The Island Song Book - When the Saints

Subject: RE: The Island Song Book - When the Saints
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Oct 19 - 07:50 PM

Anniversary bump:

“When the Saints Go Marching Home.

Oh I had a darling sister;
She's dead and gone before
An I'd like to meet her in the numbers
When the Saints go marching home
When the Saints go marching home
When the Saints go marching home
Oh I'd like to meet her in the numbers
When the Saints go marching home

Other Verses: Oh, I had a darling brother, mother, father, etc., etc.”
[Island Song Book, 1927, p.9]

The music is close, sort of, to the McCravy Brothers arrangement; as is the one scrap of lyric, sort of.

Frank And James McCravy, Brunswick – 196, 78 RPM, 1928 (b/w I Shall not be Moved)
When The Saints Go Marching Home - Frank And James McCravy

More Presbyterian than Afro-Bahamian when I've heard it. Off to bump the origins thread for the New Orleans angle.

Subject: RE: The Island Song Book - When the Saints
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 02:45 PM

Going blind, Joe! Thanks!

Subject: RE: The Island Song Book - When the Saints
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 02:44 PM

Q, you were reading 7003& as 70038. I do the same thing, irritatingly often. Time to see the optometrist....

(I fixed your links and crosslinked all the "Saints" threads.)

-Joe-

Subject: RE: The Island Song Book - When the Saints
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 02:39 PM

Clones help!

Subject: RE: The Island Song Book - When the Saints
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 02:38 PM

Some error here. I have the thread "Origins...." in front of me, 70038. but the wrong thread comes up.
Try again-
Saints Go Marching

Subject: RE: The Island Song Book - When the Saints
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 02:30 PM

Discussed in thread 70038, "Origins: When the Saints Go Marching In"

Origins: When the Saints

Black(and Purvis) seems to be the original from which other versions were derived. He was well-known in gospel circles of the midwest.

Also among his many compositions is "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder."

Subject: RE: The Island Song Book - When the Saints
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 09:02 AM

Here's what wikipedia has to say about it.

From the wiki article:In the Southern gospel genre the song is often associated with Luther G. Presley, who wrote the lyrics, and Virgil Oliver Stamps, who wrote the music, whose version copyrighted by the Stamps-Baxter Music Company popularized it as a gospel song. A similar version was copyrighted by R.E. Winsett. and: The song is sometimes confused with a similarly titled composition "When the Saints are Marching In" from 1896 by Katharine Purvis (lyrics) and James Milton Black (music).[1]

Subject: The Island Song Book - When the Saints
From: jazzhistoria
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 06:12 AM

Is "When the Saints" a Negro Spiritual? Was it played in New Orleans around 1900? Interesting questions,which have been discussed here before. Some facts:

In 1896, a song "When the Saints ARE Marching in" was published in "Songs of the Soul No 2", edited by James M. Black (who was white!) The melody and lyrics are quite different from the song we all know, "When the Saints GO Marching in".

According to James Fuld ("Book of World-Famous Music") "there is a widespread but unsubstantiated rumor that the spiritual was played in New Orleans about 1900." Louis Armstrong talked about hearing the song as a child, played both as a hymn and more joyous after the funerals.

There is a LC tape where Papa Celestin discusses how he learned and incorporated "When the Saints" to the New Orleans music scene. He moved to New Orleans in 1904 and played there before 1910. The tape is not available at the moment but I hope to get information later.

"When the Saints Go Marching HOME" was published under that title in "The Island Song Book", privately printed in Chicago, January 1927. The "native songs" from Treasure Island in the Bahamas were collected by John and Evelyn McCutcheon. I have not seen this book and I can not tell if it is the same melody and lyrics as "When the Saints GO Marching in". Can anyone submit a copy of the pages related to "The Saints" and the song index?? According to earlier threads, both "Sloop John" and "Delia Gone" are included in this song book, but this doesn´t mean that they (and The Saints) must be of Bahamian origin?

The same year, 1927, it was printed in "Spirituals Triumphant Old and New" by Edward Boatner (black), this time with the "GO" title.

Before that, it was recorded several times, first by Paramount Jubilee Singers 1923. The song is "our" WTS, but the title on the label (Pm 12073) is "When ALL the Saints COME Marching In".

Sam Butler ("Bo Weavil Jackson") recorded it in 1926 as "When the Saints Come Marching HOME". There are several other variants, too.

In 1998 there was a newspaper article "He wrote ´When the Saints Go Marching In´ for $5" about how Virgil Stamps and Luther Presley wrote the song in 1937! They made an arrangement of it, that´s all! Maybe the article tried to convince the readers that WTS is a white gospel tune. It is not!

The question remains: What is the origin of "our" When the Saints?

Ingemar Wågerman
Gota River Jazzmen, Sweden
www.gotariver.com
www.jazzhistoria.se