Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Up with People made its first national appearance in the summer of 1966 in a film shown by NBC television. [1] It was financed by a southern California businessman who contributed to anti-communism organizations. [2] The program set the group’s image as the youthful alternative to protestors preferred by the more conservative corporations who financed its tours. [3]
It then was part of Moral Re-Armament. The organization’s founder, Frank Buchman, was associated attempting to defuse conflicts between nations with efforts to change the attitudes of leaders.
Buchman was raised as a Lutheran [4] in a Schwenkfelder community in eastern Pennsylvania before 1900. [5] He spent much of World War I in Asia with YMCA leaders bent on converting heathen. [6] He accepted its goals as worthy, but thought its methods of mass crusades ineffective. [7] Buchman concluded he should concentrate on leaders and future leaders who could influence others, and it was best to work in small groups.
He made his first experiments at Hartford Seminary and Princeton University. He taught men to set aside an hour in the morning to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to them. He then suggested they form small groups with whom they could share their failings and revelations. Many of the confessions dealt with sexual desires, and at least some students complained that Buchman was too inquisitive. Both schools asked him to leave their campuses. [8] Time magazine made it a cause célèbre in 1926. [9]
Buchman and some of his followers moved to England where they began working with students. As members of the Oxford Group aged, they began holding weekend meetings for middle-class adults who learned to confess their failings and build strength from groups. [10]
The emphasis of the group meetings began changing in the 1930s, when the economy was poor and men like Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were taking power. Individuals were more concerned with what they could do to avert disaster than with moral failings. [11]
Buchman was impressed with Hitler’s success in changing the attitudes of the German people from ones of despair to ones of optimism. In 1936, he began utilizing some of their techniques to attract people to rallies, where later the interested could be channeled into small groups. This was when he first began using music. [12]
His associates quickly mastered the emerging tools of mass persuasion. In 1938, they made a film with their new name, Moral Re-Armament. [13] The next year, they rented the Hollywood Bowl for a rally that featured patriotic songs and speeches. [14] Instead of ethnic purity, they advocated moral purity.
Buchman was in the United States when war broke out. [15] In 1940, he called his supporters to Lake Tahoe to develop a new program. During the weeks of living together in summer camp conditions, they produced a new play, The Forgotten Factor, to urge labor and management to cooperate in plants producing war materials. [16]
They also created a musical revue that included skits and songs. Buchman recruited corporate sponsors to take You Can Defend America on the road. MRA produced booklets for public schools to use to supplement the message of the show when it appeared in their area. [17]
After the war, MRA redefined itself as a vocal critic of Communism. Buchman had had a stroke in 1942, [18] and spent most of the year in Los Angeles. [19] Each summer the group held training conferences at Mackinac Island in the summer, where they built an auditorium in 1955. [20] When Russell Kirk visited the island that year, he noted many at the meeting were from Africa, that music was used throughout the evenings to diffuse tensions, and that the 87-year-old Buchman appeared to be senile. [21]
Buchman died in 1961. He left a moribund organization.
End Notes
1. "Up with People." 30 August 1966. Archival Television Audio website.
2. "3 CBS-owned TV’s Refuse Schick Show." Broadcasting. 4 July 1966. 38. Patrick J. Frawley, Jr., introduced leak-proof Paper-Mate pens and stainless-steal Schick razor blades. He built a factory in Cuba for the latter that was nationalized by Castro. After that he became vehemently anti-communist. [22]
3. One of the first supporters was the owner of Reader’s Digest, DeWitt Wallace. [23] Others included "Sears, General Motors, Toyota, and Coca-Cola." [24]
4. Buchman’s father’s family came from Saint Gallen, [25] a Protestant area of Switzerland that saw religious wars from the Reformation through Napoléon. [26] His mother’s family may have fled Protestant persecutions in the Palatinate in the early 1700s. Belden said Sarah Greenwalt came from the Kistler Valley. [27] Histories of the valley indicate the immigrant Kistler was born in the Palatinate, and that many others had moved into the area. Some "had left the Lutheran church and had connected themselves with the Moravians from Bethlehem. Many of the German people who lived there were poor and destitute." [28] The name also was spelled Greenwald, Greenawald, and Greenawalt.
5. David C. Belden. "The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament)." D. Phil Thesis. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976. 76–77, 86–87. Caspar Schwenkfeld formulated his own religious beliefs outside the influence of John Calvin, Martin Luther, and what became the Anglo-Scots reformation. Rather than focusing on Christ, the Silesian emphasized individuals’ relationships with the Holy Spirit and the changes they wrought in them. [29] It was part of the same general theological tradition as the Anabaptists in New Bern and Pamlico County, North Carolina. [30]
6. Belden. 134.
7. Belden. 135–136.
8. Belden. 164, on Hartford; 177–178 on Princeton. Also, "Moral Re-Armament." Encyclopædia Britannica website. Last updated by Gloria Lotha. 20 September 2019.
9. Belden. 177.
10. Belden. 238–256. Belden noted some similarities between Buchman’s house parties and encounter groups. [31] Some of these methods were adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous. [32]
11. Belden. 246–247.
12. Belden. 266–268.
13. Belden. 350.
14. Daniel Sack. Moral Re-Armament: The Reinventions of an American Religious Movement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 1.
15. Morris Martin. Always a Little Further. Tucson: Elm Street Press, 2001. 94.
16. Belden. 361.
17. Sack. 122–125.
18. Sack. 117.
19. Sack. 131. The Los Angeles center opened in 1948. Buchman moved to Tucson in 1958. [33]
20. "Mission Point Began as Conference Center and College." Mackinac Parks website. 24 April 2015.
21. Russell Kirk. "Right Reason Does Not Pay." Modern Age 26:228-234:Summer/Fall 1982. Republished by the Imaginative Conservative website. 25 February 2018.
22. Edward Helmore. "Patrick J. Frawley Jnr." The [London] Independent website. 24 November 1998.
23. Mary Levy Peachin. "1960s Era Led to Founding of Up With People." Inside Tucson Business website.
24. Frank McGee. A Song for the World. Santa Barbara, California: Many Roads Publishing, 2007. 129.
25. Belden. 76.
26. Wikipedia. "St. Gallen" and "Toggenburg War"
27. Belden. 77.
28. Records of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg quoted by Judith "Judi" Elaine (McKee) Burns. "Johannes George Kistler." Geni website. 31 December 2018.
29. Wikipedia. "Schwenkfelder Church."
30. See post for 19 January 2020 on religious traditions of Minnie Lee. Anabaptist will be discussed in a future post.
31. Belden. 241.
32. Sack. 81–84.
33. Sack. 167.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Sunday, February 9, 2020
James Leisy - Methodist song books
Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The Civil War of the early 1860s disrupted religious practices. Church services continued where men were available to serve as pastors, but revivals and camp meetings required resources that were reallocated to the war effort. [1]
The Holiness movement led by Phoebe Palmer revived large gatherings marked by religious fervor in 1867. [2] During the depression that followed the Panic of 1893, Holiness preachers began emphasizing premillennial connections, and urging people to save themselves by leaving their established churches for new ones that promised ways to survive the coming holocaust. The Methodist Episcopal Church South closed its facilities to them in 1894, and the Northern church disdained them. [3]
Both Methodist churches retreated into a literal interpretation of John Wesley’s method that the way to Salvation was avoiding a list of tabooed activities that included dancing. [4] In the North, church members also followed Palmer’s suggestion that one should do positive things like support missions to immigrants [5] and pagans. Since freed slaves were the target of Northern missionaries after the war, the Southern church did not endorse a proactive program.
At some time before 1894, "75% of the young men in the nation were unchurched." [6] The non-denominational YMCA had become active during the Civil War, and continued to attract young men to their programs. [7] Methodists responded with Epworth Leagues in 1889. [8]
The Leagues were hampered by the prohibition against dancing, which was extended to popular music after the introduction of ragtime that was associated with the foxtrot. E. O. Harbin published a collection of games and stunts for the southern group in 1923. [9] He followed it with the group’s first song collection in 1927. As its title implied, Paradology featured humorous songs set to nineteenth-century popular songs. [10]
Lynn Rohrbough began developing a similar program with friends at Boston University in the 1920s. His parents were such strict Methodists, he didn’t sing until he was in high school and never played a musical instrument. [11] His early publications featured games and circle dances.
He discovered international folk songs at a 1931 Recreation Institute in Michigan where they were taught by Martha Cruickshank Ramsey. [12] Ramsey then was the director of the Cleveland Settlement Music School, [13] and translator of the Czech "Came a Riding." [14] Thereafter, Rohrbough focused on such songs, and began collecting them from foreign-born students at local colleges. Ernest Amy suggested he saw it as missionary effort to combat the lure of Communism. [15]
The two Methodist churches merged in 1939, and the separate Epworth Leagues became the Methodist Youth Fellowship. The emphasis on college campuses was recruiting missionaries. [16] It also sponsored caravans of students who traveled from church to church in the summer to help with Vacation Church schools [17] and perform plays. [18] High school students were encouraged to visit retirement homes and hold car washes to raise money for foreign missions. [19]
Recreation leaders still stressed alternatives to dances and popular music. Right after World War II, Harbin hired Larry Eisenberg as the recreation specialist for the denomination’s Youth Department in Nashville. [20] His primary job was training students and adult counselors in the caravans. [21] He issued a set of folk-dance records [22] and published songbooks through CRS.
More than 40% of Sing It Again’s songs were national or international folk songs like "Came a Riding." 10% were Negro spirituals and 15% were other religious songs. The remaining third of the booklet contained graces, rounds and American songs. [23] Lift Every Voice replaced the nationals songs with more religious ones and some Christmas carols. [24]
After the Civil War, Methodists faced competition from the YMCA. During World War II a number of conservative evangelistic groups developed. Jim Rayburn used club meetings with skits and lively songs to attract high school students to Young Life. [25] His summer camps encouraged attendees to commit themselves to Christ like camp meetings had done in the past. [26]
Youth for Christ became associated with Billy Graham, who had worked for the group before he became an independent evangelist. As mentioned in the post for 15 December 2017, it used popular music to make Christianity fun.
Thomas Bergler argued Methodists could not compete. They had "rejected the idea that a conversion experience should be the foundation of the Christian life" in 1894, but found nothing to replace "a personal encounter with God." Instead, adolescents were expected to lead blameless lives of devotion to others. [27]
By 1952, it was obvious this approach wasn’t working. Eisenberg resigned, [28] and Wallace Chappell was brought from Dallas in 1953. He lasted until 1958. [29] While in Nashville, he published another edition of Sing It Again with CRS, and reissued the folk dance recordings with a new manual. [30]
His version of Sing It Again devoted 48% of its space to international and national songs. Reflecting the global membership of the church, Chappell added more songs from Africa, Asia, and Spanish or Portuguese speaking areas. The number of spirituals and religious songs remained about the same. [31]
The breach between North and South had not disappeared with unification. Bergler noted MYF programs in the 1950s "often stagnated because conservative and liberal influences neutralized each other," [32] and that the earlier emphasis on social justice was "toned down." [33]
In 1957, the Methodist Church pursued both impulses. It hired a former missionary to China who was a friend of Rohrbough’s. Ohio-born Bliss Wiant lasted four years as director of the new Ministry of Music.
Simultaneously, it turned from Rohrbough to publish songbooks edited by Dallas-born James Leisy. The first, Abingdon Song Kit, used a word associated with Rohrbough, [34] but in the Southern tradition of Harbin. It had a section of stunt songs and a number of parodies. Many of the songs were published without music. [35]
Leisy edited a second book in 1959 that was more formal: it had hard covers and tunes for every songs. It used American folk songs, and nineteenth century popular lyrics. It’s international songs were national ones like "The Campbells Are Coming." The only central European song published by Rohrbough was the Czech "Walking at Night." [36]
Neither collection contained "Kumbaya."
Notes on Performers
Harbin worked for the YMCA with the army near Memphis, Tennessee, in World War I. He returned to his home in Louisville, Kentucky, where the Southern Methodist church hired him as director of the Department of Recreation and Culture. He joined the central office of the Methodist’s Epworth youth group in 1919. [37]
Rohrbough’s family moved from West Virginia to Colorado and back. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, Rohrbough went to Boston for graduate work. When he and his wife, Katharine Ferris Rohrbough, returned to Delaware in 1929, [38] they discovered the college had begun sponsoring dances. He turned his barn into an alternative recreation center, while he continued to publish games and songs. [39] The Boston Social-Recreation Union eventually became Cooperative Recreation Service. [40]
Eisenberg was raised in the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. [41] He met Rohrbough in 1936 when he was 22 years old. That inspired him to "make my ‘ministry’ social recreation." [42] He later wrote books on song leading for the YMCA, [43] and spent time in Southern Rhodesia as a missionary. [44]
Chappell trained as a chemical engineer, but his grandfather had been a Southern Methodist minister. [45] He was called to the ministry by reading Lloyd C. Douglas’ novel The Robe. [46] He was sent to Nashville after working in churches in Dallas and Wichita Falls. [47] After he returned to Dallas he directed the Methodist Student Movement in Texas. [48]
Wiant is discussed in the post for 2 October 2022. Leisy is discussed in the posts for 15 December 2019 and 22 December 2019.
End Notes
1. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 23.
2. Palmer’s Holiness Movement was discussed in the post for 7 December 2017. For more on Holiness camp meetings, see Melvin E. Dieter. The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1996 edition.
3. Synan. 39–40.
4. John Wesley’s prohibition against dancing was discussed in post for 30 October 2018.
5. Palmer’s Five Points Mission was mentioned in the posts for 25 November 2017 and 14 July 2019.
6. Jacob Embury Price. Epworth League Workers. New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1894. 18. Cited by J. Warren Smith. "Youth Ministry in American Methodism’s Mission." Methodist History 19:224-230:July 1981. 224.
7. The Intercollegiate YMCA was organized in 1877. "By the 1890’s this dominated religious life on most American campuses, a position unchallenged until the 1914-18 War." [49]
8. Smith. 225.
9. E. O. Harbin. Phunology: A Collection of Tried and Proved Plans for Play, Fellowship, and Profit. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1923.
10. E. O. Harbin. Paradology, Songs of Fun and Fellowship. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1927.
11. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 17 February 1972. Cited by Holcomb. "A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service." PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 14.
12. Holcomb. 40–41. The fifth Social Recreation Institute was held at Waldenwoods Camp from May 25 to May 31. The grounds were owned by the Michigan Council of Religious Education.
13. Sondra Wieland Howe. Women Music Educators in the United States. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2014. 192. Ramsey later worked at the Henry Street Settlement in New York.
14. Holcomb. 41. Ramsey probably heard the song in Cleveland where the Settlement Music School collected neighborhood folk songs. [50]
15. Ernest F. Amy. "Cooperative Recreation Service: A Unique Project." Midwest Folklore 12:202–260:1957. 205–206.
16. Smith. 228.
17. Smith. 229.
18. Thomas E Bergler. The Juvenilization of American Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012. 75.
19. Smith. 229.
20. Larry Eisenberg. "It’s Me, O Lord." Tulsa: Fun Books, 1992. 54.
21. Eisenberg. 56.
22. Abe Books was offering a 1947 edition of the manual that accompanied The World of Fun Series of Records for Folk Games on 29 November 2019. Discogs website listed 78-rpm records issued as M-101 through M-112 that were produced by Eisenberg for the Methodist Church. Most had two songs on a side played by Michael Herman’s Folk Orchestra. Ron Houston said Paul and Gretel Dunsing supervised the recordings. He noted they were "were responsible for introducing most of the German dances that folk dancers in the United States do today." [51] Svend Tollefsen’s name appeared on several of the records listed by Discogs.
23. Methodist Board of Education. Sing It Again!. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The second edition said the first edition was published in 1944. However, in the copy I purchased online, the latest copyright date for an included song was 1947. [52] Eisenberg identified himself as the editor. [53] The cover was light green with four heads: an African-American boy, a Native-American girl, a Spanish girl, and a blond white boy.
24. Larry Eisenberg. Lift Every Voice. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. One song in the collection was copyrighted in 1948. [54]
25. "Young Life History and Vision for the Future." Young Life website. Young Life was mentioned briefly in the post for 17 December 2017. Jeff McSwain, a Young Life leader who was expelled for heresy, said its method became "preach like Wesley and believe like Calvin." That is, they used the meetings and camps to create a friendly atmosphere, then preached original sin and the damnation of individuals. [55] Rayburn was a Presbyterian, [56] and this was simply a modernization of the methods introduced by Finney, mentioned in the posts for 12 August 2017 and 3 September 2017.
26. "Is Young Life a Cult?" Christian Agnostic website. 4 May 2012.
27. Bergler. 73–74.
28. Eisenberg. 62.
29. Notice of services at Plymouth Park Baptist Church. Irving [Texas] Daily News, 20 November 1970. 5.
30. Irving Daily News. Only the manual was listed in library catalogs. [57] The lead author, R. Harold Hipps, was active in the National Recreation and Park Association and moved to Nashville in 1963 to work as Director of Leisure/Recreation Ministries. He retired from the church’s Board of Education in 1985. [58]
WorldCat listed a 1970 package of World of Fun with seven cassette-tape recordings issued by The United Methodist Church.
Amazon offered World of Fun as a manual and three compact discs issued by Melody House on 29 November 2019.
Discogs listed two versions of record M-108, one produced by Larry Eisenberg and one produced by Wally Chappell. Their content was the same.
31. The Methodist Church. Sing it Again. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1958 revised edition. The front cover was teal green with a music staff set vertically to resemble the neck of a guitar. The four heads were on the back cover.
32. Bergler. 79.
33. Bergler. 76.
34. Rohrbough’s first publications were loose-leaf binders, Handy I and Handy II. Each was composed of kits. "Kit Y" of Handy II contained folk songs. [59] Rohrbough reused the Sing it Again title sometime after 1962. It had slightly fewer religious songs than Chappell’s edition; it did have "Kum Ba Yah." [60]
35. James F. Leisy. Abingdon Song Kit. New York: Abingdon Press, 1957.
36. James F. Leisy. Let’s All Sing. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959. "Walking at Night" was collected from Stella Marek Cushing, the daughter of Czech immigrants. She sang, played violin, and gave dance demonstrations in New Jersey. [61] Augustus D. Zanzig first published it in Singing America. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1940.
37. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 60.
38. Holcomb. On childhood, 13–14; on Ohio Wesleyan, 16–17; on Boston University, 19; on move to Delaware, 61.
39. Nancy Oldfield. "Rohrbough 22 Provides Novel Recreation Center." The Ohio Wesleyan Transcript. 14 March 1939. 1, 4.
40. Holcomb. Chapter 3, The Social-Recreation Union.
41. Eisenberg. 44, 48.
42. Eisenberg. 51–52.
43. He and his wife, Helen Eisenberg, wrote four books for the YMCA between 1953 and 1956. How To Lead Group Singing was issued by the Association Press in 1955.
44. Eisenberg. 64–71.
45. Wallace Chappell. The Call of God: Selected Sermons. Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2011. vi.
46. Lloyd C. Douglas. The Robe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.
47. "Wallace Chappell, Longtime Dallas Methodist Minister, Dies at 96." The Dallas Morning News. 11 October 2016.
48. Irving Daily News.
49. David C. Belden. "The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament)." D. Phil Thesis. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976. 38.
50. Martha Ramsey and Duane Ramsey. "The Settlement Music School." Music Supervisors’ Journal 19:21-23, 34:May 1933. 34. Cited by Anna Hamilton. "Survey of Outreach Offerings and Practices in Piano Areas of Community Music Schools Affiliated with Colleges and Universities Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music." PhD dissertation. University of South Carolina, 2012. 22.
51. Ron Houston. "Paul and Gretel Dunsing." Society of Folk Dance Historians website. 2018.
52. "Round-Up Lullaby." Words by Badger Clark. Music by Clifton W. Barnes. Copyrighted 1947 by Ralph Lyman. The poem originally appeared in Sun and Saddle Leather. Boston: Gorham Press, 1915. Page 13 in first edition of Sing It Again!
53. Eisenberg. 62.
54. "Ancient Castle." Japanese folk song arranged by Bliss Wiant; words by Ocutt Sanders. Copyright by Cooperative Recreation Service, 1948. Page 93 in Lift.
55. Jeff McSwain. "Young Life and the Gospel of All-Along Belonging." The Other Journal website. 6 January 2010.
56. Wikipedia. "Young Life."
57. R. Harold Hipps and Wallace Chappell. A World of Fun: Manual of Instructions for World of Fun Records. Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1959.
58. "R. Harold Hipps." The [Nashville] Tennessean. 12 February 2014.
59. Holcomb. 34.
60. Sing it Again. Delaware Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The most recent copyright was for "Silvery Star," an Italian song translated by by Max Exner and arranged by Augustus D. Zanzig in 1962, on page 48. The cover was medium green, with the title in a blue box. Three heads were used on the inside front cover.
61. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 57. The primary source was Dick Oakes. "Stella Marek Cushing." Phantom Ranch website.
The Civil War of the early 1860s disrupted religious practices. Church services continued where men were available to serve as pastors, but revivals and camp meetings required resources that were reallocated to the war effort. [1]
The Holiness movement led by Phoebe Palmer revived large gatherings marked by religious fervor in 1867. [2] During the depression that followed the Panic of 1893, Holiness preachers began emphasizing premillennial connections, and urging people to save themselves by leaving their established churches for new ones that promised ways to survive the coming holocaust. The Methodist Episcopal Church South closed its facilities to them in 1894, and the Northern church disdained them. [3]
Both Methodist churches retreated into a literal interpretation of John Wesley’s method that the way to Salvation was avoiding a list of tabooed activities that included dancing. [4] In the North, church members also followed Palmer’s suggestion that one should do positive things like support missions to immigrants [5] and pagans. Since freed slaves were the target of Northern missionaries after the war, the Southern church did not endorse a proactive program.
At some time before 1894, "75% of the young men in the nation were unchurched." [6] The non-denominational YMCA had become active during the Civil War, and continued to attract young men to their programs. [7] Methodists responded with Epworth Leagues in 1889. [8]
The Leagues were hampered by the prohibition against dancing, which was extended to popular music after the introduction of ragtime that was associated with the foxtrot. E. O. Harbin published a collection of games and stunts for the southern group in 1923. [9] He followed it with the group’s first song collection in 1927. As its title implied, Paradology featured humorous songs set to nineteenth-century popular songs. [10]
Lynn Rohrbough began developing a similar program with friends at Boston University in the 1920s. His parents were such strict Methodists, he didn’t sing until he was in high school and never played a musical instrument. [11] His early publications featured games and circle dances.
He discovered international folk songs at a 1931 Recreation Institute in Michigan where they were taught by Martha Cruickshank Ramsey. [12] Ramsey then was the director of the Cleveland Settlement Music School, [13] and translator of the Czech "Came a Riding." [14] Thereafter, Rohrbough focused on such songs, and began collecting them from foreign-born students at local colleges. Ernest Amy suggested he saw it as missionary effort to combat the lure of Communism. [15]
The two Methodist churches merged in 1939, and the separate Epworth Leagues became the Methodist Youth Fellowship. The emphasis on college campuses was recruiting missionaries. [16] It also sponsored caravans of students who traveled from church to church in the summer to help with Vacation Church schools [17] and perform plays. [18] High school students were encouraged to visit retirement homes and hold car washes to raise money for foreign missions. [19]
Recreation leaders still stressed alternatives to dances and popular music. Right after World War II, Harbin hired Larry Eisenberg as the recreation specialist for the denomination’s Youth Department in Nashville. [20] His primary job was training students and adult counselors in the caravans. [21] He issued a set of folk-dance records [22] and published songbooks through CRS.
More than 40% of Sing It Again’s songs were national or international folk songs like "Came a Riding." 10% were Negro spirituals and 15% were other religious songs. The remaining third of the booklet contained graces, rounds and American songs. [23] Lift Every Voice replaced the nationals songs with more religious ones and some Christmas carols. [24]
After the Civil War, Methodists faced competition from the YMCA. During World War II a number of conservative evangelistic groups developed. Jim Rayburn used club meetings with skits and lively songs to attract high school students to Young Life. [25] His summer camps encouraged attendees to commit themselves to Christ like camp meetings had done in the past. [26]
Youth for Christ became associated with Billy Graham, who had worked for the group before he became an independent evangelist. As mentioned in the post for 15 December 2017, it used popular music to make Christianity fun.
Thomas Bergler argued Methodists could not compete. They had "rejected the idea that a conversion experience should be the foundation of the Christian life" in 1894, but found nothing to replace "a personal encounter with God." Instead, adolescents were expected to lead blameless lives of devotion to others. [27]
By 1952, it was obvious this approach wasn’t working. Eisenberg resigned, [28] and Wallace Chappell was brought from Dallas in 1953. He lasted until 1958. [29] While in Nashville, he published another edition of Sing It Again with CRS, and reissued the folk dance recordings with a new manual. [30]
His version of Sing It Again devoted 48% of its space to international and national songs. Reflecting the global membership of the church, Chappell added more songs from Africa, Asia, and Spanish or Portuguese speaking areas. The number of spirituals and religious songs remained about the same. [31]
The breach between North and South had not disappeared with unification. Bergler noted MYF programs in the 1950s "often stagnated because conservative and liberal influences neutralized each other," [32] and that the earlier emphasis on social justice was "toned down." [33]
In 1957, the Methodist Church pursued both impulses. It hired a former missionary to China who was a friend of Rohrbough’s. Ohio-born Bliss Wiant lasted four years as director of the new Ministry of Music.
Simultaneously, it turned from Rohrbough to publish songbooks edited by Dallas-born James Leisy. The first, Abingdon Song Kit, used a word associated with Rohrbough, [34] but in the Southern tradition of Harbin. It had a section of stunt songs and a number of parodies. Many of the songs were published without music. [35]
Leisy edited a second book in 1959 that was more formal: it had hard covers and tunes for every songs. It used American folk songs, and nineteenth century popular lyrics. It’s international songs were national ones like "The Campbells Are Coming." The only central European song published by Rohrbough was the Czech "Walking at Night." [36]
Neither collection contained "Kumbaya."
Notes on Performers
Harbin worked for the YMCA with the army near Memphis, Tennessee, in World War I. He returned to his home in Louisville, Kentucky, where the Southern Methodist church hired him as director of the Department of Recreation and Culture. He joined the central office of the Methodist’s Epworth youth group in 1919. [37]
Rohrbough’s family moved from West Virginia to Colorado and back. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, Rohrbough went to Boston for graduate work. When he and his wife, Katharine Ferris Rohrbough, returned to Delaware in 1929, [38] they discovered the college had begun sponsoring dances. He turned his barn into an alternative recreation center, while he continued to publish games and songs. [39] The Boston Social-Recreation Union eventually became Cooperative Recreation Service. [40]
Eisenberg was raised in the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. [41] He met Rohrbough in 1936 when he was 22 years old. That inspired him to "make my ‘ministry’ social recreation." [42] He later wrote books on song leading for the YMCA, [43] and spent time in Southern Rhodesia as a missionary. [44]
Chappell trained as a chemical engineer, but his grandfather had been a Southern Methodist minister. [45] He was called to the ministry by reading Lloyd C. Douglas’ novel The Robe. [46] He was sent to Nashville after working in churches in Dallas and Wichita Falls. [47] After he returned to Dallas he directed the Methodist Student Movement in Texas. [48]
Wiant is discussed in the post for 2 October 2022. Leisy is discussed in the posts for 15 December 2019 and 22 December 2019.
End Notes
1. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 23.
2. Palmer’s Holiness Movement was discussed in the post for 7 December 2017. For more on Holiness camp meetings, see Melvin E. Dieter. The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1996 edition.
3. Synan. 39–40.
4. John Wesley’s prohibition against dancing was discussed in post for 30 October 2018.
5. Palmer’s Five Points Mission was mentioned in the posts for 25 November 2017 and 14 July 2019.
6. Jacob Embury Price. Epworth League Workers. New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1894. 18. Cited by J. Warren Smith. "Youth Ministry in American Methodism’s Mission." Methodist History 19:224-230:July 1981. 224.
7. The Intercollegiate YMCA was organized in 1877. "By the 1890’s this dominated religious life on most American campuses, a position unchallenged until the 1914-18 War." [49]
8. Smith. 225.
9. E. O. Harbin. Phunology: A Collection of Tried and Proved Plans for Play, Fellowship, and Profit. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1923.
10. E. O. Harbin. Paradology, Songs of Fun and Fellowship. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1927.
11. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 17 February 1972. Cited by Holcomb. "A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service." PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 14.
12. Holcomb. 40–41. The fifth Social Recreation Institute was held at Waldenwoods Camp from May 25 to May 31. The grounds were owned by the Michigan Council of Religious Education.
13. Sondra Wieland Howe. Women Music Educators in the United States. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2014. 192. Ramsey later worked at the Henry Street Settlement in New York.
14. Holcomb. 41. Ramsey probably heard the song in Cleveland where the Settlement Music School collected neighborhood folk songs. [50]
15. Ernest F. Amy. "Cooperative Recreation Service: A Unique Project." Midwest Folklore 12:202–260:1957. 205–206.
16. Smith. 228.
17. Smith. 229.
18. Thomas E Bergler. The Juvenilization of American Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012. 75.
19. Smith. 229.
20. Larry Eisenberg. "It’s Me, O Lord." Tulsa: Fun Books, 1992. 54.
21. Eisenberg. 56.
22. Abe Books was offering a 1947 edition of the manual that accompanied The World of Fun Series of Records for Folk Games on 29 November 2019. Discogs website listed 78-rpm records issued as M-101 through M-112 that were produced by Eisenberg for the Methodist Church. Most had two songs on a side played by Michael Herman’s Folk Orchestra. Ron Houston said Paul and Gretel Dunsing supervised the recordings. He noted they were "were responsible for introducing most of the German dances that folk dancers in the United States do today." [51] Svend Tollefsen’s name appeared on several of the records listed by Discogs.
23. Methodist Board of Education. Sing It Again!. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The second edition said the first edition was published in 1944. However, in the copy I purchased online, the latest copyright date for an included song was 1947. [52] Eisenberg identified himself as the editor. [53] The cover was light green with four heads: an African-American boy, a Native-American girl, a Spanish girl, and a blond white boy.
24. Larry Eisenberg. Lift Every Voice. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. One song in the collection was copyrighted in 1948. [54]
25. "Young Life History and Vision for the Future." Young Life website. Young Life was mentioned briefly in the post for 17 December 2017. Jeff McSwain, a Young Life leader who was expelled for heresy, said its method became "preach like Wesley and believe like Calvin." That is, they used the meetings and camps to create a friendly atmosphere, then preached original sin and the damnation of individuals. [55] Rayburn was a Presbyterian, [56] and this was simply a modernization of the methods introduced by Finney, mentioned in the posts for 12 August 2017 and 3 September 2017.
26. "Is Young Life a Cult?" Christian Agnostic website. 4 May 2012.
27. Bergler. 73–74.
28. Eisenberg. 62.
29. Notice of services at Plymouth Park Baptist Church. Irving [Texas] Daily News, 20 November 1970. 5.
30. Irving Daily News. Only the manual was listed in library catalogs. [57] The lead author, R. Harold Hipps, was active in the National Recreation and Park Association and moved to Nashville in 1963 to work as Director of Leisure/Recreation Ministries. He retired from the church’s Board of Education in 1985. [58]
WorldCat listed a 1970 package of World of Fun with seven cassette-tape recordings issued by The United Methodist Church.
Amazon offered World of Fun as a manual and three compact discs issued by Melody House on 29 November 2019.
Discogs listed two versions of record M-108, one produced by Larry Eisenberg and one produced by Wally Chappell. Their content was the same.
31. The Methodist Church. Sing it Again. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1958 revised edition. The front cover was teal green with a music staff set vertically to resemble the neck of a guitar. The four heads were on the back cover.
32. Bergler. 79.
33. Bergler. 76.
34. Rohrbough’s first publications were loose-leaf binders, Handy I and Handy II. Each was composed of kits. "Kit Y" of Handy II contained folk songs. [59] Rohrbough reused the Sing it Again title sometime after 1962. It had slightly fewer religious songs than Chappell’s edition; it did have "Kum Ba Yah." [60]
35. James F. Leisy. Abingdon Song Kit. New York: Abingdon Press, 1957.
36. James F. Leisy. Let’s All Sing. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959. "Walking at Night" was collected from Stella Marek Cushing, the daughter of Czech immigrants. She sang, played violin, and gave dance demonstrations in New Jersey. [61] Augustus D. Zanzig first published it in Singing America. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1940.
37. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 60.
38. Holcomb. On childhood, 13–14; on Ohio Wesleyan, 16–17; on Boston University, 19; on move to Delaware, 61.
39. Nancy Oldfield. "Rohrbough 22 Provides Novel Recreation Center." The Ohio Wesleyan Transcript. 14 March 1939. 1, 4.
40. Holcomb. Chapter 3, The Social-Recreation Union.
41. Eisenberg. 44, 48.
42. Eisenberg. 51–52.
43. He and his wife, Helen Eisenberg, wrote four books for the YMCA between 1953 and 1956. How To Lead Group Singing was issued by the Association Press in 1955.
44. Eisenberg. 64–71.
45. Wallace Chappell. The Call of God: Selected Sermons. Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2011. vi.
46. Lloyd C. Douglas. The Robe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.
47. "Wallace Chappell, Longtime Dallas Methodist Minister, Dies at 96." The Dallas Morning News. 11 October 2016.
48. Irving Daily News.
49. David C. Belden. "The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament)." D. Phil Thesis. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976. 38.
50. Martha Ramsey and Duane Ramsey. "The Settlement Music School." Music Supervisors’ Journal 19:21-23, 34:May 1933. 34. Cited by Anna Hamilton. "Survey of Outreach Offerings and Practices in Piano Areas of Community Music Schools Affiliated with Colleges and Universities Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music." PhD dissertation. University of South Carolina, 2012. 22.
51. Ron Houston. "Paul and Gretel Dunsing." Society of Folk Dance Historians website. 2018.
52. "Round-Up Lullaby." Words by Badger Clark. Music by Clifton W. Barnes. Copyrighted 1947 by Ralph Lyman. The poem originally appeared in Sun and Saddle Leather. Boston: Gorham Press, 1915. Page 13 in first edition of Sing It Again!
53. Eisenberg. 62.
54. "Ancient Castle." Japanese folk song arranged by Bliss Wiant; words by Ocutt Sanders. Copyright by Cooperative Recreation Service, 1948. Page 93 in Lift.
55. Jeff McSwain. "Young Life and the Gospel of All-Along Belonging." The Other Journal website. 6 January 2010.
56. Wikipedia. "Young Life."
57. R. Harold Hipps and Wallace Chappell. A World of Fun: Manual of Instructions for World of Fun Records. Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1959.
58. "R. Harold Hipps." The [Nashville] Tennessean. 12 February 2014.
59. Holcomb. 34.
60. Sing it Again. Delaware Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The most recent copyright was for "Silvery Star," an Italian song translated by by Max Exner and arranged by Augustus D. Zanzig in 1962, on page 48. The cover was medium green, with the title in a blue box. Three heads were used on the inside front cover.
61. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 57. The primary source was Dick Oakes. "Stella Marek Cushing." Phantom Ranch website.
Sunday, February 2, 2020
African-American Religion in Pamlico County
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.
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, 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.
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