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A Bicentennial Tribute to William Walker By Hallelujah! editor, John H. Dickson <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]>. primary means of education in vocal music community. In 1835, he was a trustee of the in numerous small town and rural areas of Choral Journal • August 2009 55 AAug.inddug.indd 5555 66/29/09/29/09 11:37:37 PMPM Hallelujah! 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.
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