Origins: Wade in the Water

Subject: Add: WATER-FLOWER
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 11:13 PM

Thanks, Azizi, for sharing that one. Now that Mudcat searches work better than they used to, we don't worry too much about things creeping into other threads. But Q is a good one to traipse after, if you have not yet looked at that threadlink he gave....

~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: LilyFestre
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 05:27 PM

I can't tell you what all the lyrics are but what I CAN tell you is that you haven't ever heard it sung if you haven't heard my pastor sing it...and it HAS to be in front of some of the stuffier older ladies with their jaws hanging down to the floor to make it complete!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dang...I LOVE THIS SONG!   

Here's to you Father Greg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ler 'er rip!!!!!!!!



Michelle

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: harpgirl
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 09:31 AM

I thought I just posted this.....
Azizi, did I mention that I heard "Green Sally Up" from the singing of Bryan Bowers? He claimed it was a field hand song. I don't know whether he heard it in Virginia or picked it up from someone else along the way. Joe could ask him this Friday night!

l,h

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: GUEST,Diane
Date: 29 May 05 - 09:53 PM

I really want to thank the folks who supplied the Alan Lemax-recorded versions of "Wade in the Water", a title I'd been racking my brains to remember from the 'sixties popular version (civil rights era?). I'm a big jazz fan, even more than I'm a blues fan, and I wanted the reference to this song from a snippet I keep listening to in a larger song written and performed by the late Charles Mingus. I think the pieces will all fall together now, so my sincere thanks!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: Margret RoadKnight
Date: 01 Jun 05 - 04:34 AM

Brilliant interpretaion included in "Revelations", Alvin Ailey's pivotal work.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: harpgirl
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 11:44 AM

Oh Azizi, I see you mentioned the book I told you I got from FFF. It is a very interesting book, isn't it? Now if I ever get grandchildren, I will have lots of ryhming games to play....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: Azizi
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 12:25 PM

Yes, Bessie Jones' and Bess Hawes Lomax's Step it Down is a wonderful book.

I've heard tell that there is a videotape and/or CD associated with this book. Does anyone have any information about that?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 08:52 PM

Thanks for the helpful info!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 04:41 PM

hi i love the words to this song

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: Azizi
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 04:52 PM

Here's a link to Alvin Ailey's dance company's Wade In The Water:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9uEq9Sjefg&feature=related
Alvin Ailey Dance-Wade in the Water from "Revelations"

**

I've had the pleasure of seeing this company perform this dance couple of times. It is stunning!!

There are other YouTube videos available of Alvin Ailey's now classic dance "Revelations".

Subject: Lyr Req: Wade in the water
From: JeffB
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 07:43 PM

There have been a number of threads lately on the River Jordan/Jerdan, just when I decided to learn Wade in the Water. With concertina accompaniement. Don't know if that's been done before. Anyway, the DT has a few verses, but not many and they seem to be floaters. Does anyone have any verses more specifically associated with this spiritual? Or failing that, any more floaters that might be suitable.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the water
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 07:58 PM

Please see previous thread:
Wade in the Water

Please check with filter for previous threads.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the water
From: JeffB
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 09:21 AM

Thanks Q, should have done that first obviously.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: GUEST,msjae1025
Date: 10 May 11 - 10:45 AM

My daughter once sang a verse that started: "In the beginning when the world began..." Is anyone fmailiar with the rest of this?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wade in the Water
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 09:12 PM

Atca song circle tonight I was asked to teach this song out of RISE UP SINGING. There are verses in that version about children drowning during the escapes of enslaved people and it disturbs me to think that particular slant has been promulgated as the definitive story of the songs or the people who originated the song, because the world of that time and that song were far more complex (see any Ira Berlin book on slavery).

While it is true that crying children or babies have sometimes been 'silenced' with fatal results, most white folks do not know that culturally, many civilizations have not put children first when species survival is threatened-- that's a white, privileged, recent ethic. The elders and their accumulated wisdom have more often been the priority group.


But the song was a work song first, a code song second as well as a bible-teaching song among folks prohibited from reading. IMNSHO, only much later did some well-intentioned person add verses about 'drownings.'

Also, few know that only towards the end of slavery was it so difficult and dangerous to travel as to have left the plantation at night (See Berlin) that children would be drowned.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Origins: Wade in the Water
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 04:17 PM

The "trouble the water" passage comes from the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda

Lots of scriptural references in this song. Could be a tour of the entire Hebrew and Christian Bibles.

-Joe-