Peace in the valley

Subject: Peace in the valley
From: leeneia
Date: 05 Jul 06 - 12:42 PM

Several weeks ago I posted a thread about playing the blues on the fretted dulcimer tuned in DAA. It's fun to do, but I have a hard time thinking of songs. Well, I've worked up another one: Peace in the Valley. I learned this song from Pat Boone record I had as a kid. I see in the DT that Johnny Cash recorded it. Hard to picture!

It's a good song. You can get the words from the DT and the tune from here:

http://www.midistudio.com/midi/DC_HR.htm

although I would ditch the honky-tonk effects, if I were you.

That MIDI has a high note about 3/4 of the way through which is different from what I learned, but I don't have time to micromanage today.

Here's my entire list of dulcimer blues songs:
Buddy can you spare a dime,
Colorado Trail,
I Gotta Mule and her Name is Sal,
My Gal Sal,
Lazybones,
Peace in the Valley,
Since I met you Baby.

As you can see, these are bluesy but not too bluesy. Further suggestions are always welcome.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jul 06 - 01:03 PM

Peace in the Valley done by Elvis rather than by Boone, imo, is far better. And Johnny Cash did a very good job on it too.

Subject: Lyr Add: SAN QUENTIN (Johnny Cash)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Jul 06 - 02:35 PM

It was on the same special (yesterday) as this one.

~S~

===========================

SAN QUENTIN
Words and music by Johnny Cash
As recorded by Johnny Cash on "At San Quentin" (1969)

San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me.
You blistered me since nineteen sixty-three
I've seen 'em come and go and I've seen 'em die,
And long ago I stopped askin' why.

San Quentin, I hate ev'ry inch of you.
You cut me and you scarred me through an' through,
And I'll walk out a wiser weaker man.
Mister Congressman, you can't understand.

San Quentin, what good do you think you do?
Do you think I'll be diff'rent when you're through?
You bend my heart and mind and you warp my soul.
Your stone walls turn my blood a little cold.

San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell.
May your walls fall, and may I live to tell.
May all the world forget you ever stood,
And may all the world regret you did no good.

San Quentin, I hate ev'ry inch of you.

SH

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 05 Jul 06 - 04:25 PM

Somebody here has a very strange idea on what the blues is.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jul 06 - 04:26 PM

The blues ain't nothin' but a good [wo]man feelin' bad.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Jul 06 - 07:36 PM

Guests Hootenanny and Guest, some people make up their own definitions. Dorsey's classic gospel becomes blues, ranchero or whatever else they want to call it. It don't pay to arguefy with them.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 12:36 AM

Peace In The Valley is older than Pat Boone. It's an old semi-religious someday-things'll-be-better song. Quite a few folks have recorded it.                     Tw

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 11:44 AM

As mentioned above, "Peace in the Valley" is a classic gospel song by Thomas A. Dorsey ("Father of Gospel Music").
His lyrics to "Peace..." may be found at negrospirituals.com. Peace in the Valley

To gospel collectors, Dorsey's song is best known through Elvis Pressley's and Mahalia Jackson's recordings (Dorsey wrote the song for her).

An NPR program on gospel and Thomas A. Dorsey may be heard at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1357001.
There are some glitches at the beginning of the tape, so be patient.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 11:51 AM

As Q briefly mentions on 05 Jul 06 - 07:36 PM Peace In The Valley was written by Thomas A. Dorsey 1899-1993, (not to be confused with the band leader Tommy Dorsey) and as Tannywheeler adds, it is a good bit older than any of the versions by the performers mentioned, having been written in 1939.

Leeneia is not really wrong. Thomas A. Dorsey was a well-known blues performer but shifted over to gospel music in 1928. His gospel songs retained that blues tinge that tended to set them apart from the white gospel music.

I would give you a link to this brief story from an Elvis Presley site, but it would do no good as I had to rescue it from the Google cache. It has already disappeared from the site.

Thomas A. Dorsey, son of a traveling preacher, was born in 1899 and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. While still a teen he ventured north to Chicago to make his name as a blues singer and piano player. For a while he studied at the Chicago School of Composition and began writing gospel music with a blues flair. It is Thomas A. Dorsey who is credited with coining the term "gospel music," as before him the genre was known as either hymns or spirituals. Plagued by chronic illness and resistance to his new form of music, he reverted to playing in the juke joints and bars in order to make a living.

It was in the late 1930s while traveling through the Indiana countryside enroute to Cincinnati that he was inspired to write the song "(There'll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me)." The world around him had been in turmoil with the coming war. He had been humming an old slave song "We Shall Walk Through The Valley of Peace" when traveling through a serene valley filled with various animals grazing together. He said, "...It made me wonder what's the matter with humanity? What's the matter with mankind? Why couldn't man live in peace like the animals down there?" Thus, a new song was born.

"(There'll Be) Peace in the Valley (For Me)" became a hit record for Mahalia Jackson and was very popular during World War II. Clyde Julian "Red" Foley backed by the Sunshine Boys Quartet, recorded it in 1951 and it became a country music hit. The Stamps Quartet recorded it in 1952.

Elvis had promised his mother Gladys that he would sing it for her on his January 6, 1957 appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. Gordon Stoker of The Jordanaires tells how the producers did not want the young rebel rocker to sing a gospel song, but Elvis insisted. A week later on January 13, 1957, Elvis recorded the song at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, accompanied by Scotty Moore (lead guitar), Bill Black (bass), D. J. Fontana (drums) and The Jordanaires (backing vocals), with Gordon Stoker playing piano.

A search for more information on Thomas A. Dorsey will turn up quite a bit more.   A number of his other songs are still frequently sung by several groups here in the Ozarks.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 11:53 AM

Ah, I see Q added some more info on Thomas A. Dorsey while I was composing mine. Between us, I think we gotcha covered!

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 12:05 PM

Dale's informative piece may have a small error- "Peace..." written in 1937. A brief biography of T. A. Dorsey at www.cbn.com/spirituallife/devotions/terry_peace.aspx

Dale, thanks for reminding me of Red Foley. I should listen again to some of his recordings.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: leeneia
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 01:56 PM

Hi, Dale. Thanks for saying "His gospel songs retained that blues tinge that tended to set them apart from the white gospel music."

"Blues tinge" conveys the feeling of the song well. I had thought of my collection as being "soft blues," which is another way of saying the same thing. If people could hear me play a number of songs on the dulcimer and hear the difference between (for example)"Praise to the Lord" and "Peace in the Valley," they would know what I mean.

(Both songs are played with the same tuning.)

There are degrees of blueness.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 02:06 PM

One of the classic recordings of this song is by the Soul Stirrers with Sam Cooke singing the lead. I don't think anyone can top it...

Jerry

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: leeneia
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 07:24 PM

Yes, Jerry, I can well believe it. Sam Cooke was a fine singer.

Subject: RE: Peace in the valley
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 07 Jul 06 - 12:12 PM

Check out the Kruger Bros. version of Peace In The Valley.