Lyr Add: Roll, Jordan, Roll

Subject: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 10:21 PM

See also:

Roll Jordan, Roll, Books Of American Negro Spirituals
==========================================================

ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
Traditional Negro Spiritual


Roll, Jordan, roll
Roll, Jordan, roll
I want to go to Heaven when I die
To hear old Jordan roll

O brother you ought to've been there
Yes my Lord
A-sitting up in the Kingdom
To hear old Jordan roll
O sister you ought to've been there
Yes my Lord
A-sitting up in the Kingdom
To hear old Jordan roll

O preacher you ought to've been there
Yes my Lord
A-sitting up in the Kingdom
To hear old Jordan roll
O sinner you ought to've been there
Yes my Lord
A-sitting up in the Kingdom
To hear old Jordan roll


SOURCE:
Park New Choir, http://parknewchoir.free.fr/

@spirituals

SH

Subject: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: masato sakurai
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 11:01 PM

This is the first song in Allen et al., Slave Songs of the United States. The editors commented, "This spiritual probably extends from South Carolina to Florida, and is one of the best known and noblest of the songs."

1. My brudder sittin' on de tree of life,
An' he yearde when Jordan roll;
Roll, Jordan, Roll, Jordan, Roll, Jordan, roll!
O march de angel march,
O march de angel march;
O my soul arise in Heaven, Lord,
For to yearde when Jordan roll.

2. Little chil'en, learn to fear de Lord,
And let your days be long;
Roll, Jordan, &c.

3. O, let no false nor spiteful word
Be found upon your tongue;
Roll, Jordan, &c.

This was also sung by the Jubilee Singers. The version in Wade In the Water, Volume I: African American Spirituals: The Concert Tradition (Smithsonian Folkways 40072) is almost the same arrangement as the Jubilee Singers'.

Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: masato sakurai
Date: 22 Sep 01 - 05:28 AM

There's some similarity in melody between "Roll Jordan Roll" and "Camptown Races." Herbert Haufrecht comments: "The Negro spiritual 'Roll Jordan Roll' seems to have been the basic melody from which Stephen Foster's 'Camptown Races' stemmed and which also serves for Gottschalk's 'The Banjo'" (Folk Songs in Settings by Master Composers, p. 201). I think it is only a speculation, but worth considering. According to notes by John Tasker Howard, "It is interesting to speculate on the possible origin of Foster's idea for Camptown Races. Musically, its refrain is similar to a Negro spiritual, Roll, Jordan Roll.... Did Foster, then, base Camptown Races on a popular folk-song, or are these folk-songs variants and adaptations of Foster's song? These questions cannot be answered, for no one knows when the folk-songs originated; whether they came into being earlier or later than Camptown Races." (A Treasury of Stephen Foster, Random House, 1946, p. 63)

Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: Stewie
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 03:34 AM

In his notes to the Columbia/Legacy set of Mahalia Jackson (C2K 47083), Dr H.C. Boyer claims that this was the second spiritual ever to be published. It appeared in the November 1862 issue of 'Dwight's Journal of Music', transcribed by a 19-year-old professional musician, Lucy McKim. Evidently, the first published report of a spiritual with text appeared in the 'National Anti-Slavery Standard' on 12 October 1861. It described 'Go Down Moses', and the complete manuscript, listing 20 stanzas, appeared in December of the same year.

Boyer also gives a quotation (unreferenced) that McKim's letter describing the song 'was the first to describe this music in terms of its style and technique, rather than focusing on religious or political aspects of slavery while regarding the music as indescribable'.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: masato sakurai
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 10:45 AM

Lucy McKim was "the only professional musician among the people known to have collected slave songs in this area [i.e., Port Royal] during the Civil War" (Dena J. Epstein, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals, University of Illinois Press, 1977, p. 260), and became later one of the editors of Slave Songs of the United States. On the book her name was Lucy McKim Garrison, because she had married Wendell Phillips Garrison, son of a famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Her "historic letter" (Epstein, p. 260) dated Nov. 8, 1862 is reprinted in The Negro and His Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals, edited by Bruce Jackson (University of Texas Press, 1967, pp. 61-63). I'll quote the part concerned:

Perhaps the grandest singing we heard was at the Baptist Church on St. Helena Island, when a congregation of three hundred men and women joined in a hymn--
Roll, Jordan, roll, Jordan!
Roll, Jordan, roll!
It swelled forth like a triumph anthem. That same hymn was sung by thousands of negroes on the 4th. of July last, when they marched in procession under the Stars and Stripes, cheering them for the first time as the flag of our country." A friend writing from there, says that the chorus was indescribably grand,--"that the whole woods and world seemed joining in that rolling sound."

"Roll, Jordan, Roll" collected and arranged by "Miss Lucy McKim" was deposited in December, 1862 as the second song in Songs of the Freedmen of Port Royal, and is reproduced in Epstein's book (pp. 268-269). The first song is "Poor Rosy, Poor Gal."

Stewie, the quotation Boyer gives is not the words by McKim; it is quoted from Epstein (p. 260).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: masato sakurai
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 10:51 AM

In the quotation, "triumphal anthem" instead of "triumph anthem."

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 11:32 AM

You guys are great.

~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: masato sakurai
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 09:54 PM

Stewie, I misread your message. You didn't say the quotation was written by McKim.

~Masato

Subject: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 08:55 AM

The Sacred Harp also contains Roll, Jordan, Roll in it.

ROLL JORDAN 274b
Tune: A. W. McCurry and John G. McCurry, 1855
Lyrics: Charles Wesley, 1758
Meter: Long Meter Half (8,8)

He comes! He comes! the Judge severe,
Roll, Jordan, roll;
The seventh trumpet speaks Him near,
Roll, Jordan, roll;

Chorus:
I want to go to heav'n, I do,
Hallelujah, Lord,
We'll praise the Lord in heav'n above,
Roll, Jordan, roll.

His lightnings flash, His thunders roll,
Roll, Jordan, roll.
How welcome to the faithful soul!
Roll, Jordan, roll.

(Chorus)

George Pullen Jackson says, "Found in the Georgia Social Harp, p. 145, song dated 1853" (White and Negro Spirituals, No. 49; with music).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 10:50 AM

So, given that spirituals go back before whites started to write them down, I wonder which came first?

~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 11:42 AM

We should take care when we consult Jackson's controversial book mentioned above. He tried to disprove the African source theory of the spirituals, saying, "American culture is not as negroid as they [scholars] now believe. They would find that the British-Ameican culture a deeper, stronger, more beautiful and lasting one than they had weened"(p. 294). Against him, Stanley Edger Hyman writes, "Jackson is a Southern white chauvinist who has tricked out with trappings of pseudo-musicology his conviction that the Negro, as inferior human, could not hardly produce a first-rate art like the spirituals" (quoted from D.K. Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, p. 407). Which was earlier is, of course, an interesting question, but texual considerations only may lead us to a biased conclusion such as Jackson's. We cannot deny the fact that thanks to the African-American versions most of us came to know the beauty of the spirituals.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 02:20 PM

Masato, may I copy some of this into the History thread?

The John Work book also discusses this... I'll summarize it in the History thread when I get a chance.

~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 02:29 PM

Susan, yes, of course.

~Masato

Subject: Lyr Add: ROLL, JERDON, ROLL
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 08:40 PM

Lyr. Add: Roll Jerdon Roll
Spiritual, Saint Helena Island

Chorus:
Roll Jerdon roll,
Roll Jerdon roll,
My soul arise in heben Lawd
To hear sweet Jerdon roll.

1
My sister sat on de tree of life
To hear when Jerdon roll,
Roll Jerdon roll
Jerdon roll, Jerdon roll.
2
My brother sat on de tree of life
etc.

3
My mother sat on de tree of life
etc.

4
My father sat on de tree of life
etc.

5...
Deacon, Pastor, Preacher, etc.

Last chorus:
Oh march de Angels march
March de Angels march
My soul arise in Hebben Lord
To hear sweet Jerdon roll.

The last chorus may also be used in place of the first chorus after some of the verses.

No. 93, 4/4, Nicholas George Julius Ballanta-(Taylor), 1924, Saint Helena Island Spirituals, Penn Normal, Industrial and Agricultural School, Press of G. Schirmer, New York.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 09:50 PM

It's funny that this thread should re-appear right now. I am listening to tapes of my gospel quartet, The Gospel Messengers, and this one of our main songs with Joe Evans on Bass singing lead.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Roll, Jordan, Roll
From: bbc
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 09:14 PM

As soon as I saw the thread title, Jerry, I thought of Joe. I do love a great bass voice!

best always,

Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Roll, Jordan, Roll
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 10:00 PM

Hey, barbara: I'm editing a second CD of the Gospel Messengers with a couple of kinockout tracks with Joe singing lead. For my money, he's the best bass singer I ever heard, and what a range! he was comfortable doing a tenor lead, too.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Roll, Jordan, Roll
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 09:02 AM

Jerry, I'd love to have another Messengers recording! Please keep us informed.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Roll, Jordan, Roll
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 01:35 PM

I will, Barbara. I'm working on it right now...

Jerry

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Roll, Jordan, Roll
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Nov 10 - 04:21 PM

In an article in 1863, "Roll, Jordan, Roll," was combined in the same song as "There's a Meeting Here Tonight."

No Title

Dar's a meetin' here tonight,
Dar's a meetin' here tonight,
Dar's a meetin' here tonight,
I hope to meet you dar.

Parson Fuller sittin' on de Tree of Life,
An' he heary when Jordan roll.

Little children learn to fear de Lord,
An'let your days be long.

Let no angry word or spiteful boast
Be heard upon your tongue.

Roll, Jordan, roll, Jordan roll, Jordan roll, Jordan roll,
O roll, Jordan, roll,
O my soul will rise to heab'n above,
An' heary when Jordan roll.
----------
*Done wid driber's dribin', (3x) [driver]
Roll, Jordan, Roll.

Done wid massa's hollerin', (3x)
Roll, Jordan, roll.

Done wid missus scoldin', (3x)
Roll, Jordan, roll.

Sins so heaby dat I cannot get along, (3x)
Roll, Jordan, roll.

Cast my sins to de bottom ob de sea, (3x)
Roll, Jordan, roll.

*verses composed after freedom obtained.

The Continental Monthly, vol. 4, no. 2. H. G. Spaulding, 1863, "Under the Palmetto," pp. 198-199.