Hallelujah!
editor, John H. Dickson
A Bicentennial Tribute to William Walker by
Harry Eskew
The year 1809 was a stellar year for the South Carolina, 1866.” This aroused my cu- newly founded Spartanburg Male Academy, birth of several famous Americans, including riosity, years later leading to a masters thesis and in the same year, he was among eleven President Abraham Lincoln and the poet on Walker and research on the shape-note subscribers who pledged $1300 to establish Edger Allen Poe. It is also the birth year of singing school tradition. the Female Seminary in Spartanburg. On July the British scientist Charles Darwin and the Although Walker lived his adult years in 4, 1851, William Walker participated in laying German composer Felix Mendelssohn. In the Spartanburg, he was born in Union County the cornerstone of Wofford College. midst of this time, vibrant with new ideas, on the Tiger River, about three miles from Along with his musical activities, Walker experiments, and discoveries, William Walker, the village of Cross Keys. His exact birthplace operated a bookstore in Spartanburg, a popularly known as “Singing Billy Walker,” has not yet been determined. Walker’s fam- store that functioned as both a book and was born, the second generation of Ameri- ily included the Rev. John Landrum, the fi rst stationary store. Walker’s publication of cans. Walker is perhaps the most infl uential pastor of the First Baptist Church of Spartan- Southern Harmony was an important factor musician South Carolina has ever produced, burg, and the Rev. Newton Pinckney Walker, in the success of his bookstore, enabling creating and preserving for Americans music founder of South Carolina’s Institution for him to sell merchandise at lower prices, as that evinced the culture of the new nation the Deaf and Blind at Cedar Springs. More reported in an advertisement in 1857 in the and continues to permeate the music world important for Walker’s musical endeavors, Spartanburg Express newspaper: almost two centuries later. his sister-in-law married Benjamin Franklin White, who in 1844 collaborated with Elisha I have made permanent J. King in compiling the famous singing school arrangements with several large Who was Singing Billy Walker, book, The Sacred Harp. book houses in New York and and why is he important? Walker’s musical training began early in Philadelphia, to exchange my music life. By the time he was fi ve, his mother had work, the Southern Harmony, at Walker’s music had been around for over cash prices for their books etc. At a hundred years, when I was born in Spar- taught him three hymns with tunes refl ecting the Anglo-American folk idiom. In all prob- cash prices nett. [sic] I will therefore tanburg, South Carolina, where Walker had be able to sell books and stationary ability Walker received musical instruction made most of his contributions. During my lower than they have ever been in singing schools, for by the age of eighteen teen years I discovered an old music book, sold in Spartanburg, and as I desire he had composed his fi rst piece of music. Christian Harmony, in my family’s possession. to do a cash business, I will sell at At the close of the tunebook’s preface were In 1835, the then twenty-six year old Columbia and Charleston prices. the words “William Walker, Spartanburg, Walker married Amy Shands Golightly (January 8, 1857) (1811– 97), who over the course of their long marriage bore him ten children. In 1839, This advertisement illustrates Walker’s the Walkers became members of the newly business acumen. It also documents that Harry Eskew of Macon, Georgia, is organized First Baptist Church of Spar- Walker was not simply a southerner whose professor emeritus of music history tanburg, where, during his 36 years in that works were limited to the South, for South- and hymnology at New Orleans church, he served as a deacon, a frequent Baptist Theological Seminary. Last ern Harmony was sold in the North as well. messenger to the association, and a leader This is all the more remarkable given the year a festschrift was published of congregational singing. titled "Hymnology in the Service increasing regional confl ict leading up to the Despite the limits of his own formal Civil War. of the Church: Essays in Honor of education, Walker strongly supported Harry Eskew" (MorningStar Music) In Walker’s time, singing schools were the educational institutions within his own
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the United States. Vocal music was taught school music book published unless it was I have composed the parts to a using syllables, a practice fi rst attributed to printed in shape notes. great many good airs (which I could an Italian monk of the Middle Ages, Guido of Singing Billy Walker compiled four books not fi nd in any publication, nor in Arezzo. In early America the major scale was in shape notes, two of which are still in use. manuscript), and assigned my name taught using four syllables, fa, sol, la, and mi. Walker’s most popular book in his lifetime as the author. I have also composed The fi rst three of these were repeated, mak- was his fi rst book, Southern Harmony, pub- several tunes wholly, and inserted ing the scale: fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, mi, fa. About lished in 1835 with later editions up to 1854. them in this work, which also bear 1800, a short cut to reading music called It reportedly sold more than 600,000 copies, my name. shape notes was invented. Each of these four a phenomenal fi gure for the South in its day. syllables had a different shaped note head: Walker took great pride in his popular music Walker and other singing school teachers an oval, square, triangle, and diamond. Singers book, signing his name, “William Walker, A. S. wrote down melodies from oral tradition, learned to associate each shape with the syl- H.”—“Author of Southern Harmony.” harmonized them in several voice parts, lable and its corresponding sound. It was an Music books such as Southern Harmony and published them in singing school tune- ingenious invention, for once a singer learned served several purposes. They began with books. This is strictly an a cappella tradition the shapes, there was no need to learn the musical rudiments designed for teaching the without musical instruments. It is also music complications of the lines and spaces of the basics of music. Walker was widely known performed by the singers for themselves musical staff and the numerous keys. Shape as a singing school teacher and taught other in community, and not performed for an notes became so popular that in many areas music teachers as well, traveling thousands audience. Books such as Walker’s Southern it was practically impossible to get a singing of miles in the southern and mid-western Harmony constitute a wonderful treasury of states. Although Southern Harmony was early Americana which is widely known and not a church hymnal as such, its texts were appreciated by churches of many denomina- practically all religious. Singing school books tions today. provided music harmonized in several voice Shape notes and music books like Tempowatch.com parts for the hymns used in the churches Southern Harmony and The Sacred Harp of his day. Walker was unusually successful were largely rejected in the urban cities of Know Your in publishing music that was popular with the North. They preferred sacred music Tempo As It people in the Upper South. based on European models harmonized Happens Hymnals in Walker’s day were typically in the tradition of Bach and Handel. In the Toll Free small pocket-sized books containing only the latter nineteenth century the music of the words of hymns. Walker provided music for Sunday school and urban revivalism tended 1-888-803-6287 words already published in these little hym- to overshadow the shape-note tradition of nals. One of these small words-only hymnals, the early South. In the closing decades of titled Baptist Harmony, had just been pub- the twentieth century, there was a revival AllThingsMusical.com lished a year before Southern Harmony by of interest in the early shape-note tradition. Staunton S. Burdett, a South Carolina Baptist Today the most popular shape-note “The Music pastor serving a church near Lancaster. tunebook is The Sacred Harp, published in Education Walker and Burdett were friends and Bur- western Georgia in 1844 by two singing Yellow Pages” dett kept copies of Southern Harmony to sell. school teachers, Benjamin Franklin White In those days, the pastors wrote the hymn and his much younger collaborator, Elisha J. Sign-up for Your King, who died shortly after its publication. FREE Choral texts and compiled little words-only hymnals and laymen musicians compiled music books B. F. White was born in Spartanburg in E-Newsletter, for use in singing schools to teach people 1800, so Spartanburg can claim two of the Choral Resource how to read music and sing their faith. greatest musicians of the early shape-note Packet & CD-Rom Walker was also a collector of music from tradition. White and Walker were related by oral tradition, music we today call folk music. marriage. In 1842 the White family moved to Hamilton, seat of Harris County in western Starting a Music Biz? He and others so thoroughly absorbed the idiom of Anglo-American folk song that their Georgia near where Calloway Gardens is own compositions were hardly distinguish- today. White’s book is the most popular MusicBusinessOwner.com shape-note tunebook today, having spread Learn How to Start & Grow able from songs that had existed in oral tradition. Walker took melodies from oral to every state, to provinces of Canada, and Your Music Business tradition, harmonized them, and published even to Great Britain. Southern Harmony is Get FREE Music Marketing Calendar them as his own. As he wrote in the preface rarely used in singings except for the famous to the fi rst edition of Southern Harmony, one at Benton, Kentucky. However, it has had Email: [email protected] a much greater infl uence in providing music
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AAug.inddug.indd 5656 66/29/09/29/09 1:371:37 PMPM for America’s church hymnals. Grace, How Sweet the Sound” (New Britain). Banks I Stand” was written by the English How did it happen that the Southern The text of Wondrous Love appeared Baptist pastor Samuel Stennett. The chorus, “I Harmony largely went out of use? Begin- anonymously in two hymnals published in am bound for the promised land,” was added ning about the 1840s, singing school books 1811. The words and music did not appear by an unknown American, probably during gradually appeared using seven shapes based together until the 1840 edition of Walker’s the camp meeting revivals of the early nine- on the do-re-mi syllables, rather than four. Southern Harmony. There the tune simply teenth century. Only the fi rst of Stennett’s While B. F. White stuck to the older fasola bears the name “Christopher” with no eight stanzas appears in Southern Harmony. four-shape system for all the editions of The further elaboration. In his later tunebook, Promised Land, fi rst published by Walker in Sacred Harp, Walker became convinced The Christian Harmony (1867), Walker de- 1835, is an Aeolian melody omitting the that the seven-shape system was better. The scribes Wondrous Love as a “very popular old pitch D. This rugged minor melody was logic he applied asked the question, “Would southern tune” and identifi es the arranger changed to major in the latter nineteenth any father having seven children think of as James Christopher of Spartanburg. We century to accommodate the newer gospel calling them by only four names?” Walker know practically nothing about Christopher, hymn tradition, the way it appears in most published his second major music book in but have discovered his tomb in the Sha- hymnals of today. The melody of Promised seven shapes, based on the do-re-mi system. ron United Methodist Church Cemetery, Land is pentatonic with D and E omitted. Titled Christian Harmony and published in near Reidville in Spartanburg County. As is The harmonization characteristically makes 1867 with a revised edition in 1873, Walker’s customary in this tradition, the melody is in prominent use of chords without thirds. Both seven-shape book is used in singings in the the tenor voice. While it is notated in the the opening and closing chords are dyads, Southeast in two current editions in Missis- Mixolydian mode, in performance it is sung as are the half notes that close the internal sippi, Alabama, Georgia, and in the mountains in the Dorian with the sixth raised. Other phrases. This harmonization gives the folk of North Carolina. common traits include chords without thirds hymn an open, hollow sound. Singing sessions using Walker’s books in and parallel fi fths and octaves. One unusual Who was the M. Durham who harmo- South Carolina died out in the fi rst half of feature is that both text and music are of nized Promised Land? We now know that she the twentieth century. Sixteen years ago a American origin. was Matilda Durham of Spartanburg, who South Carolina Singing in memory of William Choirs may effectively perform Wondrous married Andrew Hoy and moved with her Walker started on the campus of Wofford Love and other folk hymns as written, per- husband to Cobb County, Georgia. In the College. The 15th singing at Wofford took haps varying the voicing from one stanza to case of both James Christopher and Matilda place in March 2009. Singers sang from both another. One of the fi nest arrangements that Durham Hoy, Walker drew upon the musical the four-shape Sacred Harp and the seven- respects the style of this tradition is by Alice talent of Spartanburg area musicians to pro- shape Christian Harmony. A unique feature of Parker and Robert Shaw. vide harmonizations for the tunes he pub- the singing at Wofford is its closing ceremony. Published in 1787, “On Jordan’s Stormy lished. Two unaccompanied arrangements of At the conclusion the singers go to nearby Magnolia Cemetery to sing the fi nal song and offer a prayer of thanks for the life and work of this Spartanburg musician born 200 years ago this year, Singing Billy Walker.
The Fasola Tradition The musical tradition that Walker and his fellow singing school teacher-composers have bequeathed to us is often called the “Fasola” tradition, named after the three repeated syllables in the shape-note scale. This early American tradition, primarily aris- ing in the Southeast in the early decades of the nineteenth century, has had a signifi cant infl uence on hymnals of major denomina- tions and on the repertory of many choirs. Three representative folk hymns fi rst published by Walker illustrate this tradition: “What Wondrous Love Is This, O My Soul” (Wondrous Love), “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand” (Promised Land), and “Amazing
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Promised Land in keeping with the style of ton’s life story in verse form. The fi nal stanza, shape notes. Walker also contributed to the original folk hymn have been composed beginning with “When we’ve been there ten community singing through his own music by K. Lee Scott. and by Ronald Staheli thousand years,” was not written by Newton, books and even more through his composi- but was added by an unknown American. tions published in the popular Sacred Harp. The melody of Amazing Grace, named Researcher Glenn E. Latimer analyzed the New Britain New Britain, had been published as early frequency of songs using the minutes of Sacred Harp singings in 2005. He found that Amazing Grace is by far the most popular as 1829 with other hymn texts, but Walker of the top 25 Sacred harp songs in 2005, of our early American folk hymns. Its stanzas published it with the text of Amazing Grace number one was Walker’s Hallelujah and were written by John Newton, an English for the fi rst time in the initial edition of two other songs from Southern Harmony slave trader whose life was completely Southern Harmony in 1835. New Britain is were New Britain (number 7) and Wondrous turned around by the grace of God. Follow- pentatonic and is harmonized with typical Love (number 20). These same three tunes ing his conversion experience, Newton left dyads, parallel fi fths, and parallel octaves. placed among the top three among songs the sea and responded to a calling to the Popular around the world, Amazing Grace used for Memorial Lessons at Sacred Harp ministry, serving several Anglican parishes. has transcended cultural boundaries. It has singings. Among the top songs from closing His life story is summarized in the epitaph been aptly named America’s most beloved Sacred Harp singings in 2005, number one he wrote for himself: song. In 1990, journalist Bill Moyers produced an inspiring full-length documentary on was Parting Hand from Southern Harmony; two others were Hallelujah and New Britain. John Newton, Clerk this beloved hymn. The best known choral The popularity of Walker’s tunes and those Once an infi del and libertine, arrangement of Amazing Grace, is that of from Southern Harmony at present-day Sa- A servant of slaves in Africa: Robert Shaw and Alice Parker. cred Harp singings are also a signifi cant part Was by the rich mercy of our Lord and of Walker’s impact on community singing. Savior, Jesus Christ, A third area of Walker’s legacy is his Preserved, restored, pardoned, Walker’s Legacy contribution to the choral repertory. Walker And appointed to preach the Faith Two hundred years after his birth, was close to the oral tradition of folk song, He had labored long to destroy . . . . Walker’s rich legacy clearly encompasses several areas. As a singing school teacher preserving in his music books melodies passed along by word of mouth and pub- Newton originally wrote six stanzas of and a teacher of music in normal schools, lishing them in the distinctive harmonies of Amazing Grace, four of which are usually Walker spread musical literacy especially the fasola style. These choral works have included in hymnals of today. It is really an in the South, teaching many thousands of been widely used by choirs in schools and autobiographical hymn, giving us John New- teachers how to read choral music using churches. Choral musicians owe a real debt to Alice Parker and the late Robert Shaw for making this rich early American folk hymn tradition available in beautiful arrangements that respect the style of the original versions. Perhaps Walker’s greatest contribution is his impact on congregational singing. Practi- cally all major hymnals draw on the early American folk hymn tradition; several of these hymns have gained broad ecumeni- cal acceptance. Hymn singing is a signifi cant part of the worship of most churches, and the voices of congregations across many denominations singing these hymns of the early South testify to the continued vitality of Walker’s legacy.
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