Seldom has the folklore of a particular re- CHILDREN lar weeknight gospel singings, which may fea­ gion been as exhaustively documented as that ture both local and regional small singing of the central Blue Ridge Mountains. Ex- OF THE groups, tent revival meetings, which travel tending from southwestern Virginia into north- from town to town on a weekly basis, religious western North Carolina, the area has for radio programs, which may consist of years been a fertile hunting ground for the HE A"' T'NLV preaching, singing, a combination of both, most popular and classic forms of American .ft.V , .1 the broadcast of a local service, or the folklore: the Child ballad, the Jack tale, the native KING broadcast of a pre-recorded syndicated program. They American murder ballad, the witch include the way in which a church tale, and the fiddle or banjo tune. INTRODUCTORY is built, the way in which its interi- Films and television programs have or is laid out, and the very location portrayed the region in dozens of of the church in regard to cross- stereotyped treatments of mountain folk, from ESS A ....y roads, hills, and cemetery. And finally, they include "Walton's mountain" in the north to Andy Griffith's .ft. the individual church member talking about his "Mayberry" in the south. FoIklor­ own church's history, interpreting ists and other enthusiasts have church theology, recounting char­ been collecting in the region for acter anecdotes about well-known over fifty years and have amassed preachers, exempla designed to miles of audio tape and film foot­ illustrate good stewardship or even age. Each year thousands of more personal conversion experiences. casual visitors tour the hills on the Many of these modes of expression Blue Ridge Parkway, or attend the are highly structured and ritual in annual Galax fiddlers' convention, nature, and all are part of the fab­ one of the best-known in the coun­ ric of traditional rural life in the try. central Blue Ridge, where religion In spite of all this attention, the still plays a highly visible and domi­ people of the central Blue Ridge nant role in most people's lives. continue to live ·their lives with an Of course, not all forms of reli­ impressive degree of stability and gious expression can be well repre­ sense of tradition. Some of these sented by audio recordings, nor characteristics have been captured can an album such as this represent in the documentation of the more all of the Blue Ridge. The term well-known traditions of the area, "central Blue Ridge" here refers to such as the fiddle and banjo music. the region documented by the Blue Others, though, exist outside the Ridge Parkway Folklife Project, scope of these more popular, more undertaken in 1978 by the Ameri­ visible traditions, and they have not can Folklife Center of the. Library been documented well. One such area is B Ch 1 K W 1£ of Congress in cooperation with the Na­ that of traditional religious expression: y ar es . 0 e tional Park Service. These recordings the variety of ways in which people ex­ were made during this project. The sur­ press themselves to their God and convey their faith to each vey studied the lives and culture of the people in a 750­ other 'and their community at large. square-mile area straddling the Blue Ridge Parkway near the This album offers a cross-section of the different traditional North Carolina-Virginia state line; the study area extended modes of religious expression in the central Blue Ridge. from Doughton Park, an area on the Parkway in Alleghany These modes range from public celebration to private testi­ County, North Carolina, to the Parkway's Rocky Knob and many. They include the usual components of the church serv­ Mabry Mill about seventy miles to the northeast in Virginia. It ice such as preaching, extemporaneous testimony, prayer, and included parts of eight rural counties: Carroll, Floyd, Patrick, congregational or group singing. They include those special and Grayson in Virginia, and Alleghany, Ashe, Surry, and occasions for church celebration, such as communion services, Wilkes in North Carolina. For two months in the late summer baptisms, weddings, revivals, association meetings, and even of 1978 a team of folklorists, photographers, and National funerals. They include church-related activities, such as regu- Park Service workers Jived in the area, documenting the ex­

1 pressive culture of the people with fieldnotes. photographs, ences. Many Blue Ridge residents have travelled to West sound recordings, video recordings, and architectural draw­ Virginia for some portion of their lives to earn money in the ings. This documentation joins the permanent collection of coal mines or on the railroad, hut our conversations lert us the Library of Congress and is being shared with the staff of with the impression that more blacks than whites have made the Blue Ridge Parkway, who will use it as a research base to this trek. There may be differences in craft styles, like a great­ develop interpretive materials and presentations for visitors. er preference among blacks for "strip" quilts, but-as the se­ The region has a population of slightly over 80,000 people; lections on this album indicate (L69 A2 and A4)-the differ­ it is predominantly rural and predominantly white, though a ences in styles of worship are more pronounced. There is number of well-entrenched black communities play their part greater inclination toward forming a continuum of sermon, in defining the culture. The rural church is a common sight, testimony, and song than in relatively more compartmental­ and in most cases the church is named after a local place or ized white services. But Leonard Bryan's account of his con­ geographical feature. Most of the rural churches are Baptist: version (L70 B4), recorded in his home, is similar in manner Primitive Baptist, Missionary Baptist, Union Baptist. New and substance to accounts collected from whites. Covenant Baptist, Regular Baptist, and Independent Baptist. There are a sprinkling of Methodist, Presbyterian. and Pente­ costal churches as well, and a number of Churches of the Brethren, formerly called German Baptist Brethren and nick­ named "Dunkards." Though Southern Baptists comprise the largest Protestant denomination across the nation in general. in the central Blue Ridge they are outnumbered three or four to one by other Baptists-especially Independent and Primi­ tive Baptists. Primitive Baptist churches are especially numer­ ous in southwestern Virginia, with over twenty-two in the sllIdy area alone. In an article published in Carolina Dwell­ ing which describes her work in the I970s, Eliza Davidson lis'ted sixty-five churches representi ng eigh teen denomina­ tions in rural Alleghany County-one active church for each 140 citizens. The national average is one church for every 690 people. I n many ways, the rural chureh acts as a force for I he pres­ ervation of older traditions. In black churches, congregations routinely sing without songbooks of any kind; in Primitive Baptist churches, congregations sing without piano or organ, Members oJtwo churches at a baptism on Carson Crel'k, Alleghany COl/illy, using books that have only the words to songs. Because many North Carolina; a recording ojthe event can be heard on U59 82. of the Blue Ridge churches are small (around fifty members), participation in the service by individual members is high; Gospel singing is an especially thriving tradition in the cen­ services are not structured for a passive "audience." People tral Bille Ridge and is perhaps the most self-conscious form of offer spontaneous testimony and deliver prayers. \Ising rhe­ religious expression. Many residents make a clear distincrion torical patterns and expressions they have picked up from between "church singing," which refers to singing during a older members. Though some preachers have attended semi­ service, <'lnd "gospel singing," which refers to small-group naries, almost everyone admits to patterning his or her singing olltside the regular service or as "special music" within preaching style from some older mentor. Often the church the service. Most of the gospel singing-and a lot of the building itself is the prime physical symbol of a community'S church singing-comes, directly or indirectly, from shape­ existence, and church history is invariably closely tied to com­ note songbooks published by R. E. Winsett, Stamps-Baxter, munity history. Church-centered activities such as creek bap­ James D. Vaughan, and others. These books use a seven­ tisms, "dinner on the ground," and gospel singing are in some shape note system which became popular after the Civil War cases the only remaining activities the community shares. in the South and especially in Virginia, where it was promoted The rural black communities sprinkled along the central by Aldine S. Kieffer at his influential singing school in the Blue Ridge form a cohesive and distinctive part of the region's Shenandoah Valley. The system is distinct from the four­ traditional culture. Their members are prosperous, articulate, shape sY'stem used by Sacred Harp singers. By the 1920s a and for generations have been part of the fabric of life in the number of songbook publishing companies had sprung up region. Patterns of rural life seem very similar for both blacks throughout the South, each publishing one or t\\'o books a and whites, but a closer inspection reveals some key differ- year. usually in inexpensive paperback formalS. Each book

2 o .OO.dOOO' D 0'-1500'

r--....L....--1_~.-:...!:..-.:...... ~ 2500'-3000' n..... ond D fiTF1 cr~ks L..e:lI ~ o 1500'-2500' h;ghw.yo

/ would include from 100 to 130 songs, of which about eighty Thus today in the central Blue Ridge, the terms "gospel percent were newly-written by various amateur (and a very singing" and "singing convention" refer to an informal con­ few professional) singers and musicians across the rural cert in which small groups appear before an South, The remaining twenty percent of the songs included audience-usually in a church-and each performs a set of established favorites from earlier books and older nineteenth­ songs. Indeed, the singing convention tradition in the classic century gospel songs. Thus the books provided new songs in a sense has been dormant in the central Blue Ridge for genera­ highly structured traditional mode and kept many older songs tions, though it still flourishes elsewhere in the South. Many in the active gospel repertories. This collection includes two of the older singers in the region - both black and nineteenth-century songs preserved in this way: "Twilight Is white - recall learning their "rudiments" of music from Falling" (L70 A6) and "Palms of Victory" (L70 AI). The main various two-to-three-week singing schools brought into the purpose of the books was to service "singing conventions," area, often by representatives of a songbook company. These county-wide or regional gatherings of the best singers in the schools are occasionally still found, but most of the young area. The singers would take turns leading the singing of the people singing shape notes today were taught by their par­ entire assembly from the latest book, Gradually, though, pub­ ents, As some of the older shape note books become harder lishers began to hire quartets to tour the countryside, and harder to get, the people keep and preserve them, and popularizing their new books by singing from them. This pass them on. One of the prized possessions of eighty-seven­ singing style caught on, and soon it was rivaling the singing year-old Leonard Bryan, a deacon in the Macedonia Baptist conventions in popularity. Church, is an old Stamps-Baxter songbook from the 1930s

3 containing the text of his favorite song, "If I Could Hear My such a session. In 1978, WHHV charged approximately twen­ Mother Pray Again." A. P. Thompson of Lowgap, born in ty dollars per half hour for Sunday programming and had a 1900 and a product of several rural singing schools, some­ waiting list of interested customers. The airwaves are accessi­ times takes a piece of modern gospel sheet-music that he likes ble at such rates to almost anyone. WHHV also carries live and writes in the equivalent shape notes above the rou nd Sunday studio broadcasts, and a number of preachers and notes so he and others can sing the new piece. singing groups choose this option. All of these programs are Gospel music, and religious expression in general, is also distinctively regional. Messages to the sick and "shut-in" are transmitted by mass media in the central Blue Ridge. In many common, as are specific place-name and personal references cases, the media have not had a homogenizing effect on cul­ in sermons and talks. ture but are a tool for preserving the regional character of re­ In earlier days-1940s and 1950s-gospel singing groups ligious expression. Radio is one example. The region has established their musical identity by publishing their own little three stations of its own: WCOK in Sparta, founded in 1967 songbooks, with pictures of the group and a sprinkling of and broadcasting with 250 watts (15-20 mile radius) in day­ their favorite songs. Today this function has been pretty time; WBOB in Galax, the region's oldest station, founded in much replaced by the custom long-play recording. These 1947 and broadcasting with 1,000 watts; and WHHV, Hills­ albums are financed by the group themselves, recorded in stu­ ville, started in 1961 and now broadcasting at 1,000 watts. Al­ dios at Galax, Mt. Airy, or Roanoke, and produced in limited though much of the broadcasting week of all three stations editions of five hundred to one thousand copies. They are sold by the group to help finance travel to singings and are available in some local "Christian book stores," where they joust for space with slick, mass-market gospel LPs put out by giant conglomerates like Word, Inc. Records by groups out­ side the area also influence local singing. The. Easter Broth­ ers, a Mt. Airy bluegrass gospel group and the Inspirations, a Bryson City, North Carolina, group who perform in a slick, modern quartet style, were extremely popular in the late 1970s. Both groups are frequently heard on radio and televi­ sion. Local singers would often learn the songs of these groups and sometimes copy their vocal styles. The exact relationship between the individual singing group and the church itself can vary greatly. Very few of the groups contained members who were not active in church or even church leaders. At times, though, a particular church and singing group can differ over the kind of instrumentation used with the singing. Aubrey Brooks, leader of the Peaceful Valley Quartet, recalls, "We've run into some churches who would say, 'We'd like to have you but not your guitar.'" Mr. Brooks's own church, the Union Baptist, formerly forbade guitars, but subsequently permitted them at special gospel singings, although not at regular services. One member com­ Rev. Coy Combs and Mrs. Ruth York broadcast a Sunday service on radio plained, "It's like, you worship two Gods, one who likes music station WHHV, Hillsville, Virginia. with a guitar and one who doesn't." The Hillsville-Galax-Sparta-Lowgap quadrangle has always consists of "Top 40" music, on Sundays each station returns to been one of the richest areas in the Southeast for traditional highly distinctive local programming. At WBOB, for instance, instrumental music, and it is not surprising to learn that this the June 1979 schedule featured fourteen locally produced instrumental tradition has often overlapped into the equally religious programs, two regionally syndicated religious pro­ rich gospel-religious music tradition. As far back as the 1920s, grams, and three gospel record programs from sign-on time well-known fiddler Ben Jarrell and banjoist Frank Jenkins in­ at 7:00 AM unlil 5:00 PM. Many of these programs were pro­ cluded in their handful of recordings religious songs like "I duced and/or sponsored by local church groups or singing Know My Name Is There," and mountain string bands like groups, and most were tape recorded by the performers Surry County's Red Fox Chasers and Ernest Stoneman's Dixie themselves in advance of broadcast. Elder Jess Higgins re­ Mountaineers of Galax recorded almost as many gospel songs cords his Sunday program the previous Saturday evening in as they did breakdowns. Galax ballad singer J. C. Pierce, who his own home. "A Home in Heaven" (L70 A7) was recorded at recorded for the Library of Congress in the 19305, was sing­

4 Laurel GLenn Regular Baptist Church, Alleghany County, North Carolina; Elder Millard Pruitt stands to the right oJthe stove. Portions ofa Sunday service at this church can be heard on L69 B1.

ing with a gospel quartet called the Four Tones by the late die into church. "I don't think it would do any harm," he says, 1940s, and bluegrass star Larry Richardson began playing "as far as any sin's concerned, in taking the violin and playing gospel music exclusively in the 1970s. Like many other those hymns over there in the church ... but the point is, the groups, guitarist George Shuffler's bluegrass gospel ensemble younger ones wouldn't look at it like that, they'd look on it as performs in churches throughout the area. Members of foolishness in worship." churches that frown on any kind of instrumental music often The Primitive Baptist churches in the area not only disallow play the fiddle or banjo for their own enjoyment and often instrumental accompaniment of any sort, but frown on any play sacred songs. A case in point is Millard Pruitt, an elder in sort of special small group singing in their services. Elder Jess the Laurel Glenn Regular Baptist church. Mr. Pruitt is a state­ Higgins, of the Galax Primitive Baptist Church, explained: ly fiddler who plays old hymns and sings to his own accompa­ "Our church and people have always, to our knowledge, be­ niment in a remarkable and archaic style rarely heard today. lieved in and practiced congregational singing; they've never Yet, in all of his sixty-eight years, he has never taken his fid­ shown favor by picking someone out of the group or anyone's

5 group as such in the worship service. That is not to say in our public forum of the front porch or living room. They are private lives that we wouldn't appreciate private talent, but offered both to friends who have heard them before and to ... it has never been a practice of picking talents and singing strangers who are merely interested. Some of them detail a and listening to them as a group.... There has never been a person's conversion to the church; others detail the circum­ gospel singing as such in any Primitive Baptist church in stances of a person's "calling" to become a church leader or America that I know of." preacher; still others detail "visions" that renew faith and give Such egalitarian impulses- which also manifest themselves enlightenment. in the tendency of many area churches to reject affiliation These narratives, when compared with the other selections with national organizations or hierarchies- help account for on this album, are the most intensely personal forms of reli­ the popularity of congregational singing in the region. In gious expression in the area. They may lack the rigorous form many services, congregational singing takes up almost half the of a song or the stylized ornamentation of a sermon, but they time. As the annotations for the selections from the black are highly structured and are in every sense creatures of a Macedonia Union Baptist Church (L69 A4) and the white performance genre. Brett Sutton, commenting on the Primi­ Laurel Glenn Regular Baptist Church (L69 B I) indicate, tive Ba ptist's narratives of conversion in his article "I n the many congregations will sing a surprising mixture of old and Good Old Way: Primitive Baptist Traditions," has argued that new songs in a variety of older singing st)'les. Most rural con­ such stories "are the most finely formed product of their oral gregations still use shape-note hymnals or-in the case of tradition. Although they occur initially as mystical private Primitive Baptists- tuneless word books. Although their sing­ events, they are cast ultimately in verbal form, since no per­ ing may be as varied as that of some of the region's trios and sonal experience is really complete until it has been shared, quartets, modern "contemporary Christian music" is rarely and, to an extent, validated through public testimony." Not all heard. the narratives represented here come from Primitive Baptists, The classic folk narratives of the central Blue Ridge-the nor are all conversion stories, but their general tenor fits Jack tales, the tall tales, the ghost stories-can still be found Sutton's comments. The narrators of such stories seem to seek in the region if you look hard enough, but such stories are not to reinforce the validity of their mystical experiences over and nearly as common or as meaningful to the people as various over, and during this process the stories and the manner of personal experience narratives. These narratives can deal telling become codified, structured, and well-honed. One of with social history (such as how a speaker survived the De­ the informants, Edgar Cassell, when re-visited nearly a year pression), natural history (hard winters, floods), family history after his story was taped, repeated the story almost wOI-d-for­ (especially courtship stories), or even occupational history. word, nuance for nuance, for a different fieldworker. In fact, But perhaps the most common are accounts of religious expe­ when permission was being sought to use these recordings on riences. Such accounts can be offered in public, in the form of the present album, every individual contacted knew immedi­ testimonies in church meetings, or in a more leisurely semi­ ately what "story" was in question, just as they might recall a

Elder Edgar Casse/ll,isits Will Barnard at hi.\ home in Kibler Valley, Virginia. A portivn ojtheir conversation can be heard on L70 B3.

6 particular song or instrumental performance. There was Acknowledgments nothing casual about the telling of any of these stories, nor any hesitation about making them public. These recordings are testimony to the work of the Blue While few of these personal experience accounts exhibit Ridge Parkway Folklife Project field team, which consisted of horizontal variation, where the same basic story is told by sev­ folklorists Thomas A. Adler, Indiana University; Geraldine eral different people, many narratives are similar in underly­ Johnson, Strayer College; Patrick B. Mullen, Ohio State Uni­ ing structure and purpose. Some residents of the area are versity; Blanton Owen, Ferrum College; Margaret Owen, aware of these similiarities. One commented, "These older Ferrum College; and photographers Lyntha Scott Eiler and mountain folk-they don't feel like they've got religion until Terry Eiler, Ohio University. I also served as a folklorist and they've had a vision." as field coordinator. American Folklife Center staff members The narratives themselves have a distinct structure. They Carl Fleischhauer and Howard W. Marshall joined in the generally describe the narrator's entry from the concrete, ev­ work, as did five National Park Service workers who assisted eryday world into a mystical state of elevated consciousness with the fieldwork as special interns: Harley Jolley, Wes and revelation, and his subsequent return and reintegration Leishman, Richard MacCamant, George Price, Jr., and Ar­ into ordinary life. Often they begin with the narrator evoking nold Schofield. Wally Macnow of the Department of the a graphic picture of the concrete reality of his physical envi­ Interior helped organize the project and participated in the ronment: Edgar Cassell describes his garden and his drive to fieldwork. Gary Everhardt, superintendent of the Blue the Floyd County courthouse (L70 B3), Florence Cheek de­ Ridge Parkway and a former American Folklife Center scribes her tobacco barn (L70 B2), Leonard Bryan describes board member, lent his sympathetic support. and Andrew the fields and woods near his house (L70 B4), and Harrison Kardos of the parkway's professional staff helped the effort Caudle carefully pictures his bedroom on a certain evening in many ways. The project could never have taken shape (L70 B5), and hearing a car stop nearby. The next stage of the without the backing of William Whalen, director of the Na­ experience is what Victor Turner has defined as "liminality," tional Park Service and member of the Folklife Center's a moment "in and out of time," where the individual is de­ board, and Vernon Dame, the National Park Service's di­ tached from the existing social structure. In his paper "Ritual rector of Interpretation and Visitor Services. and Sacred Narratives in the Blue Ridge Mountains," Patrick I would also like to thank the following individuals and B. Mullen has commented that "the liminal phase itself as de­ organizations for their help as I prepared these annotations: scribed in conversion stories is characterized by disorienta­ Leonard Ellinwood, Elizabeth Lockwood, and William tion, visions, and emotional release." In many cases, the phys­ Reynolds of the Hymn Society of America; Conner Hall, ical world so carefully evoked by the narrators vanishes, often Tennessee Music and Printing Company; Harlan S. Daniel, in bright light; the narrators lose sense of time and place until Chicago; Alan Jabbour of the American Folklife Center; they "come to." Thus Edgar Cassell does not recall seeing a Joseph C. Hickerson and Gerald E. Parsons of the Library's thing on the long drive into Roanoke; Quincy Higgins re­ Archive of Folk Song; Bob Pinson and Bob Oerman of the members little about the sermon he preaches; Leonard Bryan Country Music Foundation Archive and Media Center; Mil­ doesn't realize he has been shouting all over the meeting lard Pruitt, Sparta, North Carolina; Avis and Caldwell house; Florence Cheek has difficulty articulating her return Schuyler, Lowgap, North Carolina; Howard Forrester, to the normal world. This latter trait in part also exemplifies Acuff-Rose Publications; James Blackwood, Memphis; the kind of emotional release felt by subjects. Edgar Cassell Tommy Sutton, Nashville; Otis McCoy, Jasper, Alabama; got tears in his eyes so big he couldn't see to drive, and Robert E. Nobley, Roanoke, Alabama; Artie and Jim Mar­ Leonard Bryan "cried and prayed all night." shall, Hillsville, Virginia; Ellis Crum, Winsett Music Com­ Few of the performers on this album are fuJI-time profes­ pany; Wilford Roach, Stamps-Baxter Music Company; and sionals. and few would choose the word "artist" to describe Susan Gay, my typist, and my wife Mary Dean, for her assist­ themselves. Their art is integrated into the fabric of daily life, ance in research. The production of this record was overseen and they do not think of it as something apart. One of the by Carl Fleischhauer, with Sam Brylawski and Dorothy Zeiset, goals of this collection has been to survey the region's diverse Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Li­ modes of religious expression through representative rather brary of Congress. The masters were made by John Howell, chief than exclusively virtuoso performances, to offer a sample of engineer, Recording Laboratory. grassroots expression that a visitor to the Blue Ridge today Our greatest debt is to the people whose lives are cele­ might expect to find. Some of these performances may con­ brated here, the residents of the central Blue Ridge. We tain more artistry than others and some may renect a greater offer our deepest gratitude to them for permitting us to sense of tradition, but all renect the beauty and depth of a document their lives and share its richness with others. strong regional culture and the heartfelt aspirations of a Charles K. Wolfe proud and independent people. Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro

7 Charles Wolfe recordsJim andArtie M anhall at Marshall's Auction Barn near H illsvi/le, Virginia. 'Twilight Is Falling," recorded at this session, can be heard on L70A6. The Recordings performer is singing from a printed text. LP in print in 1980. The accession num­ 5. A list of selected variants from printed ber is given for unpublished recordings in These annotations include the following and recorded sources. Representative the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of elements: hymnals or songbooks are cited for items Congress. 1. A headnote consisting of titre, per­ which have been frequently published, former, ani nd ication of whether the per­ including the earliest publication known These recordings were made on Nagra former is black or white, recording date, to the editor. The citations for sound re­ IV-S stereo tape recorders, except "A Vi­ place, the field worker primarily responsi­ cordings include the following informa­ sion at the End of Time" (L70 B5), which ble for the recording, and the project's tion: artist; title; place, collector or re­ was made on a Nagra E monaural re­ file number for the recording. The titles cording company, and date of recording corder. Microphones and accessories used for all spoken-word selections have been (if known); and publication information. in the field include Neuman KM84 mi­ provided by the editor. For 78-rpm records, the label name and crophones, Sennheiser 816, 202, and 402 2. A transcript of the text of the perform­ record number is given for the initial re­ microphones, Nagra QSQC parallel con­ ance. Ellipses indicate deletions from the lease or group of releases. The matrix nectors, and a Yamaha PM430 mi­ original recording, except for "Baptizing number is given for unissued commercial crophone mixer. All selections on this at Carson Creek," where the original has recordings. Title, label name, and record album, except "A Vision at the End of been extensively edited. number are given for items first released Time" and "Baptizing at Carson Creek" 3. The annotation. on an LP. Similar information, noted as (L69 B2), are in stereo. The master re­ 4. Under the heading "Present Text," a "Reissued on," is provided when an item cordings were made at the Library of citation of the publication used when the first released on a 78 can be heard on an Congress Recording Laboratory in 1980.

8 Men's pews at Cross Roads Primitive Baptist Church.

Oh ye banished seed, be glad. The Cross Roads Primitive Baptist L69Al Christ our advocate is made; Church, located in the Baywood commu­ Children of the Heav'nly King. Us to save our flesh assumes, nity a few miles southwest of Galax, is a Brother to our souls he comes. simple white frame building with a sign Sung by the congregation of the stating that the church was founded in Cross Roads Primitive Baptist Shout, ye little flock and blessed, 1845 and announcing that regular serv­ Church; white; August 20, 1978; You on Jesus' throne shall rest, ices are held three times a month. Like Baywood, Virginia; Carl Fleisch­ There your seat is now prepared, many Primitive Baptist churches in this hauer; BR8-CF-R5. There your kingdom and reward. region, the interior at Cross Roads has four banks of pews. Two banks separated by an aisle face the pulpit, filling two­ Fear not, brethern, joyful stand, Children of the Heavenly King, thirds to three-quarters of the church, On the borders of your land; As ye journey, sweetly sing; while the smaller pair face each other and Christ, your Father's elder Son, Sing your Savior's worthy praise, Oank the pulpit. The actual church mem­ Bids you undismayed go on. Glorious in his works and ways. bers (thirty-eight in 1978) sit on these latter pews, the men on one side, the Ye are traveling home to God, Lord submissive make us go, women on the other. Attendance at serv­ In the way the fathers trod, Gladly leaving all below; ices can range from as few as twenty to as They are happy now, and ye Only thou our leader be, many as eighty (at a communion service), Soon their happiness shall see. And we still will follow thee. with many of the members coming from

9 nearby Galax, where they are employed in a variety of blue- and white-collar jobs. One of the elders lives fifteen miles away in I ndependence and another twenty t=l ~lRACES Of' TllF. 1I0LY SPIRIT. 63 miles away in Sparta, North Carolina. 62 (JKAl"~~ ()~' TilE WIL'i SPIRIT. 6 Lord ! 611bDli!'~i\'e make ll! go, Most of the members are over forty years 6 D1e8t i~ the nWIl, 0 G(.o(l, t= Ghdl)" ll~ndng' oil helow; Th:~t !'ItA)"., hiln!'h:Jr Oil th('(~ : old. Only thou our 1~'~vlN he, Who waits for thy ha!\'ntinll, Lord, t= :\ lId we ~till will rlJl!ow thee . Like many Primitive Baptist churches, ~!J:dl lby ~:;ah'ation foil-e. the Cross Roads church uses D. H. Go­ 61 (8;·,\J'-JOO-~OI) 78. u...... r:= 62 (3-19-684-896) o. 1I. WQllI. ble's old hymnal, originally published in llILDllf;:-; 01 tl,,' bl,",-'nl) King, )I In soldier of tlte cross, t= A lolrwer oltbe L.rub 1 C .\3 y~ jOtlrlll.'.". Jo'weetJy sing; A Greenfield, Indiana in 1887. Unlike ~ing j'lIur S:t\"ior'.:\ wOrlhy prabe, Aod shall I lenr to own bis cause, t= Or blush to _peak hi. name ! modern hymnals, the Goble book contains GICJrious ill hi3 work.~ aut! way!. 2 Ye are lr::l\"ling home to Goo 2 )lust 100 carried I" t.he skies t ~ only words and no music. Congregations In tbe W:l)" the bthcfi!, trod i On 60w'ry bells 01 e..... While othe... 101ll;ht to win the pri.., are expected to know the melodies for ThE:)" nre h:lpp.r IIt)W, notl ya t:= Aod anih"l throllgh blood)" "".a ? songs or are free to use a melody that Soon their happiness fl:ball see. 3 O. j'c halli~hl'd seeet, be glnu ! 3 Are tbere no loe. lor me 10 lace 1 their own particular church or region has Christ (.tlf rhh'ot':lte i3 ronde; t:::= Must I not okro the 6000 1 Is this vile worlel 1\ friend to graoe, attached to the hymn. In a typical service, 119 to 9:\\,e-, our lll'sh fHlRume9, ~ Drother to our 90ul9 he comes. To b.lp me 00 to God 1 hymn singing will take up about as much ~ ~bout., ~ Sure I must 6ght III lTollld reIgn; y. liltle 6ock, and bleased, J=: time as the preaching, prayers, and Bible You on Jesus' throne .911311 nA~t; Jncrease m)" courage, Lord I There your seat is now prcparcd­ I'll hear the (uil, enduro the paiD, reading combined. This is partly because TllCre your kingdom :lnd reward. t== Supported b)' thy word. the hymns are generally sung in their en­ 5 Feu not, brethren, Joyful stand 5 Thy saio18, in .11 Ibi. glorious war, Shnll cooquer though th.y die; tirety, as opposed to the widespread On tbe bord.", of your land; -== Chril!~ your Father's elder SOD, They sec Ih. triumph Irom atar. I~ practice in other Protestant churches of Bids )'on uodismayed go on. And aoiae It with their eye. singing stanzas one, two, and four. At Cross Roads, songs are selected spon­ taneously by the congregation, are per­ formed without accompaniment, and are usually led off by a church member sit­ ting on one of the side pews. The singing From Goble's Primitive Baptist Hymn Book. style is slow and stately, and hymns are and is often sung at non-communion Selected Variants: Print generally sung in unison with no har­ services at the church. The original, Daily, John R. and Thomas, E. W. Primi­ mony or "parts," although the combina­ twelve-stanza song was composed in 1742 tive Baptist Hymn and Tune Book. tion of voices usually creates a hetero­ by John Cennick, an eighteenth-century Luray, Va., and Danville, Ind.: Daily phonic effect. English evangelical who is best known for and Thomas, 1902, p. 36. This particular selection was recorded his "Jesus My All," which became a source Occom, Samson. Choice Collection. New at a communion service that followed a for many traditional American religious London, Conn.: T. Green, 1774, normal Sunday service. The regular songs. For further information on Cen­ "The Pilgrim's Song," p. 37. members of the church in the front pews nick's life, see julian's Dictionary of Hym­Thomas, Elder E.D. A Choice Selection of did most of the singing, but they were nology, pp. 215-219. The song has been Hymns and Spiritual Songs: 1877. Re­ joined by about forty people in pews fac­ widely popular in America ever since its print. Wayne, W.Va.: Arrowood ing the front. During the regular service, first appearance in Occom's Choice Collec­Brothers, 1978, p. 415. the congregation sang eight hymns from tion and has apparently entered oral tra­ the Goble book. At the beginning of the Selected Variants: Recordings dition. Kentucky minstrel Dick Burnett footwashing communion, the members Harmony Hill Hymnsingers, dir. by recalled that it was the first song he ever sang "Amazing Grace," many without re­ Helen Denman Beauchamp. "Chil­ learned. course to a hymnal, and, after the foot­ dren of the Heavenly King." Cincin­ washing materials were put away, "Chil­ nati: Baptist Bible Hour, Inc., ca. dren of the Heav'nly King." After dinner 1960s. The Harmony Hill Hymnsingen, on the ground was announced, the service Baptist Bible Hour LP 103. closed with "Glorious Things of Thee Are Present Text Wisdom Sisters. "Children of the Spoken." Goble, D.H., camp. Primitive Baptist Hymn Heavenly King." New Orleans: Co­ "Children of the Heav'nly King" is a Book. 1887. Reprint. Greenfield, Incl.: lumbia Phonograph Co., 1927. Co­ favorite of the Cross Roads congregation D.H. Goble Printing Co., n.d., p. 62 lumbia 15129.

10 We're going to preach right here, till we tear the Bible says, L69A2 your kingdom down; that he went down there, Testimony. We're going to preach right here, till we tear preaching and teaching your kingdom down; God's holy word. Spoken by a member of the I heard the voice ofJesus say, And as he were teaching congregation. Satan, Your Satan, your kingdom must come down. the Holy Word, Kingdom Must Come Down. I'm told that Sung by the congregation. We're going to sing right here, till we tear your men and women Philip in Samaria (Sermon kingdom down, believed. excerpt). Preached by Rev. James We're going to sing right here, till we tear your But there was a man kingdom down, named Simon, Strickland. All selections from I heard the voice ofJesus say, whom had done witchcraft Clarks Creek Progressive Primitive Satan, your kingdom must come down. and Baptist Church; black; put spells September 10, 1978; Ararat, on folks, Virginia; Blanton Owen; Philip in Samaria and they BR8-BO-R29 and R31. felt like So Saul here this was Would handcuff and a mighty man, 'rest these people. and said Testimony He went into every home that he in Jerusalem, is a man from God. "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all and see if he could hear of them But when Philip you and Heaven. Know you that the calling on the Lord Jesus, went down there Lord, he is God. It is he that has made us, or either and began to preach, and not we ourselves. We are his people, giving him praise. about Jesus Christ, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into Whenever lay hands his gates with thanksgiving, and into his he found them on the sick, courts with praise." . he would take them and and they'll recover. I am standing praising the Lord today put them in jail. Those that had palsy, for what he is to me, for what he has been So they recovered from the palsy, in my life. This test-this, uh, psalm is it was a mighty disturbance about this and they begin one of my testimonies, [that] make a time to see joyful noise unto the Lord. I want to in around Jerusalem, that this man praise his name. Any time we're praising and all of the people Simon God we got to know that Satan is there had scattered abroad was the wrong man. too. That's his job. And he is there to tear had left Jerusalem, They began to listen down. If we trust God and do the things because it had come to the point where it and follow Philip that he would have us do, then everything was and they believed will be all right. Pray for me, as I go on, dangerous to live there. on the word of God. that I would be one in his will. And you And so they began to go Bible said shall have my prayers. in various places. that they took'em down But the Apostles after being-believing they had nerve enough to stay down in the water, righ t there. and baptized them, Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come They stayed there, and after, Down and still clinging tha t he ba ptized and preached the word of God. in Samaria Satan, your kingdom must come down; And so Philip, this great revival Satan, your kingdom must come down; being one of the first deacons chose that was carried on I'm going to pay my debt, till we tear your in the church, in this particular days. kingdom down. he went on down to Samaria. I'm told Satan, your kingdom must come down. And as he went to Samaria, that he

11 turned out of the city gOing to another place, and during that time the Apostles heard about this great revival where that Philip had preached and baptized men and sent Peter and John down to Samaria, for to lay hands on them, that they might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And I'm told that this man Simon, he also heard the word of God and believed, and was baptized, and when he looked at Peter, and John, The lemporary basemenI sancluary al Cw.rks Creek Progressive Primilive Baplisl Church. Rev. James laying hands Slrickland, wearing a black robe, is sealed at cenler. on those who believed, and were baptized, salvation, will be all right. they began to not given And as he prayed receive by price of money and went on, the gift of the Holy Ghost and I want you to know laying on the hands, or the power that you're an evil man, of those, that was you're not righ t, that had been baptized; which God give them and if you don't stop these things they received or to be wi tness many things the precious Holy Ghost. for them, will happen unto you." and Simon looked Heard Philip saying, and said "I pray Clarks Creek is a rural black commu­ "If you'll that you pray on my behalf, nity tucked in under the Blue Ridge itself, teach me how to do it, and that none of these things benveen the Dan and Ararat Rivers. Also I'll won't happen to me." known as "the Meadowfields community," pay you money." Ain't you glad the neighborhood has been home for But I'm glad that prayer black families since slavery. The church at that money won't buy can change things Clarks Creek was founded in 1892; salvation this morning. even though eighty-eight-year-old deacon Jesse And Peter something may be coming wrong Hatcher recalls that the congregation was silid to Simon, But if you pray, originally Primitive Baptist. Around the "Why your money pray sll1cere. turn of the century, though, the members won't huy 1 declare everything decided to depart from some of the more

12 conservative practices, and they joined The Reverend James Strickland, the most every line, one member occasionally other black churches in the new Progres­ regular preacher at the Clarks Creek strikes a tambourine, and Reverend sive Primitive Baptist denomination. By church, lives in Mt. Airy, the nearest large Strickland himself sometimes ornaments 1907 the church had started a Sunday town. The text of his sermon excerpt is a line endings with a rise in vocal inflection school and about 1930 added an organ description of Philip's journey to Samaria and emphasizes key words and phrases by and a piano to accompany congregational and his encounter with the sorcerer the device of repetition. singing. During the time these recordings Simon, as found in Acts 8:9-25. His ser­ Rosenberg suggests that such chanted were made, the members were con­ mon includes an accurate and impas­ sermons represent an "ideal conflation of structing a new church building-their sioned paraphrase of that passage. As the prose sermon and the spiritual"; if older brick structure had burned a few important as the text, though, is the this is so, then one might readily extend years before - and they were meeting manner in which Reverend Strickland the idea to the entire service of the tradi­ temporarily in the basement of their still "chants" his sermon with a highly skilled tional rural church. One might easily de­ incomplete building. and effective metrical regularity. fine the whole service in terms of a single The performance heard here begins Bruce Rosenberg, in The Art of the dynamic performance with different ele­ with the testimony of a member of the American Folk Preacher, describes the tech­ ments (song, prayer, testimony, sermon) congregation; she begins reciting a pas­ nique many preachers use in delivering located at different distances along an sage from Psalm 100 and then explaining an oral, improvised sermon, and his de­ axis extending from music to the spoken what the passage means to her. Her scription fits Reverend Strickland's per­ word. In such a schematic, one would statement that Satan is always "there to formance. probably find that rural churches, and tear down" apparently strikes a respon­ black churches, would have more ele­ Usually the sermons begin with a sive chord with some other member of ments located toward the musical end of reading of Scripture and the the congregation, and triggers the selec­ the axis than most modern white Protes­ preacher follows the Bible's punctua­ tion of the song, "Satan, Your Kingdom tant churches. tion. But these sermons are an­ MusvCome Down," with its refrain "tear tiphonal in nature, and soon the au­ your kingdom down." The sermon was dience's response-so active and co­ delivered somewhat later in the same gently felt-actuaJly delineates each service. SATAN, YOUR KINGDOM MUST COME line. each formula. Metrics govern. "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come DOWN To punctuate the "beat" the congre­ Down" seldom appears in printed collec­ gation shouts "Amen," "Oh yes," "Oh tions but has been recorded several times Selected Variants: Recordings Lord," "that's all right," etc. Most of in the Blue Ridge area. Blind Joe Tag­ Blind Joe Taggart. "Satan Your Kingdom the time there is no doubt about the gart, an itinerant black gospel singer and Must Come Down." Grafton, Wis.: end of a phrase: the congregation travelling evangelist very popular in Paramount, 1930. Paramount 13094. clearly makes it known. Or else the southwest Virginia, recorded a commer­ Dave Thompson. "Satan, Your Kingdom preacher himself punctuates his lines cial version of the song in 1931. Over Must Come Down." Sugar with a gasp for breath that is usually thirty years later, white singer Frank Grove, N.C.: field recording by Lee so consistent it can be timed metri­ Proffitt, from Reese, North Carolina, B. Hagerty and Henry Felt for Folk cally. (p. 38) about sixty miles to the southwest of the Legacy Records, 1963. AFS 14,027 Sparta area, recorded two versions of the Reverend Strickland, in this excerpt from A 14. song he had learned at a rural black a much longer sermon, punctuates his Frank Proffitt. "Satan, Your Kingdom church near his home. As recently as lines through the use of the rhythmic Must Come Down." Reese, N.C.: Folk 1963 a version was co.llected from a black marker "uh." The transcription of Legacy, 1964. The Frank Proffitt man in his mid-seventies living at Sugar Strickland's sermon is printed with line Memorial Album, FSA 36. Grove, North Carolina. These recordings divisions based on his performance, ---. "Satan, Your Kingdom Must suggest that at one time the song, or a rather than following the normal conven­ Come Down." Vilas, N.C.: field re­ variant of it, was reasonably well known tions for written prose. As the transcrip­ cording by John Cohen, 1965. High among rural black communities of the tion suggests, Reverend Strickland pre­ Atmosphere, Rounder 0028. Blue Ridge. The "minor" scale used in fers relatively short lines of three or four Second St. Paul Missionary Baptist this performance (actually a scale where syllables; as he builds momentum in his Church Choir. "Satan, We're Gonna the third degree is sometimes major, sermon, his short lines become even Tear Your Kingdom Down." Colum­ sometimes minor) contrasts markedly shorter, and for a time are reduced to bus County, N.C.: field recording by with the normal major scales used in most lines of two syllables. The congregation Glenn Hinson, 1979. Eight-Hand Sets gospel and modern church songs. also interjects comments at the end of al­ and Holy Steps, Crossroads C-I01.

13 much, uh, and so he called for those I know sometimes we pray and we hear offering plates as they came by, he was a little prayers in churches, sometimes we L69A3 crippled boy, he had not much to give, no hear little prayers at our tables, How Long Has It Been? money whatsoever, but that little boy sometimes. And all of that, uh. But how (Sermon excerpt). looked and he saw no one was concerned, long has it been since you heard, uh, of about those people out there that never secret prayers, uh? And these prayers we Preached by Rev. Tommy Worrell heard the name of Jesus, and so he says, have at our churches is well and good, uh, at Skyline Independent Baptist "1 don't have much to give, uh, but what I the prayer this morning stirred my heart, Church; white; September 24, have I give, uh." He took his, uh, he took uh, thank God, uh, a man was praying 1978; Carroll County, Virginia; those crutches he was walking upon, and that loves God, stirred me, uh. And I Blanton Owen; BR8-BO-R46. he put them in that offering plate, uh, know that God hears our prayers. But and says, "What I have I'll give to the how long has it been since you've went by cause of Christ, that others may be saved, somebody's house, uh, and you heard'em uh." And they, uh, saw what had in there on their knees begging God to happened. That little boy had given all he save the neighbors, uh, who's going to Now how long has it been since you had, uh, and the very thing, uh, that he hell, uh. How long has it been since you labored in the field of God? How long has could walk with, uh, he had given it to the went by somebody's house, uh, and you it been since God broke your heart? I cause of Christ, uh. They recalled those heard somebody praying, "Oh, I've got a wonder if God put us to test this morning, offering plates, uh, and those in that son that's going to burn in the names of uh, if God would find out how long it's service, some men in that service were hell, and they need to be saved." And a been since you as a child of God, God has wealthy, and they called those offering mother praying, "Oh God, I've got a so stirred your heart, and you've looked plates back, received the offering again, daughter that's lost and going to hell." over Carroll County, Virginia, you've and thousands of dollars were taken up How long has it been since you've heard looked over Hillsville, Virginia, you've for the cause of Christ, uh: because one prayers of compassion, and how long my looked up and down these hollows, and little boy had a compassion for souls. friend since someone prayed until they up and down these roads, uh, 52 and the And I say to you, brother or sister, if stayed on their face before God and Skyline, uh, and the Snake Creek Road some of you people at this church were to would not get off of their face until God and Ward's Gap Road, uh, you've looked get under the burden of souls, uh, and came through and answered prayer? over this area, and you've looked at men God will give you a compassion, uh, I tell and women, uh, that's lost without God, you it'll turn this mountaintop upside dying and going to hell, and your heart down, uh. You might say: "There's not began to bleed for them, until the tears many of us." That don't make a bit of Rev. Tommy Worrell, who preached came to your eyes, and you could not help difference, you just do what you can for this sermon at a revival at Skyline Inde­ yourself, you was weeping uncontrollably, God, uh, and if you don't have pendent Baptist Church near Fancy Gap, because God put a compassion in your compassion, pray God give you that Virginia, lives in Mount Airy, North heart and soul for that lost man or compassion, uh, and you'll see a revival Carolina, the nearest large town. He is a woman without God-How long, my break out. Not because of preacher Ervin native of Surry County, North Carolina, brother, has it been since God really Gallimore or preacher Marshall or Tom started work as an evangelist in 1955, and thrilled your heart and blessed your heart Worrell, but because, you see, if a revival for a time in the 1960s was a regular and gave you tears for those that's lost comes, it comes not because of the pastor for another church in the region. without God? singing, it comes not because of the choir, He learned much of his preaching style as That's the elements, Brother Gallimore, it comes not because of the pastor, it an apprentice to an older minister in Mt. that's missing in our services today; that's comes not because of the evangelist, but I Airy, and for a time attended Piedmont the thing that seems like it's long gone from have a secret to tell you this morning, if Bible College in nearby Winston-Salem. the services: people broken-hearted you forget everything else I say, He is a pleasant, articulate man who because-of souls going to hell. Oh, we remember this: revival will never come to today is a full-time practicing evangelist. need that compassion. this church unless it's by you, the His study is full of books, cassette re­ A little boy one time, they were taking a congregation and the members of the cordings of his own and other sermons, mission offering and they had, uh, uh, Lord Jesus Christ. All right. So a and equipment he uses to record sermons given, uh, in that mission offering they compasston. for radio broadcast. He is typical of many had given very, very little, and that young Soul winning without compassion is modern preachers who are comfortable fellow in that offering, uh, he saw what only a dream. How long has it been since with mass media and eager to use them to was happening, uh, nobody was giving you've heard anybody pray for souls, uh? get their messages out to the people.

14 Rev. Tommy Worrell at Skyline Independent Baptist Church. When the Skyline Independent Baptist live in rural commUnIties adjoining the tory. Worrell recalled hearing the story Church invited Reverend Worrell to start Blue Ridge Parkway. The congregation's about the crippled boy "in a missionary off their week-long revival in September song leader is Marshall Largen (L70 A J). offering" at another church several years 1978, the church had been independent The text of the Worrell excerpt uses ago and has used it frequently since. from the Southern Baptist Convention specific local place names and personal Many preachers make a distinction for about six years. Worrell was no names to make the sermon more im­ between the style of sermon preached in a stranger to the church; he had helped to mediate. This also tends to reinforce the regular service and that preached at a re­ organize it some sixteen years before and "sense of place" of the congregation and vival. "As a pastor, you'd be using a more ordained the current pastor, Ervin Galli­ to make them aware of their own unique expository, or teaching, style," says Rev­ more. He has also helped organize four culture and heritage. Reverend Worrell erend Worrell. "At a revival you want a or five other churches in the area, as well based his entire sermon on the dream more evangelistic type of preaching; you as numerous camp meetings. Skyline motif in Isaiah 29, but added elements not only want to win souls, but to rejuve­ church itself is located on Virginia state like the story of the little crippled boy. nate the faith in your audience." The road 640, in southeast Carroll County, Such exempla are not taken from scrip­ theme of compassion, which is effectively and in 1978 the members were building a ture. They are often migratory and tradi­ developed in this excerpt, is a natural new structure to replace the church they tional in nature and form an important ou tgrowth of traditional Baptist concerns were then using. Many of the members part of the Protestant preacher's reper­ with proselytizing and stewardship.

15 once more this side of the great beyond. able to come out to be with us; bless Oh, we thank thee Lord that you watched those, Lord, that's sick in the home, or in L69A4 over us last night. Love your neighbors, the, in the, uh, the hospital, we pray thee I'm Going Down by the River of Lord, get up and go do thy biding, make Lord, or in the rest home, oh God. Oh our way toward the place we call worship. Lord, great Lord Father, take care of us, Jordan. Oh God Father, we thank you Lord, for Lord. Lead us, Father, day by day and Sung by the congregation. so many blessings, Lord, this year. Every night by night, going up the King's Prayer. storm, ev-every century, been here in the highway. For we know and I [now] know Spoken by a member of the congre­ world, uh, down the ages, for a period of this morning, Lord, that this world is not gation. Both selections from the time. That you watch over us, you took our home, we'rejust,just passing by, that Macedonia Union Baptist Church; care of us, through danger and unseen we've got to go, that we going to go Lord, black; September 10, 1978; near danger; we pray thee Lord. at your commandment, got to leave this Oh Lord Father, you led us, day by day world or come back no more. Oh Lord, Sparta, North Carolina; Charles K. and night by night, help us in that make us ready for that dying hour, hard Wolfe; BR8-CW-R25. straight and narrow path that leads from times have come, or we got to finish our earth to glory. Oh Lord Father, we thank work here in this world. Well, Lord, we thee this morning, Father, for so many go in and come out no more, we done blessings, Lord, that you have bestowed with all the sorrow we can handle here in on-Bless this little number here, we the world. 0 Lord, bless this little number I'm Going Down by the River of pray thee Lord, this morning to bind us here, we pray thee Lord, bless everyone everyone in bonds of Christian love for by one Lord. Oh Lord Father, we pray Jordan one another. [Let us hold thy hand] day Lord, remember me. Remember the one by day and night by, by night, and watch that's going to preach the Word, oh God. I'm going down by the river ofJordan, over us, Lord, and take care. Bless those, Oh Lord Father, help him preach with I'm going down by the river ofJordan, some of Lord, this morning, Father, who were not power from on high. Help him we pray these days, hallelujah, I'm going down by the river ofJordan, At the end ofa service, Macedonia Union Baptist Church. I'm going down by the river ofJordan some of these days.

And now my troubles will all be over, Then my troubles will all be over, one of these days, hallelujah, Then my troubles will all be over, Then my troubles will all be over some of these days.

Then we'll shout from mansion to mansion, Then we'll shout from mansion to mansion, some of these days, hallelujah, Then we'll shout from mansion to mansion, We'll shout from mansion to mansion some of these days.

Prayer

Oh God, our most kind and heavenly Father, once more and again this morning Lord, that you [brought just?] us together again. Oh Lord, we thank thee this morning for this great gathering,

16 thee Lord, to provide a strong [will for ''I'm Going Down by the River of Jor­ Nationaljubilee Melodies. Nashville, Tenn.: the weak] Lord. And oh Father, God, uh, dan," though a few- mostly the ones National Baptist Publishing Board, when we are through here in this world, sung by the choir-were more modern, n.d. "Some 0' These Days," p. 98. through going and coming, through including an arrangement of "Thank Rodeheaver, Homer A. Rodeheaver's calling on your holy and high name. We You, Lord," from one of the contempo­ Plantation Melodies. Chicago: The pray Lord Father, in that great getting-up rary Singspiration songbooks. "I'm Going Rodeheaver Co., c. 1918. "Some 0' morning, uh, we'll have a home over Down by the River of Jordan" was led by These Days," p. 4. there, where there'll be no more trouble Deacon Leonard Bryan, an eighty-seven­ Work, John W. American Negro Songs. or trial. Ou I' tern ptations will be over. year-old patriarch who is also heard in New York: Howell, Soskin, & Co., Over there, we won't have to die no more. selection L70 B4. 1940. "Some of These Days," p. 166. Oh Lord, I go to stand by, as [here on The piano music accompanying the earth we do.] Save us a home somewhere prayer reflects the improvised nature of Selected Variants: Recordings in your kingdom. Amen. the service and heightens the effect of the Carter Family. "River of Jordan." Cam­ prayer. At the start of the prayer, the den, N.].: Victor Talking Machine speaker chants using a tonal center that Co., 1928. Victor 21434-A. corresponds to the key of the piano Charles Owens and family. "The Wel­ music. About a third of the way through, The Macedonia Union Baptist Church come Table." Nova Scotia: field re­ the pianist modulates into a different key, has a relatively new brick home on a cording by Helen Creighton, early while the speaker continues to chant his wooded ridge towering over North 1950s. Folk A1usicfrom Nova Scotia, prayer without shifting its tonal center. Carolina :Highway 18 a few miles east of Folkways FE4006 (P 1006). Though the specific use of the piano to Sparta. The church as a local institution, Pete Seeger. ''I'm Gonna Walk and Talk maintain continuity in the service or to however, is much older, with roots with Jesus." New York: Folkways provide a musical backgrou nd for a reaching well back into the nineteenth Records, early 1950s. Love Songs for prayer or sermon is relatively new at the century. Many of the members that at­ Friends and Foes, Folkways FA 2453 Macedonia church-they have only had a tend the church can trace back their fam­ (FP 85/3). piano in the last ten years-individual ily's membership for three or four gener­ Sonny Terry, Alek Stewart, Woody Guth­ members of the congregation continue to ations, making the Macedonia church one rie. "Streets of Glory." New York: fill such a function by quietly humming of the more durable and stable social in­ Stinson Records, early 1950s. Folksay: or smgmg. stitutions in Alleghany County. The Volume J, Stinson SLP 5. The prayer is half-chanted, half-sung church is a member of the New Covenant West Virginia Night Owls. ''I'm Goin' to for the first four or five lines, and then Association of Union Baptist churches, an Walk on the Streets of Glory." Cam­ moves into a stylized pattern of state­ association of black congregations or­ den, N.].: Victor Talking Machine ments which feature metrical regularity ganized in 1873. This connection is im­ Co., 1927. Victor 21533-A. portant for the church's members and ("Oh Lord,'; drawn out, followed by a many of them refer to their congregation tumbling, descending line), com­ as "Macedonia New Covenant Baptist monplaces ("day by day and night by Church." night"), and quotations from sources like The church has had a formal choir for trad itional spiri tuaIs ("this world is not only about ten or twelve years, and while our home, .... we're just passing the choir customarily performs several through"). The frequent interjections by numbers in the typical morning service, the congregation (especially the deacons) congregational singing still dominates the at times overwhelm the prayer itself. music. No song leader formally an­ nounces to the congregation what they will sing, and though the church owns hymn books, they are seldom used. Any I'M GOING DOWN BY THE RIVER OF church member-male or female-can JORDAN get up and start a song when moved to do so. On the day ''I'm Going Down by the Selected Variants: Print River of Jordan" was recorded, the con­ Grissom, Mary Ellen. The Negro Sings a gregation or choir sang eleven selections New Heaven. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Uni­ during the eighty-minute service. Most of versity of North Carolina Press, 1930. the songs were traditional spirituals like "Some 0' These Days," pp. 20-1.

17 L69A5 What a Time We're Living In. Sung with spoken remarks by Rev. Robert Akers, accompanied by Junior Hawkins, piano and vocal; Alex Shupe, guitar; Donnie Felts, bass; and Kim Shupe, drums; white; August 20, 1978; Galax, Virginia; Blanton Owen; BR8-BO-Rll.

It's been requested we sing one other song, and, uh, I tell you, I'm just about sung out and preached out, but we­ we're going to try because, you know, uh, people could request it tonight and be gone tomorrow, and then I'd always re· gret it that I didn't sing it. This is another song I wrote sometime back, "What a Rev. Robert Aker's tent set up in Galax. Time We're Living In." Key of C. Let's sing to the glory of God. Some of you Every knee will bow, every tongue confess, Chorus know this. If you will, you can help me when God calls his children to rest, out on it. Praise God: You going to kneel, you going to kneel after Play it one more time, boys. while. Oh, there'll be joy, there'll be joy after while, Chorus: There'll be joy, there'll be joy after while, Well, what a time, what a time, we're living Chorus All the saints shouting around God's throne In, and the faithful are welcomed home, What a time, what a time, we're Living in, Play it for me boys. There'll be joy, there'll be joy after while. There is hate on every hand, not many love I like this next verse. their fellow man, Well, I'm going to leave, I'm going to leave Chorus What a time, what a time, we're living in. after while, Amen. All right, we're not going to hold N ow this earth, this old earth '.I going to pass Oh, I'm going to leave, I'm going to leave after away, while, you too long tonight. This old old earth, this old earth's going to pass Soon that trumpet it will sound and my feet's Copyright 1980 by Robert Akers. Used by permission. away, going to leave the ground, This old earth's going to pass away, all the I'm going to leave, I'm going to leave after works of men shall decay, while. The temporary and transient nature of This old earth, this old earth's going to pass tent revivals stands in contrast to the away. Chorus sense of congregational and community stability provided by churches like those Chorus Oh, there'll be peace, there'll be peace after of the Primitive Baptists along the Blue while, Ridge. Although tent revivals seem tran­ Now you going to kneel, you going to kneel There'll be peace, there'll be peace after while, sient, their tradition is of long standing in after while, Lion'lllay down by the lamb, we shall be led by the region. Rev. Robert Akers has been You going to kneel, you going to kneel after a child, conducting them himself for twenty while, There'll he peace, there'll he peace after while. years.

18 Akers was born in Carroll County in 1935, is a part-time contractor, and is pastor of the Full Gospel Holiness Church in Hillsville, housed in a relatively new sheet metal building. For fourteen years he has broadcast "The Evangelistic Hour," featuring music and preaching, on radio station WHHV. The "show used to originate live at the station," he recalls, "but we got to getting so much help it got crowded, so now we feed it live on a line to the station from the church." He cur­ rently does about ninety tent revivals a year, working a circuit that takes him as far as one hundred miles from Hillsville, generally more to the southwest than to the east or north. Akers's talents as a performer and a songwriter came "as a gift"; his father did some singing but was neither a song lead.er nor a noted singer. Akers has written a number of gospel songs that are well-known to people in the area but has never recorded or published any of his songs. His songs and singing style are similar to that of Brother Claude Ely, a Whitesburg, Kentucky, revivalist who achieved regional fame in the late 1940s through his commercial recordings on the King label. Akers is very much aware of Ely's music and career, though he did not personally know him. The immediate context for this per­ formance, a revival meeting held on the outskirts of Galax in late summer of 1978, included about thirty minutes of Akers's preaching and nineteen songs performed by Akers and six other singers. The styles ranged from congregational singing to individual solo performances in the man­ ner of modern country music, and in­ cluded original songs, modern gospel songs, and nineteenth-century revival standards like "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" and "Jesus Is on the Main Line Tonight." "What a Time We're Living In'" was one of three or four originals Akers performed in that service. The song is structured along highly tra­ ditional lines, especially in its use of the same first, second, and fOllrth line, a technique common in black spirituals and Rev. Robert Akers. gospel songs.

19 Chorus Of the Savior possessed, I was fervently L69Bl blessed, When the Redeemed Are Saints will sing redemption's story with their Overwhelmed in the fulness of Cod. Gathering In. voices clear and strong, Sung by the congregation. When the redeemed are gathering in; Know the day drawing nigh, when my soul, Then the angels all will listen, for they cannot thou shalt fly, How Happy Are They. join that song, To the place that salvation began, Sung by the congregation. When the redeemed are gathering in. Wheu the three that are one, Father, Spirit, Must Jesus Bear the Cross and Son, Alone. Chorus Laid the seed of redemption for man. L~ned out by Elder Millard Pruitt and,sung by the congregation. Then the Savior will give orders to prepare the banquet board, Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone Prayer. When the redeemed are gathering in; Spoken by Elder Millard Pruitt. And we'll hear his invitation, "Come, ye Must Jesus bear the cross alone, Jesus Is Coming Soon. blessed of the Lord," And all the world go free? Sung by the congregation. When the redeemed are gathering in. No, there's a cross for everyone, Doxology. And there's a cross for me. Sung by the congregation. How Happy Are They How happy are the saints above, Blessing. Who once went sorrowing here, Spoken by Elder Millard Pruitt. All H ow happy are they who their Savior obey, But now they taste unmingled love, selections from a Sunday service at And whose treasures are laid up above. And joy without a tear. Laurel Glenn Regular Baptist Tongue cannot express the sweet comfort and Church; white; September 17, peace, The consecrated cross I'll bear, 1978; Alleghany County, North Of a soul in its earliest love. Till death shall set me free, And then go home my crown to wear, Carolina; Blanton Owen; That sweet comfort was mine when the favor For there's a crown for me. BR8-BO-R34 and,R36. divine, I first found in the blood of the lamb, Prayer When my heart first believed, what a joy I Let us all bow and try to pray. When the Redeemed Are Gathering received, Our kind and gracious and everlasting In What a heaven in Jesus' name. heavenly Father: once again to imbibe the goodness and mercy that thou has I am thinking of the rapture in our blessed 'Twas a heaven below the Redeemer to know, extended unto a few of thy children and home on high, And the angels could do nothing more, of thy creation. And we've been blessed to When the redeemed are gathering in; Than to fall at his feet, and the story repeat, meet here around this altar upon this, How we'll raise the heavenly anthem in that And the Savior of sinners adore. another beautiful Sabbath day. Good city in the sky, Lord, we're trying the best that we have When the redeemed are gathering in. Jesus all the day long was my joy and my song, ever learned how to come unto thee as All that know him salvation might see, little children this morning in humble Chorus: He has loved me, I cried, he has suffered and prayer and supplication, trying to let our When the redeemed are gathering in, died, hearts and our voices all unite together in Washed like snow, and free from all sin, To redeem such a rebel as me. thy praises here on the earth. Desiring, How we'll shout, and how we'll sing, oh Lord, if thou will, look down upon When the redeemed are gathering in. On the wings of his love I was cal'ried above, each individual and into their heart and Every sin and temptation and pain, soul today, and breathe upon every heart There will be a great procession over on the I could scarcely believe that I ever should a spirit of prayer and of thanksgiving for streets of gold, grzeve, they have so much to be thankful for here When the redeemed are gathering in; That I ever should suffer again. in this life. Lord Almighty, we humbly o what music, 0 what singing o'er the city will thank thee for the breath that we breathe, be rolled, Oh the rapturous height of that holy delight, oh Lord, and for our food and raiment When the redeemed are gathering in. Which I felt in the self-cleansing blood, that we all now possess. We humbly thank

20 the further [carrying] of this service, be our spokesman, Lord, be our leader and our guide. These blessings we ask in the name of Jesus and for our sakes. Amen.

Jesus Is Coming Soon

Troublesome times are here, filling men's hem·ts with fear, Freedom we all hold dear now is at stake; Humbling your heart to God, safe from the chastening rod, Seek the way pilgrim,' trod, Christians awake.

Chorus:

Jesus is coming soon, (jesus is coming soon,) Morning or night or noon, (Morning or night or noon,) Many will meet their doom, (Many will meet their doom,) Trumpets will sound (Trumpets will surely sound,) All of the dead shall rise Elder Millard Pruitt. (All of the dead shall rise,) thee Lord that thou art still a-giving grace been]' How so faithful thy cause and thy Righteous meet in the skies, unto the humble in heart, oh Lord, and ca-calling here in the world. Oh, Lord (Righteous meet in the skies,) will hear how their prayers when they cry our Father that thou have mercy on, how ­ Going where no one dies, unto thee, are asking of thee a blessing the poor lost sinners of the world, oh (Going where no one dies,) from heaven's world. Almighty God, our Lord, where will they be? Oh Lord, good Heavenward bound. Father, today, we humbly pray, oh Lord, Lord, would thou, uh, give unto them Love of so many cold, losing their homes of that thou would have mercy upon praying hearts, oh Lord, and the [?], How gold, everyone everywhere, wherever that they that they might come unto thee before it's This in God's Word is told, evils abound; may be that's trying, uh, to carry out thy everlastingly and eternally too late. I When these signs come to pass, nearing the end way and show the children the way of the realize, Lord, we're all bound, how one at last, bleeding lamb of God whilst they still live time through this life and after that, how It will come very fast, trumpets will sound. here in the world. Almighty God our death and the judgement await, have Father, we humbly ask that thou would, [visions] Lord Almighty, that thou will Chorus ah, smile upon everyone of them, dear help us [all day], I realize that we're in Lord, that they might be [born], [ah, thine hands and that, how they aren't Troubles will soon be o'er, happy for evermore, Lord'] all thy children everywhere, let able, oh Lord, to take away this life which When we meet on that shore, free from all one prayer come up to heaven's world. we now possess. Oh Lord Almighty, we care; Hide thou meekly, oh Lord, [do] that. pray thee, how Lord that thou would, uh, Rising up in the sky, telling this world How the windows of heaven's world stays give each little child the life of eternal, goodbye, a time and then-how they pour out the Lord, how that they might be able to leave Heavenward we then will fly, glory to share. dews of heaven upon the little flock that this world, have influence onto the faith, thou has preserved. How thine own blood oh God. How realizing that they, how Chorus here in the world, oh Lord, we humbly would have to prepare themselves while pray thee. How [great it is], God [they] live, how, Lord Almighty, give'em Almighty, that thou would look down praying hearts, Lord, and even then they Copyright J942, J970 R.E. Winsett Music Company; today upon. How the little flock around dispute it on down through the trials and Ellis Crum. Publisher, Kendallvill.e, !tId. 46755. that old Laurel Glenn, dear Lord [it has troubles of this life. Lead us all through Used by permission.

21 Doxology Let us sing "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise him, all creatures here below, Praise him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Blessing Gracious Lord, give us thankful hearts for the blessing that thou has blessed us with even this day, and now may the special and saving grace for our once humbled, but now exalted Lord and Savior Jesus Christ go with these children and not these only, but all the [children] )'/0 ~ of God now and henceforth, and forever. .,,.t" Amen. ,...,!- . All of you come back a month from today. I"~}L' ~~( C~I i] /~ve

"1(,"~ The building that houses Laurel Glenn Regular Baptist Church near Sparta, Al­ -~--~,.~.======t·\11_. leghany County, was constructed around 1.iIii/ .-s!~"'~~ ~~~_~~~~~II!J;."\ the turn of the century and faces a ceme­ '11..~1", \_.Y'c .\l:)~ ·-I~·/~ ~ ~ ~. tery across the road. Two sets of knotty "'t , •. 1(,. pine pews dominate the interior. The ~E~~1-7' ,.,J,;"..- (', y 1.... '.•~ ')

women all sit on the left side of the pul­ J I... •. pit, the men on the right. The song leader '1~~~ f~ .: " ;~f'f"'1 .. 1 : :~;.~ and pastor stand in front when conduct­ • 4-"4-0 41...& '

22 nated as an attempt to meet the demand for a paperback collection of gospel songs that could be used in church. It has been one of the most successful compilations in modern times. All the singing at Laurel \ Glenn was unaccompanied, and though / -r~" ~ 'C­ the Stamps-Baxter and Winsett books //1" I I ' \ \ /1(1'1 ..... " contained music, the congregation did .. , not always sing the parts as given but "~I often used the books only for the words. On the Sunday that these recordings rL-....,;;, ~ I· . ~-'\ ,/ ,;(1-"1' were made, only fifteen members of the Laurel Glenn congregation were present. '\/ I I I~· An association meeting in the area had I drawn away some members who would normally attend. The fifteen members in­ (.L,~rr..., cluded Elder Millard Pruitt and his wife, ('n." " .: Malissa, Zane and Mabel Brooks, T..j. ',.; ,", ,.. ~.,1:' l..; f Worthington, Patricia Ann Brooks, John ,(. --- __ - I) )C' "­ __", r~__ ~ _~..t Lee Phipps, Una Lee Phipps, Shane r -., ... ". Brooks, Betty Ann Jones, and Sherman Scott. Leading the singing were Ray - , Caudill, the song leader, and Elder Pruitt; Una Lee Phipps's alto voice is also promi­ + nent on the recordings. The service in­ ,,'­ - \:1­ ----1" r' cluded the singing of eleven songs and 1 I the "Doxology," as well as a scriptural reading, a prayer, and a message deliv­ ered by Elder Pruitt. While this selection t' offers only excerpts from the service, the songs included are full length and the original order has been preserved. The performances have also been selected to illustrate the variety of song \ I ..,' t' and singing styles found in such congre­ gations. Next to a rousing revival song like "When the Redeemed Are Gathering In" is a stately 200-year-old anthem, "How Happy Are They," sung in the old unison style. "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone" is "lined" by Pruitt; he chants a line of the hymn and then the congrega­ tion sings it. When asked if lining was still a regular part of the church singing, Elder Pruitt replied, "I'd guess so. If we don't show some of these younger ones how it's done, it's going to be lost." "Jesus Is Coming Soon" is a singing convention song composed in 1942, performed here replete with "parts" (the echoing of the chorus) in the manner of the gospel quartet. The "Doxology" uses the tradi­ 5ite plan ojthe Laurel Glenn Regular Baptist Churchfrom Marshall's fieldnotesfor August 1'"', 1978. tional words by seventeenth-century

23 writer Thomas Ken but is sung to an un­ composed in 1749 by Charles Wesley Reverend J. Bazzell Mull's paperback usual melody. (1707-1788), the English Methodist songbooks sold through his popular radio Throughout the singing one can detect preacher and hymn writer whose brother program, "Mull's Singing Convention." A individual stylistic traits characteristic of John is known as the founder of parallel performance of this piece, also unaccompanied singing in the Blue Methodism. The song, which sometimes lined out, was recorded in the 1960s by Ridge, such as the use of ornamentation appears under the title "How Happy Are Elder Walter Evans from Sparta, just a and (especially in Elder Pruitt's singing) They Who the Savior Obey" or "How few miles from the Laurel Glenn church. "feathering," an upward glide at the end Happy Are They Who Their Savior The recording by Ernest Stoneman shares of a phrase. Each of the performances Obey," was first printed in America in the two verses with this performance and heard here, including the "Doxology," Methodist Pocket Hymn Book. It is still well adds a different refrain. also uses a pentatonic scale, at least in the known in northern church'es, appearing "Jesus Is Coming Soon" was composed lead parts. (Some of the harmony and in the twentieth-century Methodist, Lu­ by the Dayton, Tennessee, song publisher part singing on "When the Redeemed theran, and Anglican hymnals. Texts and song writer Robert E. Winsett in the Are Gathering In" adds a sixth tone.) In have been circulating through the Lloyd early days of World War II and first ap­ fact, a case could be made for classifying and Goble Primitive Baptist songbooks peared in a 1942 Winsett paperback Elder Pruitt's chanted prayer as a quasi­ for about one hundred years and have shape-note songbook. The first stanza of musical performance using the same helped to keep the song alive in rural the song makes rather explicit topical ref­ pentatonic scale. Such similarities under­ Baptist churches throughout the South. erences to the war, a relatively rare score the integrity of the Laurel Glenn "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone" is a phenomenon in a modern gospel song. service and suggest that the body of composite song with a complex history. The references do not seem to bother the songs, prayers, and sermons that com­ The initial stanza seems to be a rewriting people of the area (one singer saw them prise the rural church service might be of a quatrain in the English poet Thomas as "more relevant than ever"). The song is much more musically unified than casual Shepherd's Penitential Cries (1693) which a genuine regional favorite. The Glory­ inspection would indicate. originally read: land Seekers, a young group from nearby "When the Redeemed Are Gathering Shall Simon bear the Cross alone, Ennice, have recorded the song on a cus­ In" was written in 1911 by Rev. Johnson And other Saints be free? tom record album, as have the Oatman, Jr. (words) and Texan W.H. Each Saint of thine shall find his own, Lamplighters quartet from nearby Galax. Dutton (music). This song was popu­ And there is one for me. The Easter Brothers, popular bluegrass larized primarily by. the publisher A.J. According to Reynolds's Hymns of Our and television entertainers in the region, Showalter. Reverend Oatman was a pro­ Faith, the second stanza has been traced included it on one of their first LPs. More lific writer of hymns in his day, though to a missionary collection published at widely known recorded versions include "When the Redeemed" seems to have Norwich, England, about 1810. In 1844, those by the Chuck Wagon Gang and been his most popular piece, enjoying George N. Allen combined these two other modern, professional groups. over sixteen printings through two dec­ stanzas with the third, wrote a tune called ades. Oatman's biography is outlined in "Maitland" for the lyrics, and published William Reynolds's Hymns of Our Faith. the results in The Oberlin Social and Sab­ WHEN THE REDEEMED ARE Showalter, a product of the Shenandoah bath School Hymn Book; I have been unable GATHERING IN Valley singing school tradition, founded a to examine a copy of this book. This col­ highly successful songbook publishing lection was reasonably popular in its day, Present Text company in Dalton, Georgia, in 1884, and but the inclusion of the tune in the 1855 Morris, Homer F.; Stamps. Virgil 0.; conducted singing schools in several Plymouth Collection of Hymns assured it an Baxter, J.R.; and Combs, W.W., southern states. The Laurel Glenn con­ enduring place in America. The comps. Favorite Songs and Hymns. gregation sang this song from the Plymouth collection was edited by the Dallas: Stamps-Baxter Music and Stamps-Baxter book. J.R. Baxter was one nascent abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, Printing Co., 1939, p. 159. of Showalter's pupils. The song was often then an immensely popular preacher, and Selected Variants: Print played by the Red Fox Chasers, a famous the tune was titled "Cross and Crown." Showalter, A.J. et al, comps. The New Re­ old-time string band from the same In the first half of the twentieth cen­ vival Glory. Dalton, Ga.: The A.J. neighborhood as the Laurel Glenn tury, the song appeared in at least Showalter Co., 1912, p. 148. church, who recorded a version in 1928. twenty-seven hymnals of all faiths, mak­ Selected Variants: Recordings Galax singer Ernest Stoneman also re­ ing it a staple in American church sing­ Brown's Ferry Four. "When the Re­ corded a version in 1926. ing. Today the song can be found in deemed Are Gathering In.'' Cincin­ According to hymn scholar Leonard sources as diverse as the Primitive Baptist nati: King Recording ~o., 1952. King Ellinwood, "How Happy Are They" was The Old School Hymnal collections and the 1209.

24 1975, no. 19. Showalter, A.J., et ai, camps. The New Re­ vival Glory. Dalton, Ga.: The A.J. Showalter Co., 1912, no. 264. Speir, E.D., et al, camps. Old School Hym­ nal No. 10. Cincinnati: The Old School Hymnal Co., 1964, no. 275. Selected Variants: Recordings Edward W. Clay~orn (The Guitar Evangelist). "Jesus Will Make It All Right." Chicago: Brunswick-Balke­ Callender Co., 1927. Vocalion 1093. Reissued on Christ Was Born on Christmas Morn, Historical HLP-34. Elder Walter Evans and congregation. "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?" Sparta, N.C.: Sovereign Grace Rec­ ord Co., ca. 1960s. Old Hymns Lined and Led by Elder Walter Evans, Sovereign Grace LP 6444. Ernest Stoneman's Dixie Mountaineers, "There's a Light Lit Up in Galilee." Bristol, Tenn.: Victor Talking Machine Co., 1928. Victor 40078.

JESUS IS COMING SOON

Present Text Winsett, Robert E., camp. Best of All. Laurel Glenn chunh. Dayton, Tenn.: Winsett Publishing Co., 1951, no. 107. Carson Brothers and Smith. "When the Edition. With a prefatory letter to Selected Variants: Print Redeemed Are Gathering In.'' members of the Methodist Episcopal Winsett, Robert E., compo Joys Supernal. Asheville, N.C.: General Phonograph Church from Bishops Thomas Coke Dayton, Tenn.: Winsett Publishing Co., 1925. Okeh 45023. and Francis Asbury. Philadelphia: Co., 1942, no. 64. Ernest Stoneman's Dixie Mountaineers. Prichard and Hall for Dickins, 1790, Selected Variants: Recordings "When the Redeemed Are Gathering pp. 202-3. Chuck Wagon Gang. "Jesus Is Coming In.'' New York: Victor Talking Soon." Nashville: Columbia Records, Machine Co., 1926. Victor 20533. MUST JESUS BEAR THE CROSS ALONE 1971. Down the Sawdust Trail, Colu m­ Red Fox Chasers. "When the Redeemed bia LP C31 043. Are Gathering In.'' Richmond, Ind.: Present Text Easter Brothers and Their Green Valley Starr Piano Co., 1928. Matrix 13943. Goble, D.H., camp. Primitive Baptist Hymn Quartet. "Jesus Is Coming Soon." Mt. Book. 1887. Reprint. Greenfield, Ind.: Airy, N.C.: Commandment Records, HOW HAPPY ARE THEY D.H. Goble Printing Co., n.d., p. 263. ca. 1974. Country Hymn Time, Com­ Present Text Selected Variants: Print mandment LP 300. Lloyd, Benjamin, camp. The Primitive Beecher, Henry Ward, camp. Plymouth Gloryland Seekers. "Jesus Is Coming Hymns, Spiritual Songs, and Sacred Collection of Hymns. New York: A.S. Soon." Galax, Va.: SWS Records, Poems. 1841. Reprint. Rocky Mount, Barnes, 1855. "Cross and Crown," p. 1977. Come On People, SWS LP N.C.: The Primitive Hymns Corp., 244. HRC-1201. 1978, p. 115. Mull, J. Bazzell, camp. Mulls Our Recorded Lamplighters. "Jesus Is Coming Soon." Selected Variants: Print Songs Number 3. Cleveland, Tenn.: Roanoke, Va.: Princess Record Com­ A Pocket hymn-Book, Designed as a Constant Tennessee Music and Printing Com­ pany, ca. 1976. Lighting the Way Companion for the Pious . ... Eleventh pany for Mull Singing Convention, Through Song, Princess LP PR-116.

25 Congregation: them On our mind and ever before God in Happy day, happy day, when Jesus washed my prayer. L69B2 sins away. So let's keep these in mind and let's Baptizing at Carson Creek. Hooper: pray for them, and encourage them, and Conducted by Rev. Cecil Hooper Now, if there's anybody else want to be hold them up, and help them. Who knows and Rev. J.L. Byrd, with the baptized, me and Brother Byrd will what God will do with some of these. I congregations of the Mountain baptize you. may be looking at a red-headed preacher Rev. J.L. Byrd: right now and don't know it. We don't, no View Baptist Church, Lowgap, Amen, we will. North Carolina, and the man knows the mind of God. We don't Hooper: know what God's going to do with them, Community Baptist Church, near Hallelujah. Everybody ba-everybody let's pray for them. And pray for one Mount Airy, North Carolina; white; happy with your baptism that you've another. We appreciate the fact that we've September 7, 1978; near Lowgap, already had, huh? We'll be looking had two churches here baptizing North Carolina; Charles K. Wolfe; forward to you, to seeing you over on the together; this is about the second or third BR8-CW-R58. other side, if we never see you no more. time that we've had that, and one time we Over there in the pearly gates of glory, had three churches here, we all baptized where that we'll never be sick, where the together, three churches, that's trouble never comes. Now that's a real wonderful. I expect there's been more Rev. Cecil Hooper: blessing to me. people buried with Christ right there In obedience to the command of the Lord Congregation: than anyone little spot in this county, and and Master and upon the profession of Amen, amen. we appreciate you being here and pray faith that he has in him, we baptize this Hooper: God's blessing upon you. thy brother in the name of the Father, Just think about it. Brother Byrd, you got Anybody want to say a word before we and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. something to say? have the bened iction? Byrd: (Submersion) I was just thinking while Brother Cecil was burying those young folks out there Perhaps the most conspicuous convic­ Amen. in Christian baptism, what the world tion of Baptists in general is "believer's Congregation: thought about it. The world don't see a baptism," lOtal immersion, stemming Happy day, happy day, when Jesus washed my lot in that. The world has never really saw from the conscious choice of the indi­ SinS away. the significance of someone going down vidual, as opposed to infant baptism. The Hooper: there and be buried in a watery grave. Christian life involves dying to the old life I was just thinking about these fellows, They've never understood the and rising in a new life; and the act of a-help baptizing their children, it brings importance of it. But it must have been total immersion symbolizes this, as re­ back n- several years ago, that I walked awful important. Brother Cecil read from flected by Reverend Hooper's frequent out in the waters with my own son. And the third chapter of Matthew how when references to burial. Thus to many young helped baptize him. And it's a star in all John the Baptist was baptized in [there?] people in the Blue Ridge, baptism is an of my blessings since God saved me. I in the river Jordan that Jesus came to him important rite of passage. It symbolizes walked out in the waters and helped to be baptized. What he didn't read right their achievement of maturity, at least as baptize my wife. And it means something there in that one particular place was that defined in religious terms, for it repre­ to you. It's a real blessing. We thank God Jesus walked seventy miles to get over sents their serious commitment to Chris­ for all of these dads and moms, that's there to where John was baptizing, that tian values. The comments by both cooperating with us. These children, he might fulfill all righteousness. Even ministers heard in this selection reflect these boys and girls, that's being baptized sometimes we that are Christians, we fail the importance of this rite of passage. this evening. I rest-I request every to understand or to comprehend that this The tone of the comments is similar to praying dad and mom, or boy or girl to baptism, the rite of Christian baptism, is that of a high school commencement. pray for these. the fulfillment of all righteousness, as set Most of the half-dozen baptized at this In obedience to the command of the forth in the word of God. And it service were in their teens. Lord and Master, we baptize this our behooves us as Christians as the brothers It was by coincidence that two churches sister, in the name of the Father, and of ask us, not only are we to pray for one from Surry County decided to hold bap­ the Son, and the Holy Ghost. another but for these young Christians tism ceremonies on the same day. The that have just started out. It behooves us pool at Carson Creek, ju.st about a mile (Submersion) to pray for them nig-ht and day, to keep from the main highway from Lowgap to

26 from the well-known hymn "Oh Happy Day." According to Fuld's Book of World Famous Music (pp. 279-80), this hymn was first published in Boston in 1854 or 1855. Rev. Philip Doddridge's words were first published in London in 1755. Fuld could not substantiate the usual attribution of the melody to Edward F. Rimbault. Throughout the twentieth century, ver­ sions of the song have appeared in numerous paperback shape-note songbooks. This melody was parodied in the Prohibition favorite "How Dry I Am."

L70Al Palms of Victory. Sung unaccompanied by Marshall Largen, Rebecca Largen, Barbara Largen, and Bill Scott; white; June 27, 1979; near Laurel Fork, Virginia; Charles K. Wolfe; BR8-CW-RI05.

Chorus: Then palms of victory, crowns of glory, Palms of victory I shall wear.

I saw a wayworn traveler, In tattered garments clad, And struggling up the mountain, It seemed that he was sad. Canon Creek baptism. His back was laden heavy, His strength was almost gone, Mt. Airy,. has been used by churches in number of symbolic touches. The congre­ Yet he shouted as he journeyed, the community for decades, and such gations assembled on the banks singing Deliverance will come. 'Joint" baptisms are not rare. River bap­ "Shall We Gather at the River"; each can­ tism is still relatively common in the Blue didate wore a special white robe; each Chorus Ridge, though many churches are in­ baptism was framed with identical words creasingly turning to in-church "baptis­ by the preacher and by a single phrase of The summer sun was shining, try" tubs for the service. The ceremony as the hymn "Oh Happy Day" by the con­ The sweat was on his brow, a whole was informal, but followed an gregation standing on the bank. After the His garments, worn and dusty, interesting and traditional structure. The immersions, both ministers stood in the His step seemed mightly slow. excerpts assembled here are designed to creek facing the congregation and deliv­ But he kept pressing onward, represen t the overall service, which lasted ered impromptu comments. For he was going home, about thirty minutes. Throughout there Leading the singing at this ceremony is Still shouting as he journeyed, was a certain consciousness of the "tradi­ Caldwell Schuyler, who can also be heard Deliverance will come. tionality" of holding the service out of singing with his family on L70 A2. The doors at a real creek, and there were a refrain sung after each baptism comes Chorus

27 singing found in the area. They prefer to sing unaccompanied and in a style that uses little ornamentation or part com­ plexity. This style probably resembles southern family singing before it came under the influence of the flashier, more complex, more upbeat syncopated singing promulgated by the schools of James D. Vaughan and Stamps-Baxter in the 1920s. Indeed, many of the songs the Largens like to sing are taken from turn­ of-the-century songbooks passed on through Bill Scott's family. Elbert Marshall Largen, born near Hillsville in 1923, is a machinist by trade, a part-time preacher, a singer, and a first-rate tinkerer. (He once built a grandfather clock, parts and all.) Mar­ shall describes himself as an "independ­ ent" in religious matters. In 1972 his church, the Skyline Independent Baptist Church, withdrew from the Southern Baptist Convention, and Marshall today sponsors a half-hour weekly radio show over WHHV, Hillsville, called "The Word of Life Program." It features the family singing and his preaching and is the main outlet for the group's music. Singing with him are an old friend, Bill Scott, and Largen's two daughters, Rebecca and Bar­ bara. While all the members of the group listen to different types of music, all agree Barbara Largen, Rebecca Largen, Bill Scott, and Marshall Largen at the Largen home. that some modern gospel music is "like a I saw him in the evening, Family singing has always been a cor- lot of modern religions, it's anti­ The sun was sinking low, nerstone of gospel music, and it is no ac­ emotional." On the other hand, Marshall He'd overtopped the mountain, cident that virtually all the smaller singing "gets inspired" when he listens to the And reached the vale below. groups represented here are built around Chestnut Grove Quartet, a widely known He saw that golden city, family ties. Researcher Stanley H. a cappella quartet from the western part His everlasting home, Brobston, in his dissertation "A Brief of the state, and he likes to listen to the And he shouted loud hosannas, History of White Southern Gospel Music singing of Elder Lasserre Bradley on the Deliverance has come. and a Study of Selected Amateur Family (Primitive) Baptist Bible Hour, syndicated Gospel Music Singing Groups in Rural on radio from Cincinnati. Largen said, "I Chorus Georgia," reports that most groups he en­ don't believe his doctrine, but I sure like While gazing on that city, countered during a 1975-76 North Geor­ his singing." Rebecca and Barbara share Just o'er the narrow flood, gia survey could be classified in some way their father's interest in older tunes but A band of holy angels, as "family." Indeed, many of the legen­ also enjoy listening to modern gospel Came from the throne of God. dary groups of professional gospel music, music, and Barbara occasionally performs They bore him on their pinions, such as the Chuck Wagon Gang, the newer songs with other young singers in Safe o'er the dashing foam, Speer Family, and the Blackwood the area. And joined him in his triumph, Brothers, started with family members as It has been generally assumed that Deliverance had come. a nucleus. The family of Marshall Largen "Palms of Victory" (also called "Deliv­ of Laurel Fork, Virginia, preserves one of erance Will Come") was written in 1836 Chorus sung twice the earliest styles of small-group sacred by John Matthias. (I t sho~ld. not be con­

28 fused with the "Palms of Victory" pub­ Selected Variants: Print lished in various sacred harp hymnals, Bolton, H.W. and Driver,].M. Songs of the L70A2 like the 1855 Social Harp, p. 53.) Virtually Soul. Boston: Bolton and Driver, Holding to His Hand of Love. nothing is known about Matthias, how­ 1885. "Deliverance Will Come," p. Sung unaccompanied by the ever, and hymn scholar Leonard Ellin­ 46. wood wrote me in 1980 that he could find Randolph, Vance. Ozark Folk Songs: Vol. Caldwell Schuyler Family; white; no publication of this hymn prior to 1877. IV. 1950. Reprint. Columbia, Mo.: September 4, 1978; Lowgap, North Although I have not found a copy to University of Missouri Press, 1980, p. Carolina; Charles K. Wolfe; examine, Ellinwood said that the hymn 64. BR8-CW-RI3. appears in ].E. Irvine's 1877 Full Salva­ Silber, Irwin. "You're Hedy West." Sing tion Hymnal attributed to Rev. W. Out 14( 1964):28-33. "Pans of Bis­ McDonald. An identical text appears in cuits," p. 28. Going along, singing a song, Bolton and Driver's 1885 Songs of the Soul Speir, E.D., et ai, comps. Old School Hym­ Walking with the Heavenly Dove, attributed to Matthias. After this publica­ nal No. 10. Cincinnati: Old School Oh what gladness divine daily is mine, tion, the song appears in many collec­ Hymnal Co., 1964, no. 323. Holding to his hand of love, tions, usually attributed to Matthias. Selected Variants: Recordings Ever, According to Ellinwood, the refrain Carter Family. "The Wayworn Traveller." "Palms of Victory" is one of several New York: Decca Record Co., 1936. Duo/Solo Chorus: camp-meeting refrains that were tacked Decca 5359. I am holding to his hand, on to a variety of hymn texts during the Fiddlin' John Carson. "The Honest (I am holding to my Savior's hand,) nineteenth century. The original text of Farmer." New York: General Phono­ As I onward go, "Palms of Victory" contained a reference graph Co., 1925. Okeh 40411. Reis­ (As I onward go,) to Numbers 10:29, a description of Moses sued on The Old Hen Cackled and the Mid the dangers of this land, leading the tribes out from Sinai, but the Rooster's Going to Crow, Rounder (Mid the dangers of this weary land,) immediate relevance of this passage to the 1003. Grace he doth bestow; text of the song is unclear. Fiddlin' John Carson. "The Honest (Grace he doth bestow;) I n the early twentieth century, "Palms Farmer." Camden, N.].: RCA Victor, On to brighter realms above, of Victory" was widely reprinted in pa­ 1934. Bluebird B5742; Montgomery (Moving on to brighter realms above,) perback convention books throughout the Ward 4849. Sunbeams round me play, South. It was a convenient "filler," a Smith's Sacred Singers. "Deliverance Will (Sunbeams round me play,) half-page, older song that could be used Come." Atlanta: Columbia Phono­ I hold to his hand of love, to fill out a page where a newer song had graph Co., 1928. Columbia 15329. (I am holding to his hand of love,) occu pied a page and a half. I t was proba­ Uncle Dave Macon. "Deliverance Will All along the way. bly through the convention book that the Come." New York: Brunswick­ (All along the way.) song entered early commercial country Balke-Collender Co., 1926. Vocalion music tradition, where it was recorded 15439 and 500 I. Fellowship sweet, rapture complete, several times by luminaries like Uncle Walking with the Heavenly Dove, Dave Macon and the Carter Family. The I have nothing to dread, looking ahead, versions sung by Fiddlin' John Carson Holding to his hand of love, and Hedy West are parodies with political Ever, overtones whose existence attests to the hymn's popularity. The song today seems Chorus to be especially popular in the Carroll­ Grayson county area of southwest Vir­ Traveling on, facing the dawn, ginia, so much so that both Marshall Walking with the Heavenly Dove, Largen and Bill Scott reported that many I am nearing the strand of that good land, natives feel the song is indigenous to that Holding to his hand of love, area. I have heard the song sung in this Ever, area more than in any part of the coun­ .. :~ Itn'. J. W. OlUVl:lI'. o\.M. try, and other local singers, including Jim ..'v1~lf1 Chorus and Artie Marshall and the Schuyler ,r~

Family, include it as a part of their reg­ Copyright 1937, 1964 Slamp.f-Bax~er Music. Uud by ular repertories. permiJ.lion.

29 Like the Largen Family, the Schuyler Stamps-Baxter, Winsett, and Chuck Company, and by Eugene Wright. The Family of Lowgap, North Carolina, con­ Wagon Gang books and have recently Schuylers sang from a page removed sists of two generations of singers. Like begun singing from the John T. Benson from a hymnal and fastened to a sheet of the Largens, the Schuylers sing from "Inspiration" series of songbooks. Occa- heavy paper. It was impossible to identify seven-shape-note songbooks, often sing sionally a piece of modern sheet music the hymnal, but the page referred to the unaccompanied, and confine their per­ appears in their music pile, but even then song's original appearance in Stamps- forming to church singings and revivals. it is rendered with stately a cappella grace. Baxter's Starlit Crown. The Schuylers represent, however, a Recently the Schuylers have begun sing- Stylistically this performance is in- slightly more modern style than that rep­ ing some songs with the piano accom- teresting because it not only illustrates the resented by the Largens. If the Largen paniment of Mrs. Ella Draughn (see newer, more complex, more sprightly sound is rooted in the 1920s, the Schuyler L70 A4). gospel song that came into the Blue Ridge sound is rooted in the late 1930s. It is not "Holding to His Hand of Love" is a in the 1930s, but it also features a stylistic surprising that one of their favorite rather typical "convention book" song trait called the afterbeat, more commonly groups is the Chuck Wagon Gang, the dating from the 1930s. It was composed known among singers as "back-fire" or Texas singers who emerged in the 1930s by Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Wilson, who for "static." In a typical afterbeat song, one and dominated American gospel singing many years ran the important Chat- voice clearly carries the melodic line, with for three decades. tanooga office of the Stamps-Baxter other voices repeating a word or syllable Caldwell Schuyler and his wife Avis Caldwell, Trent, and Avis Schuyler, and Ella Draughn at the Schuyler home. have both sung since they were children. Avis came from a family that had no pro­ nounced singing tradition, but she sang in the high school glee club and the church choir. Caldwell, on the other hand, grew lip listening to his parents and brothers and sisters sing, and for several years after they were married Avis and Caldwell sang in a quartet with Caldwell's parents, Mr. and Mrs. E.L. Schuyler, also from Lowgap. Later ,the two sang a lot with A.P. Thompson and his son Ralph. A.P. Thompson, for years a singing teacher himself, had been a member of the Red Fox Chasers in the 1920s, a string band from Surry County which distin­ guished itself with a popular series of records featuring traditional and gospel music from the region. As Avis and Caldwell's son Trent developed into a singer, and as Thompson began to travel less, the Schuylers became a family trio. Although Caldwell works as a rural mail­ man and operates a large and successful farm, and Trent studies at nearby Surry County Community College, the Schuyl­ ers still manage to travel to two or three evening performances per week in the area. As with many other amateur groups, they feel lucky to recover their gasoline expenses and go primarily for the experience itself. The Schuyler repertory is more tradi­ tional than that of many such groups; they sing songs from old Vaughan,

30 Sometimes I get so tired and weary, As I journey on my way, No. 46 "olding to ",S Nand of Love And the faith begins to fail me, COPlrl.h\, 1111. b, Tho Stampo-Sulu.uIIo Co.. It's then I steal away and pray. EUGENE WRIGHT ID "StarIl&Oro....•• MR. &. MRS. WILBUR W1lAIOW Sot tooja3t I get a little glimpse of heaven, While at his feet I humbly bow, "'---'--<~-i~-~~-""'----Ba:... - ....-. -!li-,..- --<- ----0,-. ~ I ~!"= - ~-=~:=t= -"",-~_ ...=I=-~-~-"-"-"'=Il--.-5 And I hear him whisper, fear not, ~- .. .~=~.- .-a."'=9='=t,p~F.i-r.~~.=!t - ~ li '.'I'l~••'" I will make a way somehow. 'j 1. Go - IDg a· long, siog·jDg a BOOI{, Walking with tbe Ueav'oly Don, 0 whu 2. rel·low sbipaweet, raptore com.plete,Walkiog with the Heav'oly Dove, I bave Sometimes I feel just like a stranger, 3. Trav - el· log 00. !lie·jog the dawD. Walking with the Beav'oly Dove, I .. ... As I daily plod along, --~~ .~:.-:~:-;.~:-;.~:.....:~:.- _~ -~. I ~-,r--.-it"A.-::=-.-e-·----~"'-"'''=:Y-''''-''' ~~>--t- Ed Through this world of toil and danger, ~I .~iC'~_.~ ~~=lii:_ --il~-=. -_~ ...liC:;L'" r . 1_~~1i! I J- ~-r- J.~-"'-- -+­ Where so many things go wrong. . ill ~ ... ,.,., ...... ,IJ'" Jesus promised to be with me. A nd to answer every call, ___'" __~ '~.~_~~ ...... _.+-1---..Jo, ....._., _J>,.....__ _ ::._~~~~_.s._ +- ~ He will put his arms around me, _....Q_ .... _~_ ~-i"'-.-.,-t-- ..... _:::~lr"'_~ -=~ ;Jil--9=~A: Cr. ~:=t::=~iii.=.~·-=At::~...:..- And he will not let me fall. glad'DiU dl • viDe dai -1, ie roin't. Hold·iog to HiH baDd' of love ev· el. Doth -Iol( to dread, looking ". bead, Hold-iog to Hia haDd of love ev· er. Sometimes I get so tired and weary. Dear· iog thE.' straod 'Jf I.bat good Iliod. Hold·iog to Hia band of love ev· ". !'\ As I journey on my way, . ~ I'i -.' Io... ·~- ... ·•• ~ ... And the faith begins to fail me, ~~,..----.:-~-t ..- ...~-~~f!....!I..--I:'"' r=1:~·=-=-=~--;-J..-~---..., ~ ~ ....- ...-r- -. - ...... -;1-"'- - .. ~=­ ~- It's then I steal away and pray. l;I.~ ;;J r:; ; ----­ I get a little glimpse of heaven, While at his feet I humbly bow, And I hear him whisper, fear not, From Stamps-Baxter's Starlit Crown; the notation uses the seven-shape-note system. I will make a way somehow. on the offbeat following its appearance in the lead voice. Caldwell Schuyler explains Composed by Tommy Sutton and Sylvia Trace. it this way: "[t's like,you got it, I got it, L70 A3 Copyright 1953 Acuff-Rose Publications, Inc. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights you got it, I got it." The afterbeat is not The Lord Will Make a Way reserved. featured often today, though its influence Somehow. has been felt among almost all writers. Sung by the Peaceful Valley Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler recall that when Quartet: Aubrey Brooks (guitar and If any single professional group can be such songs first came in, back in the said to be the dominant influence on the 1930s, some people thought they were vocal), Carol Brooks, Joyce amateur groups in the Blue Ridge area, "too jiggy" to be religious songs. Gillespie, and Bobby Gillespie that group would undoubtedly be the (vocals); white; June 27, 1979; near Chuck Wagon Gang. The "Chucks," as Ennice, North Carolina; Charles K. many of their Blue Ridge fans fondly call Selected Variants: Print Wolfe; BR8-CW-RI02. them, came out of the Depression­ Baxter, J.R., Jr., et ai, comps. Starlit haunted Texas plains to galvanize and Crown. Dallas: Stamps-Baxter Music dominate white gospel music in the late and Printing Co., 1937, no. 46. 1930s. Through their recordings and Mull, J. Bazzell, compo The Chuck Wagon Aubrey Brooks: radio shows, they have continued to exert Gang: Our Recorded Songs Number Two. The title of this song is "The Lord Will this influence until the present day. The Cleveland, Tenn.: Tennessee Music Make a Way Somehow." group managed to merge the country and Printing Co., for J. Bazzell Mull I am on the heavenly highway, music style of the Carter Family with the and the Chuck Wagon Gang, 1967, Headed to the land above, singing school style of Stamps-Baxter and no. 42. See this world I have forsaken, to produce an instantly recognizable style Selected Variants: Recordings Just to serve the one I love. that has moved millions: rich, full, four­ Chuck Wagon Gang. "Holding to His When the way grows rough and rocky, part harmony with occasional polyphony Hand of Love." Dallas: Columbia Low before the cross I bow, or "part singing." Phonograph Co., 1940. Vocalionl I say unto my soul, be patient, It pleases the members of the Peaceful Okeh 5600. The Lord will make a way somehow. Valley Quartet when fans compare them

31 to the Chuck Wagon Gang. For years they unique guitar style "pretty much" on his sang soprano in the group and was re­ have worked to achieve this sound, and own, and within a few years the quartet sponsible for much of its distinctive the biggest thrill in their career came had develped an extensive repertory that sound, underwent surgery on her throat when they once performed with the featured Chuck Wagon favorites and in 1968. Complications forced her to "Chucks" on a concert stage. The Peace­ many of Aubrey's original gospel­ curtail singing, and the group broke up in ful Valley Quartet was originally or­ sentimental songs. They toured exten­ 1973. After a few years' retirement, Carol ganized about 1963 by Aubrey and Carol sively, travelling as far as Akron, Ohio, and Aubrey began to sing again, this time Brooks. Both are natives of the area. and appeared in local radio stations, with with their two teen-aged sons, and their Carol grew up singing with her brothers regular shows on WBOB (Galax) and success led them to recreate the Peaceful and sisters in a family quartet, The Ed­ WCOK (Sparta). About this time they Valley Quartet in 1979. This recording wards Family, that performed a cappella began to experiment with producing their was made only a few days after the group and sang in local churches. She is the only own records and found they could sell had started singing together again, and one of her family to carryon with music. enough to help meet their travel ex­ while there are occasional hints of rusti­ Aubrey went to an old-fashioned singing penses. They eventually produced two ness, the sound is still remarkable and school at Elkin, North Carolina, but con­ LPs and three 45s on their own. A fourth unique. Bobby Gillespie, who sings bass tinued to playa wide variety of music, in­ single was issued commercially on Arthur here, is an insurance agent in Sparta. His cluding bluegrass. He developed a rather Smith's Pyramid label. Carol Brooks, who wife, Joyce, is also a native of the region. "The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow" The Peaaful Valley Quartet. (not to be confused with a different, often-recorded song by Thomas A. Dor­ sey) was written in 1952 by disc jockey Tommy Sutton and gospel singer Sylvia Trace. Trace was from Lucasville, Ohio, and sang in a trio with her two daughters; Tommy Sutton was a disc jockey for a Dayton radio station. Sutton recalls, "That song was really the only one of our collaborations that amounted to any­ thing." The song was published in sheet music form by Acuff-Rose in 1953, and the Trace Family Trio recorded it for King that same year. The undated re­ cording by the Trace Trio probably pre­ dates the King disc. The record became a modest hit, and the song was picked up by other singers, including the Stanley Brothers, who often performed it but seem never to have recorded it. The Peaceful Valley Quartet thinks they first heard it performed by the Stanleys. Trace went on to record and write other gospel songs. Tommy Sutton eventually moved to Nashville, established close ties with bluegrass musicians like Red Allen, and composed country songs like "Wish 1 Had a NickeL"

Selected Variants: Print Sulton, Tommy and Trace, Sylvia. "The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow." Nashville: Acuff-Rose Publishing Co., 1953. (Copyright lead sheet.)

32 Selected Variants: Recordings with piano accompaniment in the mid­ peared in rival songbooks published by Trace Family Trio. "The Lord Will Make 1920s and that pianists like Dwight Brock, A.J. Showalter and Stamps-Baxter in a Way Somehow." Cii-lcinnati: King James Walbert, Lee Roy Abernathy, and 1939 and 1940, and interest was renewed Recording Co., ca. 1953. King 1185. Hovie Lister have emerged as influential again in the song in the mid-1940s when Trace Trio. "The Lord Will Make a Way arrangers and composers in the genre. it was featured by the popular John Somehow." Recording information The use of up-tempo, ragtime-like Daniel Quartet over station WSM in unknown. Trace 100. piano solos as a regular part of gospel Nashville. Meanwhile, in 1941, the Carter quartet performances dates from the Family recorded a country version of the 1930s, and "Keep on the Firing Line" has song (vocals and guitar) which helped L70A4 emerged as a favorite of many quartet spread the song into country and country Keep on the Firing Line. pianists. The song was originally written gospel circles. An interesting parallel to Played on the piano by Ella in 1915 by Bessie F. Hatcher, of Yard­ this present performance (complete with ville, New Jersey, who produced a glissando run) can be heard on an early Draughn; white; September 4, number of other "gospel hymns." During record by the Blackwood Brothers, where 1978; near Lowgap, North the next twenty years, the song somehow the piano is played by Hilton Griswald. Carolina; Charles K. Wolfe; got into southern quartet tradition, and BR8-CW-RI7. underwent several subtle melodic and textual changes. In 1935, a Tennessee gospel group called the LeFevre Trio, Selected Variants: Print Though nearing her eighties, Mrs. Ella who often performed with guitar, banjo, Easterling, Marion W., arr. "Keep On the Draughn is still widely regarded as one of and fiddle, began performing the tune in Firing Line." In Sparkling Songs. the best gospel music pianists around by up-tempo style. Lois Blackwell in The Dalton, Ga.: The A.J. Showalter Co., the people of the Surry County-Mt. Airy Wings of the Dove reports that at one par­ 1939, no. 97. region. Recently she has been appearing ticular singing convention, "several lis­ Hatcher, Bessie F. "Keep on the Firing with the Schuyler Family, who live a few teners stood up and protested such jive Line." Yardville, N.J.: Bessie F. miles up the road from her, and occa­ music in a gospel sing, but immediately Hatcher, 1915. (Copyright lead sionally sings with A.P. Thompson. As a others jumped up and squelched their sheet.) girl in the 1920s she attended a seven­ protestation-and the LeFevres kept on LeFevre, Alphus, arr. "Keep on the Fir­ shape note singing school held in the area swinging." In 1935 Alphus LeFevre, then ing Line." In Sunrise in Glory, ed. by by Haritage East, a legendary singing working for the Vaughan Publishing W. Lee Higgins. Lawrenceburg, school teacher. By the late 1930s Mrs. Company, published an arrangement of Tenn.: James D. Vaughan, 1935, no. Draughn was playing piano for the Lone the piece in a Vaughan convention book; 74. Star Quartet, then fixtures at WPTF in that same year Otis McCoy published a McCoy, Otis, arr. "Keep on the Firing Raleigh. The group would give a daily similar "syncopated" arrangement in a Li ne." In H omeland Harmony radio program at 9:00 in the morning book by a rival company. In a 1979 con­ Songbook, compo by Otis McCoy. and then travel to live appearances every versation with this writer, McCoy ac­ Cleveland, Tenn.: Tennessee Music ­ night. "We would play mostly schools. knowledged that he had heard the song and Printing Co., 1936, no. 102. They would charge $1.00 admission for a since the early 1930s and that it was pop­ two-hour show. That was during the De­ ularized mainly through the efforts of the Selected Variants: Recordings pression. Schools would take a tax out of LeFevres. Conner Hall remembers that by Blackwood Brothers. "Keep on the Firing the gate to help pay for costs of running the end of the 1930s, this piece had be­ Line." Kansas City: Blackwood the schools." Most of the show was come so popular that in a Greenville, Brothers Records, ca. 1948. straight quartet gospel music except for South Carolina, church it was played in Blackwood 1057-A. some comedy (one of the members swing band style by a 25-piece church or­ Brown's Ferry Four. "Keep on the Firing created a comic character named Joe chestra. Quartets, not having such in­ Line." Cincinnati: King Recording Squashead) and Mrs. Draughn's piano strumental resources, devised a format Co., 1947. King 700. solos such as ''I'm Going to See Heaven" where the singers would first sing one Carter Family. "Keep on the Firing Line." and "Keep on the Firing Line." verse, and only then turn the tune over to New York: RCA Victor, 1941. The full effect of the addition of the their pianist for a show piece. It was Bluebird B-9026. Reissued on My Old piano to gospel quartet music has yet to during this period that Ella Draughn Cottage Home, Camden ACLI-0047. be studied. We know that pioneering learned the tune. LeFevre Trio. "Keep on the Firing Line." quartets like the Vaughan Quartet and Somewhat different versions of the Atlanta: Bibletone Records, ca. 1947. the Frank Stamps quartet were recording song arranged by Marion Easterling ap- Bibletone 7007-A.

33 L70A5 On the Other Side ofJordan. Sung and played by Elk Horn Four: Warren Lowe (guitar and lead vocal), Ethel Lowe (bass and harmony vocal), Edward Spears (lead guitar), and Joanne Monk (piano); white; September 19, 1978; near Galax, Virginia; Charles K. Wolfe; BR8-CW-R59.

On the other side oj jordan, just heyond the shining strand, I'll be resting in the beauty oj that land. I'll go walking through the garden, with that man oj Galilee, He's the master oj that troubled stormy sea.

Chorus: f am waiting in the shadows Jar the shining angel hand, And they'll come and take me home to that land. On the other side ojjordan, they are waiting there f know, And I'm ready, Lord I'm ready, now to go. Edward Spears, Ethel Lowe,joanne Monk, and Warren Lowe at the Lowe Home.

On the other side oj jordan, there's so much I The El k Horn Fou r, named for a Lowes are also familiar with the older want to see, church near Galax, consists of Warren C. country and bluegrass songs and fre­ There's a mansion in that city waiting me. Lowe and his wife, Ethel, augmented by quently host jam sessions with their I'll possess it on that morning, when f rise to Joanne Monk, a neighbor who plays next-door neighbor, noted bluegrass gos­ weep no more, piano, and Edward Spears, a young pel performer Larry Richardson. And I'll he living on that everlasting shore. guitarist-singer. Warren Lowe was born The repertory and performing style of in 1924 in the Lowgap, North Carolina, the Elk Horn Four is akin more to that of Chorus area, as were his parents. Today he makes modern professional gospel groups than his living as a glassworker and does a lot to the older classic quartets or singing On the other side oj jordan, f have Jriends f of hunting and fishing. His wife Ethel is school style. Much of their repertory is in­ long to see, also a native of the area, works in Galax, fluenced by singers like the Inspirations, f have loved ones in that city waiting me. and plays electric bass in the group. Un­ a North Carolina group that recorded They are restingJrom their labors, they areJree like many family groups, the Lowes have widely and often appeared on Sunday Jrom all their cares, not been singing all their lives. The Elk morning television in the area. The They are parted Jrom their burdens oj the Horn Four has existed for a relatively Lowes will frequently take a song which years. short time. After this recording was made the Inspirations or a similar group have in 1978, Edward Spears dropped out of recorded in a rather slick, orchestrated Chorus the group, and the remaining three have version and perform it as a powerful, renamed themselves the Closer Walk even soulful, country duet. Copyright 1959 by Stamps Quartet Music Co. Trio. They continue to perform at local "On the Other Side qf Jordan" was Used by permi.uion. churches two or three nights a week. Both written in 1959 by James B. Singleton and

34 first published in Gospel Echoes, a rather Voices of loved ones, songs of the past, circuit-riding preacher from nearby obscure shape-note paperback songbook. Still linger 'TOund me while life shall last. Wythe County, who travelled the 'area in It should not be confused with a newer Lonely I wander, sadly I roam, the nineteenth century. "This was the song of the same title written by gospel Seeking that far-off home. song that was for so long associated with singer J.D. Sumner and popularized by Sheffey, and after"l read this book about The Blackwood Brothers. The version of Chorus him, I wanted to learn the song and the song that seems to have been the di­ began hunting it." Jim finally found a text rect inspiration for many of the gospel Come in the twilight, come, come to me, of the song in a paperback songbook groups in the Galax area was recorded by Bringing some message from over the sea, published by famous gospel songwriter The Looper Trio, a semi-professional Cheering my pathway while here I roam, Albert E. Brumley from Missouri. How­ group from Livingston, Tennessee, who Seeking that far-off home. ever, the song had deeper roots in Vir­ are very popular in the central Blue ginia than preacher Robert Sheffey. It Ridge. Chorus was composed in the 1870s by Aldine S. Kieffer and B.C. Unseld, who at the time Selected Variants: Print were running an influential singing Stamps, Frank H. et al., comps. Gospel Gospel songs have always formed a sig­ school in the Shenandoah Valley. Kieffer Echoes. Dallas, Little Rock, Birming­ nificant part of the repertories of string and his schools dominated southern ham: Stamps Quartet Music Co., bands in the Blue Ridge area. [n the shape-note singing from 1874 on, count­ 1959, no. 66. 1920s, groups like Ernest Stoneman's ing among their pupils both James D. Selected Variants: Recordings from Galax and the Red Fox Chasers Vaughan and A.J. Showalter. James D. Looper Trio. "On the Other Side of J or­ from Surry County, North Carolina, re­ Vaughan often reprinted "Twilight Is dan." Dayton, Ohio: Midwest Gospel corded almost as many sacred songs as Stealing" in his yearly paperback conven­ Sound Records, ca. 1975. Life Beyond they did secular ones. In later years, area tion songbooks, and in 1927 a string band Death, Midwest Gospel Sound MWGS bluegrass musicians followed suit, and from Kingsport, Tennessee, headed by LP 27404. some, like banjoist Larry Richardson, fiddler John Dykes recorded a version of Walker Family. "The Other Side of Jor­ turned to gospel music exclusively. Jim the piece for Brunswick Records titled dan." Galax, Va.: Heritage Records, and Artie Marshall continue this tradition "Twilight Is Stealing over the Sea." Galax 1977. Family Circle, Heritage LP XV. of integrating gospel into other forms of singer Ernest V. "Pop" Stoneman also re­ music, and sport business cards that read: corded a version of the song in Bristol in "Original Trucker and Gospel Music, 1928, but the record was never issued. Mountain Style." L70A6 Jim Marshall, born in Carroll County in Twilight Is Falling. 1928, is a part-time trucker, auctioneer, Selected Variants: Print Sung and played by Jim Marshall real estate salesman, music promoter, Brumley, Albert E., compo Olde Time songwriter, instrument salesman, and Camp Meetin' Songs. Camdenton, Mo.: (vocal and five-string banjo) and bluegrass musician. He is also a devotee Albert E. Brumley and Sons, 1971, p. Artie Marshall (vocal and guitar); of local history, an expert on older musi­ 61. white; September 14, 1978; near cians in the area, and composer of Henson,].M., compo The Garden of Song. Hillsville, Virginia; Charles K. numerous songs about the region, such as Atlanta: The J.M. Henson Music Co., Wolfe; BR8-CW-R37. "The Ballad of Fancy Gap," "New River 1949, no. 53. Blues," and "The Night the Angels Sang," Mull, J. Bazzell, compo The Chuck Wagon the last about a "miracle" that occurred at Gang: Our Recorded Songs Number Two. a camp meeting in the area some eighty Cleveland, Tenn.: Tennessee Music Twilight is stealing over the sea, years ago. Artie Marshall, also from the and Printing Co. for J. Bazzell Mull Shadows are falling, dark on the lea. area, is a cousin of Ruby Vass, who has and the Chuck Wagon Gang, 1967. Borne on the nightwinds, voices of yore, recorded for Alan Lomax and others. "Twilight Is Stealing," p. 83. Come from that far-off shore. Though the Marshalls routinely perform Stamps, Virgil 0., compo Radio Song in the area, often with well-known blue­ Album. Dallas: Stamps-Baxter Music Chorus: grass stars, they have not recorded exten­ and Printing Co., 1937. "Twilight Is Far away, beyond the starlit skies, sively. Stealing," no. 129. Where the lovelight never, never dies, "Twilight Is Falling" was a song that Vaughan, James D., et al, comps. Heav­ Gleameth a mansion filled with delight, first interested Jim because of its associa­ enly Voices. Lawrenct;burg, Tenn.: Sweet happy home so bright. tion with Robert Sheffey, a famous James D. Vaughan, 1918,- no. 71.

35 Selected Variants: Recordings His heart oppressed and with anguish riven, tapes the program in his home late Satur­ Carolina Quartet. "Twilight Is Stealing." From his home below to a home in heaven. day night before the Sunday it is to be Wi nston-Sale m, N. C.: General broadcast. This allows him to include last Phonograph Co., 1928. Okeh 45189. A home in heaven, as the sufferer lies, minute announcements of singings or re­ Chuck Wagon Gang. "Twilight Is FaIl­ On his bed of pain and uplifts his eyes, vivals and up-to-date news about the sick ing." Nashville: Columbia Records, To that bright home, what a joy is given, and shut-in. This selection was recorded 1966. The Glory Land Way, Columbia With the blessed thought of a home in heaven. as Higgins taped his show for Sunday, CL 2597/CS 9397. September 24, 1978. Dykes Magic City Trio. "Twilight Is A home in heaven, when our pleasures fade, Both Elder Higgins and his wife, Stealing over the Sea." New York: And our wealth and fame in the dust are laid, Jenetta Jo (also a third generation B ru nswick- Balke-Collender Co., And our strength decays and our health is Grayson County native), grew up singing 1927. Brunswick 130. Ttven, the stately Primitive Baptist hymns, and Old Kentucky String Band. "Twilight Is We are happy still with our home in heaven. their audience shares a love of this rep­ Stealing." Brighton, Mich.: Old ertory with them. They have weekly re­ Homestead Record Co., 1976. A home in heaven, when the sinner mourns, quests for their duet versions of many of Twilight Is Falling, Old Homestead And with contrite heart, to the Savior turns, the old songs. Both know several differ­ OHS 80008. Oh, then what bliss in that heart forgiven, ent traditional tunes for some of the more Stoneman Family. "Twilight Is Stealing Does the hope inspire of a home in heaven. popular songs in the old books, where over the Sea." Bristol, Tenn.: Victor they are printed without musical notation. Talking Maching Co., 1928. Matrix A home in heaven when our friends are fled, The biography of William Hunter, the 47263-2. To the cheerless home of the mouldering dead, composer of "A Home in Heaven," is We wait in hope of the promise given, outlined in julian's Dictionary of Hymnol­ We will meet again in our home in heaven. ogy and Reynold's Hymns of Our Faith. He was born in Ireland in 1811, immigrated to Pennsylvania with his family at the age "My singing is purely incidental and of six, and later became a Methodist original," comments Jess Higgins. "There minister and professor of Hebrew and was no special teacher. I don't know a Biblical Literature at Allegheny College. note of music. I've thought about making Along the way, he composed some 125 a record of some of these songs we get hymns and served on a board to revise requests for, but we'd have to charge for the Methodist hymnal. "A Home in the record, and I feel that God gave me Heaven" was first published in 1846 in this gift and it should be used freely." Hunter's Select Melodies. The composer Jesse Burch Higgins, a third generation died in 1877. Grayson County native, is an elder in the "A Home in Heaven" seems to be a re­ Pine Grove Primitive Baptist Church in gional favorite with churches in the cen­ Carroll County, a leader of the Twin tral Blue Ridge. The Cross Roads Primi­ County Foxhunters Club, a minister, and tive Baptist Church congregation sang a an insurance salesman. For twelve years version of it during the service repre­ he and his wife have had their own radio sented on this album by "Children of the program over Galax radio station WBOB. Heav'nly King" (L69 AI). L70A7 Elder Higgins and his wife sing old A Home in Heaven. hymns and church songs from sources Sung unaccompanied by Elder and like Goble's Primitive Baptist Hymn Book or Mrs. Jess Higgins; white; books from a series called Old School Present Text September 23, 1978; Galax, Hymnals, published in Cincinnati since the Goble, D.H., compo Primitive Baptist Hymn twenties and sold by the (Primitive) Bap­ Book. 1887. Reprint. Greenfield, Ind.: Virginia; Geraldine Johnson and tist Bible Hour radio program. D.H. Goble Printing Company, n.d., Charles K. Wolfe; BR8-CW-R69. The thirty-minute program begins with p.273. about fifteen minutes of singing in­ Selected Variants: Print terspersed with various remarks and an­ Hunter, William, compo Select Melodies. A home in heaven, what a joyful thought, nouncements, followed by a fifteen­ Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern, As the poor man toils in his weary lot, minute sermon-like message. Higgins 1846, pp. 271-2.

36 along with everybody, that's where your come from. And I went on and sung: sense of humor comes in. There's fellows Through many dangers, toils, and snares, L70 Bl in our country that is narrow contracted I have already corne, Preaching by Inspiration. and, and they wouldn't, uh, offer them­ 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, Narrated and sung by Quincy Hig­ selves at all in a funeral service. And And grace will lead me home. that's, that's in the ignorant class. You­ And I started telling acquaintance with gins; white; September 9, 1978; it's hard to get along with. this sister, know how I'd been in her near Sparta, North Carolina; And, uh, so went on, and he, uh, said, home, and how nice she was, and what a Geraldine Johnson and Patrick B. "I'll turn the service over to Brother Hig­ great Samaritan she was, and, and, uh, Mullen; BR8-GJ-R31. gins." I come up singing: she'd shouted while I was a-preaching, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, and so on and so forth. But I says I'm ex­ That saved a wretch like me, pecting on catching up with her some of I once was lost but now am found, these days in the paradise with its eternal Pat Mullen: Was blind but now I see. rest. And the first thing I know'd the big You know, I've met preachers that didn't They wasn't setting room in that chapel. gate just swung open and I got out that, have a sense of humor though. How does They get it stretched up all around from swimming in water, you know, and just that go along with you preaching, your every wall, wondering where that hillbilly swum away. Yeah. sense of humor? Quincy Higgins: Quincy Higgins. Finest in all this world. Yeh, yes sir. Itjust works like a charm. But, uh, since you asked that question, I was called in a fun­ eral clown at Galax one time. And, uh, some hypodermic, you know, from over at Fries, Virginia, was called in with me. He was well qualified in his, uh, vocab­ ulary, and I wasn't qualified at all. I asked Mr. Vaughan-uh, Vaughan-Winn Chapel was where we were going to have the fu neral. Well, I was acquainted with this lady, you know, been with her several services along, and been to her home and all. Well, they had this fellow from over there, you know, and come in, and Mr. Vaughan brought him around and intro­ duced him to me, and we sat down and talked and he wanted to know how I wanted to arrange the funeral. I said, "Brother, you've had a lot of experience and responsibility." I says, "You just ar­ range it to however you wish to and," I says, ''I'll just work with you." Well, that thriJled him, you know, and he com­ menced spelling it out. He wanted to lead the way and lead the prayer and read the scripture and, and he wasn't acquainted like I was exactly, and he thought that me bring up the conclusion would fit right in. And, uh, went right on, he went, got along fine, I says, "I've always got along with everybody." I says, "Never have had to take no crosses, no word." Just got

37 And, uh, when the funeral arrange­ young son was ill, if God would cure the own works. uh-was over, the undertakers come on boy. The son recovered and Higgins has Now I'd been a church member for up, and he says, "Brother Higgins," he been preaching ever since. twenty-some year, but, uh, I don't know, I says, "how's you, you got a way out to the This story supports one of the strongest got condemned because I was trying. I cemetery?" I says, "Yeah. But I was gonna tenets of southern rural Protestantism: believe anybody that really is trying, I be­ go with Mr. Vaughan," I says, "I got a the value of inspiration or "gift" over lieve God'll show'em, if they-you know, truck sitting out here." "Ton and a half formal training or "book learning." The that's their desire, to live for him. I be­ truck?" Didn't look just right in a funeral account has subtle class overtones and lieve he will finally lead you and show procession. But it rode good. And 1 says, implications for the whole ethos of tradi­ you, if you-and you won't be lost. I was "1 gonna ride with Mr. Vaughan." He tional versus modern. It was told as part doing what they taught me to do, but still says, "I want you to ride with me." I says, of a series of narratives about Higgins's I wasn't satisfied with it and I kept read­ "Well, you tell Mr. Vaughan that y-l'm experiences and shares with the others an ing, and 1 think it's in, well, I know it's riding with you and we'll just lead the emphasis on concrete details with only Matthew, somewhere there, where it says funeral procession." brief moments of dogma or moralizing. you must be borned again, where he was He went around and told Mr. Vaughan talking to Nicodemus? When he asked and he said it'd be just fine with him. We him what he could do, to be born, that he got in his car. Nice car, y'know, paid for could be-do to be saved, he said, "You by the members of the church. Now I L70B2 must be borned again." You remember never'd had a hat passed around for me. A Vision in a Tobacco Barn. reading there, I guess? Then 1 got to lt was running on the rim. Rather have it Narrated by Florence Cheek; white; reading that over. And it says, "That like that. August 19, 1978; Traphill, North which is Oesh and blood cannot enter the Ah-hem, no, hadn't got out of Galax till Carolina; Patrick B. Mullen; Kingdom of Heaven," that you must be he laid his hand on my knee, said, borned of the spirit. So Jesus come here, "Brother Higgins, you really know the BR8-PM-R15. God sent him here, to bring us that. But Lord, don't you?" Like he'd give every­ then he, after he left, now that's why that, thing he possessed if he could just lay uh, four books is the gospel. Well then, them handbooks down, them prayer Pat Mullen: after he went back, and come back, after books and things, and depend on divine Would you tell us your experience? they crucified him, he come back, well, spirit. Well, I said, "Brother, I hope I met that's the letters. You see, after you leave him somewhere back yonder. I hope I Florence Cheek: here today you might contact me through met him. I hope I did." He knew there Well, I told you the other day, it was more a letter, but you know you won't never be was something there he didn't have. I like that picture, but now that's supposed back here again. Well, that's the way wouldn't swap with him for the whole to be Christ. But 1 was down, I was in an Christ-he came back to these disciples world. Couldn't afford to-that's all I old dark tobacco barn when I had my ex­ and he came back to Paul and them, and got, brother. Yeah, that's all 1 got, and if I perience. And I was down on that Ooor, that's the letter, the book of the letters, was to trade that off, of course, couldn't dirt Ooor, beside that old rock furnace, if that's where the Spirit made intercession trade it off. But you know one feller, uh, you've ever seen one, I doubt whether with those and they know it's God. Well, uh, sold his'n back yonder, for a mess of you have or not. And I was praying and that's they way you are. When you get re­ pottage, and he got in trouble over that. that barn it was made out of logs and borned again, it'll be something that this He wept and cried and looked for re­ daubed with old red dirt. And that barn world can't give you and it can't take it demption but didn't find none. That was just disappeared when that light ap­ away. But I can't tell you in what way Esau, you know. He was a cunning peared and then that place was just so [thad it'll be, but it'll be in a way where hunter. gold and seemed like it was something. A you'll never have no doubt of it. ... light that bright would hit you in the eyes And so now you have got two ways now, you know how a car light 'hurts your there you can go. You can go for the devil William Quincy Higgins is a preacher eyes, well that hit my body, something or you can go for Christ. And if you've and farmer who lives in Alleghany did, and that light, it wasn't, it didn't hurt got Christ, you've got it all, if you ain't, County, just down the road from Millard my eyes at all. ltjust come right to me, it you got nothing. This here short life here Pruitt (L69 Bl). Born in 1900, he is a come to mejust like that there, and it just ain't worth it. member of the Big Springs Regular Bap­ went all over me, and from that, I just, I tist Church and is known for his just felt different. I didn't even, I just­ storytelling abilities. He vowed to become but I'd prayed for a long time for the Florence Sparks Cheek lives in the a preacher forty-eight years ago when a Lord to show me something beside my community of Traphill, ttick.ed in under

38 Saturday, I thought, at the church, and come back home and I had eight kids, kept me, uh, moving around a whole lot to keep a Ii-few clothes on them and a little bite to eat. Anyway, after meeting, I come back and ate dinner and went up on-my garden was right u-up on the hill, right above the house and-I went up there, I wasn't in the garden after dinner, and I just got to studying about Grandad Blanchard. That-aIl that top of the mountain around where I lived, there wasn't a, a, a person that I ever remember of that ever said ought ag'in him. He left as good a name as any man that I ever knew.

Will Barnard: Yeh, yeh.

Cassell: And I just studying about him while a-working up there, and, and this thought come to me, and I didn't say nothing, but I just thought it, that, that I'd just love to be half the man that Grandad Blanchard was, and just leave half the name that he left. And by then that thought come to Florence Cheek and one ofher quilts. me, there was a voice spoke just as plain, the ridge a few miles east of Sparta. At remarks. The bright light, the vanishing says, "Follow me, and I'll make you the time of this recording, she was of the material world-the tobacco barn fisherman of men." seventy-four, and had lived in either is a distinctive part of Cheek's Well, I, 1 never let nobody know it, 1 Wilkes or Alleghany County all of her environment-and disorientation are all kept that to myself. Of course, I life. She is a Missionary Baptist, her traditional elements of the mystical ex­ commenced begging the Lord to send grandfather having helped to found the perIence. somebody else, that a, a brother in the church in the region in the early 1900s. same church, and a lot of male members Her church affiliation is a strong family down there, all of them was better than 1 tradition. Cheek is also a skilled quilter, was, to send some of them, but-that was having learned the art from her mother. L70B3 my lot. I carried that for nearly a year. Her narrative about personal conver­ I was working at Roanoke. Over on sion was offered during a general discus­ I'll Make You a Fisherman of Monday morning and work till Friday sion of religion that did not include a de­ Men. evening and come home. And left home tailed account of her own life. Cheek had Narrated by Edgar Cassell; white; one morning, a Monday morning, and got been reminiscing about the early days of August 12, 1978; Kibler Valley, right above the house-while I'm into it, the church, with dinners on the ground, Virginia; Patrick B. Mullen and I'll just tell it all, 1 reckon-and a little singing schools, and river baptism. Usu­ piece above the house, 1 was right by ally she would give a historical account of Carl Fleischhauer; BR8-PM-R6. myself, commenced singing "How Firm a a subject (such as what she remembered Foundation." And there's eight stanzas of about river baptisms), and then annotate that song and 1 sung it word by word, just it with her own personal beliefs. She fol­ Edgar Cassell: word by word just like it's laid down, lows this same pattern in her own conver­ Tell a little more of mine, I guess. I'd from there over to Floyd Courthouse, and sion narrative: an account of a vision in a-a little while, a month or two after I I got to crying till 1 couldn:t see to drive, the tobacco barn, followed by interpretive joined the church, good meeting on hardly. Looked like there was· something

39 around me just a-drawing, like a big band chair. Cassell himself has had twO key re­ fen-ed "calling" with family tradition as of something. And I got just out of Floyd, ligious experiences \vhich dictated the di­ well as religious conviction. To deny it is and from there to the top of Bent rection of his life, and he is willing and to deny both religion and family tradi­ Mountain, right this side of Roanoke, I eager to recount them for stranger and tion. never remembered not one thing a-taking friend alike. The first occurred when he place. I left this world as far as I'm was a young man and was almost killed in concerned. And every Ii-every little bit, a wagon accident. He had an immediate all that day, I, I'd just feel like I was vision of the "gates of hell" but then L70B4 dropping off. There wasn't a pain about heard a voice saying, "Fear not, my son," me nowhere. Went back to where I slept. and his life was saved. "Ain't none that I Used to Be Wild as a Buck. Cleaning up, getting ready to go to bed can believe it," he says, "but I'll tell it for Narrated by Mr. and Mrs. Leonard and standing before the mirror shaving. the truth anyway." In spite of these man­ Bryan; black; September 6, 1978; Nobody had never seen no such a face as ifestations, Cassell did not join the church near Sparta, North Carolina; Pat· I saw in there. And there was a voice at once-and in fact did not join until 28 rick B. Mullen; BR8-PM-R37. spoke again, says, "If you don't pick up years later. Shortly after he joined the your calling, this is your last night on church, the experience narrated here oc­ earth." That's the reason I go. Take my curred and Cassell was called to preach. failures, and-all these things, uh, there's This recording was made at the home Pat Mullen: something taking place that causes these of Cassell's old friends Will and Ruth Have you, uh, been a church member things, there's a cause for all things.... Barnard. Cassell had dropped in and the most of your life? Little 1 left out, I reckon. After the conversation casually moved from talk of Leonard Bryan: voice spoke and told me that was the last the weather a nd the Dan River to reli­ Yeah, I've been a church member ever night on earth if 1 didn't take up my gion. Modern church members lacked since I was about thirty years old, [reallyJ. calling, "except ye take up your calling," zeal, the men agreed, and swapped two I married when I was twenty-one. as quick as I could, I got back in the, my stories each which illustrated the zeal of Mamie Bryan: bedroom, just fell across the bed. Ain't no older church members. Cassell then told I don't know how long it was. I don't human being ever, never has nor 1 don't the story of his wagon accident, and the know how long it was. guess ever will, lay on the bed that 1 laid discussion moved to personal beliefs. Leonard Bryan: on. It was just like downy feathers, just as, During this discussion, Cassell com­ And it was about five or ten years then well, just as soft as feathers. And it just mented, "The world has got so much in it before [joined the church. I married commenced, seemed like, going up like a-shining out so much. Like the Bible when I was twenty-one, and I guess it was that. And I looked out at the window, and says, God has made everything beautiful five, nearly, uh, ten years before I joined there's a bright star a-shining, and all at in its time and he's put it in the hearts of the church, wasn't it? once that changed, and there he was. In men that they cannot search out the Mamie Bryan: another scripture he says, "I am your works of God from beginning to end ... I don't know, 1­ bright and morning star." And I saw we see so much every day, it keeps our Leonard Bryan: [afterwards]. How's that? mind off things like lhat." Shortly after Somewheres along there, might have And he's been with me through all the this, Cassell began his formal narrative. been little earlier than longer. battles of life. The context thus moved from rather Mamie Bryan: objective accounts of others' experiences Ain't got no record [?J. to increasingly personal experiences, a Leonard Bryan: For the last nineteen of his eighty years, time-honored progression in informal But ever since that, I belonged to the Elder Edgar Cassell has preached at the discussions of religious matters. The van­ church. [f I hadn't belonged to the Concord Primitive Baptist Church near ishing of the "shining" beautiful natural church, I'd done been dead and Meadows of Dan, a Virginia community world that Cassell described in his earlier forgotten, gone. I used to be wild as a about a half mile from the Blue Ridge comment-in the story, represented as buck, had an old 32-20 pistol, put it Parkway. The Cassells have been Primi­ the vanishing of the beautiful mountain under my arm, and [ couldn't go to tive Baptists on the ridge for generations. landscape between Floyd and Roanoke church without half drunk. And that old Edgar's great-grandfather was a preacher during his trip-is a necessary prereq­ pistol buckled on me, didn't care for and his grandfather remained a preacher uisite for Cassell to "search out the works nothing. It's a wonder I hadn't a-been at the Bell Spur Church even after his of God." Also prominent in the account is dead. Now ['ve got that same old pistol failing health made it necessary for mem­ mention of Cassell's Grandad Blanchard. right in here now, a 32-20, that I used to bers to carry him into the church in a This has the effect of associating the pro- carry when [ was wild as a bu.ck.

40 Mullen: revivals. I'd just feel something run all over me What made you change? Leonard Bryan: that I never had felt. Now I've been Leonard Bryan: Had meeting, run revivals. Run revivals, a-praying for two or three weeks, and I Good Lord, I got a blessing and I just and I just got to praying and wanted to come down here that night and prayed changed and-ha-ha, I just- When the change. I see now that I'm on the wrong and went back, come back, I was sleeping Lord blessed me, I throwed away all this road, commenced to praying and- Used upstairs, here, me and my-I sleep old stuff. Throwed away drinking and to be woods right out here, all this out upstairs. And I just laid there and cried carrying pistols and got to serving the here to there was woods, and we had this and prayed all night, I couldn't-I Lord and the-living a better life. If I cleared right down here. And I'd go out couldn't sleep. And I says, "Good Lord, hadn't, I'd been dead and forgotten. I'd a that night after I'd come to the church, uh, uh, if you'll just let that sp-that killed somebody or somebody'd killed me. see I going to go out here and pray in there feeling hit me like it's been a-hitting Mullen: these woods out there. And seemed like me, I, I'll, I'll get up and shout. And I Did you have an experience that made, the booger man go-ha, ha, get me out says, then if I ain't right, I'll tell him I made you change? there, try, I couldn't pray. I had to corne ain't right. And boy, you know, when, Leonard Bryan: out of them woods. I'd come out of the when I had it made up in my mind that Yeah. woods and come down here in the field. I way, and went to the church, they Mullen: was afraid, just, just trying to pray, that couldn't hardly commence singing soon What happened? booger man, he's just trying to get me. enough till it commenced raining, and I Leonard Bryan: And he run me out, I was scared of them thought, "Will they never start?" And I just­ woods, and I come down here in the field, boy, whenever they did start singing, well Mamie Bryan: and I come down here and pray. I'd been up and shouting all over the We had meeting here, we had, run And you know, when I'd go up to church, house, and I didn't know even much when I got up. Boy, I had a time there. Mamie and Leonard Bryan with afamily photograph made on the occasion oftheir wedding in 1914. See, I done, I'd-I'd done made it up in my mind, "Now, now Lord, you do so and so." And he'd done it, and that, that was the Holy Spirit and I didn't know what it was, I didn't know how to own it. Mamie Bryan: A lot of folks don't know what it is. Leonard Bryan: And then I owned it-huh? Mamie Bryan: A lot of folks don't know what the Spirit IS. Leonard Bryan: No, but I owned it, boy, when I owned it, I, I, I didn't know, when I come to myself, I didn't know what I'd done, and I'd been shouting all over that church. He sure laid his hands on me. Mamie Bryan: And a lot of them don't get changed like that either. Some of them, some of them just get up and give their hand. Leonard Bryan: Well, that handshake­ Mamie Bryan: They don't think they have to pray for it. Leonard Bryan: Just handshake ain't worth two cents. You've got to pray and let God, let God get in your heart, and boy you know it.

41 Whatever form it takes, the religious vi­ "liminal" phase, and they remain part of to see things like that. sion is always seen as a watershed in the the normal society. Caudle: subject's life, and a natural tendency in And a lot of people don't believe in these recounting the vision is to emphasize the things. I pray every night before I even differences "before" and "after." In the lay down to rest, I have an old sack on the cases of Florence Cheek and Edgar Cas­ L70B5 bed, sometimes slip off my shoes, lay sell, both were already long-time church A Vision of the End of Time. down and rest awhile, and I hear a racket, members when their experiences oc­ Narrated by Harrison Caudle; a car stop, I'm up and look out the curred. Both, however, sought to em­ white; September 21, 1978; near window and have a light over there I phasize that they were not somehow fully Whitehead, North Carolina; throw out. And I raised up [on) a arm, committed to their religion. In other just as wide awake as I am now, and I was cases, however, the "before" and "after" Thomas A. Adler; BR8-TA-RI2. like John, the four rudiments, carried difference is much more dramatic, and away in a trance, and he seed the holy city the radical nature of the change more of Jerusalem descending from heaven. apparent. Patrick B. Mullen, who re­ Harrison Caudle: And when God spoke to him, and he says, corded this selection and used it as part of According to the Bible, I, uh, the end of "Seal [up rightl not, the end is not yet." his study on religious narratives in the time's getting close. It's said that the But I just raised up and I was carried Blue Ridge, writes: "The narratives sym­ people would flock from the cities to the away, I never heard no noise or nothing, bolically express the opposition between mountains, like goats. And what have I don't know how long I stood there. But social structure and communitas by con­ they done? They've bought up all this I seed this world, it looked like it was all trasting the lowly state of sinners in soci­ mountain land they can get. And melted. Everything was burnt up. And ety with the exalted state of the saved. th-buying up mountain land and just as it looked like I was just looking out This is often done by a description of the turning into wildlife. And it's said the at it. And I don't know how long I stood personal sinfulness of the narrator's pre­ people would turn against one another, there. And something by my side, it vious life, usually in concrete, specific fathers against sons, sons against the seemed like we was walking a-coming out terms." Most of the time and especially mothers, and daughters against the of the mountain, and it says, "Keep with older people, sinfulness is defined as mothers, and people would turn from the a-going." I'd passed people on the road drinking and fighting. No more succinct old ways, and they'd turn a deaf ear to the sitting down and some started back, and I example of this pattern could be offered solemn word of God. Over there in the couldn't see who it was, it was someone on than this one by Leonard Bryan. fifth of John the third it said that in the the left side, says, "Keep a-travelling." Leonard Bryan, eighty-seven at the beginning was the Word, Word wa-the And we got to the top of the mountain, I time of this recording, is a long-time dea­ Word was with God, and the Word was was coming up through the Wildcat Rock, con in the Macedonia Union Baptist God. And he spoke of these prophecies i't gets level on top. And I run against a Church near Sparta and can be heard a-coming to pass, and when wall. And it says, "Keep travelling." I leading a song by this church in selection Nebuchadnezzar, over there, when he looked down and I seed tracks. They all L69 A4. A native of Alleghany County, seed that there band around that stone, go in. ['f anybody'd ever] track rabbits in like his father, Bryan has spent much of that band had done lifted, and the snow, when you go to a groundhog his life as a farmer, though for thirty Revelations spoke of them four horses. hole, or holler, or something-they all years he worked off and on in coal mines And in 1914 that there was the first horse went one way. in West Virginia. In his narrative, he does went out, to make war against one And I went there and come through a not attempt to articulate exactly what his another. And one horse represented little door, went through that door, and experience itself was. There are no shin­ death, one had scales in hand, balances, you couldn't describe how beautiful. Well ing lights or allegorical visions. He is to weigh the world. He spoke of these it was just level, it was just blossoms, and more interested in illustrating the effect things. And from that day to this, it's the kids was just-looked like big of the change, though he admits that he waxed worse and worse, and I believe if butterflies flying around, they'd [tip] you did not know what he had been doing we don't get in a revolution war here, that on the jaw, around all these blossoms, while he was "shouting all over that the end is right now on us .... It's and, oh, first one over there, and maybe church." Equally interesting are the a-coming one way or the other, the end of one over here, and just scattered around, comments of Mrs. Bryan at the end of her the times. They may start a war before it but most of them was [oleanders ?l And I husband's narrative, when she notes "a lot ha-gets here. But that'll be the winding come to myself. And I believe I seed-in, of folks don't know what the spirit is." up of time. I'd say inside of seven years is the coming Some people can have a superficial con­ Tom Adler: of times. version, but they fail to go through the That'S, that's some gift to have, that gift

42 to identify places and natural features and explain local history. He calls himself a "forest child"-he says he was an or­ phan left on a doorstep-who grew up absorbing the lore of house-building, heal­ ing, moonshining, and hunting. He thinks of himself as somewhat set apart from his community, partly, he says, be­ cause he is one-quarter Cherokee and partly because of his gifts for prophecy and healing. He was born in 1892 and tells how he foretold the devastation of the 1916 flood as wel1 as the onset of the First World War. He says, "I believe I was born to prophesy." . While Caudle is a church-goer, he seems to place much more stock in per­ sonal interpretation of the Bible than in the formal institution of the church or even the brotherhood of the saved. This is reflected in his narrative, which differs in some important ways from others heard here. In the preceding three nar­ ratives, the focus has been on the effect of the experience as much as on the experi­ ence itself. The condition of "Iiminality," by nature difficult to explain in detail and without resorting to elaborate metaphor, tends to cause narrators to focus on the entrance and exit from the experience and on the effect of the experience. Cau­ dle's account is by far the most detailed here of a "vision" and the most allegori­ cal, while little is made of the effect the experience had on him personal1y. The deleted section of the narrative consisted of Caudle's assertions that urban crime and violent social unrest signify the ap­ proach of the end of time. Indeed, Caudle's narrative is so indirect and al1egoricaJ that it is difficult to see its connection to the "real" world, nor are the sources of his images readily appar­ ent. His vision begins with melting and burning. Similar images occur in such Biblical references as the sixty-fourth chapter of Isaiah. A door which opens Harrison Caudle. into another world is a frequent symbol in "I know every cave, every crook and land around his native home In Wilkes my t han d litera t u r e, ran g i ng fro m turn, I can show you places over there County. Shortly after the Blue Ridge Revelation-which Caudle had alluded to that I'U go in there, blind as I am, and Parkway was built in the 1930s, Caudle when he compared his visions to those of you can't even find me, with bloodhounds tells how he was asked to go over the land St. John-to Alice in Wonderland, with its or nothing," says Harrison Caudle of the with the park rangers and a stenographer other-worldly rabbit and butterfly.

43 Bibliography Dickenson, Eleanor and Benziger, Bar­ Marshall, Howard Wight. " 'Keep on the Anderson, Robert and North, Gail. Gospel bara. Revival! New York: Harper and Sunny Side of Life': Pattern and Re­ Music Encyclopedia. New York: Sterl­ Row, 1974. ligious Expression in Bluegrass Gos­ ing Publishing Co., 1979. Diehl, Katherine Smith. Hymns and pel Music." New York Folklore Quar­ Baker, Paul. Why Should the Devil Have All Tunes-an Index. New York: Scare­ terly 30 (1974):3-43. Reprint. Los the Good Music? Waco, Tex.: Word crow Press, 1966. Angeles: John Edwards Memorial Books, 1979. Eiler, Lyntha Scott; Eiler, Terry; and Foundation, 1974. Baxter, Mrs. J.R. and Polk, Videt. Gospel Fleischhauer, Carl, eds. Blue Ridge Mullen, Patrick B. "Ritual and Sacred Song Writers Biography. Dallas: Harvest. Washington, D.C.: Library of Narratives in the Blue Ridge Moun­ Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Congress, 1981. tains." Paper written for the Ameri­ Co., 1971. Eskew, Harry. "Shape-Note Hymnody in can Folklife Center, Library of Con­ Blackwell, Lois S. The Wings of the Dove: the Shenandoah Valley." Ph. D. dis­ gress, Washington, D.C., 1979. The Story of Gospel Music in America. sertation, Tulane University, 1966. Reid, Melanie Sovine. "Religious Ritual in Norfolk, Va.: The Donning Co., Fleming, Jo Lee. "James D. Vaughan, an Absolute Predestinarian Primitive 1978. Music Publisher, Lawrenceburg, Baptist Church." Appalachian Heritage Brobston, Stanley H. "A Brief History of Tennessee, 1912-1964." S.M.D. dis­ 8 (1980): 58-64. White Southern Gospel Music and a sertation, Union Theological Semi­ Reynolds, William Jensen. Hymns of Our Study of Selected Amateur Family nary, 1972. Faith. Nashville: Broadman Press, Gospel Music Singing Grou ps in Fuld, James J. The Book of World-Famous 1964. Rural Georgia." Ph. D. dissertation, Music-Classical, Popular, and Folk. Rosenberg, Bruce. The Art of the American New York University, 1977. Revised ed. New York: Crown Pub­ Folk Preacher. New York: Oxford Burt, Jesse and Allen, Duane. A History of lishers 1nc., 1971. University Press, 1970. Gospel Music. Nashville: K&S Press Green, Archie. "Hear These Beautiful Sexton, Mark S. The Chalice and the Cov­ Inc., 1971. Sacred Selections." 1970 Yearbook of enant: A History of the New Covenant Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a the International Folk Music Council pp. Baptist Association 1868-1975. Thousand Faces. Revised ed. 28-50. Reprint. Los Angeles: John Winston-Salem, N.C.: Hunter Pub­ Princeton: Princeton University Edwards Memorial Foundation, lishing Co., 1976. Press, 1968. 1972. Sutton, Brett. ':In the Good Old Way: Clements, William M. "Conversion and History of Alleghany County 1859 Through Primitive Baptist Traditions." South­ Communitas." Western Folklore 35 1976: Sparta, North Carolina. ern Exposure 5 (1977), nos. 2 and 3: (1976): 35-45. Winston-Salem, N.C.: Printed by the 97-104. ---. "Faith Healing Narrative from Hunter Publishing Co., [1976?]. ---. Primitive Baptist Hymns of the Blue Northeast Arkansas." Indiana Folklore Horsley, A. Doyne. "The Development Ridge. Phonograph record album. 9 (1976): 15-39. and Diffusion of Gospel Quartet Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of Crawford, David. "Gospel Songs in Music in the United States." In North Carolina Press. Forthcoming. Court: From Rural Music to Urban Sounds of People and Places: Readings in Tallmadge, William H. "Baptist Industry in the 1950s." Journal of the Geography of Music, edited by Monophonic and Heterophonic Popular Culture 11 (1977):551-68. George O. Carney, pp. 173-95. Hymnody in Southern Appalachia." Daniel, Harlan S. "From Shape Notes to Washington, D.C.: University Press Yearbook for Inter-American Musical Bank Notes: Milestones in the Evolu­ of America, 1978. Research 11 (1975): 106-36. tion of White Gospel Music." Paper Julian, John. A Dictionary of Hymnology, ---. "The Responsorial and An­ read at the Popular Culture Associa­ 'Setting Forth the Origin and History of tiphonal Practice in Gospel Song." tion Annual Meeting, April 24, 1976, Christian Hymns of All Ages and Na­ Ethnomusicology 12 (1968): 219-38. Chicago, III. tions. 2 vols. 1892, revised 1907. Re­ Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Struc­ Davidson, Eliza. "North Carolina Country print. New York: Dover Publications, ture and Anti-Structure. Ithaca, N.Y.: Churches." In Carolina Dwelling: To­ 1957. Cornell University Press, 1977. ward Preservation of Place: In Celebra­ Knippers, Ottis J. Who's Who Among Wolfe, Charles K., ed. Gospel Ship: Studies tion of the North Carolina Vernacular Southern Singers and Composers. Law­ in White Gospel Music. Urbana, Ill.: Landscape, edited by Doug Swaim, pp. renceburg, Tenn.: James D. Vaughan University of Illinois Press. Forth­ 184-95. Student Publication of the Co., 1937. coming. School of Design, vol. 26. Ra­ McCurry, John G. The Social Harp. Yoder, Don. "Toward a Definition of leigh, N.C.: North Carolina State Philadelphia: T.K. Collins, Jr., 1855. Folk Religion." Western Folklore 33 University, 1978. Reprint. N.p., n.d. (1974): 2-15.

44 Credits 6. Carl Fleischhauer BR8--4-20170!l4 28. Charles K. Wolfe BR8-5-20413/34 The following list identifies the photog­ raphers and provides the negative numbers 8. Howard W. Marshall BR8-9-20443!lO 30. Carl Fleischhauer BR8-l-20348/27A for the photographs in this publication. All of the photographs (with one exception) are 9. Lyntha Eiler BRS-IO-20231/30A 32. Photo courtesy Charles K. Wolfe part of the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project collection at the Library of Congress. 12. Thomas A. Adler BR8-6-20398/28 34. Charles K. Wolfe BR8-12-20413/6

15. Terry Eiler BRS-7-20542!15A 37. Patrick B. Mullen BRS-2-20398/26A Cover: Terry Eiler BR8-1-2049I/l7 (Bap­ tism in Carson Creek; selection L69 B2) 16. Terry Eiler BR8-8-20777/35A 39. Patrick B. Mullen BR8-9-20229/3

I. Lyntha Eiler BR8-7-20231/8 (Pleasant 18. Terry Eiler BR8-4-20232I7A 41. Patrick B. Mullen BR8-3-20398/24 (~rove Union Baptist Church, Alleghany County, North Carolina) 19. Terry Eiler BR8-1-20232/29A 43. Thomas A. Adler BR8-26-20544/l9

2. Terry Eiler BR8-3-20423/l0 2 L Terry Eiler BR8-l0-20423!14A The record box, booklet, and map on page 3 were designed by Donald G. Shomette. 4. Charles K. Wolfe BR8-3-20485/24A 25. Terry Eiler BR8-20236/l7

5. Terry Eiler BR8-2-2023 1/6 27. Terry Eiler BR8-3-20423/27

Cross Roads Primitive Baptist Church; selection L69 Ai (Lyntha Eiler BR8-IO-2023i/ IOA). ~"( * 0 I' \"" {I. ('l ~ 0 'Xl Z

,...l C) 1} ~ ./ ~ It <; ~ J '* *