Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Family traditions have perpetuated details about early African-American religious beliefs and practices in Pamlico County, North Carolina.
One of Ray Credle’s ancestors moved from Edgecombe County to Stonewall "sometime between 1870 and 1875." [1] Young Thomas was born in 1840, [2] just as cotton was becoming the cash crop in that county and the number of slaves increasing. Many of the new bondsmen probably came from Virginia. [3] Thomas’ wife, Polly Mary Foster, was born in Norfolk in 1837. [4]
In the early decades, Edgecombe County experienced the same conflicts between Free Will Baptists and Particular Baptists as Pamlico County. The later dissension between Missionary Baptists and Primitive Baptists was more severe in Edgecombe. [5] In 1897, Thomas was one of the founders of the Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Stonewall. [6]
While the family became Baptists, Polly never lost her earlier beliefs. Credle learned from a newspaper article that "she claimed to have talked with spirits each day for three days prior to her death and on Sunday the 4th day she told her son that the spirits would come that day and that it would be the last day. She sat out in front of her house on Sunday, bathing in the sun, talking with her friends, and sat up late Sunday night talking to her people and right before midnight she called her son and told him the time has come for her to leave him, told him good-bye, and died in a few minutes thereafter." [7]
The first known relative of Bill Smith to live in Pamlico County was Tamer. She was born around 1760 in Hyde County. William Gibbs sold her to Archibald McCotter around 1800. He left her to his son, Burney McCotter, [8] who was Clifton’s great-grandfather. [9]
In the late 1860s, Jacob McCotter either wouldn’t or couldn’t negotiate with freedmen living in New Bern’s African-American community of James City and recruited laborers in Hyde County. They include Smith’s ancestors. [10]
In 1884, McCotter was an elder in the Concord Disciples of Christ church, near Florence. The congregation included seven African Americans. One was Thamor. [11]
Tamer’s great-grandson, Willie Gibbs married Indiana Moore in 1890. Her mother, Joanna Warner Moore, told her great-granddaughter "they use to pray for their freedom, but they couldn’t let the people that owned them see them or hear them. So they would put their heads down into a big iron pot that they use to wash clothes, and pray and pray and pray." [12]
Joanna was born in 1863 in Hyde County, [13] so she wasn’t talking from first hand experience. However, the knowledge of iron pots seems to have been widespread. The post for 29 September 2019 hypothesized the ritual developed from Igbo traditions among slaves imported primarily into Virginia.
In 1920, the Edgecombe county historian noted "the old trick played on the master by turning a huge pot, the mouth upon the floor of the master’s residence in order to deaden the noise while the negroes danced, was considered a part of the slave’s right." [14]
Union soldiers landed in Hyde County in 1863 to ferret out a group of Confederate guerillas. As they marched on March 10, "Negroes, with all the goods they could collect, left ‘ole massa’ to come with us; sometimes in whole families, with the ‘picaninnies’ strapped to their backs, and most of the captured ox-carts were given to the women and children to ride in." [15] When they "passed the plantation of Judge Donald" on March 11, many of his 400 slaves followed them. [16] They returned to New Bern on March 14. [17]
If Moore’s family was not near the raided area, they certainly would have learned about it, and asked for the same kind of deliverance.
End Notes
1. Ray Credle. "From Hyde County To Pamlico County." Ancestry website. "The Thomas Family Moved" page.
2. Credle. "Descendants of Young Thomas" page.
3. J. Kelly Turner and Jno. L. Bridgers, Jr. History of Edgecombe County, North Carolina. Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton Printing Company, 1920. 160.
4. Credle, Descendants.
5. Turner. Chapter 12. "Baptists."
6. Credle. "Churches" page.
7. Credle. "Family Stories 2" page. His source was an "interesting letter about her that was received by The New Bernian Newpaper from a prominent Stonewall business man."
8. Sonny William Smith. "In Search Of Rodger 1710-2004." Genealogy website. 28 July 2004. Page 6.
9. Clifton McCotter’s line of descent: Hezekiah > Archibald > Burney > Benjamin Franklin > John Lawrence > Clifton. [18] He was one of Julian Boyd’s students.
10. Smith. Page 6.
11. Charles Crossfield Ware. Pamlico Profile. New Bern: Owen G. Dunn Company, 1961. 25.
12. Smith. Page 6. The great-granddaughter was Indiana Jones. Her sister, Ann Marie, was Smith’s mother.
13. Smith. Page 30.
14. Turner. 178.
15. John A. Reed. Diary entry, 10 March 1863. History of the 101st PA Veteran Volunteer Infantry. Chicago: L. S. Dickey and Company, 1910. 69. He was a private. Kay Midgett Sheppard brought this to my attention. [19] Ed Boots of the Civil War Plymouth Pilgrims Descendants Society provided her with a copy.
16. Reed. Diary entry, 11 March 1863. 69.
17. Reed. Diary entry, 14 March 1863. 69.
18. Information on the various McCotters is from Ancestry, Find a Grave, My Heritage, NC Gen, and Wiki Tree websites. Some more detail on Clifton appeared in the post for 6 February 2019.
19. Kay Midgett Sheppard. "Hyde County." NC Gen Web website. Last updated 29 June 2019.
Sunday, February 2, 2020
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Pamlico County Religion - Antebellum
Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Belief in contact with the spirit as the central religious experience always has created problems for Protestant Reformers who find many manifestations disturbing. As soon as the Anabaptists emerged around Zürich, Johannes Kessler described Margaret Hottinger. She
"undertook to speak of things that nobody could understand, as it she were so deeply raised up in God that nobody could comprehend her speech."
He added
"many of her followers declared that whoever speaks the most or can do the most unusual which nobody can comprehend or evaluate, those were held to be the most devout and most immersed in God." [1]
A Benedictine convert responded by formulating a confession that condemned those who "practice and observe the freedom of the Spirit and of Christ." [2] Michael Sattler created a congregational church structure, rather than one based on experience, and excluded women from leadership positions. [3]
In Scotland, Protestants held four-day sacramental communions that began with fasting on Thursday and ended with a thanksgiving sermon on Monday. [4] Sermons sometimes resulted in ecstatic experiences in the forms of dreams, visions, and unseen voices. Ministers did not condemn them, but selectively included references to them in their official accounts lest they attract the attention of hostile authorities. [5]
Both the Swiss and Scots treated contact with the spirit world as normal and desirable. Those affected by Calvinism treated such events as techniques to frighten individuals into conformity in the way described by Elnathan Davis in the post for 19 January 2020. Once converted, individuals had no desire to repeat the experience.
Eleazar Wheelock adopted George Whitefield’s methods after hearing him preach in 1740 in New England. He soon reported "between 30 or 40 I hope were converted while I was in town and many hundreds I believe were under concern." [6]
Other ministers began telling Wheelock that their sermons "were normally accompanied by shrieks, cries, and other disturbances of those converted." [7] John Lee wrote him
"Parsons had preached to 100 congregants, and ‘a great number cried out with such anguish as I never See it.’ Many were ‘greatly wounded,’ and ‘11 or 12 persons fainted or nearly fainted’." [8]
Soon Wheelock’s brother-in-law was more affected than his audience. James Davenport wrote him "‘the difficulties of the work (of revival) are great’ and described a sermon in which ‘the Lord opened my mouth so that I scarcely knew how to shut it’." [9] He soon was claiming "special revelations from God." [10]
John Fea observed this introduction of divine inspiration created problems for his fellow clergymen "who rested their entire system of religious understanding and knowledge of God’s will on the Scriptural text." [11] They debated if he was "non compos mentis" or if he was "deluded and possessed with the Spirit of Satan." [12] Davenport recanted, and the Puritan ministers continued their old ways.
The problem arose again at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801 where people trembled and shouted. Warren Barton Stone recalled:
"Many, very many fell down, as men slain in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless state—sometimes for a few moments reviving, and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan, or piercing shriek, or by a prayer for mercy most fervently uttered. After lying thus for hours, they obtained deliverance. The gloomy cloud, which had covered their faces, seemed gradually and visibly to disappear, and hope in smiles brightened into joy—they would rise shouting deliverance, and then would address the surrounding multitude in language truly eloquent and impressive." [13]
Presbyterians, who had sponsored the revival, condemned the results. Alexander Campbell accepted the revival’s methods, but distrusted those "drawn more by passion than by faith" and added
"We are generally suspicious of universal propositions depending upon one man’s reason or observation; and therefore, while we have always regarded many of those who come forward under such popular excitements as unfit for immersion." [14]
Like the Particular Baptists, Campbell’s followers in the Disciples of Christ felt it their duty to extirpate any rituals that treated contact with the spirits as anything other than terrifying. They converted a minister in a surviving Free Will Baptist church in Beaufort County, North Carolina. In 1844, Henry Smith then reorganized churches in Broad Creek, [15] Florence, [16] and Bay Creek. [17]
Not all were willing to accept the change. Jacob Utley tried to stop Smith in Broad Creek [18] and Florence. [19] The second faded away when Smith grew too old to pastor it. After 1858, "‘by non-attendance and negligence the church became and now is in a deplorable condition.’ Some had united with other churches and some had ‘made shipwreck of the faith’ and had ‘again turned back to the world by following the desire of the flesh’." [20]
The other Disciples’ churches survived. Enoch Holton was the elder at Upper Broad Creek. [21] The first person buried was the infant, Mary Eliza Holton, in 1845. [22] He was bondsman for the marriage of Carlos Holton’s grandparents. [23] The church was located in Olympia, west of Grantsville on the road between Alliance and New Bern.
The Bay Creek Church was located at Bethany Crossroads, now Arapahoe. The Disciples merged with Stone’s followers in 1832 to become the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). [24] However, the Campbellites maintained their identity for decades, but since have accepted the official name. What is now the Bethany Christian Church hosted the memorial service for Clifton McCotter’s sister in 2009. [25]
In 1852, the Disciples felt confident no Free Will Baptist churches survived, and that the few remaining Free Will Baptist "aberrations" in ritual "gradually disappeared" from the absorbed churches. [26]
Despite the power of the Disciples, some Free Will Baptist churches did persist in Pamlico County, North Carolina. The oldest identifiable burial [27] in the Goose Creek graveyard was Silas Miller, who died in 1850. [28] This was where Minnie Lee [29] and Ludie Parsons [30] were interred.
Free Will Baptists may have had a new appeal during the stresses of the Civil War. The oldest memorial in the Rock of Zion cemetery was for a Confederate soldier who died in 1862. [31] This Grantsville church provided the burial ground for two of Julian Boyd’s students, Frederick Liverman [32] and Duval Scott. [33] Other last names of his students found on tombstones were Banks, Bennett, Dixon, and Tingle.
All the other cemeteries in Pamlico County indexed by Find a Grave with antebellum dates were family plots, including Brinson-Bennett (1835), Alonzo Holton (1839), Cornelius Dixon (1842), and Rawls (1862). The first was in Grantsboro, the next two in Olympia, and the last in Arapahoe. [34]
End Notes
1. Johannes Kessler. Sabbata. Quoted by C. Arnold Snyder. "Margaret Hottinger of Zolliken." 43-53 in Profiles of Anabaptist Women. Edited by Snyder and Linda A. Huebert Hecht. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996. 49. This appears to be an early reference to speaking in tongues. The fact she began dancing while naked contributed to her problems.
2. Schleitheim Confession. Quoted by Snyder. 50.
3. Snyder. 51.
4. Leigh Eric Schmidt. Holy Fairs. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. 61.
5. Schmidt. 145–152.
6. Eleazar Wheelock. Letter to Daniel Rogers. 18 January 1742. Quoted by John Fea. "Wheelock’s World: Letters and the Communication of Revival in Great Awakening New England." American Antiquarian Society. Proceedings 109:99–144:1999. 128. "Under concern" meant individuals had made an initial commitment to Christ, but had not met all the requirements for acceptance set by the clergy for church membership.
7. Fea. 135.
8. John Lee. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. East Lyme, Connecticut, 20 April 1741. Quoted by Fea. 111.
9. James Davenport. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. Southold, New York, 5 October 1740. Quoted by Fea. 119–120.
10. Fea. 120. Davenport finally began burning books and one time cast his pants into the flames. It was after this that he recanted. [35]
11. Fea. 136.
12. Solomon Williams. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. Lebanon, Connecticut, 1741. Quoted by Fea. 139.
13. Barton Warren Stone. The Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone. Cincinnati: American Christian Publication Society, 1853 edition. 34–35.
14. Alexander Campbell. "Re-immersion and Brother Thomas." The Millennial Harbinger 7:56–58:February 1836. 58.
15. Charles Crossfield Ware. North Carolina Disciples of Christ. Saint Louis: Christian Board of Publication, 1927. 265.
16. Ware. 267.
17. Ware. 269.
18. Ware. 266. I could find no local Utleys. He may have been a Free Will Baptist leader who went from church to church to counter the activities of the Disciples.
19. Ware. 267.
20. Ware. 267–268. No source was provided to date the observation.
21. Ware. 265.
22. J.D. Larimore. "Mary Eliza Holton." Find a Grave website. 23 May 2014.
23. J.D. Larimore. “Ada M. Holton Roberts.” Find a Grave website. 31 August 2015.
24. Wikipedia. "Thomas Campbell (Minister)."
25. Mildred McCotter Lee. Obituary. [New Bern] Journal Sun. 5 July 2009.
26. Ware. 85.
27. The problems with dating churches and cemeteries were discussed in the post for 19 January 2020.
28. Avilon Walston. "Silas Miller." Find a Grave website. 31 October 2013.
29. For more on Minnie Lee’s background, see the post for 8 December 2019.
30. John47. "Ludie Price Parsons." Find a Grave website. 4 July 2011. Her relationship to Minnie Lee was discussed in the post for 8 December 2019.
31. Bernd Doss. "Corp David L. Banks." Find a Grave website. 9 September 2010.
32. Bernd Doss. "Benjamin Frederick Liverman." Find a Grave website. 4 September 2010.
33. Bernd Doss. "W. Duval Scott." Find a Grave website. 6 September 2010.
34. Amity Christian Church in Grantsboro has a marker for an infant who died in 1832, [36] before the Disciples had much influence. There are graves through the 1920s for a few families that suggest it was then a family plot, which later was next to land provided to the church. As mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019, this was what happened in Alliance where the original McCotter cemetery was located next to the more recent United Methodist Church and became associated with it.
35. Wikipedia. "James Davenport (Clergyman)."
36. John47. "Baby Barrington." Find a Grave website. 25 June 2011.
Belief in contact with the spirit as the central religious experience always has created problems for Protestant Reformers who find many manifestations disturbing. As soon as the Anabaptists emerged around Zürich, Johannes Kessler described Margaret Hottinger. She
"undertook to speak of things that nobody could understand, as it she were so deeply raised up in God that nobody could comprehend her speech."
He added
"many of her followers declared that whoever speaks the most or can do the most unusual which nobody can comprehend or evaluate, those were held to be the most devout and most immersed in God." [1]
A Benedictine convert responded by formulating a confession that condemned those who "practice and observe the freedom of the Spirit and of Christ." [2] Michael Sattler created a congregational church structure, rather than one based on experience, and excluded women from leadership positions. [3]
In Scotland, Protestants held four-day sacramental communions that began with fasting on Thursday and ended with a thanksgiving sermon on Monday. [4] Sermons sometimes resulted in ecstatic experiences in the forms of dreams, visions, and unseen voices. Ministers did not condemn them, but selectively included references to them in their official accounts lest they attract the attention of hostile authorities. [5]
Both the Swiss and Scots treated contact with the spirit world as normal and desirable. Those affected by Calvinism treated such events as techniques to frighten individuals into conformity in the way described by Elnathan Davis in the post for 19 January 2020. Once converted, individuals had no desire to repeat the experience.
Eleazar Wheelock adopted George Whitefield’s methods after hearing him preach in 1740 in New England. He soon reported "between 30 or 40 I hope were converted while I was in town and many hundreds I believe were under concern." [6]
Other ministers began telling Wheelock that their sermons "were normally accompanied by shrieks, cries, and other disturbances of those converted." [7] John Lee wrote him
"Parsons had preached to 100 congregants, and ‘a great number cried out with such anguish as I never See it.’ Many were ‘greatly wounded,’ and ‘11 or 12 persons fainted or nearly fainted’." [8]
Soon Wheelock’s brother-in-law was more affected than his audience. James Davenport wrote him "‘the difficulties of the work (of revival) are great’ and described a sermon in which ‘the Lord opened my mouth so that I scarcely knew how to shut it’." [9] He soon was claiming "special revelations from God." [10]
John Fea observed this introduction of divine inspiration created problems for his fellow clergymen "who rested their entire system of religious understanding and knowledge of God’s will on the Scriptural text." [11] They debated if he was "non compos mentis" or if he was "deluded and possessed with the Spirit of Satan." [12] Davenport recanted, and the Puritan ministers continued their old ways.
The problem arose again at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801 where people trembled and shouted. Warren Barton Stone recalled:
"Many, very many fell down, as men slain in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless state—sometimes for a few moments reviving, and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan, or piercing shriek, or by a prayer for mercy most fervently uttered. After lying thus for hours, they obtained deliverance. The gloomy cloud, which had covered their faces, seemed gradually and visibly to disappear, and hope in smiles brightened into joy—they would rise shouting deliverance, and then would address the surrounding multitude in language truly eloquent and impressive." [13]
Presbyterians, who had sponsored the revival, condemned the results. Alexander Campbell accepted the revival’s methods, but distrusted those "drawn more by passion than by faith" and added
"We are generally suspicious of universal propositions depending upon one man’s reason or observation; and therefore, while we have always regarded many of those who come forward under such popular excitements as unfit for immersion." [14]
Like the Particular Baptists, Campbell’s followers in the Disciples of Christ felt it their duty to extirpate any rituals that treated contact with the spirits as anything other than terrifying. They converted a minister in a surviving Free Will Baptist church in Beaufort County, North Carolina. In 1844, Henry Smith then reorganized churches in Broad Creek, [15] Florence, [16] and Bay Creek. [17]
Not all were willing to accept the change. Jacob Utley tried to stop Smith in Broad Creek [18] and Florence. [19] The second faded away when Smith grew too old to pastor it. After 1858, "‘by non-attendance and negligence the church became and now is in a deplorable condition.’ Some had united with other churches and some had ‘made shipwreck of the faith’ and had ‘again turned back to the world by following the desire of the flesh’." [20]
The other Disciples’ churches survived. Enoch Holton was the elder at Upper Broad Creek. [21] The first person buried was the infant, Mary Eliza Holton, in 1845. [22] He was bondsman for the marriage of Carlos Holton’s grandparents. [23] The church was located in Olympia, west of Grantsville on the road between Alliance and New Bern.
The Bay Creek Church was located at Bethany Crossroads, now Arapahoe. The Disciples merged with Stone’s followers in 1832 to become the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). [24] However, the Campbellites maintained their identity for decades, but since have accepted the official name. What is now the Bethany Christian Church hosted the memorial service for Clifton McCotter’s sister in 2009. [25]
In 1852, the Disciples felt confident no Free Will Baptist churches survived, and that the few remaining Free Will Baptist "aberrations" in ritual "gradually disappeared" from the absorbed churches. [26]
Despite the power of the Disciples, some Free Will Baptist churches did persist in Pamlico County, North Carolina. The oldest identifiable burial [27] in the Goose Creek graveyard was Silas Miller, who died in 1850. [28] This was where Minnie Lee [29] and Ludie Parsons [30] were interred.
Free Will Baptists may have had a new appeal during the stresses of the Civil War. The oldest memorial in the Rock of Zion cemetery was for a Confederate soldier who died in 1862. [31] This Grantsville church provided the burial ground for two of Julian Boyd’s students, Frederick Liverman [32] and Duval Scott. [33] Other last names of his students found on tombstones were Banks, Bennett, Dixon, and Tingle.
All the other cemeteries in Pamlico County indexed by Find a Grave with antebellum dates were family plots, including Brinson-Bennett (1835), Alonzo Holton (1839), Cornelius Dixon (1842), and Rawls (1862). The first was in Grantsboro, the next two in Olympia, and the last in Arapahoe. [34]
End Notes
1. Johannes Kessler. Sabbata. Quoted by C. Arnold Snyder. "Margaret Hottinger of Zolliken." 43-53 in Profiles of Anabaptist Women. Edited by Snyder and Linda A. Huebert Hecht. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996. 49. This appears to be an early reference to speaking in tongues. The fact she began dancing while naked contributed to her problems.
2. Schleitheim Confession. Quoted by Snyder. 50.
3. Snyder. 51.
4. Leigh Eric Schmidt. Holy Fairs. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. 61.
5. Schmidt. 145–152.
6. Eleazar Wheelock. Letter to Daniel Rogers. 18 January 1742. Quoted by John Fea. "Wheelock’s World: Letters and the Communication of Revival in Great Awakening New England." American Antiquarian Society. Proceedings 109:99–144:1999. 128. "Under concern" meant individuals had made an initial commitment to Christ, but had not met all the requirements for acceptance set by the clergy for church membership.
7. Fea. 135.
8. John Lee. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. East Lyme, Connecticut, 20 April 1741. Quoted by Fea. 111.
9. James Davenport. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. Southold, New York, 5 October 1740. Quoted by Fea. 119–120.
10. Fea. 120. Davenport finally began burning books and one time cast his pants into the flames. It was after this that he recanted. [35]
11. Fea. 136.
12. Solomon Williams. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. Lebanon, Connecticut, 1741. Quoted by Fea. 139.
13. Barton Warren Stone. The Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone. Cincinnati: American Christian Publication Society, 1853 edition. 34–35.
14. Alexander Campbell. "Re-immersion and Brother Thomas." The Millennial Harbinger 7:56–58:February 1836. 58.
15. Charles Crossfield Ware. North Carolina Disciples of Christ. Saint Louis: Christian Board of Publication, 1927. 265.
16. Ware. 267.
17. Ware. 269.
18. Ware. 266. I could find no local Utleys. He may have been a Free Will Baptist leader who went from church to church to counter the activities of the Disciples.
19. Ware. 267.
20. Ware. 267–268. No source was provided to date the observation.
21. Ware. 265.
22. J.D. Larimore. "Mary Eliza Holton." Find a Grave website. 23 May 2014.
23. J.D. Larimore. “Ada M. Holton Roberts.” Find a Grave website. 31 August 2015.
24. Wikipedia. "Thomas Campbell (Minister)."
25. Mildred McCotter Lee. Obituary. [New Bern] Journal Sun. 5 July 2009.
26. Ware. 85.
27. The problems with dating churches and cemeteries were discussed in the post for 19 January 2020.
28. Avilon Walston. "Silas Miller." Find a Grave website. 31 October 2013.
29. For more on Minnie Lee’s background, see the post for 8 December 2019.
30. John47. "Ludie Price Parsons." Find a Grave website. 4 July 2011. Her relationship to Minnie Lee was discussed in the post for 8 December 2019.
31. Bernd Doss. "Corp David L. Banks." Find a Grave website. 9 September 2010.
32. Bernd Doss. "Benjamin Frederick Liverman." Find a Grave website. 4 September 2010.
33. Bernd Doss. "W. Duval Scott." Find a Grave website. 6 September 2010.
34. Amity Christian Church in Grantsboro has a marker for an infant who died in 1832, [36] before the Disciples had much influence. There are graves through the 1920s for a few families that suggest it was then a family plot, which later was next to land provided to the church. As mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019, this was what happened in Alliance where the original McCotter cemetery was located next to the more recent United Methodist Church and became associated with it.
35. Wikipedia. "James Davenport (Clergyman)."
36. John47. "Baby Barrington." Find a Grave website. 25 June 2011.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Pamlico County Religion - Early Years
Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Settlement in Pamlico County, North Carolina, was dictated by geography. Only about 15% of the land was drained enough to support agriculture in 1930, and that was done with manmade ditches. [1]
The Minnesott Ridge, used by the north-south road at the center right on the map below, was the remains of an ancient sea shore. Land sloped eastward from 30' to 20' to an escarpment, that was marked by the north-south road that meandered at the right side of the map. Beyond that break lay wetlands, identified by the green. [2]
Better land lay west of the sand ridge, where three north-south rivers flowed south into the Neuse River. Closest to the western edge of the peninsula was Upper Broad Creek. It extended as far north as New Bern and formed part of the county boundary. Next to it was Goose Creek, and east of that was Beard Creek. The mouth of the last appears on the map.
New Bern was founded on the Neuse in 1710 as a refuge for Anabaptists being expelled by Bern. [3] The site selected by Christopher deGraffenried infringed on lands of the Tuscarora, who killed most of the settlers living between the Neuse and the Pamlico river on the eastern side of the county peninsula. [4] He tried to sustain the community, but incurred debts that allowed a local speculator to foreclose on the land purchased from the Carolina proprietors. [5]
deGraffenried returned to Bern, and his oldest son moved to Virginia. [6] Christopher’s great-grandson, Trezevant deGraffenried, [7] migrated to Sumter County, Alabama. One of his slaves was later interviewed by Ruby Pickens Tartt. [8]
The fate of the New Bern settlers is obscured by the confusing labels applied to Baptists then and now. [9] Swiss Anabaptists did not believe original sin condemned individuals to do evil. They thought people had the will to do both good and bad, and that baptism was a ritual that confirmed they had chosen to follow God. They also believed in the agency of the Holy Spirit. [10]
Free Will Baptists were founded by John Smythe after he met Anabaptists in Amsterdam during the rein of James I. [11] He rejected the formal liturgy of the Anglican church because any use of the Bible, including psalms, was a manmade impediment that quenched the spirit. [12] He focused on gifts from the Holy Spirit that sustained individuals’ relationships with Christ. [13]
Paul Palmer spread Smythe’s ideas in Craven and Beaufort counties. Between 1735 and 1739 he established congregations on Broad Creek, Goose Creek, at Flea Point on the Bay River east of the area shown on the map, and on Greens Creek to the south. He also met with people on Swift Creek [14] about six miles south of modern Vanceboro [15] where Minnie Lee’s family lived in 1910. [16]
The First Great Awakening in Craven County arrived when George Whitefield preached in New Bern in 1739. He claimed his audience was "uncommonly attentive, and most were melted to tears." [17]
The immediate effect was organized hostility toward Free Will Baptists. When Swift Creek requested permission to build a church under the Acts of Toleration in 1740, it not only was refused, but the members were jailed and whipped. Two of the Baptists were John James and Nicholas Purefoy. [18]
Congregants at Flea Point petitioned to build in 1741, but nothing is known about the outcome of their request. Among those who signed the petition were Jonathan West, mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019. Five of the men, including Nicholas Purefoy, had been involved with the Swift Creek request. [19] Purefoy Gut empties into Beard Creek toward the upper left hand corner of the map.
Whitefield returned to New Bern in 1764. The local Anglican minister told him local Methodists rejected infant baptism and accepted the "heretical doctrine of the irresistible influence of the [Holy] spirit." [20] Whitefield responded by preaching against "the ‘rebaptism’ of adults and for the baptism of infants, in order to make it plain that the Baptists did not belong to his flock." [21]
Particular Baptists were aroused by the discovery of Arminians who believed in free will.
Their theology derived from the thinking of John Spilsbury. This Englishman accepted predestination, but argued individuals shouldn’t be baptized until they had heard
"the Word of God ‘which is to fit and prepare the matter for the form.’ The preaching of the Word assaults the pride of man, smooths his ‘hard and rough turbulent’ spirit, aligns his ‘crooked and Serpent-like nature,’ and brings him humbly to embrace the ‘low and mean condition of Christ upon His cross’." [22]
Particular Baptists talked to ministers and enough members of Free Will Baptist churches to gain control of the their buildings and land. [23] Less than 5% of the members would accept original sin and repent of their sins. [24] They were not deemed to be part of the Elect, and thus not genuine Baptists.
Separate Baptists emerged in New England as a response to Whitefield. Shubal Stearns moved to Sandy River, North Carolina, in 1755 [25] where he preached
"that to be saved one must be born again; that no regular and prolonged course of instruction was necessary to bring one into acceptance with God, but only repentance and faith; that to as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God; that this was brought
about by the irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit; that the one saved had immediate revelation of it in his soul." [26]
Elnathan Davis recalled there was "a trembling and crying spirit among" his listeners. He, himself, "had not been long there before the trembling seized him also; he attempted to withdraw; but his strength failing and his understanding confounded he, with many other, sunk to the ground. When he came to himself he found nothing in him but dread & anxiety, bordering on horror. He continued in this situation some days, and then found relief by faith in Christ." [27]
After the American Revolution, Free Will Baptists congregations in Swift Creek and Goose Creek, which had been taken over the Particular Baptists, affiliated with the Sandy River Association in 1784. [28] However, the Particular Baptists had already absorbed them. [29]
End Notes
1. John T. Miller and Arthur E. Taylor. United States Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, August 1937. 2.
2. Roy A. Goodwin, Jr. United States Department of Agriculture. Soil Conservation Service. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, August 1987. 1. The highway is Route 306.
3. Christian Neff. "Bern (Switzerland)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1955.
4. A. T. Dill. "Graffenried, Christoph, Baron Von." NC Pedia website. 1986.
5. Donald E. Collins. "Swiss and Palatine Settlers." NC Pedia website. 2006. Thomas Pollack was acting governor of Virginia, and using his contacts to amass large tracts of land. [30]
6. Thomas P. deGraffenried. History of the deGraffenried Family. New York: Thomas P. deGraffenried, 1925. 149.
7. Thomas deGraffenried. 253–255.
8. Oliver Bell was discussed in the posts for 15 September 2019 and 22 September 2019.
9. Collins simply said they "intermarried with residents of other nationalities, and the Swiss-German community blended into the population at large. Their family names, however-including Metz (Metts), Kernegee (Kornegay), Eibach (Ipock), Mueller (Miller), and Kuntz (Koonce)-are still prominent in eastern North Carolina." [31] Christoper deGraffenried noted that while some were pious, many who came to New Bern were the dregs of society who were selected by authorities eager to be rid of them. [32]
10. Tammy Graham. "Free Will from Luther to the Brethren." The Hanover Historical Review Spring 1995. She wrote, the Swiss theologian, Hubmaier Balthasar, "asserted that the soul, ‘awakened by the Word of God’ and ‘enlightened through the Holy Spirit,’ can choose between the way of the flesh and the way of the spirit." Her source was his "On Free Will." Reprinted in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers. Edited by George Hunston Williams. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957. 124.
11. David Plant. "Anabaptists & Baptists." British Civil Wars Project website.
12. Jason Lee. The Theology of John Smyth. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003. 55.
13. Lee. 231.
14. George Stevenson. "Palmer, Paul." NC Pedia website. 1994. Palmer may have had a special understanding of the Holy Spirit because he met with the Perquimans Monthly Meeting of Friends between 1719 and 1722. This in turn may have made it easier for him to communicate with descendants of the New Bern Anabaptists.
15. Victor Jones reported experts agreed the Swift Creek church was now Kitts Swamp Christian Church in Ernul, North Carolina. [33] Disciples of Christ merged with Barton T. Stone’s Christian Church in 1832. While the official name is Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), many use just one designation or the other, without signifying descent from one or the other.
16. For more on Minnie Lee’s background, see the post for 8 December 2019.
17. George Whitefield. Quoted by Bill Hand. "When George Whitefield Came to Town." [New Bern] Sun Journal website. 28 April 2019.
18. George Washington Paschal. History of North Carolina Baptists. Raleigh: The General Board, North Carolina Baptist State Convention, 1930. 1:158, 1:160, 1:187. As mentioned in the post for 8 December 2019, John James Parsons was related to Minnie Lee. The same names may be coincidence, or one of those tantalizing clues to her past that lead to cul-de-sacs.
19. Paschal. 1:198.
20. James Reed. Quoted by Hand.
21. Paschal. 1:313.
22. Wikipedia. "John Spilsbury (Baptist Minister)." It appeared to be quoting Spilsbury’s The Lawfull Subject of Baptisme. London: 1643.
23. Paschal. 1:214.
24. Paschal. 1:212.
25. Morgan Edward. "Notebook on North Carolina Baptist." Reprinted by Pascal, 1:228. Based on the original in "the library of the American Baptist Historical Society, at Chester, Pennsylvania" and a "copy made by by Mr. J. C. Birdsong for the North Carolina State Library." [34]
26. Paschal. 1:308–309.
27. Betty G. Bunce. "Shubal Stearns and Separate Baptist beginnings in North Carolina." 1976. 7. Her source was Morgan Edwards. "Materials Toward a History of the Baptists, 1770-1772." Manuscript in Wake Forest University Library. 26–27.
28. Paschal. 1:317.
29. Paschal. 1:399–400.
30. W. Conard Gass. "Pollock, Thomas." NC Pedia website. 1994.
31. Collins.
32. Christoph de Graffenried. "Relation of My American Project." Translated by Julius Goebel. 74–118 in Thomas deGraffenried. 112.
33. Victor T. Jones, Jr. "Remember the Days of Old: A History of New Haven Church." New Haven Church, Ernul, North Carolina website.
34. Paschal. 1:224.
Settlement in Pamlico County, North Carolina, was dictated by geography. Only about 15% of the land was drained enough to support agriculture in 1930, and that was done with manmade ditches. [1]
The Minnesott Ridge, used by the north-south road at the center right on the map below, was the remains of an ancient sea shore. Land sloped eastward from 30' to 20' to an escarpment, that was marked by the north-south road that meandered at the right side of the map. Beyond that break lay wetlands, identified by the green. [2]
Better land lay west of the sand ridge, where three north-south rivers flowed south into the Neuse River. Closest to the western edge of the peninsula was Upper Broad Creek. It extended as far north as New Bern and formed part of the county boundary. Next to it was Goose Creek, and east of that was Beard Creek. The mouth of the last appears on the map.
New Bern was founded on the Neuse in 1710 as a refuge for Anabaptists being expelled by Bern. [3] The site selected by Christopher deGraffenried infringed on lands of the Tuscarora, who killed most of the settlers living between the Neuse and the Pamlico river on the eastern side of the county peninsula. [4] He tried to sustain the community, but incurred debts that allowed a local speculator to foreclose on the land purchased from the Carolina proprietors. [5]
deGraffenried returned to Bern, and his oldest son moved to Virginia. [6] Christopher’s great-grandson, Trezevant deGraffenried, [7] migrated to Sumter County, Alabama. One of his slaves was later interviewed by Ruby Pickens Tartt. [8]
The fate of the New Bern settlers is obscured by the confusing labels applied to Baptists then and now. [9] Swiss Anabaptists did not believe original sin condemned individuals to do evil. They thought people had the will to do both good and bad, and that baptism was a ritual that confirmed they had chosen to follow God. They also believed in the agency of the Holy Spirit. [10]
Free Will Baptists were founded by John Smythe after he met Anabaptists in Amsterdam during the rein of James I. [11] He rejected the formal liturgy of the Anglican church because any use of the Bible, including psalms, was a manmade impediment that quenched the spirit. [12] He focused on gifts from the Holy Spirit that sustained individuals’ relationships with Christ. [13]
Paul Palmer spread Smythe’s ideas in Craven and Beaufort counties. Between 1735 and 1739 he established congregations on Broad Creek, Goose Creek, at Flea Point on the Bay River east of the area shown on the map, and on Greens Creek to the south. He also met with people on Swift Creek [14] about six miles south of modern Vanceboro [15] where Minnie Lee’s family lived in 1910. [16]
The First Great Awakening in Craven County arrived when George Whitefield preached in New Bern in 1739. He claimed his audience was "uncommonly attentive, and most were melted to tears." [17]
The immediate effect was organized hostility toward Free Will Baptists. When Swift Creek requested permission to build a church under the Acts of Toleration in 1740, it not only was refused, but the members were jailed and whipped. Two of the Baptists were John James and Nicholas Purefoy. [18]
Congregants at Flea Point petitioned to build in 1741, but nothing is known about the outcome of their request. Among those who signed the petition were Jonathan West, mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019. Five of the men, including Nicholas Purefoy, had been involved with the Swift Creek request. [19] Purefoy Gut empties into Beard Creek toward the upper left hand corner of the map.
Whitefield returned to New Bern in 1764. The local Anglican minister told him local Methodists rejected infant baptism and accepted the "heretical doctrine of the irresistible influence of the [Holy] spirit." [20] Whitefield responded by preaching against "the ‘rebaptism’ of adults and for the baptism of infants, in order to make it plain that the Baptists did not belong to his flock." [21]
Particular Baptists were aroused by the discovery of Arminians who believed in free will.
Their theology derived from the thinking of John Spilsbury. This Englishman accepted predestination, but argued individuals shouldn’t be baptized until they had heard
"the Word of God ‘which is to fit and prepare the matter for the form.’ The preaching of the Word assaults the pride of man, smooths his ‘hard and rough turbulent’ spirit, aligns his ‘crooked and Serpent-like nature,’ and brings him humbly to embrace the ‘low and mean condition of Christ upon His cross’." [22]
Particular Baptists talked to ministers and enough members of Free Will Baptist churches to gain control of the their buildings and land. [23] Less than 5% of the members would accept original sin and repent of their sins. [24] They were not deemed to be part of the Elect, and thus not genuine Baptists.
Separate Baptists emerged in New England as a response to Whitefield. Shubal Stearns moved to Sandy River, North Carolina, in 1755 [25] where he preached
"that to be saved one must be born again; that no regular and prolonged course of instruction was necessary to bring one into acceptance with God, but only repentance and faith; that to as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God; that this was brought
about by the irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit; that the one saved had immediate revelation of it in his soul." [26]
Elnathan Davis recalled there was "a trembling and crying spirit among" his listeners. He, himself, "had not been long there before the trembling seized him also; he attempted to withdraw; but his strength failing and his understanding confounded he, with many other, sunk to the ground. When he came to himself he found nothing in him but dread & anxiety, bordering on horror. He continued in this situation some days, and then found relief by faith in Christ." [27]
After the American Revolution, Free Will Baptists congregations in Swift Creek and Goose Creek, which had been taken over the Particular Baptists, affiliated with the Sandy River Association in 1784. [28] However, the Particular Baptists had already absorbed them. [29]
End Notes
1. John T. Miller and Arthur E. Taylor. United States Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, August 1937. 2.
2. Roy A. Goodwin, Jr. United States Department of Agriculture. Soil Conservation Service. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, August 1987. 1. The highway is Route 306.
3. Christian Neff. "Bern (Switzerland)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1955.
4. A. T. Dill. "Graffenried, Christoph, Baron Von." NC Pedia website. 1986.
5. Donald E. Collins. "Swiss and Palatine Settlers." NC Pedia website. 2006. Thomas Pollack was acting governor of Virginia, and using his contacts to amass large tracts of land. [30]
6. Thomas P. deGraffenried. History of the deGraffenried Family. New York: Thomas P. deGraffenried, 1925. 149.
7. Thomas deGraffenried. 253–255.
8. Oliver Bell was discussed in the posts for 15 September 2019 and 22 September 2019.
9. Collins simply said they "intermarried with residents of other nationalities, and the Swiss-German community blended into the population at large. Their family names, however-including Metz (Metts), Kernegee (Kornegay), Eibach (Ipock), Mueller (Miller), and Kuntz (Koonce)-are still prominent in eastern North Carolina." [31] Christoper deGraffenried noted that while some were pious, many who came to New Bern were the dregs of society who were selected by authorities eager to be rid of them. [32]
10. Tammy Graham. "Free Will from Luther to the Brethren." The Hanover Historical Review Spring 1995. She wrote, the Swiss theologian, Hubmaier Balthasar, "asserted that the soul, ‘awakened by the Word of God’ and ‘enlightened through the Holy Spirit,’ can choose between the way of the flesh and the way of the spirit." Her source was his "On Free Will." Reprinted in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers. Edited by George Hunston Williams. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957. 124.
11. David Plant. "Anabaptists & Baptists." British Civil Wars Project website.
12. Jason Lee. The Theology of John Smyth. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003. 55.
13. Lee. 231.
14. George Stevenson. "Palmer, Paul." NC Pedia website. 1994. Palmer may have had a special understanding of the Holy Spirit because he met with the Perquimans Monthly Meeting of Friends between 1719 and 1722. This in turn may have made it easier for him to communicate with descendants of the New Bern Anabaptists.
15. Victor Jones reported experts agreed the Swift Creek church was now Kitts Swamp Christian Church in Ernul, North Carolina. [33] Disciples of Christ merged with Barton T. Stone’s Christian Church in 1832. While the official name is Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), many use just one designation or the other, without signifying descent from one or the other.
16. For more on Minnie Lee’s background, see the post for 8 December 2019.
17. George Whitefield. Quoted by Bill Hand. "When George Whitefield Came to Town." [New Bern] Sun Journal website. 28 April 2019.
18. George Washington Paschal. History of North Carolina Baptists. Raleigh: The General Board, North Carolina Baptist State Convention, 1930. 1:158, 1:160, 1:187. As mentioned in the post for 8 December 2019, John James Parsons was related to Minnie Lee. The same names may be coincidence, or one of those tantalizing clues to her past that lead to cul-de-sacs.
19. Paschal. 1:198.
20. James Reed. Quoted by Hand.
21. Paschal. 1:313.
22. Wikipedia. "John Spilsbury (Baptist Minister)." It appeared to be quoting Spilsbury’s The Lawfull Subject of Baptisme. London: 1643.
23. Paschal. 1:214.
24. Paschal. 1:212.
25. Morgan Edward. "Notebook on North Carolina Baptist." Reprinted by Pascal, 1:228. Based on the original in "the library of the American Baptist Historical Society, at Chester, Pennsylvania" and a "copy made by by Mr. J. C. Birdsong for the North Carolina State Library." [34]
26. Paschal. 1:308–309.
27. Betty G. Bunce. "Shubal Stearns and Separate Baptist beginnings in North Carolina." 1976. 7. Her source was Morgan Edwards. "Materials Toward a History of the Baptists, 1770-1772." Manuscript in Wake Forest University Library. 26–27.
28. Paschal. 1:317.
29. Paschal. 1:399–400.
30. W. Conard Gass. "Pollock, Thomas." NC Pedia website. 1994.
31. Collins.
32. Christoph de Graffenried. "Relation of My American Project." Translated by Julius Goebel. 74–118 in Thomas deGraffenried. 112.
33. Victor T. Jones, Jr. "Remember the Days of Old: A History of New Haven Church." New Haven Church, Ernul, North Carolina website.
34. Paschal. 1:224.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Albert Gamse - Kum Ba Ya
Topic: Commercial Folk Music Revival
"Kumbaya" achieved its canonical status within the folk-music revival repertoire when it spread from individuals learning to play guitar to those who grew up playing piano. It appeared in one of the collections created for amateurs who played for themselves and friends in 1968.
Abe Ashley’s music company specialized in such anthologies. The editor of The Best of Folk Music had previously overseen compilations of the World’s Favorite Easy to Play Piano Duets, [1] World’s Favorite Sacred Songs for Church and Home, [2] and World’s Favorite Songs of "The Gay Nineties." [3]
Albert Gamse began writing English lyrics for Latin songs like "Amapola." [4] When musical taste changed after the emergence of Elvis Presley in the late-1950s, a friend recommended him to Ashley. The publisher was looking for a "research man." Irving Fields said Gamse "knew all the composers, knew what was in the public domain, the whole history of composing, lyric writing and so forth." [5]
His Best of Folk Music eschewed the regional-occupational classification used by Carl Sandburg [6] and John Lomax, [7] for a topical organization that featured love songs, love gone wrong songs, and bad men. There was a small section of blues and a larger one of international songs that included "Kum Ba Yah."
The Workers songs mixed the familiar "I’ve Been Working On The Railroad" with Tennessee Ernie Ford’s "Sixteen Tons." [8] The other two were "Drill Ye Tarriers" and "John Henry" that appeared in every folk-song collection.
In addition, the book had an opening section of New Folk Songs that included songs and pictures of Glen Campbell, Bobby Goldsboro, Tom Jones, Buffy Saint-Marie, Trini Lopez, and Peter, Paul and Mary.
The most current songs were copyrighted arrangements whose publishers, no doubt, received royalties. The rest were controlled by Lewis Publications. The primary change in "Kum Ba Yah" was in the pronoun. Gamse substituted "hear me" for someone, and added his own verse, "I need you."
He used no sharps or flats, but used more varied chords than guitar arrangements did for the key of C. The arrangement relied on chords on most notes, with the little finger of the right hand playing the melody in places where it wasn’t used in the chord. It was easily within the abilities of someone who had had only a few piano lessons. [9]
Abe Schlager, the president of Lewis Music, [10] published a second volume in 1969 under the name Alexander Shealy. [11] It followed the same format, with the first songs by popular artists (Joni Mitchell, Bobby Vinton, and The Beatles). [12]
Both books were reissued with modifications in the opening songs to reflect changes in popular taste. [13] The first replaced one song of nine, [14] while the second kept three of ten. [15]
Ashley’s company was both a publisher and a distributor. The exact relationship between it and Slager’s isn’t clear, but the distribution for both seems to have been transferred to Charles Hansen in 1971. [16] Hansen also handled works recorded by Campbell. [17]
Hansen issued the two Lewis volumes as the Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music in 1973. [18] It dropped most of the songs that required royalties plus a few others that may have had copyright problems like "The Crime of Tome Dula" [19]
The legal relationship between Hansen, Ashley, and Lewis may have been contractual rather than proprietary. Much of Hansen’s catalog "was acquired by Warner Brothers Publications, then subsequently sold to Alfred Publications," [20] while the others became part of the Music Sales Group. [21] It sold its operations to Hal Leonard in 2018. [22]
Leonard continues to distribute the Golden Encyclopedia under the Lewis Publishing Company name. However, WorldCat listed Leonard as the distributor in 1985. Leonard’s books carry no publication information.
Gamse’s version of "Kumbaya" did not enter tradition. People who bought his collection may not have cared. Most were capable of playing music and singing their own words. [23] Ashley and Schlager assumed people bought their books because they wanted to play songs they already knew, not learn new ones. Their goal was not edification, but gratification.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: unison
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano, guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
"This Nigerian melody found its way into a negro spiritual called ‘Come by Here, Oh Lord’ and (through the rephrasing of which the tongue is so often guilty) it became popularly known as ‘Kum Ba Ya,’ and as such it took its place in our folklore."
© 1968 by Lewis Music Publishing Co., Inc.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no note
Verses: kumbaya, hear me crying, hear me praying, I need you
Vocabulary
Pronoun: me, I
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 4-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: use of first-person pronoun
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: slowly (like a hymn)
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Chords: C Em Am Dm7 G7 F
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano plays triads in the right hand and 1-5 chords in the left on every syllable except "kum ba" and "my Lord"
Notes on Performers
The only biographical information available on Gamse on the internet was he was born 31 July 1901 "in Russian Empire [now Latvia]" and died March, 1974 "in Bronx, New York" [24]
His first work listed by Discogs was the 1940 "Rhumba-Cardi" recorded by Xavier Cugat with Dinah Shore singing. [25] The next year, bands led by Count Basie, Les Brown, Bob Crosby, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Glenn Miller, and Alvino Rey recorded songs with lyrics he’d written. [26]
Herbert Marks [27] introduced Gamse to Irving Fields. [28] Fields recalled:
"Gamse is a genius. I wrote most of my biggest hits with him. He was a very quiet man who didn’t care about money or material things. He just loved to write lyrics. His biggest thrill was to go to Mexico once a year and he was fantastic with Latin music." [29]
Fields added "Albert had a sense of humor, and he was very articulate, sort of like a Rex Harrison type, very suave." [30]
Gamse’ taste may have been his most indelible quality. A recorder player said she "always liked the Albert Gamse books [. . .] for the variety of folk literature and historical repertoire. The player is able to enjoy some known melodies, but is challenged to learn much unfamiliar music." [31]
Availability
Book: Albert Gamse. "Kum Ba Ya." The Best of Folk Music. Book 1. New York: Lewis Music Publishing Company, 1968; sixth printing of March 1969. 222.
Book: "Kum Ba Ya." Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music. New York: Charles Hansen Educational Music and Books, 1973. 316. WorldCat listed Alexander Shealy as compiler and Albert Gamse as editor.
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music. New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1985; distributed by Hal Leonard. [32] 316.
End Notes
1. Albert Gamse. World’s Favorite Easy to Play Piano Duets. New York: Ashley Publications, Inc. 1960.
2. Albert Gamse. World’s Favorite Sacred Songs for Church and Home. New York: Ashley Publications, 1961.
3. Albert Gamse. World’s Favorite Songs of "The Gay Nineties." New York: Ashley Publications, 1962.
4. "Amapola" was written in 1920 by Joseph Lacalle. [33] It was recorded throughout the 1920s and 1930s by Latin artists. [34] Gamse wrote the now familiar English lyrics in 1940. [35] It was recorded by Xavier Cugat, Les Brown, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, [36] and Sammy Kay in 1941. [37]
5. Irving Fields. The Pianos I Have Known. As told to Tony Sachs. New York: Roman Midnight Music, 2012. 91–92.
6. Sandburg was discussed in the post for 5 May 2019.
7. Lomax was discussed in the post for 12 May 2019.
8. "Tennessee" Ernie Ford. "Sixteen Tons." Capitol Records F3262. 1955. [38] The song was written and first recorded by Merle Travis. [39]
9. One Amazon customer had problems with the standard publishing format. CDH complained "that in songs with multiple verses, the lyrics after the first one or two verses are shown separately at the bottom of the score. This Is probably not an issue for a more accomplished musician than myself." [40]
10. New York Supreme Court. Appellate Division–First Department. Lewis Music Publishing Company, Inc., against Shapiro, Bernstein and Company, Inc. 1969. 35.
11. The copyright catalog for 1973 identifies Alexander Shealy as a pseudonym for Abe Schlager. [41]
12. Alexander Shealy. The Best of Folk Music. Book Two. New York: Lewis Publishing, 1969. The first pages were missing from my copy, so I don’t know which printing.
13. I don’t know how often the two collections were revised. Each went through a number of printings, and I only purchased two copies of each.
14. Albert Gamse. The Best of Folk Music. Book One. New York: Lewis Music Publishing Company, tenth printing in 1970.
15. Alexander Shealy. The Best of Folk Music. Book Two. Miami Beach, Florida: Hansen Publications, fifth printing in 1971. My copy has a Japanese subtitle on the front cover and appears to be a photocopied version.
16. "Hansen-MDS In Buy Talk." Billboard. 4 December 1971. 4. MDS was "Abe Ashley’s Music Dealers Service."
17. Wikipedia. "Chas. H. Hansen Music Corp."
18. The date "9-25-73" appeared on the inside cover advertisements for the Hansen book.
19. The legal fight over the rights to "Tom Dooley" were mentioned in the post for 20 October 2019.
20. Wikipedia, Hansen.
21. Wikipedia entry for "Music Sales Group" listed them as imprints.
22. "Music Sales is now a pureplay publisher with $50m+ in the bank, after selling books and retail business." Music Business Worldwide website. 4 April 2018.
23. One Amazon customer begged to differ. Mary PB wrote "I don’t know where they got the versions of some of these songs. I played some of my favorite songs and either the melody line was strange or the lyrics different or both." [42]
24. "Albert Gamse (1901–1974)." Google’s Internet Movie Database (IMDb) website.
25. Dinah Shore and Xavier Cugat Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra. "The Rhumba Cardi." Victor 26665. Recorded 26 June 1940. [43] Discogs mistakenly listed it as 1938.
26. "Albert Gamse." Discogs website. It has a photograph of him.
27. Herbert Marks was the son of the man who founded Edward B. Marks Music Company. In 1929, he heard "The Peanut Vendor" in Havana, Cuba, and introduced it into the United States. The New York Times credited him with starting a "demand for Latin American music." [44] He took over the publishing company when his father died in 1945. [45]
28. Fields. 90.
29. Fields. 91.
30. Fields. 91.
31. Kay Hettich. Comment posted 1 July 2013. Amazon website for Hal Leonard’s 1996 edition of The Best Recorder Method - Yet!: Book 1. Lewis Music Publishing issued it in 1974.
32. WorldCat.
33. Wikipedia. "Amapola (Song)"
34. "Amapola (Pretty Little Poppy)." Second Hand Songs website.
35. "Amapola." Library of Congress. Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series. July-December 1967. 2303. Copyright renewal notice.
36. Second Hand Songs.
37. "Victor Matrix BS-060462." Discography of Historic American Recordings website.
38. "‘Tennessee’ Ernie Ford – Sixteen Tons." Discogs website.
39. Wikipedia. "Sixteen Tons."
40. CDH. Comment posted 26 January 2018. Amazon website for Hal Leonard’s 1985 edition of Golden Encyclopedia Of Folk Music.
41. Catalog of Copyright Entries; Third Series. January-June 1973. 1598.
42. Mary PB. Comment posted 24 May 2014. Amazon website for Hal Leonard’s 1985 edition of Golden Encyclopedia Of Folk Music.
43. "Victor matrix BS-051569." Discography of American Historical Recordings website.
44. Herbert Marks. Obituary. The New York Times 2 November 1984. D18.
45. "The Marks History." Edward B. Marks Music Company website.
"Kumbaya" achieved its canonical status within the folk-music revival repertoire when it spread from individuals learning to play guitar to those who grew up playing piano. It appeared in one of the collections created for amateurs who played for themselves and friends in 1968.
Abe Ashley’s music company specialized in such anthologies. The editor of The Best of Folk Music had previously overseen compilations of the World’s Favorite Easy to Play Piano Duets, [1] World’s Favorite Sacred Songs for Church and Home, [2] and World’s Favorite Songs of "The Gay Nineties." [3]
Albert Gamse began writing English lyrics for Latin songs like "Amapola." [4] When musical taste changed after the emergence of Elvis Presley in the late-1950s, a friend recommended him to Ashley. The publisher was looking for a "research man." Irving Fields said Gamse "knew all the composers, knew what was in the public domain, the whole history of composing, lyric writing and so forth." [5]
His Best of Folk Music eschewed the regional-occupational classification used by Carl Sandburg [6] and John Lomax, [7] for a topical organization that featured love songs, love gone wrong songs, and bad men. There was a small section of blues and a larger one of international songs that included "Kum Ba Yah."
The Workers songs mixed the familiar "I’ve Been Working On The Railroad" with Tennessee Ernie Ford’s "Sixteen Tons." [8] The other two were "Drill Ye Tarriers" and "John Henry" that appeared in every folk-song collection.
In addition, the book had an opening section of New Folk Songs that included songs and pictures of Glen Campbell, Bobby Goldsboro, Tom Jones, Buffy Saint-Marie, Trini Lopez, and Peter, Paul and Mary.
The most current songs were copyrighted arrangements whose publishers, no doubt, received royalties. The rest were controlled by Lewis Publications. The primary change in "Kum Ba Yah" was in the pronoun. Gamse substituted "hear me" for someone, and added his own verse, "I need you."
He used no sharps or flats, but used more varied chords than guitar arrangements did for the key of C. The arrangement relied on chords on most notes, with the little finger of the right hand playing the melody in places where it wasn’t used in the chord. It was easily within the abilities of someone who had had only a few piano lessons. [9]
Abe Schlager, the president of Lewis Music, [10] published a second volume in 1969 under the name Alexander Shealy. [11] It followed the same format, with the first songs by popular artists (Joni Mitchell, Bobby Vinton, and The Beatles). [12]
Both books were reissued with modifications in the opening songs to reflect changes in popular taste. [13] The first replaced one song of nine, [14] while the second kept three of ten. [15]
Ashley’s company was both a publisher and a distributor. The exact relationship between it and Slager’s isn’t clear, but the distribution for both seems to have been transferred to Charles Hansen in 1971. [16] Hansen also handled works recorded by Campbell. [17]
Hansen issued the two Lewis volumes as the Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music in 1973. [18] It dropped most of the songs that required royalties plus a few others that may have had copyright problems like "The Crime of Tome Dula" [19]
The legal relationship between Hansen, Ashley, and Lewis may have been contractual rather than proprietary. Much of Hansen’s catalog "was acquired by Warner Brothers Publications, then subsequently sold to Alfred Publications," [20] while the others became part of the Music Sales Group. [21] It sold its operations to Hal Leonard in 2018. [22]
Leonard continues to distribute the Golden Encyclopedia under the Lewis Publishing Company name. However, WorldCat listed Leonard as the distributor in 1985. Leonard’s books carry no publication information.
Gamse’s version of "Kumbaya" did not enter tradition. People who bought his collection may not have cared. Most were capable of playing music and singing their own words. [23] Ashley and Schlager assumed people bought their books because they wanted to play songs they already knew, not learn new ones. Their goal was not edification, but gratification.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: unison
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano, guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
"This Nigerian melody found its way into a negro spiritual called ‘Come by Here, Oh Lord’ and (through the rephrasing of which the tongue is so often guilty) it became popularly known as ‘Kum Ba Ya,’ and as such it took its place in our folklore."
© 1968 by Lewis Music Publishing Co., Inc.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no note
Verses: kumbaya, hear me crying, hear me praying, I need you
Vocabulary
Pronoun: me, I
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 4-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: use of first-person pronoun
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: slowly (like a hymn)
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Chords: C Em Am Dm7 G7 F
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano plays triads in the right hand and 1-5 chords in the left on every syllable except "kum ba" and "my Lord"
Notes on Performers
The only biographical information available on Gamse on the internet was he was born 31 July 1901 "in Russian Empire [now Latvia]" and died March, 1974 "in Bronx, New York" [24]
His first work listed by Discogs was the 1940 "Rhumba-Cardi" recorded by Xavier Cugat with Dinah Shore singing. [25] The next year, bands led by Count Basie, Les Brown, Bob Crosby, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Glenn Miller, and Alvino Rey recorded songs with lyrics he’d written. [26]
Herbert Marks [27] introduced Gamse to Irving Fields. [28] Fields recalled:
"Gamse is a genius. I wrote most of my biggest hits with him. He was a very quiet man who didn’t care about money or material things. He just loved to write lyrics. His biggest thrill was to go to Mexico once a year and he was fantastic with Latin music." [29]
Fields added "Albert had a sense of humor, and he was very articulate, sort of like a Rex Harrison type, very suave." [30]
Gamse’ taste may have been his most indelible quality. A recorder player said she "always liked the Albert Gamse books [. . .] for the variety of folk literature and historical repertoire. The player is able to enjoy some known melodies, but is challenged to learn much unfamiliar music." [31]
Availability
Book: Albert Gamse. "Kum Ba Ya." The Best of Folk Music. Book 1. New York: Lewis Music Publishing Company, 1968; sixth printing of March 1969. 222.
Book: "Kum Ba Ya." Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music. New York: Charles Hansen Educational Music and Books, 1973. 316. WorldCat listed Alexander Shealy as compiler and Albert Gamse as editor.
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music. New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1985; distributed by Hal Leonard. [32] 316.
End Notes
1. Albert Gamse. World’s Favorite Easy to Play Piano Duets. New York: Ashley Publications, Inc. 1960.
2. Albert Gamse. World’s Favorite Sacred Songs for Church and Home. New York: Ashley Publications, 1961.
3. Albert Gamse. World’s Favorite Songs of "The Gay Nineties." New York: Ashley Publications, 1962.
4. "Amapola" was written in 1920 by Joseph Lacalle. [33] It was recorded throughout the 1920s and 1930s by Latin artists. [34] Gamse wrote the now familiar English lyrics in 1940. [35] It was recorded by Xavier Cugat, Les Brown, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, [36] and Sammy Kay in 1941. [37]
5. Irving Fields. The Pianos I Have Known. As told to Tony Sachs. New York: Roman Midnight Music, 2012. 91–92.
6. Sandburg was discussed in the post for 5 May 2019.
7. Lomax was discussed in the post for 12 May 2019.
8. "Tennessee" Ernie Ford. "Sixteen Tons." Capitol Records F3262. 1955. [38] The song was written and first recorded by Merle Travis. [39]
9. One Amazon customer had problems with the standard publishing format. CDH complained "that in songs with multiple verses, the lyrics after the first one or two verses are shown separately at the bottom of the score. This Is probably not an issue for a more accomplished musician than myself." [40]
10. New York Supreme Court. Appellate Division–First Department. Lewis Music Publishing Company, Inc., against Shapiro, Bernstein and Company, Inc. 1969. 35.
11. The copyright catalog for 1973 identifies Alexander Shealy as a pseudonym for Abe Schlager. [41]
12. Alexander Shealy. The Best of Folk Music. Book Two. New York: Lewis Publishing, 1969. The first pages were missing from my copy, so I don’t know which printing.
13. I don’t know how often the two collections were revised. Each went through a number of printings, and I only purchased two copies of each.
14. Albert Gamse. The Best of Folk Music. Book One. New York: Lewis Music Publishing Company, tenth printing in 1970.
15. Alexander Shealy. The Best of Folk Music. Book Two. Miami Beach, Florida: Hansen Publications, fifth printing in 1971. My copy has a Japanese subtitle on the front cover and appears to be a photocopied version.
16. "Hansen-MDS In Buy Talk." Billboard. 4 December 1971. 4. MDS was "Abe Ashley’s Music Dealers Service."
17. Wikipedia. "Chas. H. Hansen Music Corp."
18. The date "9-25-73" appeared on the inside cover advertisements for the Hansen book.
19. The legal fight over the rights to "Tom Dooley" were mentioned in the post for 20 October 2019.
20. Wikipedia, Hansen.
21. Wikipedia entry for "Music Sales Group" listed them as imprints.
22. "Music Sales is now a pureplay publisher with $50m+ in the bank, after selling books and retail business." Music Business Worldwide website. 4 April 2018.
23. One Amazon customer begged to differ. Mary PB wrote "I don’t know where they got the versions of some of these songs. I played some of my favorite songs and either the melody line was strange or the lyrics different or both." [42]
24. "Albert Gamse (1901–1974)." Google’s Internet Movie Database (IMDb) website.
25. Dinah Shore and Xavier Cugat Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra. "The Rhumba Cardi." Victor 26665. Recorded 26 June 1940. [43] Discogs mistakenly listed it as 1938.
26. "Albert Gamse." Discogs website. It has a photograph of him.
27. Herbert Marks was the son of the man who founded Edward B. Marks Music Company. In 1929, he heard "The Peanut Vendor" in Havana, Cuba, and introduced it into the United States. The New York Times credited him with starting a "demand for Latin American music." [44] He took over the publishing company when his father died in 1945. [45]
28. Fields. 90.
29. Fields. 91.
30. Fields. 91.
31. Kay Hettich. Comment posted 1 July 2013. Amazon website for Hal Leonard’s 1996 edition of The Best Recorder Method - Yet!: Book 1. Lewis Music Publishing issued it in 1974.
32. WorldCat.
33. Wikipedia. "Amapola (Song)"
34. "Amapola (Pretty Little Poppy)." Second Hand Songs website.
35. "Amapola." Library of Congress. Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series. July-December 1967. 2303. Copyright renewal notice.
36. Second Hand Songs.
37. "Victor Matrix BS-060462." Discography of Historic American Recordings website.
38. "‘Tennessee’ Ernie Ford – Sixteen Tons." Discogs website.
39. Wikipedia. "Sixteen Tons."
40. CDH. Comment posted 26 January 2018. Amazon website for Hal Leonard’s 1985 edition of Golden Encyclopedia Of Folk Music.
41. Catalog of Copyright Entries; Third Series. January-June 1973. 1598.
42. Mary PB. Comment posted 24 May 2014. Amazon website for Hal Leonard’s 1985 edition of Golden Encyclopedia Of Folk Music.
43. "Victor matrix BS-051569." Discography of American Historical Recordings website.
44. Herbert Marks. Obituary. The New York Times 2 November 1984. D18.
45. "The Marks History." Edward B. Marks Music Company website.
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."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)