I made it home for Christmas, even if this isn't where I'll be spending it, but the important thing is I'll be with family. As such I'm back to serving up freshly written posts. The last 3 days were all written last week and then put on ice while I made a little road trip back to Ohio, and I'll admit to doing very little editing to them before hurling them into the blogosphere. So be nice if I have a few signature misplaced modifiers and awkward sentence structuring; these things usually get worked out after a cursory read through. Today I'm back with another shape-note song that I heard around the time I found "Star in the East." Matter of fact, most of the background you need to know on "Babe of Bethlehem," or "Ye Nations All, On You I Call" (after it's first line) can be found in my December 7th post on "Star in the East."
What this once high-brow blog has become
That version up above is from the Seeger sisters, whose brother was renowned banjo player Mike Seeger, and Pete Seeger, probably the most famous of them all, was a half-brother. It was recorded and produced by Smithsonian Folkways, which probably does more to preserve American folk music than all other societies formed for that cause combined. "Babe of Bethlehem" appears alongside hundreds of shape-note tunes in William Walker's Southern Harmony because, well... because he wrote it. Not just the book, but the song itself. Actually, as it happens, Walker wrote the vast majority of the shape-note hymns contained in his collection, which led me to wonder just what is this guy's story? Honestly, had I known that "Babe of Bethlehem's" story didn't take me much further than another blog post I might have picked a different hymn, but just listen to it! It's unique, and kind of foreboding, and has that unique haunting Appalachian quality to it.
Not like that, though.
William Walker was born in, lived in, and died in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Spartanburg is also the birthplace of Denny's, putting it high in the running for the most southern place in America. He gave himself the nickname "Singing Billy" at an early age to distinguish him from the presumably non-singing William Walkers in Spartanburg. He must have lived up to the name, since the first edition of Southern Harmony was compiled and published by him when he was just 26. Some people can barely keep a blog of original posts together by that age! It should be noted, though, that as a composer Walker wasn't 100% original. A 20th century editor of the 1854 edition of Southern Harmony named Glen Wilcox noted, partially quoting Walker,
"to a 'great many good airs (which I could not find in any publication, nor in manuscript)' he has written parts and assigned himself as composer. This ... shows his tacit acceptance of the commonality of many of the tunes... and the probability that many had achieved the status of folk song, although he of course did not use that term." (The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, facsimile edition with editor's introduction, 1987).
So who knows how old "Babe of Bethlehem," or any of Walker's tunes, might be. It seems the most popular modern version is the one below by Andrew Parrott, one an album subtitled "Seven Centuries of Christmas Music." I suppose 1835 falls within that time frame, but is it really that ancient? It seems doubtful, even if there is a pre-dating English version, which there usually is. Still, by the time it gets recorded in America it's a whole new song by most standards.
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