Discogs, which connected Jim Leisy with James F. Leisy.
19. Hawkshaw Hawkins. "Rebound." Written by Jim Leisy and Ray Male. RCA Victor. 1954. Hawkins had just joined the Ozark Jubilee television program when this was recorded; his more famous records were made later. [43]
20. Hank Locklin. "Pinball Millionaire." Written by James F. Leisy, Hank Locklin, and Slim Willet. 4 Star Records 1466. 1950. Locklin’s biggest hit, "Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On," had been released in 1949. [44]
21. The Davis Sisters. "Fiddle Diddle Boogie." Written by Charles Grean and Jim Leisy. RCA Victor 47-6086. 1955. At this time the group consisted of Skeeter Davis and Georgia Davis. The original member, Billy Jack Davis, was killed in 1954. Skeeter had adopted the Davis name to perform, and recorded "The End of the World" as a soloist in 1962. [45]
22. "James F. Leisy; Leading Textbook Publisher." Los Angeles Times. 15 July 1989. The satellite was Sputnik. [46]
23. James F. Leisy. Abingdon Song Kit. New York: Abingdon Press, 1957.
James F. Leisy. Let’s All Sing. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959.
24. Wikipedia. "Fawcett Publications."
25. James F. Leisy. Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1962.
26. Roy Acuff. "The Great Speckled Bird." Vocalion 04252, OKeh 04252, and Conqueror 8740. 1936. [47]
27. Joan Baez’s concert album appeared later in 1962. See the post for 9 October 2017 for details.
28. The Weavers’ version was discussed in the post for 3 October 2017.
29. The Weavers treated "Kumbaya" as a lullaby.
30. Leisy, Hootenanny Tonight!.
31. AZ. Comment posted 10 October 2016. Amazon website for Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’.
32. Stuart E. Wunsh. Comment posted 13 March 2016. Amazon website for 1963 edition of Songs for Singin’ Housemothers.
33. Jeannie C. Comment posted 5 September 2013. Amazon website for Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’.
34. Badluck Bob. Comment posted 9 August 2015. Amazon website for 1961 edition of Songs for Singin’ Housemothers.
35. Barbara HARMS Craig. "Johannes ‘John’ Krehbiel." Find a Grave website. 13 March 2010. Leisy’s great-great-grandfather.
36. Barb. "Rev Christian Krehbiel." Find a Grave website. 27 August 2008. Leisy’s great-grandfather.
37. Tom Crago. "Elva Agnes Krehbiel Leisy." Find a Grave website. 12 January 2009. Leisy’s mother. Her father, Leisy’s grandfather, was Henry Peter Krehbiel.
38. "Margaret Leisy Steineger." The Kansas City Star. 25 May 2014. Leisy’s sister.
39. Ernest E. Leisy.
40. Wikipedia. "Lady Chatterley’s Lover."
41. Wikipedia. "Gershon Legman."
42. Beer Bust was published two years after Housemothers and Singin’, and included both new and previously published material. The refinements may have reflected comments he received about his first two books.
43. Wikipedia. "Hawkshaw Hawkins."
44. Wikipedia. "Hank Locklin."
45. Wikipedia. "Skeeter Davis."
46. Wikipedia. "Sputnik 1"
47. "Great Speckled Bird, The." The Traditional Ballad Index. California State University-Fresno website.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Helmut Lotti - Kumbaya My Lord
Topic: Seminal Versions
Mechanical reproduction of music began in the 1880s with piano rolls. [1] In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled they were unique creations and not subject to royalty payments. Composers responded by advocating passage of the 1909 copyright law that forced reimbursements for rolls, cylinders, and the newer photograph records. [2] Their professional organization later was able to establish their rights to reimbursement for music played by radio stations. [3]
The 1909 law was written specifically to meet the needs of professional composers working for the popular stage. It stipulated songs that were not registered with the government office and did not carry proper ownership notices fell into the public domain, available for use by anyone.
Individuals who performed traditional works would add a bit of melody, a special orchestration, or supplemental words so they could copyright their particular versions, and more important, protect themselves from some rival’s lien on their proceeds. Thus, Ralph Carmichael could copyright his version of "Kum-ba-yah" in 1969 because it had some unique words along with a piano and vocal arrangement. [4]
Sometime after the Beatles emerged, the value of copyrights increased in value and so did the number of lawsuits. In summer camps, youth sang the songs of the commercial folk revival without paying royalties, just as they had been doing with other music for generations. However, more vigilant royalties seekers began complaining. The Girl Scouts published their own songbook in 1973 that had all the correct permissions. [5] Rather than rely upon an older source for "Kumbaya," they published James Leisy’s version because it protected them from liabilities with a copyright justified by an additional verse. [6]
The law was rewritten in 1976, and copyrights came to be seen as intellectual property inherited through the generations by those who had not registered their rights properly under the previous law. Public domain turned into a dangerous swamp, and anyone singing "Kumbaya" on a record or in a live performance needed a protected version.
Most of the copyrighted additions, liked the verses added by Carmichael and Leisy, never were sung. They did not exist for that reason. People were still free to sing selected parts so long as their paid for songbooks.
I do not know if people stopped publishing or recording "Kumbaya" after that law went into effect in 1978, or if I simply have not found references to versions from the 1980s and 1990s. There was a hiatus in my research between 1980 and 2015.
While the newer copyright law had a repressive effect on public domain versions of both "Kumbaya" and "Come by Here," it also stimulated creative changes. Most innovations were forgotten soon after they were recorded or performed, but sometimes one became so popular others imitated it and it acquired a set form. They became islands in the sea of tradition surrounded by small eddies of followers. [7]
The version used by José Carreras and José Medrado was one of those special archetypes. As mentioned in the post for 4 August 2017, they used one associated with Helmut Lotti. He and Wim Boherts treated "kumbaya" as the chorus for a new song. The distinctive words included "for the sun that rises in the sky."
The lines followed no rhyme pattern. Instead they recalled phrases from a prayer to the creator of the natural world. Since English was not the primary language of either of the credited writers, I do not know if the recording was a translation of something that followed literary conventions in another language. Although Lotti said he preferred singing in English, he still might have thought in Dutch. [8]
The official credits suggested the usual tangle of business relationships that ensued from the copyright laws. Profits from most records were small, and performers were only paid for their sessions. The ones who earned the most were the composers, who were given a royalty every time a song was played by some media outlet. It was common for singers and company owners to list themselves as co-authors to earn more. In this case, Lotti was primarily a singer, while Boherts was a pianist and arranger. The company that controlled the rights was owned by Lotti’s manager, Piet Roehling.
Lotti’s version seemed to be most popular in Brazil. It also had been used by a Fox Networks subsidiary for a cartoon aimed at young children in Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, and English. [9] This version might replace earlier ones simply because it will be the first many hear.
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: Golden Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by André Walschaerts
Credits
Arrangement: Helmut Lotti and Wim Bohets
Copyright: Piet Roelen Publishing
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: cum-ba-yah with emphasis on last syllable
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Format: verse-chorus (VV C VV C VV)
Verse Rhyme Patterns: last lines have internal rhyme
Line Meter: iambic tetrameter, with strong first and last syllables
Rhetorical Devices: contrasts of sun/rain, great/small
Notes on Music
Basic structure: two repetitions of the chorus, the second beginning on a higher note, followed by a verse that returned to the original base note.
Ending: repeated last line twice, then repeated the word kumbaya with each syllable on a higher tone, with the very last sustained.
Style: one syllable to one note with the last notes of phrases sustained. Ornamentations rarely were used, and most were in the ending. He stayed in his middle range except at the end.
Solo-Group Dynamics: choral group either sang the same words and notes as Lotti, or some repeated his kumbaya’s that ended lines.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the full orchestra was used sparingly. When it was heard, it was playing the same melody at Lotti. A flute or horns provided flourishes after Lotti’s sung phrases.
Rhythm: the recording began with strong rhythmic pulses by the strings. Then, only a soft drum or voices imitating a soft drum were deployed to mark phrases, not beats.
Influences: the vocalized drum was like the one used on the 1958 recording of "The Little Drummer Boy" by the Harry Simeone Chorale. Some melodic motifs were from the Seekers.
Viewers’ Perceptions
Raphael Gutemberg uploaded a video to YouTube that featured speeded-up pictures of clouds moving over mountains behind the lyrics in Portuguese and English. Unlike most, the Brazilian translated Lord as senhor. He also was the only one to treat "kumbaya" as a translatable word. He wrote the song meant: "‘Come to us Lord or Pass by here Lord’. A Singing Praise." He described himself as someone interested in "Editing Messages, Spirituality Prayers, and Romantic Songs." [10]
Notes on Performers
Lotti was born in Ghent in 1969 where Dutch was his native language. [11] He began as an Elvis impersonator. The Belgian had the usual problem of artists who toiled for years in the lower levels of the music industry: when he changed recording companies and became successful singing classics, his previous employer flooded the market with unauthorized collections. [12]
In a 2015 interview promoting a different album, he said:
"‘I noticed that religion also reared its head in other songs,’ he says. "I wouldn’t call it an album about religion, though, more one about ways of living: What do we cling to when life turns sour? What are life’s traps? And what makes one a better human being?’" [13]
Lotti added: "The duality between good and evil is fascinating." [14]
Availability
CD: Out of Africa (Polydor) and Out of Africa (Coeur de Lion). 1999.
YouTube: uploaded by Raphael Gutemberg, 27 November 2015
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Piano Roll."
2. Wikipedia, Piano.
3. Their organization was the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which did not recognize blues, country, or gospel music writers. In 1939, radio stations formed Broadcast Music Inc, to give themselves an alternative to the ASCAP monopoly. BMI recruited non-mainstream popular music composers. The representation did not stop Black or Southern white artists from being cheated by their record companies or music publishers, but it was a step toward fairer reimbursement. (Wikipedia. "Broadcast Music, Inc.")
4. Ralph Carmichael. "Kum-ba-yah." Copyright 1969 by Lexicon Music. In Cliff Barrows Now! Waco, Texas: Lexicon Music, Inc., 1970. 21-27.
5. "Kum Ba Ya." Sing Together. Edited by Constance L. Bell, et alia. New York: Girl Scouts of the U. S. A., third edition, 1973. 143.
6. The credit line read: The Folk Song Abededary, by James F. Leisy. © 1966 by Hawthorn Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hawthorn Books, Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10911.
7. Common language changed with the 1976 copyright law. Before, when composers were primary, artists simply recorded their songs. In the 1950s white popular music performers made copies of records by blues and country artists that made slight modifications in style to sell the creative efforts as their own. They were called "covers" and more unprintable nouns. Recently, people have been using the term "cover" to refer to any song that was not originated by the performer, as if singing anything from the popular repertoire was somehow disreputable.
8. Christophe Verbiest. "Helmut Lotti Offers Hopeful Message for Dark Times." Flanders Today, 13 December 2015.
9. BabyTV. "Kumbaya." Different language versions with same animation. YouTube.
10. Translations by Google.
11. Wikipedia. "Helmut Lotti."
12. Marc Maes. "Helmut Lotti Wins Law Suit." Billboard website. 13 April 2007.
13. Verbiest.
14. Verbiest.
Mechanical reproduction of music began in the 1880s with piano rolls. [1] In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled they were unique creations and not subject to royalty payments. Composers responded by advocating passage of the 1909 copyright law that forced reimbursements for rolls, cylinders, and the newer photograph records. [2] Their professional organization later was able to establish their rights to reimbursement for music played by radio stations. [3]
The 1909 law was written specifically to meet the needs of professional composers working for the popular stage. It stipulated songs that were not registered with the government office and did not carry proper ownership notices fell into the public domain, available for use by anyone.
Individuals who performed traditional works would add a bit of melody, a special orchestration, or supplemental words so they could copyright their particular versions, and more important, protect themselves from some rival’s lien on their proceeds. Thus, Ralph Carmichael could copyright his version of "Kum-ba-yah" in 1969 because it had some unique words along with a piano and vocal arrangement. [4]
Sometime after the Beatles emerged, the value of copyrights increased in value and so did the number of lawsuits. In summer camps, youth sang the songs of the commercial folk revival without paying royalties, just as they had been doing with other music for generations. However, more vigilant royalties seekers began complaining. The Girl Scouts published their own songbook in 1973 that had all the correct permissions. [5] Rather than rely upon an older source for "Kumbaya," they published James Leisy’s version because it protected them from liabilities with a copyright justified by an additional verse. [6]
The law was rewritten in 1976, and copyrights came to be seen as intellectual property inherited through the generations by those who had not registered their rights properly under the previous law. Public domain turned into a dangerous swamp, and anyone singing "Kumbaya" on a record or in a live performance needed a protected version.
Most of the copyrighted additions, liked the verses added by Carmichael and Leisy, never were sung. They did not exist for that reason. People were still free to sing selected parts so long as their paid for songbooks.
I do not know if people stopped publishing or recording "Kumbaya" after that law went into effect in 1978, or if I simply have not found references to versions from the 1980s and 1990s. There was a hiatus in my research between 1980 and 2015.
While the newer copyright law had a repressive effect on public domain versions of both "Kumbaya" and "Come by Here," it also stimulated creative changes. Most innovations were forgotten soon after they were recorded or performed, but sometimes one became so popular others imitated it and it acquired a set form. They became islands in the sea of tradition surrounded by small eddies of followers. [7]
The version used by José Carreras and José Medrado was one of those special archetypes. As mentioned in the post for 4 August 2017, they used one associated with Helmut Lotti. He and Wim Boherts treated "kumbaya" as the chorus for a new song. The distinctive words included "for the sun that rises in the sky."
The lines followed no rhyme pattern. Instead they recalled phrases from a prayer to the creator of the natural world. Since English was not the primary language of either of the credited writers, I do not know if the recording was a translation of something that followed literary conventions in another language. Although Lotti said he preferred singing in English, he still might have thought in Dutch. [8]
The official credits suggested the usual tangle of business relationships that ensued from the copyright laws. Profits from most records were small, and performers were only paid for their sessions. The ones who earned the most were the composers, who were given a royalty every time a song was played by some media outlet. It was common for singers and company owners to list themselves as co-authors to earn more. In this case, Lotti was primarily a singer, while Boherts was a pianist and arranger. The company that controlled the rights was owned by Lotti’s manager, Piet Roehling.
Lotti’s version seemed to be most popular in Brazil. It also had been used by a Fox Networks subsidiary for a cartoon aimed at young children in Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, and English. [9] This version might replace earlier ones simply because it will be the first many hear.
Performers
Instrumental Accompaniment: Golden Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by André Walschaerts
Credits
Arrangement: Helmut Lotti and Wim Bohets
Copyright: Piet Roelen Publishing
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: cum-ba-yah with emphasis on last syllable
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Format: verse-chorus (VV C VV C VV)
Verse Rhyme Patterns: last lines have internal rhyme
Line Meter: iambic tetrameter, with strong first and last syllables
Rhetorical Devices: contrasts of sun/rain, great/small
Notes on Music
Basic structure: two repetitions of the chorus, the second beginning on a higher note, followed by a verse that returned to the original base note.
Ending: repeated last line twice, then repeated the word kumbaya with each syllable on a higher tone, with the very last sustained.
Style: one syllable to one note with the last notes of phrases sustained. Ornamentations rarely were used, and most were in the ending. He stayed in his middle range except at the end.
Solo-Group Dynamics: choral group either sang the same words and notes as Lotti, or some repeated his kumbaya’s that ended lines.
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the full orchestra was used sparingly. When it was heard, it was playing the same melody at Lotti. A flute or horns provided flourishes after Lotti’s sung phrases.
Rhythm: the recording began with strong rhythmic pulses by the strings. Then, only a soft drum or voices imitating a soft drum were deployed to mark phrases, not beats.
Influences: the vocalized drum was like the one used on the 1958 recording of "The Little Drummer Boy" by the Harry Simeone Chorale. Some melodic motifs were from the Seekers.
Viewers’ Perceptions
Raphael Gutemberg uploaded a video to YouTube that featured speeded-up pictures of clouds moving over mountains behind the lyrics in Portuguese and English. Unlike most, the Brazilian translated Lord as senhor. He also was the only one to treat "kumbaya" as a translatable word. He wrote the song meant: "‘Come to us Lord or Pass by here Lord’. A Singing Praise." He described himself as someone interested in "Editing Messages, Spirituality Prayers, and Romantic Songs." [10]
Notes on Performers
Lotti was born in Ghent in 1969 where Dutch was his native language. [11] He began as an Elvis impersonator. The Belgian had the usual problem of artists who toiled for years in the lower levels of the music industry: when he changed recording companies and became successful singing classics, his previous employer flooded the market with unauthorized collections. [12]
In a 2015 interview promoting a different album, he said:
"‘I noticed that religion also reared its head in other songs,’ he says. "I wouldn’t call it an album about religion, though, more one about ways of living: What do we cling to when life turns sour? What are life’s traps? And what makes one a better human being?’" [13]
Lotti added: "The duality between good and evil is fascinating." [14]
Availability
CD: Out of Africa (Polydor) and Out of Africa (Coeur de Lion). 1999.
YouTube: uploaded by Raphael Gutemberg, 27 November 2015
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Piano Roll."
2. Wikipedia, Piano.
3. Their organization was the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which did not recognize blues, country, or gospel music writers. In 1939, radio stations formed Broadcast Music Inc, to give themselves an alternative to the ASCAP monopoly. BMI recruited non-mainstream popular music composers. The representation did not stop Black or Southern white artists from being cheated by their record companies or music publishers, but it was a step toward fairer reimbursement. (Wikipedia. "Broadcast Music, Inc.")
4. Ralph Carmichael. "Kum-ba-yah." Copyright 1969 by Lexicon Music. In Cliff Barrows Now! Waco, Texas: Lexicon Music, Inc., 1970. 21-27.
5. "Kum Ba Ya." Sing Together. Edited by Constance L. Bell, et alia. New York: Girl Scouts of the U. S. A., third edition, 1973. 143.
6. The credit line read: The Folk Song Abededary, by James F. Leisy. © 1966 by Hawthorn Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hawthorn Books, Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10911.
7. Common language changed with the 1976 copyright law. Before, when composers were primary, artists simply recorded their songs. In the 1950s white popular music performers made copies of records by blues and country artists that made slight modifications in style to sell the creative efforts as their own. They were called "covers" and more unprintable nouns. Recently, people have been using the term "cover" to refer to any song that was not originated by the performer, as if singing anything from the popular repertoire was somehow disreputable.
8. Christophe Verbiest. "Helmut Lotti Offers Hopeful Message for Dark Times." Flanders Today, 13 December 2015.
9. BabyTV. "Kumbaya." Different language versions with same animation. YouTube.
10. Translations by Google.
11. Wikipedia. "Helmut Lotti."
12. Marc Maes. "Helmut Lotti Wins Law Suit." Billboard website. 13 April 2007.
13. Verbiest.
14. Verbiest.
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