A Simple Gifts: Revivalist Songs

Our Celebrate America concert on June 30 has spurred some more intriguing discoveries from last week’s blogger, Debbie Roberts.  See below for her take on a couple of the folk tunes we performed, the Shaker tune Followers of the Lamb and an early Christian hymn, Zion’s Walls.  As Debbie notes below, Zion’s Walls is credited to the compiler of the venerable Christian hymnal The Social Harp, so its connection to the great revivalist awakenings that swept America in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries is clear.  It’s the link she makes between the non-Christian Shaker sect and revivalist hymns that is most fascinating, and shows how easily folk-music styles cross divisional lines.  Read on!

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director and conductor

Master Chorus Eastside

♫

A few days ago, while erasing pencil markings in my music, I started to wonder why two of the folk songs that we performed in June are considered revivalist songs.  Is there some kind of connection between the Shaker tune Followers of the Lamb and Aaron Copland’s arrangement of John G. McCurry’s Zion’s Walls (of The Social Harp fame), or does it have more to do with the meaning of revival, which can refer to a new production of an old work, to a restoration, or to a re-awakening?   

Followers of the Lamb is a Shaker song that was first noted in 1847 in the manuscript hymnal of Clarissa Jacobs, New Lebanon, New York.

According to Edward Andrews, in The Gift To Be Simple: Songs, Dances and Rituals of the American Shakers:

 “Songs with the first line repeated three times and followed by a one-line variant are common among the negro and white spirituals. Though Shaker songs [that have a] recurrent fourth line or ‘chorus’ are rare…the one-line repeated songs, indicate revival origin.”

O Brethren ain’t you happy,

O Brethren ain’t you happy,

O Brethren ain’t to happy,

Ye followers of the Lamb

Chorus:

Sing on, dance on, followers of Emanuel,

Sing on, dance on, ye followers of the Lamb.

In keeping with the idea that folk music inspires revision, I found it interesting that the arrangement of Followers of the Lamb that we performed included an optional tambourine part.  According to the publishers note, the Shakers didn’t include instrumental music until 1870, so it’s unlikely that the original version included tambourine, but adding this percussion part makes the tune so very danceable and lively, surely the Shakers would approve!

Judging by the amazing variety and sheer number of YouTube postings for Followers of the Lamb and Zion’s Walls, it appears that folks around the world are still actively reviving these songs.  One of my favorites was recorded in the Student Union of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I remember how hard our chorus worked to sing in Mongolian and it’s clear that these students worked equally hard to sing in English.       

Maybe this is part of the appeal of American folk music – simple tunes and lyrics that can be riffed-on and re-visited by anyone – a simple gift.

Debbie Roberts

Alto, Master Chorus Eastside