Thanks to Elly's find above, here are the interesting liner notes from the album 'I'm on My Journey Home:Vocal Styles And Resources In Folk Music", the recording was made in 1934. You have to have an account here to listen to the song.


Track 14
Bright and Morning Star
Walter and Lola Caldwell, vocals with guitar.

Recorded 1934 in Ashland, Kentucky, by Jean Thomas. Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song 294 B.

The next three selections represent different forms of duet singing styles commonly found in the rural
Southeast. Duet singing was considerably facilitated by the introduction into Southern folk culture of the
guitar immediately after World War I. It has remained the most popular form of secular ensemble singing,
and during the thirties duet styles totally dominated commercial country music.

Aside from unison, the most basic form of duet singing is in octaves, much as Walter and Lola Caldwell do
here. In spite of the regulating influence of the guitar, the Caldwells manage to stress certain syllables at
unorthodox places. Their style is tense, and they often slide into pitches. The two voices are not quite
synchronized: Lola Caldwell especially ornaments her singing, using some degree of feathering. This
particular style of octave singing could be cited as further evidence of a relation between singing style and sex
role.

Bright and Morning Stars is a rare sacred song that has been infrequently collected or studied. Harvey
Fuson in his Ballads of the Kentucky Highlands London, 1930) prints a variant under the title "The Sons of Levi";
like the Caldwellsí song, it was found in eastern Kentucky. Much of the song's imagery and biblical background are from the Book of Joshua.

Chorus
We are the trueborn sons of Levi,
We are the trueborn sons of God,
We are the roots and the branch of David,
The bright and glorious morning star.
When Joshua and I crossed the Jordan,
Two leaves of corn we lifted high,
To the high priest and the grand master,
We bore the ark of God and son.

(Chorus)

Come all ye knights, ye knights of Molite,
And learn to do as I have done,
You might have been a guard much brighter,
When in the new Jerusalem.

In the tent [unintelligible]the ark was resting,
And there we did receive the word,
One day would come and ram horn sounded,
They found it out before the ark.

Chorus

When Moses planted the rod of Aaron,
And in one night that rod did bud,
When Moses smote the Egyptian water,
That very night it turned to blood.

I used the melody in my recording here of the 1815 broadside that this must have originate from.