Living Voices - Kumbaya

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The ultimate form, if not the progenitor, of Easy Listening music was Muzak. The company began transmitting music over electric lines in the 1920s when radios were complicated technology. [1]

As the mass media improved, Muzak changed its focus to piping music into offices, stores, and elevators. It sold its 15-minute segments of instrumental music in the 1950s as tools that improved productivity. [2] While its repertoire was varied, the company regulated the tempos and the bands of high and low, loud and soft tones to create a soothing sound. [3]

When Muzak stripped popular songs of their lyrics, it was dependent on the melodies. [4] To create interest the arrangers often used unusual combinations of instruments that fit within the company’s guidelines. [5]

By the early 1960s, Muzak began having problems. Popular music no longer relied on melody, but had begun emphasizing rhythm. In addition, other companies began offering competing products for individuals, radio stations, and commercial buyers who wanted something like Muzak, but wanted to choose the songs themselves.

RCA created the Living Strings in 1959. [6] It led to Living Voices, who recorded Tommy Leonetti’s version of "Kumbaya" in 1969. Muzak had eliminated voices. The arranger, Bob Armstrong, only replaced the recitation with an electric guitar solo.

Like Muzak, Armstrong used variations in harmony and instrumentation to create a subtle arrangement that would not bore the listener, while not calling attention to themselves. He began, like Leonetti, with a drum. However his had an irregular beat pattern, while Leonetti’s was even.

With the "crying" verse, Armstrong added a piano or harpsichord that sounded a bit like a xylophone, and added trumpets in a higher key for the "praying" verse. After the guitar solo, the group used the same instrumentation for "hears You." On "singing," the harmony became more complex with a female descant. The final "kumbaya" was in a still higher key, while the last iteration used the drum, "piano," and humming.

The lyrics were not intended to be religious, as they were with Leonetti, but inspirational. It was described as a "song of brotherhood" on an album that featured "The Impossible Dream" and "You Gave Me a Mountain." It claimed listeners "no longer" were "satisfied to hear pretty melodies with meaningless words." [7]

It was the very opposite of Muzak. That company did not sell its recordings, and few of its play lists have been described. [8] I don’t know if it did its own version of "Kumbaya."

Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: men and women
Vocal Director: Bob Armstrong
Instrumental Accompaniment: "piano," trumpets, guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum

Credits
Traditional. P. D.
Arranged and conducted by Bob Armstrong
© 1969, RCA Records, New York

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: emphasis on second syllable of "kumbaya"
Verses: kumbaya, crying, praying, hears You, singing

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: 4-verse song, framed by kumbaya
Verse Repetition Pattern: "kumbaya" the first and last verse"
Ending: repeats "Oh, Lord, kumbaya" once
Unique Features: none
Influences: Tommy Leonetti

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate

Basic Structure: harmony, instrumentation and key combinations different on each iteration

Singing Style: one syllable to one note
Harmony: primarily parallel chords

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: instruments are subservient to the melody, whether sung or the guitar

Ending: hummed last iteration

Notes on Performance
Occasion: recording session
Location: RCA’s Studio B, New York City

Notes on Performers
The Living Voices were organized by Anita Kerr. [9] Her vocal quartet sang on many country music recordings that featured the Nashville Sound. She added four people to the Anita Kerr Singers for the Living Voices. She left Nashville in 1965, [10] and Bob Armstrong took over.

Armstrong was from Buffalo, where he met Jack Paar before World War II. Paar was working for a local radio station. [11] When Paar was hired to host The Tonight Show in 1957, he tapped Armstrong as his arranger and assistant music director. [12]

Paar left NBC in 1962, [13] and Armstrong was hired as an arranger by RCA, [14] which then was owned by NBC. [15] He was living in the Buffalo area when he died in 1994. [16]

Availability
Album: Living Voices. "Kumbaya." Impossible Dream. RCA Camden CAS-2322. 1969.

End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Muzak."
2. Wikipedia, Muzak.

3. Joseph Lanza. Elevator Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004 edition. 240. Much of the enforcement of the sound was done by the engineers after recordings were made.

4. Lanza. 236.
5. Lanza. 230–231.

6. Wikipedia. "Living Strings." It was conceived as "an answer to Stereo Fidelity’s ‘101 Strings’." [17]

7. Liner notes.

8. Ownership of Muzak has changed several times. Lanza interviewed arrangers who had worked for the company. A list of songs recorded by Muzak was beyond his scope.

9. "Camden Is Hallmark of Growing Low-Price Strength of Majors." Billboard. 24 August 1963. 16.

10. Wikipedia. "Anita Kerr." The last recording it listed was The Living Voices Sing the Music from the Motion Picture The Singing Nun. RCA Camden CAS-974. 1966.

11. Bob Armstrong. Obituary. The [New Philadelphia, Ohio] Times-Reporter. 29 April 1994. 5. Armstrong was the WBEN music director. [18] Paar was host of the morning show. [19]

12. Bob Armstrong. Obituary. Billboard. 14 May 1994. 92. José Melis was the music director.

13. Wikipedia. "Tonight Starring Jack Paar."
14. Bob Armstrong. Obituary. The Baltimore Sun. 28 April 1994.
15. Wikipedia. "NBC."

16. "Armstrong Autopsy Results Awaited." The Buffalo [New York] News. 29 April 1994. Armstrong died from injuries sustained when he was attacked by another patient in the Buffalo Veterans Hospital.

17. Billboard, Camden.
18. Billboard, Armstrong.
19. Wikipedia. "Jack Paar"

Roger Neumann - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The cover of John Haag’s Super Pop Rock ’69 reflected the state of popular music that year. It had photographs of two Black men, one white woman, one Puerto Rican man, and four all-white, all-male groups. [1] None were folk-music revival singers, but it did contain two songs from that repertoire: "Greensleeves" and "Kum Ba Yah."

Haag established his publishing business in 1967. He had agreements with the owners of copyrights to reproduce their music, and worked with 15 rack jobbers to distribute his folios. [2] In addition, he produced his own anthologies that brought together the most current songs with full-page photographs of artists.

It is unknown if he commissioned the arrangement of "Kumbaya," or if the arranger sought him out. The company that copyrighted it was a division of Haag’s West Coast Publications. [3]

The immediate stimulant was Tommy Leonetti’s recording, discussed in the post for 12 April 2020. Neumann placed the verses in Leonetti’s ballad order: "crying," "praying," and "singing." However, he did not include the recitation. Instead, he used Leonetti’s "hears you" verse between "praying" and "singing."

Neumann wrote his arrangement in two keys, with no transition between the two. A singer or piano player could perform it as written, or use just one part for all the verses.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano, guitar chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
Arranged and Adapted by Roger Neumann
© Copyright 1969 by Westport Music Corp., Los Angeles, Calif.

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: dropped the final "g"
Verses: kumbaya, cryin’, prayin’, hears you, singin’

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: 4-verse song framed by "kumbaya"
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: Slow

Part 1
Key Signature: two flats
Guitar/Autoharp Chords: B^b E^b F F⁷

Part 2
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Guitar/Autoharp Chords: C F G⁷

Basic Structure: two parts, with strophic repetition within each
Singing Style: one syllable to one note, except for final "Lord"

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano plays the melody in the right hand with chords struck on the first beat of each measure and on the first syllable of "kumbaya."

Ending: Last note held

Audience Perceptions
The Boy Scouts’ Philmont Ranch song book for 1979 included a version of "Kum By Yah" that was attributed to Neuman. It only published words, and did not drop the final "g." Its numbered verses were Neuman’s "crying," "praying," and "singing," plus "laughing" and "come by here." The "Kum Ba Yah" words were printed at the top, implying they were a burden. [4]

Notes on Performers
Neumann was a jazz musician stranded by the changes in musical taste in the middle-1950s. He was the son of a professional musician who settled in Spencer, Iowa, after World War II. Neumann studied music at the local college, then became a music teacher in Guthrie Center, Iowa. [5]

In 1965, when he was 24 years old, he moved to New York to study at the Berklee School of Music. After graduation, the saxophone player moved to Los Angeles where he worked as a session musician and pick-up sideman. To supplement his income, he provided arrangements for other performers. [6]

He told an interviewer the arrangements he created for his own ensemble, the Rather Large Band, began when he "hears music in his head."

"‘A tune, either an original or a standard, will stick, going around and around,’ says Neumann, who estimates that he’s concocted close to 400 charts. ‘I keep hearing it in different ways, and I’ve found I can’t get rid of it unless I write an arrangement. It kind of releases it’." [7]

He died in 2018. While he still was living in Los Angeles, his second home was Eagle County, Colorado, where he taught at the Vail Jazz Goes to School in the summers. A colleague there remembered:

"The kids looked at Roger like a big teddy bear who played the hell out of the saxophone. He was incredible as a musician and an educator. Just the love of this guy … it can’t be measured." [8]

Availability
Book: Roger Neumann. "Kum Ba Yah." In Super Pop Rock ’69. Produced by John L. Haag. Hollywood: West Coast Publications. 36–37.

Book: Roger Neumann. "Kum Ba Yah." In In the Groove. Los Angeles: West Coast Publications. 32–33.

Book: "Kum Ba Yah." In Some Folk. By John L. Haag. West Coast Publications, 1969. [9]

End Notes
1. The photographed artists were: Otis Redding and O. C. Smith; Janis Joplin; José Feliciano; and The Beach Boys, The Grassroots, The Turtles, and Sparky and Our Gang.

2. "W. Coast Publications Gives Graphics a Creative Spirit." Billboard. 2 January 1971. 26. It said the firm was four years old.

3. Entry for Roger Neumann. "American Folk Trilogy." United States Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series. January–June 1972.

4. Boy Scouts of America. The Philmont Rangers 1979 Fieldbook. No publication information.

5. Wikipedia. "Roger Neumann."
6. Wikipedia, Neumann.

7. Zan Stewart. "Music That Swings: Writer-saxophonist Roger Neumann’s acoustic, mainstream jazz-rooted Rather Large Band will appear Tuesday." Los Angeles Times website. 26 March 1993.

8. Tony Gulizia. Quoted by "Remembering Roger Neumann." Vail Jazz website.
9. Amazon entry, which included copies of the cover and table of contents.

Bernard Gasso - Kum Ba Yah (Come By Here)

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Tommy Leonetti’s version of "Kumbaya" was released when the various components of the music industry were adapting to the transition from songs to performances. As mentioned in the posts for 12 April 2020 and 19 April 2020, radio acknowledged what then was called the generation gap with the creation of a separate adult, East Listening format that attracted different advertisers than did the one used by stations which played songs from Billboard’s top forty records.

The music publishing business already had adapted to the folk-music revival with popular collections like the one edited by Albert Gamse that was discussed in the post for 12 January 2020. When Leonetti’s version became popular, Gamse’s publisher repackaged his version under the name Bernard Gasso.

It issued a sheet music edition that attempted to reconstruct the African original for Leonetti’s arrangement. The spoken interlude asked the Lord to "speak to me" because the singer was "lost in a jungle of bewilderment." The deity was imagined as a "voice in the murmur of a breeze." It ended with a request that the Lord "come be here and help me find my way."

Gamse thought "Kum Ba Yah" came from Nigeria. When this was published, the Biafran war for independence was in its second year and footage of starving Igbo was being aired by United States television stations. [1]

The United Kingdom had taken control of the mouth of the Niger River in the 1865 and extended its control north to the area where the river forked. The Islamic Hausa lived north of the river, the Yorùbá to the west, and the Igbo to the east. The Igbo had revolted when they feared their autonomy was threatened by the increased power of groups in the north. [2]

Jazz historians had traced important elements of the music in Cuba and Brazil to the Yorùbá, [3] who had been exported as slaves to those areas after the slave trade with the United States ended. As mentioned in the posts for 8 September 2020 and 29 September 2019, Igbo were the primary group brought to Virginia.

The sheet music cover page alluded to this Afro-Caribbean heritage with a black-and-white woodblock reproduced on a yellow-orange background. The bare-chested African male was beating a large floor drum like the Congas used by Latin music groups in New York. [4]

Gamse probably had no say in the choice of artwork. It may only be a coincidence that he had begun as an arranger and adapter of Cuban music for United States artists.

Except for the interlude, the arrangement was the same as the one published earlier with the personalization of the lyrics to "I" and "me" rather than "someone." It ended with the "I need you" verse.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
"This was originally a Nigerian chant, interpreted in a negro gospel song as ‘Come By Here, Oh Lord’."

Adaptation by Bernard Gasso

© Copyright 1969 by Lewis Music Publishing Co., Inc.

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no specification
Verses: kumbaya, crying, praying, need

Vocabulary
Pronoun: me, I
Term for Deity: Lord

Special Terms: spoken interlude used African imagery ("I’m lost is a jungle of bewilderment")

Basic Form: 5-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: spoken interlude between first and third verses

Notes on Music
Exactly like version discussed in post for 12 January 2020.

Notes on Performers
Bernard Gasso was a pen name used by Albert Gamse, [5] who was discussed in the post for 12 January 2020.

Availability
Sheet Music: Bernard Gasso. "Kum Ba Yah (Come By Here)." New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1969.

End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Nigerian Civil War," and "Biafran Airlift."
2. Wikipedia. "History of Nigeria."

3. Melville Herskovits suggested slaves from Dahomey sired drumming patterns in the New World. [6] The Oye Empire, Dahomey, and Yorùbá were terms that followed one another historically, but covered much the same area in Benin and Nigeria. [7] Marshall Stearns adopted Herskovits’ taxonomy of African-descended groups in the New World [8] in The Story of Jazz in 1956. [9]

4. The cover is reproduced in the copy of "African Iconography of ‘Kumbaya’" posted to Academia.edu.

5. Entry for "Guantanamera." 1968. Library of Congress. Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third series. July-December. 1734. "adaptation & m arr. Bernard Gasso, pseud. of Albert Gamse."

6. Melville J. Herskovits. The Myth of the Negro Past. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958 edition. It first was published in 1941.

7. Paul E. Lovejoy. "The Yoruba Factor in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade." 40-55 in The Yoruba Diaspora. Edited by Toyin Falola and Matt D. Childs. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

8. Herskovits. 16.

9. Marshall Stearns. The Story of Jazz. New York: New American Library, 1958 edition. Chapters 2 and 3.

The Sandpipers - Kumbaya

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The audience for Easy Listening radio in the late 1960s heard a mix of original songs from Broadway musicals and rearrangements of popular songs, often sung by artists who performed in Las Vegas. Herb Alpert marketed records for the genre by artists like Liza Minelli [1] and the Carpenters. [2] Artists weren’t judged by the originality of their songs, but by their renditions.

Alpert formed a recording company with Jerry Moss in 1962. Its first release was credited to Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. With the profits from that venture, A&M signed other artists. [3] Since Albert was a musician, he tended to let artists define themselves, and only intervened when necessary. [4] Moss handled the business side.

The Sandpipers were three men in their early twenties who were performing at a Lake Tahoe night club when they were signed by A&M. The first record by Jim Brady, Mike Piano, and Richard Shoff did not do well, and Alpert apparently asked Tommy LiPluma to take a more active part in producing their records. [5] The first change was their name: they had called themselves the Grads. [6]

In those years, record companies released single records, which were what were used by radio stations. If a song got air play, and hence record sales, the company would spend the money to release an album containing it and other songs. One of those would be released with the album to generate more interest among disc jockeys.

The Sandpipers’ first single under LiPluma was "Guantanamera." It had been introduced by The Weavers in 1963. [7] The trio sang the solos, while a woman joined them on the chorus. LiPluma did the recitation with the woman doing the part sung by Ronnie Gilbert. [8]

It was an immediate hit, rising to #9 on Billboard’s popular music chart and #3 on its Easy Listening one. The album, when it was released later, peaked at #13 on Billboard. [9]

The Sandpipers began touring the same sorts of places as the Heightsmen, mentioned in the post for 27 October 2019. They played the Boise State College homecoming in 1966 [10] and the Air Force Academy in 1967. [11] Unlike some folk groups, they also continued to be booked by casinos, usually in their lounges. [12]

The Guantanamera album set a pattern for the group: their subsequent releases featured one foreign-language song and one well-known folk-revival song, along with a mix of new materials and arrangements of songs made popular by others. They included John Denver’s "For Baby" on their second album, [13] the New Christy Minstrels’ "Today" on their third, [14] and Gordon Lightfoot’s "Softly" on their fourth. [15]

By 1969, LiPima was bored with the sameness at A&M, and left. [16] Allen Stanton produced the Sandpipers’ album that included "Kumbaya." Before the album was released, The Sandpipers toured Europe where they appeared on television in London, Madrid, and Berlin. A&M released "Kumbaya" in each city. [17]

What A&M did not realize was that Europeans would prefer a group version of Leonetti’s "Kumbaya" to his solo one. The record reached the charts in England, [18] and the album was called Kumbaya there [19] and in Germany, [20] rather than The Wonder of You.

Cash Box implied "Kumbaya" would be their single in the United States, [21] but instead "The Wonder of You," the album’s title song, and "Let Go!" were released. The latter made it to #36 on the Easy Listening chart, but the other made no dent. [22]

The Sandpipers’ version was close to that of Leonetti. His recitation fit the treatment they first used with "Guantanamera." Ann Lawton changed the final verse from "hears you" to "needs you," but it was hard to detect the difference. The instrumentation was close, with the addition of sleigh bells to the hand drum in the introduction.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: male recitation [23]

Vocal Group: Jim Brady, Mike Piano, Richard Shoff, and unidentified woman

Instrumental Accompaniment: guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: drums, bells

Credits
A. Lawton. [24]

Good Sam Music [25]

Ann C. Lawton copyrighted "Kumbaya" in April 1969 for Good Sam music. The only thing known about her is she requested the copyright from New Mexico. [26]

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: KUM by yah
Verses: kumbaya, crying, praying, come by here, needs you

Vocabulary
Pronoun: Someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: 3-verse song with spoken interlude between verses 2 and 3

Verse Repetition Pattern: A-x-x-x-x-A-A
Ending: repeat "kumbaya" verse
Unique Features: recitation
Influences: Tommy Leonetti

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate

Basic Structure: changes in key and volume underscore the progression of the lyrics

Singing Style: one syllable to one note, except for final "Lord;" hummed one iteration

Harmony: parallel chords

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: introduction by hand drum and bells; strummed guitar added on "praying"

Influences: Tommy Leonetti

Notes on Performance
When The Sandpipers were appearing on college campuses in the early years, their promotion materials implied they were their own instrumentalists: Brady and Piano on guitar, and Shoff on string bass. They made a point of saying they were self-trained. [27]

By 1969, when "Kumbaya" was recorded, The Sandpipers had a backup group led by Larry White. [28] In Ottawa, before they left for Europe, it included White on piano, bass, drums, and two female backup singers. [29] In Windsor, Ontario, after their return, they had one singer. A Detroit reporter observed they "have a good gimmick going with the secrecy surrounding Pamela Ramcier who stands in the shadows and sings all the high notes for the trio. She hands out guitars and wears a mean mini." [30]

Audience Perceptions
The Sandpipers promoted themselves as the clean-cut alternative to rock and folk-music-revival musicians, in the same way Easy Listening music was poised as the alternative to popular music. [31]

In 1966, Carol Deck noted they "all have rather short hair, dress in suits, sports jackets or maybe a sharp sweater at their casualest, can carry a tune in 11 different languages." She added: "They have a sort of novelty act—they can sing very well and have proven it." [32]

In New York City, after "Kumbaya" was released, Ed Ochs reported the

"Eight -year veterans who have held their ground in the middle of the road by nature of their smooth, rhythmic hymns, the Sandpipers bring to the classy Rainbow Grill youth with the usual youthful cliches distilled out. The result is a fountain of youth as strained and purified as spring water, but cool and refreshing going down." [33]

Notes on Performers
Brady, Piano and Shoff worked together from 1955 [34] to 1960 [35] in the Richard Mitchell Boys Choir in Los Angeles. They began when they were 11-year-old [36] sopranos, [37] and left when their voices changed.

Mitchell had begun the choir for Saint Brendan’s Roman Catholic church in 1934. The choir sang for masses on radio, then was hired by film producers. [38] Then, the group had 33 members, but by the 1950s film studios only were willing to pay for 8 singers. [39]

Originally, the choir was part of the church’s parochial school. [40] In 1954, Mitchell began hiring his own tutors to teach the boys in the morning. The afternoons were spent learning music and rehearsing. [41]

The most important choir member when the three were there was Tony Butala. He sang with the group until 1954, then stayed as an assistant while he finished high school. In 1961, just after the future trio outgrew the school, Butala began making hit records with his group, The Lettermen. [42] In many ways, they were the prototype for The Grads. [43]

Availability
Album: The Sandpipers. "Kumbaya." The Wonder of You. A and M Records. SP 4180. 1969.

YouTube: The Sandpipers. "Kumbaya" Uploaded by Universal Music Group North America on 21 November 2014.

End Notes
1. Minelli recorded for A & M records from 1968 until 1971. [44]

2. The Carpenters recorded for A & M records from 1969 until Karen Carpenter’s death in 1983. [45]

3. Wikipedia. "Herb Alpert." It was actually just Alpert overdubbing himself on trumpet. When demand developed for personal appearances, he had to hire musicians to be the Tijuana Brass.

4. "‘If there was ever the perfect label for a musician at that time, it was A&M,’ Frampton says. ‘They wanted the artists to become themselves’." Peter Frampton was quoted by Mandalit del Barco. "A&M Records: Independent, With Major Appeal." National Public Radio website. 14 November 2012.

5. Wikipedia. "The Sandpipers." The casino was Harrah’s Lake Club.

6. Brady recalled: "They stuck us in a library for two days with a dictionary, looking up names of animals and we had to choose from three. We chose Sandpipers because we disliked it the least." Quoted by Mary Campbell. "Sandpipers Cultivating Smooth Sound." Associated Press published by Gettysburg [Pennsylvania] Times. 26 December 1968. 2.

7. Weavers. "Guantanamera." Reunion At Carnegie Hall. Vanguard VSD 2150. Recorded in March 1963. Pete Seeger recorded it later that year and his version became the more popular. [46] The Weavers were discussed in the post for 3 October 2017.

8. Michael Bourne. Interview with Tommy LiPuma. Billboard. 16 September 1995. Tribute to LiPuma section. On how he produced "Guantanamera," L18, L20.

9. Wikipedia, Sandpipers.

10. Kathy Amos. "‘The Sandpipers’ To Appear In Concert." Boise College Roundup. 13 October 23 1967. 2. They performed in the gymnasium.

11. "Sandpipers Show Slated." [Air Force Academy] Falconews. 26 April 26 1968.

12. They played the lounge in the Golden in 1966. [47] This probably an abbreviated name, since everyone in Reno would know the reference.

13. Sandpipers. "For Baby." The Sandpipers. A&M Records. SP 4125. 1967. Discogs website.

14. Sandpipers. "Today." Misty Roses. A&M Records. SP-4135. December 1967. Discogs website.

15. Sandpipers. "Softly." Softly. A&M Records. SP4147. 1968. Discogs website.

16. LiPuma interview. L20. "It had gotten to the point where I felt I needed a change." A&M recognized the general problem and began signing rock acts in 1969. They included Joe Cocker and the Flying Burrito Brothers. [48]

17. "Sandpipers On Tour." Cash Box. 15 March 1969. 59.

United Kingdom: The Sandpipers. "Kumbaya." A and M Records AMS 744 . 1969. [Discogs website.]

Germany: The Sandpipers. "Kumbaya." A&M Records 210 063. 1969. [Discogs website.]

France: The Sandpipers. "Kumbaya." A&M Records 210 064. 1969. [Discogs website.]

Madrid: The Sandpipers. "Kum-ba-yah." Hispavox H 455. 1969. [Discogs and WorldCat websites.]

18. Wikipedia, Sandpipers.

19. The Sandpipers. "Kumbaya." A&M Records AMLS 935. United Kingdom 1969. [Discogs website.]

20. The Sandpipers. "Kumbayah." A&M Records 212 066. Germany, 1969. [Discogs website.]

21. Cash Box. "The next single, ‘Kum-Ba-Ya’ b/w ‘Lo Mucho to Quiero,’ will be released in all countries they will be visiting within the next week." Perhaps the version was too close to that of Leonetti to pass legal muster, or perhaps A&M’s promotion people felt the U. S. market for the song was then still saturated by Leonetti.

22. Wikipedia, Sandpipers.

23. LiPuma had done the recitation on the recording of "Guantanamera," but when The Sandpipers toured, Mike Piano took the part. Michael Kirby said he had a "soothing knack for recitation." [49] I don’t know if A&M hired someone for the "Kumbaya" recording session, or if Piano took the role.

24. Discogs website for United Kingdom single.
25. Discogs website for United States promotion version of album.

26. United States Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series. January-June 1969. 349.

27. Campbell.

28. Wikipedia, Sandpipers, said White was their musical director from 1964 to 1966. White only said on his website that "after college he toured world-wide, performing with the vocal group ‘The Sandpipers’." He gave no birth date.

29. Bill Fox. "Sandpipers Get Along Just Fine without Teenage Audience Hysteria." Ottawa [Canada] Citizen. 17 February 1969. 28.

30. Detroit [Michigan] Free Press. 7 June 1969. 28. Posted by svjim on 2 March 2019 without the headline or byline.

31. Amos probably was quoting their publicity when she mentioned "their cleancut, well-groomed appearance" in her story published before they performed.

32. Carol Deck. "The Sandpipers Are Following Herb Alpert’s Good Example." [Hollywood]　Beat. 31 December 1966. KRLA, Glendale, California, edition. 10.

33. Ed Ochs. "Sandpipers Come in Soft And Clear at Rainbow Grill." Billboard. 29 November 1969. 22. He observed, they were "supported by a combo and lone femme soprano."

34. Campbell wrote in 1968 they had known each other for "more than 13 years."
35. Deck.
36. Wikipedia, Sandpipers, said all three were born in 1944.
37. Deck.

38. Valerie J. Nelson. "Bob Mitchell dies at 96; silent-movie organist was house musician for Dodgers." Los Angeles Times. 9 July 2009.

39. Warren M. Sherk. "The Robert Mitchell Choirboys." Dimitri Tiomkin website. January 2009; last updated February 2009.

40. Wikipedia. "Robert Mitchell (Organist)."
41. Sherk.
42. Wikipedia. "Tony Butala."

43. Kirby wrote "From the beginning, the Grads were an ‘easy listening’ vocal act following a path set by comparable trio The Lettermen."

44. Discogs website entries for Minelli.
45. Wikipedia. "The Carpenters."

46. Pete Seeger. "Guantanamera." "We Shall Overcome." Columbia CL 2101. Recorded 8 June 1963.

47. Item. Reno [Nevada] Gazette-Journal. 29 January 1966. 68.

48. Patrice Eyries, Dave Edwards, & Mike Callahan. "A&M Album Discography." Both Sides Now Publications website. Last updated 9 August 2001.

49. Michael Jack Kirby. "The Sandpipers: Guantanamera." Way Back Attack website. "The next single. ‘Santo Domingo’ utilized Mike Piano's soothing knack for recitation (as had ‘Guantanamera’)."

Tommy Leonetti - Kum Ba Yah (Come By Here)

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
No musical style lasts forever. Various forms of swing developed in the Depression, and big bands became associated with World War II. Frank Sinatra changed the focus from musicians to the vocalist in 1942. [1] Elvis Presley didn’t modify the vocal-soloist format so much as he altered the instrumental accompaniment and redirected the emphasis from the song to the performance.

The commercial folk music that featured vocal groups like The Kingston Trio [2] lasted from 1958 to 1968. The general musical style continued with solo artists like Judy Collins, John Denver, Donovan, and Cat Stevens who were played by Middle of the Road radio stations that promoted themselves as a melodic alternative to ones playing rock. [3] Their lyrics dealt more with personal problems than political ones.

The pivotal event was the election of Richard Nixon in 1968. His national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, made clear the administration would ignore demonstrations and escalate the war in southeast Asia. The lottery was introduced in December 1969 to counter protests against the draft. The final blow to student activism was dealt by National Guardsmen who killed protestors at Kent State University in May 1970. [4] Earth Day replaced political protests as a vehicle for change. [5]

During this tumultuous period, Tommy Leonetti converted "Kumbaya" from an improvised, a la carte, secular song into a ballad of religious salvation. He reordered the verses into a narrative sequence beginning with crying, then praying. He turned the "come by here" stanza into a spoken interlude asking the Lord to intercede on his behalf. This was followed by an expression of thanks in the singing verse and a repetition of kumbaya.

It was an anomalous recording because it seems to have been a one record contract with no expectations for further work. [6] Leonetti had never had a major hit record. Most recently he had had a secondary, recurring role on the television series Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. [7]

The recording probably was made in mid September, before Leonetti went to Australia to begin hosting a ten-week variety program on a local television station. [8] The record was "being rushed for a holiday release" on 14 December 1968. [9] That was one week after he registered his copyright, [10] and would have been just after his commitment in Sydney ended.

Bill Justis was given credit for the arrangement, [11] and Leonetti’s wife, Cindy Robbins, wrote the spoken part. [12] The sheet music, as so often was the case, named Otto Zucker and Leonetti as the recipients of the royalties. Zucker was a pen name for Justis. [13]

Justis had been an arranger for Sun Records in the 1950s where he worked with artists like Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. [14] He left Sun in 1959, and worked for Mercury Records between 1962 and 1966. Next, he moved to Los Angeles. [15]

In 1968, he probably was working as a free-lance arranger, and maintaining contacts with people in Nashville. [16] The year before, Carl Perkins, a former Sun artist, had written "Daddy Sang Bass." Cash,, another early Sun performer, recorded it in October 1968, [17] but gossip already may have spreading about his planned religious album before he entered the studio. [18]

For those in the music industry, "Daddy Sang Bass" may have signaled the existence of a market for songs that reworked familiar folk-song material. Perkins alluded to the Carter Family’s "Can the Circle Be Unbroken," which James Leisy had noted already was popular among folk-revival musicians in 1966. [19]

"Daddy Sang Bass" entered Billboard’s country charts on 7 December. The next week, Cash Box ran a full-page advertisement for Leonetti’s record that featured a white circle against a wheat field. The headline was "This Time We’ll Listen" and the interlude was reprinted in the circle.

The bottom of the ad proclaimed "The light of love shines out of the ‘dark continent’." It promised the "African folk song [. . .] expresses the needs and hopes of the times." [20]

Performers
Vocal Soloist: Tommy Leonetti
Vocal Group: at least one man and one woman
Vocal Director: Bill Justis

Instrumental Accompaniment: something like a single violin (seems too early for a synthesizer)

Rhythm Accompaniment: drum, perhaps a bongo or snare drum with the wires loosened

Credits
Sheet music
Adaption and Arrangement by Otto Zucker and Tommy Leonetti
Copyright © 1968 by Cintom Music Co., Los Angeles, Calif.

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom by YAH
Verses: kumbaya, cryin’, prayin’, hears you, come by here, singin’

Vocabulary
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: 6-verse song with spoken interlude between verses 3 and 4

Verse Repetition Pattern: kumbaya sung as first and last verses
Ending: final "oh, Lord kumbaya" slower, followed by humming

Unique Features: changed third line of "someone’s crying" verse to "someone needs you"

Notes on Music
Sheet music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: moderately
Key Signature: no sharps or flats; changes to two sharps
Guitar/Autoharp Chords: C F G changed to D G A

Recording
Basic Structure: changes in key and volume underscore the progression of the lyrics

Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"

Solo-Group Dynamics: Leonetti generally blended into the group, except for the recitation when he spoke and the group hummed

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: a single hand drum was used throughout; during the recitation a violin-like instrument was added as a descant

Notes on Performance
Cover art on sheet music: profile of woman’s head with a single rose in front of it. It was a green on white lithograph.

Notes on Audience
"Kum Ba Yah" entered the Billboard Easy Listening chart on 29 December 1968, and slowly rose to fourth place on 1 March 1969. It stayed in the position for a week, then fell to #11 on 22 March 1969. It disappeared in a few more weeks, [21] but was ranked #25 on Billboard’s 1969 year-end list of top Easy Listening singles. [22]

The record penetrated Billboard’s popular music chart on 18 January 1969 in the 93rd position [23] and was # 90 on Cash Box’s list for that week. [24] It peaked at # 54 in Billboard on 8 March [25]

In total, radio stations were actively programming the record for three months from the end of December 1968 until the end of March 1969. Before that, some disc jockeys were telling Billboard they were broadcasting it. [26]

Notes on Performers
Leonetti’s parents were Italian immigrants who settled in Bergen County, New Jersey. [27] He began singing with his sisters with Tony Pastor’s band in 1946. [28] By the middle 1950s, Leonetti was being promoted by mobsters who controlled the juke boxes at the time. [29] He later joined Your Hit Parade’s cast in its final season. [30]

He was raised in the Roman Catholic church, but didn’t consider himself particularly devout. When he was battling cancer in 1977, he told a reporter "I’m not religious, but I do believe that God’s natural laws work." He added:

"I believe that God’s laws work through whatever dogmatic package you want to put them in. They all work for us in the most natural ways and on an impartial basis. The simple premise is what you sow, you reap. And man sows something every minute of the day, by every thought he thinks and, in turn, man reaps either the benefit or the destruction of those thoughts. I think prayer works in exactly that way — you don’t have to get on your knees and pray for 15 minutes. The moment you’ve thought it, you’ve prayed, the thought form is registered and energy is given to it." [31]

Leonetti’s wife also may have been raised as a Catholic. Cynthia Robinaux was raised in southeastern Louisiana. [32] She played minor roles in television before her marriage to Leonetti. [33] While she was in Australia, she published a children’s book, Little Dream, about a spirit waiting to be born as someone’s dream come true. [34]

Justis’ lived in Birmingham, but moved to Memphis where he was sent to a Roman Catholic high school. [35] He may not have been particularly religious: his memorial service was held by a funeral home. [36] However, his daughter was buried as a Baptist. Her obituary indicated his estate had established a music scholarship fund at Belmont College. [37]

His wife remembered "that in church everyone would sing the melody and Justis would hum an arrangement around it." [38]

Availability
Single: Tommy Leonetti. "Kum Ba Yah." Decca 32421. 1968. [39]

YouTube: Tommy Leonetti. "Kumbaya." Uploaded by The Orchard Enterprises on 8 November 2014.

Sheet Music: Otto Zucker and Tommy Leonetti. "Kum Ba Yah (Come By Here)." Miami Beach: Charles Hansen Publication.

End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Frank Sinatra."
2. The Kingston Trio was discussed in the post for 13 October 2019.

3. Wikipedia. "Adult Contemporary (Chart)." At the time, Billboard used the term "Easy Listening" and described it as "middle-of-the-road." [40]

4. Wikipedia. "Opposition to United States Involvement in the Vietnam War."

5. Wikipedia. "Earth Day." Agitation for Earth Day began in 1969, and the first one in this country was held in April 1970, three weeks before the shootings at Kent State in Ohio.

6. A different record company released a single Leonetti made with his stepdaughter on 4 June 1968. Bill Justis was the producer. [41] His wife’s daughter, Kimberly Beck, had small roles in a few films, including Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. [42]

7. Wikipedia. "Tommy Leonetti." He appeared as Corporal Nick Cuccinelli in the 1964–1965 season.

8. Item. The Sydney [Australia] Morning Herald. 28 September 1968. 208. " He arrived this week."

9. "Tommy Leonetti Inked By Decca." Cash Box. 14 December 1968. I6.

10. United States Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third series. July-December 1969. 1817. "Appl. states previous reg 2 Dec 68."

11. Randy Dennis posted a copy of the record label when he uploaded a copy of "Kum Ba Yah" to YouTube on 12 April 2018. The label read "arranged and produced by Bill Justis."

12. Cash Box, Leonetti.

13. The copyright application read: w. Tommy Leonetti, adaptation and arr. William Justiss, a. k. a. Otto Zucker. [43]

14. Wikipedia. "Bill Justis."
15. "Bill Justis." Rockabilly website.

16. The biographies are vague for this period. So far as I could discover on the internet, Justis had no earlier projects with Decca.

17. Johnny Cash. "Daddy Sang Bass." Columbia 4-44689. 1968.

Wikipedia. "Daddy Sang Bass."

18. Cash went to Israel after he married June Carter on 1 March 1968. [44] In January 1969, Columbia issued his The Holy Land [45] that included tapes he made on the trip. [46]

19. James F. Leisy. The Folk Song Abecedary. New York: Bonanza Books, 1966. 52. "It is quite popular today with banjo-flailing city billies." Leisy was discussed in the posts for 15 December 2019, 22 December 2019, and 9 February 2020.

20. Advertisement for "Kum Ba Yah." Cash Box. 14 December 1968. 27. Everything was in capital letters.

21. Billboard website. Adult Contemporary Charts.
22. "Top Easy Listening Singles - 1969." Billboard. 27 December 1969. 17.

23. Len. "New this week in ’69: January 18." 45 Ruminations Per Megabyte website. 19 January 2019.

24. Bob Lovely. "Cash Box Top 100 Singles. Week ending February 1, 1969." Posted to "Weekly Top 10 - February 1, 1969" thread in Music Corner section of Steve Hoffman’s website.

25. "Tommy Leonetti. Chart History. Hot 100." Billboard website.

26. Billboard promoted it the first time the week before the advertisement appeared in Cash Box. Disc jockeys were alerted it "comes out of left field with a beautiful interpretation of this haunting folk ballad, enhanced by moving narration. Could easily prove a surprise winner." [47] Bob Ouelette of Longview, Texas, [48] and Terry Green in Wichita, Kansas, [49] listed it as their "best littlefield pick" on 14 December 1968 and 28 December 1968.

27. "Tommy Leonetti." Find a Grave website. 19 May 2003.

Pam R. "Domenico Rocco Leonetti." Find a Grave website. 16 February 2014. His father.

Pam R. "Domenica Mira Leonetti." Find a Grave website. 16 February 2014. His mother.

28. "Tommy Leonetti, 50, a Singer On ‘Your Hit Parade’ in 1957-58." The New York Times. 18 September 1979. B17.

29. Gus Russo said Leonetti’s agent was John Ambrosia, and that he was "personally handled by the notorious Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio. [50] The Washington Post noted Leonetti "was cleared of any involvement before he was called" by the Senate Labor Rackets Committee. [51]

30. Your Hit Parade began on television in 1953. Russell Arms, Dorothy Collins, Snooky Lanson, and Gisèle MacKenzie sang the top seven songs each week. Viewership fell after the advent of Presley. In 1957, the producers replaced the cast with Alan Copeland, Jill Corey, Virginia Gibson, and Leonetti. It wasn’t enough to save the show and it was cancelled in 1958. [52]

31. Sue Rhodes. "Tommy Leonetti: My Battle with Cancer." The Australian Women’s Weekly. 21 December 1977. 19–21. Quotations, page 21.

32. Estienne Robichaut was one of the original settlers in French Acadia, and Robichauds were among the Cajun migrants to Louisiana. [53] However, she was born in Hammond, Louisiana, [54] which was not a Cajun community. [55]

33. Wikipedia. "Cindy Robbins."

34. Cynthia Leonetti. Little Dream. Roseberry, New South Wales, Australia: Sungravure, 1969. Tanya Murray summarized the plot. [56] Marianne published posts from several people who recalled the importance of the book to them as children. [57]

35. Wikipedia. "Bill Justis."
36. "Justis Services Set Tomorrow." The [Nashville] Tennessean. 18 July 1982. 16.

37. "Karen Leigh Justis." The [Nashville] Tennessean website. 9 February 2017. Belmont College was affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention until 2007. [58]

38. Yvonne Harris Justis. Quoted by "Heritage of Sun Records." 706 Union Avenue website.

39. "Tommy Leonetti – Kum Ba Yah." Discogs website.
40. Billboard. 14 December 2019. 56.

41. Tommy Leonetti With Daughter Kim. "Let’s Take A Walk." Columbia 4-44568. Released 4 June 1968. Source: Discogs website for song. The other side was "All the Brave Young Faces of the Night."

42. Wikipedia. "Kimberly Beck."
43. United States Copyright Office.
44. Wikipedia. "Johnny Cash."
45. Johnny Cash. The Holy Land. Columbia KCS 9726 . 1969.
46. Wikipedia. "The Holy Land (Album)."

47. "Top 60 Pop Spotlight" listing of records predicted to reach the top 60 of the Top 100 Chart." Billboard. 7 December 1968. 64.

48. Item in "Programming Aids." Billboard. 14 December 1968. 40.
49. Item in "Programming Aids." Billboard. 28 December 1968. 22.
50. Gus Russo. The Outfit. New York: Bloomsbury, 2003. 191.

51. "Tommy Leonetti, 50, Band Singer." The Washington Post website. 23 September 1979.

52. Norman Felsenthal. "Your Hit Parade." Museum of Broadcast Communications. Encyclopedia of Television. Edited by Horace Newcomb. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

53. Tim Hebert. "The True Acadian Period: 1604-1755." Acadian-Cajun website.
54. Wikipedia, Cindy Robbins.
55. Wikipedia. "Hammond, Louisiana" and "Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana."
56. Tanya Murray. "Dreams Fulfilled." Suburban Jubilee website. 19 May 2010.

57. Marianne. "Look what I found next to the Funk & Wagnalls." Sunderwrap website. 3 April 2011.

58. Wikipedia. "Belmont University."

African Iconography of Kumbaya

I was scheduled to read a paper on the "African Iconography of ‘Kumbaya’" at the annual meeting of the Western States Folklore Society at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, on 18 April 2020. Needless to say, the meeting was cancelled.

I placed a copy in the Academia.edu website where it should be available to anyone who is interested. It only requires a Facebook account to access material. Below is a copy of the abstract.

"Kumbaya" developed from an African-American religious song, "Come by Here." However, many believed it came from Africa. Publishers used art work with images of Africa to attract attention. A watercolor in a music textbook illustrated a primitive African lifestyle for nine-year-old students. A woodcut on a sheet-music cover showed a Nigerian drummer. In a later edition of the school book, a statue of an African-American man in prayer replaced the watercolor. The pieces of art combined bits of knowledge their creators had assimilated from many sources. Members of the targeted audiences responded because each had a similar reservoir of folklore, book learning, and popular facts. This constituted part of the shared culture associated with "Kumbaya" that contributed to its persistence as a folk song.

The watercolor by Carl Martin appeared in a textbook edited Charles Leonhard that is discussed in the post for 8 July 2018. The revised edition with the photograph of a statue by Ed Wilson is the subject of the entry for 10 August 2018.

The sheet music accompanied a version by Albert Gamse.  It is discussed in the posts for 26 April 2020 and 21 February 2021.  His first version was featured in the post for 12 January 2020. It is preceded by the version by Tommy Leonetti that is discussed 12 April 2020.

Minnie Lee’s Religion

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Minnie Lee was born in 1898, the year after A. B. Crumpler began his Holiness revival in Dunn, North Carolina. She was a child when Gaston Cashwell introduced speaking in tongues in a Dunn warehouse in 1906. [1] By the time she would have become active in a church, other preachers were better known.

Julian Boyd recorded four of her religious songs, but only one hinted at her beliefs. Her version of "You Can Run a Long Time" began:

"When I looked down into holiness,
I saw it true and plain;
I saw that I could not despise his word
And in his love remain." [2]

As mentioned in the post for 22 March 2020, Free Will Baptists did not accept depravity as the human condition. Sin was an act of free will, and falling away from God through sin was their greatest fear. Resisting the impulse to "transgress God’s Law" was "among the highest of virtues." [3]

The use of word "Holiness" as a label for a way of life was introduced by Methodists. A Free Will Baptist hymnal published in New Bern in 1846 contained seven references to it. Four were Methodist, one was by a New Hampshire Baptist, one by a Maryland Baptist, and one may have been locally composed. [4] A later hymnal, published in the Greenville, North Carolina, area just after the Civil War, contained five references to Holiness: one by Charles Wesley, two by Isaac Watts, and two songs from the earlier songbook. [5]

One of the songs that appeared in both hymnals suggested the believer should follow the "way the holy prophets went" to avoid "banishment." It was described as "the King’s high way of holiness." [6] The other republished hymn described the "road that leads to God" as the "way of holiness." [7]

Lee used "Holiness" as a way of life, not as the achieved status promoted by Phoebe Palmer, Crumpler, and Cashwell. Their meaning of "sanctified and holy" occurred in the first verse of Bryan Banks’ version of "I Shall Not Be Moved." [8]

Lee’s first-person Holiness verse was not part of the original song. The rest of the verses were

third-person admonishments to church members who did not live up to standards of conventional morality. The chorus was more solemn. It warned:

"You can run on a long time
With the cover of the world pulled over your face;
You can run a long time;
But your sins are going to find you out."

The only other known version was collected from African Americans in Kentucky in the 1920s by Mary Allen Grissom. The chorus and five of her ten verses were the same as five of Lee’s seven. It did not contain the Holiness verse; its additional stanzas criticized the unseemly behavior of preachers. [9]

The thematic structure was like a sermon Billy Sunday published in 1908 [10] and continued to preach thereafter. [11] "Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out" repeated the warning of God’s omnipotence after each anecdote about a uncommitted church goer.

Before World War I, Sunday only preached in the North and Midwest. After a revival in New York City sponsored by John D. Rockefeller in the spring of 1917, he began speaking in the South. He was in Atlanta in the winter of 1917 and in Louisville in 1923. [12]

Sunday responded to segregation in Atlanta by holding five separate meetings with African Americans. His music director, Home Rodeheaver, recruited choirs from local Black colleges. Sunday’s first meeting was attended by 15,000; the choir had a thousand voices. [13] In subsequent meetings, local African American leaders took over the song leading, and, to quote a local newspaper, "the real music began." [14]

In the first African-American meeting, Sunday said:

"There are two verses of scripture I’d like to blaze all over Atlanta, and everywhere around. They are these:

"‘Be sure your sins will find you out,’ and

"‘If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness’." [15]

Rodeheaver probably did not publish "Your Sins Are Gonna Find You Out." In Atlanta, he used popular spirituals like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and revival standards like "Brighten the Corner." [16] More likely, some souvenir vendor sold a cheap songbook that has not surfaced on the internet.

The success of Sunday’s revival in Atlanta meant any African American could have picked up the song and taken it to North Carolina, where, eventually, Lee heard the localized version. It diffusion path would not have been that different from the one for the other song Lee knew that first was published by Rodeheaver, "I Shall Not Be Moved." [17]

Sunday’s mother had been a Baptist; his wife was a Presbyterian. [18] He reduced sin to a list of tabooed activities like dancing, playing cards, and, especially in the years before Prohibition, drinking. Like Charles Finney, he used humiliation as a way to shame people into repentance. [19]

While Free Will Baptists had the same concerns about alienating God as Sunday, they did not share his desire to unmask their neighbors. That was probably why someone modified the lyrics of "You Can Run" with the introductory Holiness verse, much like someone in the 1840s had altered the New Hampshire Baptist hymn.

Three of Lee’s four religious songs – "You Can Run," "I Shall Not Be Moved," and "Come by Here" – were known by African Americans and Boyd did not transcribe them in dialect. The other described a man who Jesus told to preach the gospel. When he asked the Lord what to say, his "Hebenly Fader" spoke to him:

"Mah hands wuz tight and mah feet wuz bound,
De elements opened and de Lawd come down.
De voice I heard, it sound so sweet;
De elements opened to de soles of me feet." [20]

This ballad has not been reported elsewhere, so its province is unknown. The composer may have been an African American, or a white using a Black persona to express the inexpressible, but in a way that made the abstract concrete. Depending on the response of the listener, the singer could claim it was a joke about "the other" or acknowledge the reality of direct contact with the Holy Spirit.

End Notes
1. Crumpler and Cashwell were discussed in the post for 22 March 2020.

2. Minnie Lee. "You Can Run on a Long Time." Collected by Julian P. Boyd in Alliance, North Carolina, in 1926. The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore. Durham: Duke University Press, 1952. 3:97.

3. T. F. Harrison and J. M. Barfield. History of the Free Will Baptists of North Carolina. Ayden, North Carolina: Free Will Baptist Press, 1898. 95.

4. Enoch Cobb. The Free Will Baptist Hymn Book. Newbern, North Carolina: William G. Hall. 1846.

5. Rufus K. Hearn, Joseph S. Bell, and Jesse Randolph. Zion’s Hymns. Falkland, North Carolina: 1867.

6. John Cennick. "Jesus Is the Way." [21] Cobb, 3, and Hearn, 31. Cennick worked with John Wesley, then left to join George Whitefield in 1740 after the latter returned from the colonies. Cennick later joined the Moravians in London. [22] He wrote this while working for Whitefield. [23]

7. "In pleasure sweet here we do meet." Cobb, 127, and Hearn, 155. It first was published in a New Hampshire Baptist hymnal edited by Joshua Smith in 1803. [24] Smith’s 1791 edition is not on the internet, and since the contents of the different editions varied widely, [25] I don’t know if he published it earlier. Smith’s version did not include the verse about holiness.

8. B. D. Banks. "I Shall Not Be Moved." Collected by Julian P. Boyd in Alliance, North Carolina, in 1926. Brown 3:639. This was discussed in the post for 4 August 2019.

9. "Yo’ Sins Are Gonna Find You Out." Mary Allen Grissom. The Negro Sings a New Song. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1930. Reprinted by Dover Books of New York in 1969. 52–53. In her Forward, Grissom wrote: "most of the songs included in this volume have been taken directly from the Negroes in their present-day worship, and have been selected from those sung in the neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, and certain rural sections in Adair County." Her grandfather was born in Adair County in 1830, [26] and her father was a physician there. [27] She was teaching piano at the Louisville Conservatory of Music in the 1920s. [28]

10. William Ashley Sunday. Life and Labors of Rev. Wm. A. (Billy) Sunday, the Great Modern Evangelist. Decatur, Illinois: Herman, Poole and Company, 1908. 265.

11. Howard Johnston said he preached the sermon in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1914. [29]
12. Angela. "Billy Sunday." Apples of Gold website. 20 May 2009.

13. David W. Wills and Albert J. Raboteau. "African Americans and Billy Sunday in Atlanta (November–December 1917)." Amherst College website. Parts of the local African-American press criticized Black ministers for participating in the Jim Crow meetings. While they have a valid point, the fact the city allowed such large congregations of African Americans without whites being present to monitor them was extraordinary. Sunday and Rodeheaver, who explicitly forbid whites from attending the African-American meetings, successfully exploited the Jim Crow laws to benefit both themselves and their audiences.

14. Ned McIntosh. "Negroes Show Way to Whites in Giving at Sunday Meeting." Atlanta Constitution. 2 December 1917. 1A, 7A. Republished by Wills. Has the quotation.

"Religion Is Obedience to God’s Command, Says Sunday." Atlanta Constitution. 9 December 1917. 16A. Republished by Wills. "Rev. D. P. Johnson, a negro minister, who took Rody’s place at lending the singing and exhorting the sinners, that the meeting closed in a spontaneous outbreak of old-time religion which made the very rafters of the tabernacle shake with fervor." Rody was Rodeheaver.

15. "Billy’s Negro Meeting Great Success." Atlanta Georgian. 20 November 1917. Home edition, 9. Republished by Wills. The newspaper was owned by William Randolph Hurst. [30] The verse was Numbers 32:23: "But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out." [31]

16. Ned McIntosh. "Rody Learns about Singing and Sunday about Emotion When Negroes Hit the Trail." Atlanta Constitution. 20 November 1917. 1, 5. Republished by Wills.

17. "I Shall Not Be Moved" was discussed in the post for 4 August 2019.
18. Atlanta Constitution, Religion Is Obedience.

19. Charles Grandison Finney was discussed in the post for 12 August 2017. Free Will Baptists did not humiliate others; they practiced humility through the ritual foot washing with communion. [32] Lee’s third verse of "I Shall Not Be Moved" was "I love my neighbors." [33]

20. Minnie Lee. "Jesus Says, ‘You Goes and I Goes Wid You’." Collected by Julian P. Boyd in Alliance, North Carolina, in 1926. Brown 3:643.

21. John Cennick. "Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone." Sacred Hymns for the Use of Religious Societies. Bristol, England: Felix Farley, 1743.

22. John Julian. "Cennick, John." In A Dictionary of Hymnology. Edited by John Julian. London: John Murray, 1907 edition. 1:215–216.

23. John Julian. "Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone." In Julian. 1:601.

24. "In the Lord’s word left on record." Joshua Smith and Samuel Sleeper. Divine Hymns. Portland, Maine: Thomas Clark, 1803. 33.

25. David W. Music and Paul Akers Richardson. "I Will Sing the Wondrous Story." Macon: Mercer University Press, June 2008. 138.

26. Rich K. "Dr William T Grissom." Find a Grave website. 19 March 2012.
27. Judy Lynn. "Benjamin Bell Grissom." Find a Grave website. 29 November 2013.

28. "Sings Negro Songs at Chapel Tuesday." The [Lawrence College] Lawrentian. 15 October 1926.

"Mary A. Grissom Presents Recital." Chicago Daily Illini. 14 April 1928. 1.

29. Howard Agnew Johnston. "When Al Saunders Hit the Trail." Sunday School Times. Reprinted by The Pennsylvania School Journal, August 1915, 59–61; and by The Presbyterian of the South, 8 September 1915.

30. Wikipedia. "The Atlanta Georgian."
31. King James version.
32. Harrison. 187.

33. Minnie Lee. "I Shall Not Be Blue." Collected by Julian P. Boyd in Alliance, North Carolina, in 1926. Brown 3:639.