ADD: Blessed Quietness

Subject: Blessed Quietness
From: GUEST,Old Snap
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 03:52 AM

Sorry I seem to have lost my thread, as it were, so I've started a new one! Thanks to all of you who gave me the source of July Wakes, but I haven't had much luck with Blessed Quietness.

I've tracked it back to an American Seventh Day Adventist hymn book of about 1898, but there it has a different tune to the one we're familiar with in England (and, incidentally, an additional second verse). Does anyone know where the English tune came from, and when?

David Robertson

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: Brendy
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 09:51 AM

I wouldn't know where to start looking through this, but if you Click - here - there are a few different snippets of information at the google.com site.

B.

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: Burke
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 05:49 PM

Since some of your request was in the old thread, I'm taking the liberty of repeating it here.

As for "Blessed Quietness", I've tracked it back to an American Seventh Day Adventist song book of about 1898, but that gives a different tune to the one known in England and beautifully recorded by Beggar's Velvet a few years back. Does anyone have any idea where the English version of the tune came from?
[end quote]

I don't have much idea either. Are the versions you found under Brendy's link the same as in the hymnal or what you're looking for? Is there a recording out there on the WEB somewhere that we could listen to?

There's a book used in the UK that seems to just get referred to a Sankey. I don't know the title, but I've been told it's a good source for this type of stuff. Sankey was from the US, but his UK book had lots of good hymns he could not include in his US publications due to copyright restrictions. In those days copyright was not reciprocal so things copyrighted here could be freely copied there. (Don't quote me on any of this, it's just what I've been told)

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: radriano
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 06:44 PM

Here's the way Mudcatter Riggy does it:

Blessed Quietness


Joys are flowing like a river
Since the comforter has come
He abides with us forever
Make the trusting heart his home

Chorus:
Blesses quietness, holy quietness
What assurance in my soul
On the stormy seas, speaking peace to me
How the billows cease to roll

Like the fallin' rain from Heaven
Like the sunlight from the sky
So the Holy Ghost is given
Fallin' on us from on high

See a fruitful field is growing
Blessed fruits of righteousness
And the streams of life are flowing
In the lonely wilderness

What a wonderful salvation
Where we always see His face
What a peaceful habitation
What a quiet resting place

Joys are flowing like a river
Since the comforter has come
He abides with us forever
Make the trusting heart his home

Richard

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 07 Dec 00 - 01:10 AM

Lucy Simpson leads it on Folk-Legacy's "Sharon Mountain Harmony" - cassette with booklet, C-86 - along with a lot of other fine gospel songs.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: Haruo
Date: 07 Dec 00 - 10:10 PM

Is the tune you're familiar with the one in The Cyber Hymnal or not?

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: GUEST,Old Snap
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 03:56 AM

Thanks again to everyone who has tried to help, but I still can't find the source of the tune normally sung in England. The tune on the Cyber Hymnal is the American one which occurs in the 1898 hymnbook. I believe the tune recorded by Lucy Simpson is the English one, since Beggar's Velvet credit her on the sleeve notes to their version, so thanks for that lead, Sandy. But does anyone know where she got it from or who wrote it?

David

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 07:46 PM

Thakn heaven someone has posted the words, Micca has been driving me batty with this for a week!

LTS

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 07:30 PM

Hey Liz- It is in DigiTrad----maybe he's driving you batty for some other reason.

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: Haruo
Date: 17 Dec 00 - 05:54 PM

So Liz, is the tune (uncredited as to authorship, alas) in the Digitrad the one you're used to singing the text to in England?

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: Snuffy
Date: 17 Dec 00 - 06:22 PM

That's the tune I know in England - we sang it at Bedworth folk fest a couple of weeks ago, but of course a L - O - T slower than the DT tempo.

Wassail! V

Subject: RE: Help: Blessed Quietness
From: Haruo
Date: 17 Dec 00 - 08:54 PM

Sorry for confusing the two of you ;-)

Subject: RE: ADD: Blessed Quietness
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 08:21 PM

BLESSED QUIETNESS
(words rewritten by Jerry Praver, 2013)

1. Joys are flowing like a river since new harmony has come
It abides with us forever, makes the trusting heart its home

CHORUS
Blessed quiet (quietness) ness, holy quiet (quietness) ness,
What assurance in my soul
On the stormy (stormy) sea, speaking peace to (peace to) me,
How the billows cease to roll.

2. Like the gentle rain from heaven, like the sunlight from the sky;
Understanding will be given, falling on us by and by.

3. See the fruitful field is growing, blessed fruits of happiness
And the streams of life are flowing in the lonely wilderness

4. What a wondrous contemplation, which we thoroughly embrace
What a peaceful habitation, what a quiet resting place


Bev sings melody starting on Bb, Jerry sings harmony starting on F. Arrangement stolen from Beggars Velvet, an outstanding UK group made up of Cathy & Charley Yarvvood and Dave Webber & Anni Fentiman. Beggar's Velvet stopped performing in 1993.
Beggars' Velvet version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohu4JFcQVlc

was written by Manie P. Ferguson (words) and William S. Marshall (music).

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Here's a more traditional arrangement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr5nW0T07ww

Subject: RE: ADD: Blessed Quietness
From: GUEST,Daniel Hersh
Date: 20 May 24 - 07:54 PM

If anyone (20+ years later!) is still trying to find out where Lucy Simpson got the tune she sang, here's what she wrote in the booklet of the album:

"Blessed Quietness" was collected for me by my subconscious in the summer of 1975. I was attending my first Folk Music Week at Pinewoods Camp in Plymouth Massachusetts, and had reached the fifth day of frantic feasting on classes, workshops, concerts, all-night singing, and non-stop tunes drifting through the woods as musicians practiced, swapped, and jammed. I had hardly slept a wink and was definitely on the verge of collapse.

I tried to nap in my cabin, but was over-stimulated and unable to relax. Reaching for something to read (I had brought only songbooks), I started to learn "Blessed Quietness." I didn't notice until the next day how exactly appropriate it was to the situation. It has been my favorite hymn since then. The hymnal was The Golden Trumpet, published by the Christi Witness Co. of Chicago. No date of publication is given, but the song copyrights range from 1882 to 1906.
Mrs. Manie Payne Ferguson is cited as writer of the words, and William J. Kirkpatrick is credited for the music. I've seen it in other hymn books with another (far less satisfying) tune. (L.S.)

The full LP liner notes and booklet are at https://folkways-media.si.edu/docs/folkways/artwork/FLG00086-LP.pdf .

Subject: RE: ADD: Blessed Quietness
From: GUEST,Daniel Hersh
Date: 20 May 24 - 08:16 PM

And here's the sheet music that has that tune: https://hymnary.org/hymn/SLP41897/139

---

html links repaired ---mudelf

Subject: RE: ADD: Blessed Quietness
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 May 24 - 09:11 PM

Nice to see you here, Daniel.

Isn't that the same as this melody from the Amidons?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITPLPEHUzmA

Oh, yes, here's Lucy singing it on Sharon Mountain Harmony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxqoIbGUrg8

Subject: RE: ADD: Blessed Quietness
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 May 24 - 07:42 PM

A wee postscript to what Joe said in 2020 about Beggar’s Velvet: it’s true that they no longer perform as a quartet, but Dave Webber and Annie Fentiman are still out there as a duo.

Subject: RE: ADD: Blessed Quietness
From: GUEST,Daniel Hersh
Date: 06 Jun 24 - 04:03 AM

Hi, Joe! Yes, same melody. Amidons give Lucy Simpson as their source in their YouTube description.