Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN THE DOOR IS OPEN (Jamaican Gospel)
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:02 AM

While on a vacation cruise, we took a shore excursion, rafting on the Martha Brae river in Jamaica. When our raft captain began singing this song softly to himself, I asked him to sing it for us so we could record it. I don't know anything about it origins and haven't been able to find it on the internet. Any info on it would be appreciated. You can listen to it here .

If you only knew the blessing that salvation brings

You will never, never stay away.

If you only see the table spread with lovely things

You will come to the feast today.

For when the door is open wide

And the Savior bids you come

There is nothing you have to fear

So just rise and step inside and do not be like others

Who throw their only chance away.

For when the door is open wide

And the Savior bids you come

There is nothing you have to fear

So just rise and step inside and do not be like others

Who throw their only chance away.

Who throw their only chance away.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jamaican Gospel - When the Door is Open
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:35 AM

Nathan in Texas,

I just posted this comment on YouTube:

Thanks for filming this and posting it on Youtube. I found out about song as a result of reading your Mudcat Discussion Forum post about it. You wrote there "I don't know anything about it origins..."

I'm curious if you asked the singer how he learned it and how old he thought it was. Hopefully, some people from Jamaica may see this and share some information about it. It's possible that this song might have come from African Americans. Fwiw, I'm African American but I don't know it.

-snip-

I hope you find information about this song. If you find it as a result of posting it on YouTube, please repost it on this thread.

**

Btw, I like the tune of this song better than I like all of its lyrics, but that's just me.

But the other thing that struck me about your video was how much Anderson's singing while working and your collecting the song were both in the folk tradition.

Thanks again,

Azizi

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jamaican Gospel - When the Door is Open
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:21 AM

Thanks. Sorry, I didn't get any information about the song or its origins. I certainly should have. Next time I'll do better.

Nathan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jamaican Gospel - When the Door is Open
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 03:42 PM

Nathan, I'm glad that you got the song down on video. That's much more than many people would have done. When I think of all the opportunities I've missed to record things, or didn't ask capture demographical information, and didn't ask follow-up questions because the time wasn't right or I didn't think of doing so...and when I think of all the notes that I've written about songs and rhymes and then misplaced somewhere...It's okay. All of us "community collectors" and I dare say, most professional folk cultural collectors have occasions when they didn't fully document what they see, heard, or experienced, particularly when it came upon them unexpectedly like that song did for you. But, Nathan, you got what you got. And it is worthy of being preserved. So kudos to you!


Btw, I removed the reference to Mudcat in my YouTube comment about this video and then I rewrote it a bit. Apparently, YouTube accepted that re-write and it is posted on that page. I also gave your video the highest rating.

Best wishes,

Azizi

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jamaican Gospel - When the Door is Open
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:43 PM

Thanks. He started out by singing a few pop songs - "Day-O", "Don't Worry, Be Happy,", etc., obviously as part of his job to entertain us tourists, but the gospel tunes he seemed to be singing spontaneously as he worked. He was was surprised we wanted to hear them and was almost apologetic about singing them. He said he didn't read music, but had an ability to make other people sound good together and was choir director at his church.I recorded one more gospel tune that I'll post later.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jamaican Gospel - When the Door is Op
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:48 PM

Folk song. In the best sense.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jamaican Gospel - When the Door is Open
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 16 Jul 08 - 12:01 PM

Here's video of another song by Raft Captain Anderson. His version of Going Home by Bill and Gloria Gaither.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: GUEST,Jason Whitcher in England
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 12:45 PM

I spent my early youth in Jamaica and I remember hearing this song played on the radio every Sunday afternoon as an introduction to a gospel music program. As a matter of fact, this song just came to mind and I typed in a few words on google to see where I could get a recording as it brings back good memories.

I can still remember the song being sung and I'm 99% sure it wasn't a Jamaican folk song. It was more of a sankey. I'm gonna ask my dad and see what station it was on and try and get in contact with the station. (It was either JBC Radio or RJR).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 12:54 PM

The tune is very similar to, oh, I'd estimate-- a couple of hundred other gospel songs. In fact whenever Hardi suggests a song theme, jokingly, this is pretty much the tune that comes along with whatever lyric I improvise. Bluegrass gospel often is set to this type of tune.

"Sankey", yes.

One example of a tune that will sound much the same as this one is "Uncloudy Day." Some of the pitches in the YouTube video are the pitches often used in a harmony line just above the melody, which are often added in as variations in a gospel song.

It's pretty though. :~)

~Susan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 12:56 PM

I just did a little search and I found where you can actually get this song.

There is a recording done by Wilfred Jackie Edwards and the album is 'Stand up for Jesus'. The title of the song is 'If you only knew the blessing'. You can have a listen at:

http://sample.music.yahoo.com/radio/clientdata/616/player.asp?cid=616&iid=1&sk=3<w=LaunchRadioTarget&p=6&m=0&d=0&modeInitialized=1&mode=1&resized=1&bridgeInit=1&bridgeMode=1&sids=59959702

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: GUEST,Jason Whitcher
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 12:57 PM

Heh! I forgot to put my name. But it sounds almost the same like the one I heard when I was a kid. Have a listen.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 02:24 PM

Jason Whitcher, here's the hyperlink that you provided:
http://sample.music.yahoo.com/radio/clientdata/616/player.asp?cid=616&iid=1&sk=3

Unfortunately, the message that appeared when I clicked on that link indicates that the "the sample is not available at this time. Please try again later".

But thanks to you, Jason, this thread now has the correct name for that song, as well as additional information about it.

I'm not sure, however, if the question whether this song originated in the Caribbean was resolved.

??

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 02:27 PM

Well, that certainly didn't work out the way I expected it too.
Maybe I've been too long away from the farm :o}

Here's the hyperlink:

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 02:34 PM

Oh, this is really spooky.

I'll try again:

http://sample.music.yahoo.com/radio/player/error.asp?cid=616&eid=28&lb=1&dd=Invalid%20sample%20player%20request%20%27undefined%2

All of this just to find out that the sample is no longer available.

I apologize to anyone who clicked on that linked sentence, as it takes you to that error message, and then it's difficult to get back to this site.

**

Here's some information on [Wilfried] Jackie Edwards:

"Jackie Edwards has been called the Nat King Cole of Jamaica, and in many ways it is an apt description for this smooth and versatile singer, who was also a gifted songwriter. Born Wilfred Gerald Edwards in 1938, he was a star on the island by the late 1950s, when he was discovered by future Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who persuaded Edwards to relocate to the U.K. in 1962. Edwards had a huge talent, and although some critics have dismissed him as too smooth and sentimental (he was the original "cool ruler"), he recorded solid material in all of Jamaica's evolving musical modes, including ska, rocksteady, roots and lovers rock (a style for which his approach was clearly a prototype), but also made contributions in straight pop styles, even recording a marvelous gospel album. He wrote the first three chart hits for the Spencer Davis Group in the mid-1960s, including the classics "Keep on Running" and "Somebody Help Me," and his "Get Up" formed the compositional base for The Clash's "Revolution Rock." When Blackwell began steering his Island imprint more in the direction of rock in 1972, Edwards returned to Jamaica, where he recorded what is arguably his best work with producer Bunny Lee, who paired him with The Aggrovators. Somewhat forgotten today, possibly because he was more main- stream than the typical dreaded-out Jamaican singers of his era, Edwards was as versatile a performer (and as good a songwriter) as the island ever produced. He died on August 15, 1992 of a heart attack. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide"

http://www.answers.com/topic/wilfred-edwards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 05:12 PM

With regard to your comment,Jason Whitcher, and Susan that this song is a "sankey", I never knew the term "sankey" until I had read it on some Mudcat threads.

I gather that "sankey" religious songs are named after composer Ira D. Sankey.

Here's a excerpt from

"Rare and historic recordings by Ira Sankey, composer of over 1,000 hymns. Sankey was one-half of the pioneering evangelistic team (1871-1899) of Dwight L. Moody and Sankey. His innovations in "singing the Gospel" revolutionized worship.

Experience seven of the great evangelistic singer's favorite hymns (sung in his later years) preserved from the original brown wax cylinders.

Liner notes include the lyrics to the hymns

Contents —

Title Performed by Circa
1. The Ninety and Nine Ira D. Sankey 1898-1899
2. Saved By Grace Ira D. Sankey 1898-1899
3. A Shelter in the Time of Storm Ira D. Sankey 1899
4. There'll Be No Dark Valley Ira D. Sankey 1899
5. Hold the Fort Ira D. Sankey 1900
6. I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go Ira D. Sankey 1900
7. Nearer, My God, to Thee Ira D. Sankey 1900

-snip-

For what it's worth, the only song on that list that I'm familiar with is "Nearer, My God, To Thee". That song is very popular in many African American Baptist churches. I'm very familiar with the words to that song, but I didn't know the name of that song's composer. And I've never heard the term "sankey" used as a referent for that song, or any other song in African American churches.

Here's an excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_D._Sankey:

"Ira D. Sankey (August 28, 1840 - August 13, 1908), known as The Sweet Singer of Methodism, was an American gospel singer and composer associated with evangelist Dwight L. Moody.Sankey composed and collected about 1,200 songs in his lifetime... From 1895 to 1908, he was president of the Biglow and Main publishing company. He was blind from glaucoma the last five years of his life, and no doubt found a kindred spirit in his friend and music making partner, blind hymnist Fanny Crosby.

Ira D. Sankey died August 13, 1908 in Brooklyn.

In 1979-80, the Gospel Music Association recognized Sankey's prodigious contributions to gospel music by listing him in the Gospel Music Hall of Fame."

-snip-

Btw, the tune to "When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder" reminds me of this song. I'm curious if that is a "sankey" song? And Susan {or anyone else}, are you saying that most songs that Ira D. Sankey wrote sounded the same?

I'd also like to know what where Sankey's innovations in "singing the Gospel" that revolutionized worship?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 06:04 PM

I need to correct something that I wrote earlier. There is a song that includes the words "Nearer My God To Thee" that was popular in the African American churches that I attended in the 1960s, but I was wrong to imply that it was and still is popular in "African American churches" in general.

I would have no way of knowing that.

Also, it occurred to me that the song that I was referring to might not be the same song as the one that Sankey wrote. When I tried to find the lyrics for Sankey's song entitled Nearer My God To Thee" online, I found these lyrics from Sarah F. Adams, 1805-1848. This is not the song that I was thinking of.

With regard to Sarah F Adams song, see this excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearer,_My_God,_to_Thee

"The verse was written by British actress, dramatic poet and Unitarian hymn writer Sarah Flower Adams (1805-1848) at her home in Sunnybank, Loughton, Essex, England, in 1841. In the United Kingdom, the hymn is usually associated with the 1861 hymn tune "Horbury" by John Bacchus Dykes, while in the rest of the world, it is usually associated with the 1856 tune "Bethany" by Lowell Mason. Methodists prefer the tune "Propior Deo" (Nearer to God), written by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan) in 1872. Sullivan also wrote a second setting of the hymn to a tune referred to as "St. Edmund", and there are other versions, including one referred to as "Liverpool" by John Roberrts."
-snip-

For what it's worth, the song I'm familiar with is moderately uptempo. These are the words that I remember to that song:

The minister was preaching
and the crowd was standing near
the congregation was singing a tune
in a voice that was loud and clear.
You know the song they sang was ____?
It was ____? I could plainly see.
For the song they sang was touching.[?]
It was "Nearer My God To Thee"

Oh, Nearer My God To Thee
Lord, Nearer To Thee
{Nearer to Thee}
They kept on singing
Nearer My, Nearer My God To Thee.

-snip-

My guess is that this is a gospel song that refers to the Sarah Flowers Adams song "Nearer My God, To Thee".

I'm left, though, with the question "Is there a Sankey song called "Nearer, My God, To Thee"? And, if so, what the words to that song?

I'm sorry if this is going too far afield from the title of this thread. And I also want to apologize for being too general in my comments about songs known in African American churches.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: GUEST,Jasonn Whitcher
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 07:53 AM

Wow! I wasn't expecting so much responses. Thanks Azizi for the info on Jackie Edwards. I didn't know he was Jamaican. I assumed he was Afro-American which meant I thought the song was American in origin. So I guess we're not any closer as to its origin.

The term 'sankey' is a term I've heard used by older Jamaican folks and of course it did come from Ira Sankey.

Anyway, I'm gonna try and get a copy of the CD for my wife. She's gonna love it.

TTFN

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 09:03 AM

Came from Sankey, but applied to a whole genre of gospel songs. I learned it here at Mudcat; it's not so much his particular songs, as I recall, but those he published. We need a new thread about it-- the gist is that during a partcular time, gospel groups (I'm compressing a huge amount of imfo here) traveled around promoting songbooks. They'd perform, and sell the booklets afterwards much as we Catters now sell CDs after an appearance. This capitalized on the Revival movement(s). On TV, the Gaither Homecoming Hour series is an example of one way it's done now. If I had time to manage it properly I'd start a series of threads. It can't be done by cataloguing Sankey's OWN songs.... things published under his name as author. It's about the thousands of little songbooks, often self-published, that still turn up here and there. Sometimes people send them to me when they find 'em in garage sales, used bookstores, etc. It was a big phenomenon in the southern gospel community. Sometimes the performers were described as "singing teachers," and sometimes the events were called "conventions," but it was really a religio-commercial venture.

Stroke-brain here-- lots of details floating around, maybe conflated wrongly. Spotty picture-- sorry.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 09:10 AM

Sankey was just one of many compilers in the above-described promotional pattern. (Much as Brumley did for secular folk music.) Just Google and remember-- the Net is full of bloviators.... One result:

Sankey's Gospel Hymns

In step with the success of the revival meetings, came the success of Sankey's new songbook. Other than being a singer, Sankey was also a compiler. He collected the songs of P. P. Bliss, Philip Phillips, G. C. Stebbins, James McGranahan, and Fanny Crosby, many of whom became future editors of the numerous editions of Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos and Gospel Hymns.1

It was in Britain that Sankey first published his Sacred Songs and Solos, and some say it sold as many as fifty million copies. Upon returning to America, Sankey noticed that P. P. Bliss and Whittle had also published a collection of their songs entitled Gospel Songs. They amalgamated their work into Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs, published in 1875. Of course, this volume became wildly popular. The volume sold over a million copies in Brooklyn and Philadelphia rallies alone. The following year the team released a second edition, the sales of which were boosted by Bliss' unexpected death trying to save his wife from a railroad accident. McGranahan replaced Bliss, and over the next fifteen years released four more editions, including 1894's "Diamond Edition" and the "Excelsior Edition" in 1895.2

These hymnals had staggering popularity, but, of course, this did not happen in a vacuum. The songs used in these hymnals included and resembled the Sunday school songs which were being published during the previous decades. The growth of the Sunday schools, Bible classes, in addition to the increasing amount of missionary work being done in the West created a high demand for cheap hymnals with simple music and texts. Among those filling this need included Bradbury, G. F. Root, W. F. Sherwin, William Doane, and Robert Lowry. Of these names, Sizer writes, "By adding perhaps half a dozen of their lesser-known associates and students plus, the Gospel Hymns editors themselves, one can account for the authorship or arrangement of over seventy percent of the tunes . . . in the final collection of 739 hymns [in Gospel Hymns]."3 Sankey himself contributed several of the melodies, but, as in the case of the others, few lyrics.

Building off this foundation, Moody and Sankey were able to make the hymnals amazingly popular through the means of their revival meetings.4 The hymnal was considered by some to be a kind of "souvenir" of their attendance at the revival meeting. And, although Sizer speculates that Sankey "had a way of perpetuating and enhancing his and Moody's images because he also had a popular product to sell: his book of songs,"5 it is more probable the other way around—that ultimately "what made Sankey famous was his association with Moody and Moody's willingness to incorporate this type of music into his evangelistic meetings."6 In either case, though, the circumstances were right, and Moody and Sankey utilized the window of opportunity in Gospel Songs which had been beginning to become more prominent in the year preceding up to their ministry. Their means of crafting the message to speak to this new secular and industrial age struck a chord with the masses, and their gospel became popular.

________

1McLoughlin, Revivalism, 234.

2Sandra S. Sizer, Gospel Hymns and the Social Religion (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), 5.

3Ibid, 7. Sizer also highlights the contribution of Lowell Mason and Thomas Hastings.

4See Moore, Selling God, 186.

5Ibid, 4.

6McLoughlin, Revivalism, 234.

=====

http://immoderate.wordpress.com/2006/11/20/ira-sankeys-gospel-songs-part-5/

~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 09:13 AM

Another, and if you think folkie, you'll see why "gospel" music (of any flavor) is folk music more than "composed hymnody":

Specifics of the 19th and early 20th century Gospel Song

Gospel songs appealed to common and ordinary people because they were simple both textually and musically and were fun to sing in large crowds. After 1900, with the rise of ragtime and other popular musical styles (jazz, blues, etc.), the music of many gospel songs tended to become more rhythmical in character. The texts of gospel songs are characterized by an absence of the elements of adoration or worship. The main emphasis is on personal experience with an exhortation to fellow human beings to turn from a life of sin and sorrow, -- the counterpart of the revival sermon.

Many texts were extremely sentimental, paralleling the aesthetic ideals of American Romanticism...


http://www.smithcreekmusic.com/Hymnology/American.Hymnody/Gospel.hymnody/Gospel.hymnody.html

~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 01 Jan 11 - 09:30 PM

I finally found a copy of the Jackie Edwards "Stand Up For Jesus" album. Here's "If You Only Knew the Blessing" as it was originally (?) done. Still interested in the origins if anyone knows anything more about it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Door is Open (Jamaican Gospel)
From: GUEST,Jason Whitcher
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 08:57 AM

Hi Nathan, what a co-incidence but I found you by accident on Youtube under 'minstrelcraft'. I wrote a message down as 'jamdowner' about me moving back to Jamaica to pastor a church.

While I'm there I will do some research on Jackie Edwards. Apparently he was quite a hit in 1960s Jamaica during the Rocksteady era so it shouldn't be that much of a problem.