As I said in the preceding playlist Libby Holman's and Josh White's "Fare Thee Well" (SEE: Joop's Musical Flowers: Dink's Song (1904) / Fare Thee Well (1942), IS NOTTO BE CONFUSED with Georgia White's "Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well" in this playlist, although the label says the composer is ALSTON. And that name also is on the label of Libby Holman's and Josh White's "Fare Thee Well".
(o) Georgia White (1937) (as "Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well")
But Georgia White's "Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well", in his turn, has a striking resemblance with "I'll See You In The Spring, When The Birds Begin To Sing"
(which also has the "Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well"-chorus.
Recorded by the Memphis Jug Band on October 20, 1927 (Victor 21066)
Already in November 1916 Marie Cahill recorded a song titled "Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well", which, apart from the "Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well" frase, is a different song, composed by John Queen and Walter Wilson.
John A. Lomax tells how he found the song in 1904, when he made his first field trip for Harvard University: "I found Dink scrubbing her man's clothes in the shade of their tent across the Brazos river from the A. & M. College in Texas. Professor James C. Nagle of the College faculty was the supervising engineer of a levee-building company and he had invited me to come along and bring my Edison recording machine. The Negroes were trained levee workers from the Mississippi River.
'Dink knows all the songs,' said her companion. But I did not find her helpful until I walked a mile to a farm commissary and bought her a pint of gin. As she drank the gin, the sounds from her scrubbing board increased in intensity and in volume. She worked as she talked: 'That little boy there ain't got no daddy an' he ain't got no name. I comes from Mississippi and we never saw these levee niggers, till us got here. I brung along my little boy. My man drives a four-wheel scraper down there where you see the dust risin'. I keeps his tent, cooks his vittles and washes his clothes. Some day Ize goin' to wrap up his wet breeches and shirts, roll 'em up in a knot, put 'em in the middle of the bed, and tuck down the covers right nice. Then I'm going on up the river where I belong.' She sipped her gin and sang and drank until the bottle was empty.
The original Edison record of 'Dink's Song' was broken long ago, but not until all the Lomax family had learned the tune. The one-line refrain, as Dink sang it in her soft lovely voice, gave the effect of a sobbing woman, deserted by her man. Dink's tune is really lost; what is left is only a shadow of the tender, tragic beauty of what she sang in the sordid, bleak surroundings of a Brazos Bottom levee camp.
Lomax continues to say: "The lyrics and music of Dink's Song' are to me uniquely beautiful. Professor Kittredge praised them without stint. Carl Sandburg compares them to the best fragments of Sappho. As you might expect, Carl prefers Dink to Sappho.
"When I went to find her in Yazoo, Mississippi, some years later, her women friends, pointing to a nearby graveyard, told me, Dink's done planted up there.' I could find no trace of her little son who 'didn't have no name.'
"Dink's Song" was published in 1934 in John and Alan Lomax's "American Ballads and Folk Songs"
The first artist that recorded "Dink's Song" (as "Fare Thee Well") was Libby Holman with guitar accompaniment by Josh White. Strangely she begins with the last chorus (see lyrics above)
(o) Libby Holman (1942) (as "Fare Thee Well")
Recorded on March 23, 1942 in New York
Libby Holman's and Josh White's "Fare Thee Well" IS NOTTO BE CONFUSED with Georgia White's "Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well", recorded in 1937 on the Decca-label, although the label says the composer is ALSTON. And that name also is on the label of Libby Holman's and Josh White's "Fare Thee Well".
The version by Georgia White has different lyrics and the melody is also different.
SEE NEXT LINK for Georgia White's "Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well".
(c) Barbara Dane (1959) ("Dink's Blues") Barbara Dane, vocal; Frank Hamilton, guitar; Bill Lee, bass
Recorded on location at the Newport Folk Festival, Rhode Island on July 11-12, 1959
"Oh Happy Day" is a 1967 gospel music arrangement of an 18th century hymn.
Recorded by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, it became an international hit in 1969, reaching No. 4 in the US and No. 2 in the UK pop charts.
In Germany and The Netherlands "Oh Happy Day" topped the charts for 2 weeks.
It has since become a gospel music standard.
Origins
Edwin Hawkins’ funk style arrangement of the hymn "Happy Day" has a long pedigree: It began as a hymn written in the mid-18th century ("O happy day, that fixed my choice") by English clergyman Philip Doddridge (based on Acts 8:35).
In 1854 it was set to a melody by Edward F. Rimbault, who also added a chorus, and was commonly used for baptismal or confirmation ceremonies in the UK and USA.
Some sources claim it was set to an earlier melody ("Festus") by J. A. Freylinghausen.
This tune was indeed written in 1714, but the connection between Doddridge lyrics and Freylinghausen's FESTUS-tune only dates from the middle of the twentieth century, as in Congregational Praise (1951).
The Doddridge/Rimbault song was first recorded by the Trinity Choir
A song which suggests that we can be happy when we do what Jesus tells us to do that we might have salvation from sin is "O Happy Day" (#428 in "Hymns for Worship Revised", and #592 in "Sacred Selections for the Church").
The text was written by Philip Doddridge (1702-1751). His hymns were produced in the 1730′s and 1740′s, with perhaps a few around 1750, but very few were published during his lifetime, having been circulated only in manuscript. However, in 1755, four years after his death, a collection of them was made and printed by his friend Job Orton, and "O Happy Day," under the heading "Rejoicing in our Covenant engagements to God (2 Chron. 15:15)," was first included in it.
The refrain ("Oh Happy Day, Oh Happy Day, when Jesus washed my sins away! He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day".) which was not part of Doddridge's hymn above here, but was added later in 1854, seems to have been adapted from a secular song, "Happy Land, Whate'er My Fate In Life May Be," that was either written or arranged by Rimbault.
Edward Francis Rimbault was born in London, England, on June 13, 1816. After studying first with his organist and composer father Stephen Francis Rimbault, he was a student of Samuel S. Wesley and William Crotch, becoming a noted organist in London. A highly respected music scholar, he was editor of the Motet Society and founded the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1840.
Universities at Harvard, Stockholm, and Gottingen all awarded Rimbault honorary doctorate degrees, and he became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1842.
This music first appeared in The Wesleyan Sacred Harp published at Boston, MA, in 1854 by William McDonald. There it was set to "Jesus, My All To Heaven Has Gone" by John Cennick, with Doddridge’s text given as an alternate. (Second Hymn)
The 20th century saw its adaptation from 3/4 to 4/4 time and this new arrangement by Edwin Hawkins, which contains only the repeated Rimbault refrain ("Oh Happy Day, Oh Happy Day, when Jesus washed my sins away! He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day").
All of the original verses being omitted.
The Edwin Hawkins Singers began as The Northern California State Youth Choir of the Church of God in Christ, Inc. and was founded in 1967 by Hawkins and Betty Watson. Members were aged 17–25. As was common in gospel circles they produced and distributed their own LP: " Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord" , recorded live in church.
"Oh, Happy Day", featuring Dorothy Morrison as lead vocalist, was picked up by a local DJ, KSAN's Bob Mcclay, and subsequently released commercially. Aretha Franklin had already brought strong gospel stylings to the pop charts with songs such as "Think" (1968), but a hymn had never “crossed over” before. "Oh Happy Day" soared into the US Top 5, winning a Grammy and massive sales worldwide.
Personnel
Dorothy Combs Morrison - Lead Vocal
Edwin Hawkins - Choir Director, Arranger, Piano
Betty Watson - Co-Director, Soprano
Choir Members - Walter Hawkins, Tramaine Hawkins, Elaine Kelly, Margarette Branch, Rueben Franklin, Donald Cashmere, Ruth Lyons and 40 others.
Drums, bass and percussion - unconfirmed
Produced by La Mont Bench.
Recorded live 1967, Ephesian Church of God in Christ, Berkeley, California.
Independently released on the LP "Let us go into the house of the Lord" (1968) (Century Records 31016)
Listen here to The Northern California State Youth Choir :
"Oh Happy Day" was commercially released as a 7" single on Pavilion Records April 1969.
On the label it says here: The Edwin Hawkins Singers (formerly Northern California State Youth Choir).
Other versions
In addition to the Hawkins Singers, the song has been recorded by a number of other artists:
-Jack Jones recorded the song on his 1969 album A Jack Jones Christmas.
-Dee Felice Trio included the song on their 1969 album In Heat.
-Dorothy Morrison sang it in September 1969 at the Big Sur Festival with Joan Baez.
"Oh Happy Day" – Dorothy Morrison and the Combs Sisters with Baez
(opens with Baez rehearsing same number with Morrison and in the background Stephen Stills and John Sebastian)
-Glen Campbell recorded the song for a primarily country/MOR audience, reaching the top 40 on three different Billboard charts in 1970.
-Brook Benton 1970 on album "The Gospel Truth" (Cotillion Label)
-Joan Baez included the song on her 1971 album Carry It On, and later her 1976 live album From Every Stage.
-Brooklyn Christian pop band Sonseed included a version on their 1981 album First Fruit.
-Aretha Franklin included a live recording on her 1987 gospel album One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism in which she sings the song in a duet with Mavis Staples.
-Club Nouveau included the song on their 1992 album A New Beginning. The single charted at No. 45 on the US R&B Chart.
-Ryan Toby at the age of 15, performed the song in the 1993 motion picture Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Singing in the choir is a 18 year old Lauryn Hill.
-In 1995, The Sisters of Glory, a gospel group that featured Thelma Houston, CeCe Peniston, Phoebe Snow, Lois Walden, and Albertina Walker, included the composition on their album Good News in Hard Times released on Warner Bros.
-BeBe Winans recorded the song on his 1997 self-titled solo debut album BeBe Winans.
-It is the closing track on the live album Royal Albert Hall October 10, 1997, by Spiritualized.
-Ray Charles live in 2003. This was recorded for a PBS Special entitled: Ray Charles - Gospel Christmas with the Voices of Jubilation.
-Aaron Neville recorded the song for his 2005 album Gospel Roots.
-Queen Latifah & Jubilation Choir perform the song on the 2009 album "Oh Happy Day: An All Star Music Celebration".
-Greg Buchanan recorded an instrumental harp rendition of the song on his album The Lighter Side.
-Elvis Presley recorded the song as well. It appears on Disc 2 of the collection Peace In The Valley: The Complete Gospel Recordings.
And here's Elvis from "That's The Way It Is" (1970)
Las Vegas International Hotel
-Skeeter Davis recorded the song ca 1975 during a (re)recording session for K-Tel in Nashville.
-An 8 minute live version by Nina Simone was included in the posthumous release The Definitive Rarities Collection – 50 Classic Cuts.
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is a historic American Negro spiritual written by Wallis Willis, a Choctaw freedman in the old Indian Territory in what is now Choctaw County, near the County seat of Hugo, Oklahoma sometime before 1862. He was inspired by the Red River, which reminded him of the Jordan River and of the Prophet Elijah's being taken to heaven by a chariot (2 Kings 2:11). Many sources claim that this song and "Steal Away" (also composed by Willis) had lyrics that referred to the Underground Railroad, the resistance movement that helped slaves escape from the South to the North and Canada. Alexander Reid, a minister at the Old Spencer Academy, Choctaw boarding school, heard Willis singing these two songs and transcribed the words and melodies. He sent the music to the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
It was first printed in Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University (1872)
Harry Thacker Burleigh's arrangement of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was originally published for solo voice in 1917 following the success of Deep River.
Burleigh 's setting was published in 1920 for mixed chorus by G. Ricordi
& Co., New York.
Antonín Dvořák, Burleigh's professor at the
National Conservatory of Music, used the tune of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot in his Symphony No. 9, "From the New World."
Burleigh had learned many of the old plantation songs from the singing of his blind maternal grandfather, Hamilton Waters, who in 1832 bought his freedom from slavery on a Maryland plantation. Waters became the town crier and lamplighter for Erie, Pennsylvania, and as a young boy Burleigh helped guide him along his route. The family was Episcopalian and young Harry sang in the men and boys choir. Burleigh also "remembered his Mother's singing after chores and how he and his [step] father and grandfather all harmonized while helping her." At various times in his long life — he died in 1949 at age 81 — Burleigh described his student days with Dvorak. Taken together, Burleigh's writings provide insight into Dvorak's ongoing Negro music education while he was composing what would become the Symphony "From the New World": "Dvorak used to get tired during the day and I would sing to him after supper ... I gave him what I knew of Negro songs – no one called them spirituals then – and he wrote some of my tunes (my people's music) into the New World Symphony."
Dvorak began working on various "American" themes in mid-December 1892, filling eleven pages of a sketchbook. Burleigh wrote: "Part of this old 'spiritual' ['Swing Low Sweet Chariot'] will be found in the second theme of the first movement ... given out by the flute. Dvorak saturated himself with the spirit of these old tunes and then invented his own themes. There is a subsidiary theme in G minor in the first movement with a flatted seventh [a characteristic passed on to jazz, known as a "blue note"] and I feel sure the composer caught this peculiarity of most of the slave songs from some that I sang to him; for he used to stop me and ask if that was the way the slaves sang."
The song enjoyed a resurgence during the 1960s Civil Rights struggle and the folk revival; it was performed by a number of artists. Joan Baez had sung the song in 1968 it at the Newport Folk Festival. But perhaps her most famous performance during this period was at the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival.
Watch Joan here:
Eric Clapton recorded the most well-known version in 1975, possibly influenced by Laurel Aitken's version (SEE ABOVE)
"Swing LOW Sweet Chariot" is NOT to be confused with "Swing DOWN Sweet Chariot" as recorded by Elvis Presley in 1960, which has a different melody and different lyrics too.
Elvis recorded "Swing Down Sweet Chariot" on October 31, 1960, at RCA's Nashville studios. Vocal backing was by the Jordanaires.
Elvis recorded another version in 1968 (October 14 or 24) at United Recorders in Hollywood for his film The Trouble With Girls.
Listen here:
Elvis's "Swing Down (Sweet) Chariot" might have been originally recorded by The Golden Gate Quartet, who recorded "Swing Down Chariot" in June 1946, which however starts with the common "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" arrangement, as recorded by the Fisk Jubilee Singers and after about 1 minute turns into a "swing"version with adapted lyrics.
Listen here (the "Swing" version starts at 1 min and 2 sec in the YT below)
The Jordanaires distilled the "swing" part from the version of the Golde Gate Quartet and expanded it into a complete song
(c) The Jordanaires (1950) (as "Swing Down Sweet Chariot")
In 1961 The Staple Singers recorded an album for the Vee Jay-label, which contained both Chariot-versions: The uptempo "Swing Down Chariot" and the slow "Swing Slow Sweet Chariot".
Beyonce also sang the Golden Gate Quartet variation in the 2003 movie "Fighting Temptations".
