Martin Luther King and I share the same birth day… I don’t mean the day we celebrate his birthday, but the actual birth date of January 15. Only more recently have I come to appreciate what an amazing man he was… for those of you of a more metaphysical bent, from pretty reliable sources I’ve understood him to be an initiate, which gives even more emphasis to the gifts he gave. While I’m not completely in agreement with all of his philosophies nor all of his practices, I respect his depth of thought, his vast attempts to advance civil rights through non-violent resistance, his holding close to his Christian beliefs.
When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument. ~Martin Luther King Jr. ~
Yesterday I had a mini-concert to present for an Assisted Living group, for whom I perform monthly. I decided to dedicate my music to ML King by finding all the harp arrangements I could of spirituals, a couple of gospel hymns, and some excerpts from Roger Miller’s musical, Big River.
Roger Miller you ask? Really? The guy who wrote “King of the Road” wrote the lyrics and music for an on- and off-Broadway musical? Yup, and a really good one at that, garnering many Tony awards including for Best Score. 🙂
The program was a lot of fun to present – on my white DeLight lever harp – and felt to be a success, since most people didn’t know the history of the many tunes I presented, nor in particular did they know Big River.
I offered “Let Us Break Bread Together” which for all of our more current practices is a great hymn for communion in many different church services… yet it’s also a “signal song” of Virginia slaves composed and used during the 18th century to convene their secret meetings. “Kum-Ba-Yah” (Come by here), almost certainly originated among African-Americans in southeastern U.S. I loved learning the history of “Were You There,” which I heard so passionately sung when I was in junior high. Did you know it was likely composed by African-American slaves in the 19th century and that it was the *first spiritual* to be included in any American hymnal? It was a personal favorite of Mahatma Gandhi!
The river runs through many spirituals, providing symbolic consolation (think River Jordan), as well as occasionally the directions to following the Underground Railroad and possible freedom. I found a fine arrangement for harp of “Down by the Riverside” by Louise Trotter. (I love downloading pdf music right from online sources like Sylvia Woods’ website!) As well, occasionally I come up with my own nice arrangement, this time of “Shall We Gather at the River.”
This set offered me the perfect transition to some of my favorite selections, as well as lever-harp-accessible pieces, from the musical Big River, based on the book Huckleberry Finn. I got to see this performed live at the Sacramento Music Circus – impressive musical, for sure! I played and sang these as the words really have special meaning. “River in the Rain” describes the beauty (& pain) of the river as Huck and Jim are attempting to get Jim up the river and out of slavery. “Waitin’ for the Light to Shine” is an all-time favorite of mine, as it describes so many times in my own life like Huck’s: he sings of the confines of his life & his wish that he will find meaning in life, “I have lived in the darkness for so long, I’m waitin’ for the light to shine.” “The Crossing” and “Worlds Apart” rounded out this segment. Key lines from the latter: “I see the same skies through brown eyes that you see through blue, but we’re worlds apart, worlds apart…. I see the friendship in your eyes that you see in mine, but we’re worlds apart, worlds apart….Together, but worlds apart.”
Many people associate “Lord I Want to Be a Christian” and “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” with their hymnbooks or the folk song revival of the 60s or Louis Armstrong or Johnny Cash singing. Yet “Lord…” is likely composed in the 1750s by African-American slaves exposed to the teaching of evangelist Samuel Davies. “Just a Closer Walk…” dates back to southern African-American churches of the 1800s. “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” often considered an Underground Railroad directions song, is likely not; more likely, researchers now believe it was written *after* the Civil War to tell the story of the Underground Railroad.
I really enjoyed the spiritual medley Sylvia Woods created with “Motherless Child” and “Wayfaring Stranger”…. thinking of including it on my upcoming CD. The truth behind “Motherless Child” is that it dates back to when children were literally sold away from their slave parents. That got me right in the heart when I read that. And it also has a figurative side of longing for one’s true home in Heaven. I closed the mini-concert with my arrangement in pentatonic Ab of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Amazing Grace.” Anyone who knows the true story of the composer of “Amazing Grace” knows the depth of the feeling in this song. Its composer, John Newton, was involved in the Atlantic slave trade in the mid 1700s. Once, his ship was in such a severe storm that Newton called out for God’s mercy – a moment that marked his spiritual conversion. A few years later he ended his involvement in the slave trade for good and began studying Christian theology. It is estimated that “Amazing Grace” is performed about 10 million times annually…. that’s quite a powerful, energetic momentum that this piece has. I probably play it a few hundred times per year myself.