Most of the content in this pancocojams post was first published in 2014.
My impetus for republishing this post is because of the statement given in italics below about Robert MacGimsey, a White American who was a collector and transcriber of African American Spirituals and the composer of two songs that are often mistaken to have been composed by Black Americans: "Shadrach" ("Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego" and "Sweet Little Jesus Boy":
In her Arizona State University Archive Project 2013 "Processing the Robert MacGimsey Collection" Rinna Rem wrote that
Robert MacGimsey was born in Pineville, Louisiana. African American folk spirituals were embedded in his life since birth. He grew up on a plantation and his parents employed African Americans, many former slaves, for help in their house and on the farm. MacGimsey’s nanny, whom he referred to as Aunt Becky, sang spirituals to him as a baby. Many of the hired help on his family’s property became mentors of Robert’s. They always taught him songs and he even attended Baptist church with his “uncles” to participate in singing spirituals. Thus, his passion in life was to learn, document, preserve, transcribe and make accessible to the public African American folk spirituals from the American South. The book pictured above, [Lydia Parrish's] “Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands”, includes music transcribed by MacGimsey. As a trained composer, MacGimsey transcribed these songs, previously transmitted via oral culture, onto paper. As a radio performer, he often sang folk spirituals on-air.-snip-
Again, keep in mind that MacGimsey performed pre-Civil Rights Movement, so although it would be best for the original singers to perform, the performers were probably barred from doing so. I believe MacGimsey was the best advocate for the singers as he could be in that pre-Civil Rights Movement era. For instance, on his 7″ tape reels, he labeled the singers individually. Often ethnomusicologists of that era didn’t treat their performers/informants as individuals, and thusly never gave credit where it was due. Instead, performers/singers/informants were just the “vehicles” of music, not recognized individuals of artistic expertise. MacGimsey, on the other hand, took great care to list the individual whom first taught him a song or the individual whom lent their voice to field recordings. Also, he aimed to maintain the dialect of singers in his transcriptions, while he considered other transcriptions as “white-washed.”
I reformatted this excerpt to enhance its readability.
I'm grateful to Robert MacGimsey for his work in the area of African American Spirituals, and honor him for his musical legacy particularly regarding the two songs of his that I'm aware of: "Shadrach" and "Sweet Little Jesus Boy".
I also applaud and honor Robert MacGimsey for his stance on documenting the names of individual Black people who performed the songs that he collected (as is noted in that article).
I believe it was appropriate for the folkloric record for collectors of Spirituals and other folk songs to attempt to transcribe the words to those songs the way that people pronounced those words. Collectors of songs (and rhymes, chants, and cheers) should document as many details about those compositions as possible-including which words were (are) used and how those words were (are) pronounced. However, I don't believe that that means that Spirituals are "white washed" if they aren't sung using so-called "Black dialect" from the 19th and early 20th century. Note that in the early twentieth century (if not before) African American singers such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers didn't use dialect when they sang Spirituals.
In contrast to transcribing, for the purpose of singing and/or listening to these songs, my position is that some of the words to Spirituals should be updated to conform with contemporary usage and sensibilities.
The words to African American Spirituals aren't supposed to be completely fixed. Even if early on so-called Black southern American dialect was usually used for these songs, retaining "heb'n", "Lawd", and "de debil" (for instance) instead of replacing those words with "heaven", "Lord", and "the devil" detracts from the aesthetic experience of singing and hearing Spirituals by adding possibly offensive connotations and reminders of blackfaced minstrelsy's negative portrayals and perceptions of Black people.
Also, Black folks (in the USA) nowadays rarely ever say "heb'n", "Lawd", or "de debil" except for the code switching that occurs on purpose, for example, in some online YouTube discussion threads about old school Gospel songs.
-snip-
*This a longer excerpt from that Arizona State University Project essay is featured in this pancocojams post: https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/11/shadrach-shadrach-meshack-and-abendego.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. Part I provides information about Robert MacGimsey, the White American composer of the songs "Shadrach" (Shadrach, Meshack, And Abendego), "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" and some other songs.
Here's the complete 2014 pancocojams post on the subject of singing Spirituals using 19th century Negro Dialect (given with a few typographical corrections and minor changes in wording.)
I acknowledge that there are different opinions among African Americans and non-African Americans about the appropriateness of using 19th century "Negro dialect"* while singing Spirituals. For some people the question is one of preserving the authenticity of these Spirituals and not "watering them down". However, I'm much more concerned about how 19th century dialectic words may be interpreted as a reflection of the lack of respect for the intelligence and the literacy of African Americans in the past, and in the present. Perhaps if racism wasn't still so very much a factor in the present, I wouldn't be as concerned about how Black people are depicted in our songs.
The main reason why I don't like to hear Spirituals or any other songs in 19th century Negro dialect is because that dialect reminds me of black-faced minstrel songs. Those minstrel songs are heavy on Negro dialect and are full of highly offensive depictions of Black people. I admit that hearing songs that include 19th century Negro dialect-particularly when sung by non-Black people- makes me cringe.
Furthermore, not all Black Americans way back in the 19th century and the early 20th century used dialect. And the earliest Black touring groups who introduced Spirituals to the world didn't use dialect.
*I originally used the term "Black dialect" in the title of this post. However, I've changed that term to "Negro dialect" to be more specific about the type of pronunciation and words that I'm referring to. (After all, there have been and still are numerous "Black dialects" throughout the world and in the United States. Also, "Negro dialect" is the term that is usually used to refer to the 19th century pronunciation and words that I'm addressing.)
Here's an excerpt about this subject from www.jstor.org/stable/4145494
"The Use Of Dialect In African- American Spirituals, Popular Songs, and Folk Songs" by J Graziano - Black Music Research Journal © 2004 Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago - p. 261
"The presence of vocal works that use dialect in African American culture has been a controversial and difficult area of inquiry for those investigating the phenomenon. Dialect was first heard in the minstrel shows that toured the United States and Europe before the Civil War (Mahar 1999). They continued to be performed as well after the Civil war, although not as frequently by professional groups. Textually, many minstrel songs presented derogatory caricatures of African Americans and slave culture known from its depiction of southern plantations. By the 1870s African American dialect was still heard, most often in minstrelsy, although probably also in some sacred repertory as well.
While spirituals and jubilees sung in church may have used dialect, existing evidence suggest that touring college groups such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Hampton Students avoided the use of dialect when they performed spirituals as part of their programs…Undoubtedly the use of standard English in these publications and public performances reflected a desire to demonstrate that African Americans were educated and could sing and speak in standard English.”
-end of quote-
I reformatted and added italics to this excerpt to highlight those sentences.
Here's another quote on this topic from "American Negro Folk-Songs" by Newman Ivey White - 1928 [Page 27 - Google Books] books.google.com/books?isbn=0674012593
"Dialect may be considered a characteristic of the spirituals and the older secular song, but Negro dialect was never so standard or consistent as dialect writers have made it and it is now so obviously on the wane and so obviously (where it exists at all) merely a mixture of ordinary illiterate English with a few dialect survivals that it is no longer a very significant element, except in a few localities such as eastern South Carolina*.
-snip-
*Eastern South Carolina is where African Americans known as "Gullahs" people are from.
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's comments:
When it comes to 19th century "Negro dialect", I believe that less is best. In my opinion, it's better (and more socially appropriate) to convert old time dialectic words which are no longer used in conversational speech to the forms that are now commonly used by African Americans and non-African Americans. For example, words such as "de", "dem", "dose", heb'n", "chillun” and "gwine" should be changed to "the", "them", "those", "heaven", "childen", and "gonna" or "going to".
Also, "dis" should be changed to "this", "der" to "there", "dor" to "door", "jes" to "just". I believe that the word "mammy" and "massa" are highly offensive to Black people and should be changed in songs to "mother" and "Master" (note the custom of capitalizing words that refer to God and Jesus.) Furthermore, the words "Lawd" and "Lawdy" should be changed to "Lord".** And the word "heben" should be sung as "heaven".
However, it's appropriate and preferable to continue to sing dialectic or informal English words which are still used in general African American/American conversation. For instance, the word "ain't" shouldn't be changed to "am not" in the line "I ain't gonna study war no more". Also, the word "got" shouldn't be changed to "have" in the line "I got shoes". And the word "'round" shouldn't be changed to "around" in Spirituals. Notice that that word isn't changed in the folk song "She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes."
Furthermore, I believe that singers should retain the "a" that is added for rhythmical purposes to words such as "a-turnin'". And singers can continue to drop the final consonant in the words such as "turning" and "morning". If the final letter is dropped, that line would be "There's a little wheel a-turnin in my heart." and not "There's a little wheel a-turning in my heart".
Also, I believe that singers shouldn't pronounce "gettin'" as "getting" or "mornin' and "morning" in the Spiritual "In That Great Gettin' Up Mornin", as the words "gettin'" and "mornin'" are still often pronounced that way in contemporary (informal) African American's [and other Americans'] speech.
To each his or her own, but these are my opinions on this subject. And I believe that a number of African Americans agree with me regarding these suggestions for using and not using 19th century Negro dialect while singing Spirituals. It's my direct & indirect experience as an African American that we (African Americans) rarely use such dialetic language in our performances of Spirituals.
I'm interested to read what you think about this subject.
*It's also important to note that since the 1960s, the word "Negro" is no longer an acceptable referent for African Americans (Black Americans). Also, for various reasons, most African Americans consider "Negro" spelled with a lower case "n" to be highly insulting. However, "negro" may be purposely used by African Americans to refer to another Black person who is always seeking White favor, and/or otherwise talking and acting in ways that aren't in the best interest of Black people (i.e. "an Uncle Tom").
**That said, under certain circumstances, in online conversations and otherwise, some African Americans consciously "code switch" to long retired forms of "downhome" (Southern) speech including "dis" for this and "dat" for "that" and "Lawd" for "Lord". I refer to this conscious use of African American dialect as "Putting On The Black". Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/03/puttin-on-black-viewer-comments-about.html for a post that I published on that topic.
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