Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post provides information about The Swan Silvertones and showcases a video of the Gospel group The Swan Silvertones performing their version of "Only Believe".
Selected comments from that video's discussion thread are also included in this post.
My attempted transcription of the lyrics to that song from that video are included in this post.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/11/seven-songs-by-swan-silvertones-gospel.html for an earlier pancocojams post entitled
That post includes additional information about The Swan Silvertones.
The content of this post is presented for religious, cultural, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to The Swan Silvertones for their musical legacy and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post. Special thanks to pancocojamss visitor Luigi Erba for requesting a transcription of this song.
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SWAN SILVERTONES
From https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/gospel/swan-silvertones
"The Swan Silvertones, one of the greatest Gospel groups of all time along with the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Soul Stirrers, made their home in Pittsburgh from the late 1940s through the 1960s. Over their thirty year career they were one of the most influential and revered vocal groups.
Their uptempo jubilee shout style gospel music, rich harmonies, and lead falsetto influenced Doo Wop and R&B singers. They recorded for the King, Specialty, Vee-Jay, HOB, and Savoy labels releasing over sixty singles and several albums between 1946 and 1979. Their music has been reissued on ten Swan Silvertones compilations since their breakup. Their biggest hit "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" with the line "I'll be a bridge over deep water..." inspired Paul Simon to compose "Bridge Over Troubled Water". The Swan Silvertones were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002 and the International Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2003.
Claude Jeter, the lead singer and founder of the Swan Silvertones is credited for influencing the singing styles of Sam Cooke, Al Green, Smokey Robinson, Curtis Mayfield, Drifters founder Clyde McPhatter, and Eddie Kendricks. Jeter pioneered falsetto singing in African American music and is credited as the father of fallsetto.. His strong falsetto leads backed by three-part harmonies was adapted by Doo-wop and R&B groups. Jeter was elected into the American Gospel Quartet Convention Hall of Fame in 1996."...
-snip-
This excerpt is reformatted to enhance its readability.
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SWAN SILVERTONES AT THE NEWPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL (1966)
From https://www.nepr.net/post/swan-silvertones-gospel-newport#stream/0
"The legendary Claude Jeter made one of his final appearances as leader of the Swan Silvertones at the 1966 Newport Folk Festival. The Silvertones founder was 52 at the time, and he would live another 42 years, but by then he'd tired of the ceaseless travel and modest reward of the gospel highway. In his groundbreaking chronicle The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, Tony Heilbut began his chapter on Jeter and Julius Cheeks of the Sensational Nightingales by noting that, "Vocal styles cannot be copyrighted, and it's a cause of endless frustration for the gospel singers to see the world enrich their disciples while they sing for free-will offerings in store-front churches." Heilbut titled the chapter, "The Fathers of Soul," and names a few of their iconic disciples: the Temptations, the Impressions, James Brown, and Wilson Pickett.
[...]
The Silvertones' Newport appearance came one year after Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and Bob Dylan set off sparks that placed the festival in the forefront of new directions in American music. For Newport '66, the festival's board put together a more traditional program with gospel by the Silvertones, Dixie Hummingbirds, and the Original Gospel Harmonettes; blues by Skip James, Bukka White, and Son House; a showcase called 'The City' with Howlin' Wolf, and Chuck Berry; "plain folksinging" by Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, and Carolyn Hester; bluegrass by Dock Boggs and Hazel Dickens; and what festival producer George Wein called "a small but noteworthy concession to the folk-rock trend," the Blues Project and the Lovin' Spoonful"...
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SHOWCASE VIDEO: The Swan Silvertones - Only Believe (Live)
JAMESP0WER, Published on Mar 28, 2015
The Swan Silvertones
Claude Jeter
Louis Johnson
Paul Owens
William "Pete" Connor
-snip-
Here are selected comments from that video's discussion thread:
Debbie Mcintosh, 2017
"My Lord, this is what you call good old gospel singing love it.
thanks for posting"
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Terry Arnold, 2017
"Just called in for my weekly fix of this magnificent piece of gospel music. Their voices blend so beautifully that it really is such a pleasure to hear the gorgeous harmony of these wonderful singers. This is so good and healing it should be available on prescription. Just wonderful and live vocals too.."
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Emanuel Burrell, 2018
"This is the music my mother sang as she cooked and cleaned in our home and it just found a place in my heart and in remembrance of her I can still visualize her 40+ years later singing this inspirational hymn. I find it most comforting when I am wondering about life's ups and downs. It can be very reassuring to the spirit and mind. The men who sang this were heavenly inspired and gifted."
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amenra54, 2018
"That tenor is sweeeeeeeeet and controlled excellent!!!!"
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Stan Aoki, 2018
"the Swan Silvertones were one of the major influences of the greatest blues/rb guitarist SHUGGIE OTIS! You can hear their solo singing and improvisation in SHUGGIE'S playing and his licks!"
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thad g, 2018
"Bass player is harmonizing like crazy."
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Stan Aoki, 2018
"One of the pioneers of Gospel and they sing with the Spirit! God bless the SWANS and Claude Jeter!!"
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Kelvin Hall, 2018
"These fellas were too tough!!! Jeter and Johnson together on this classic is hard to beat!!! Early quartet style...."
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LYRICS: ONLY BELIEVE
(as sung by The Swan Silvertones)
Soloist #1- Only believe
Only believe
Believe
Group- I know
Soloist #1- All things
Are possible
Group- possible
yes they are, oh
Soloist #1- If you only believe.
Soloist #2 - I can image hearing Jesus when he was talking to the lame man
Group- ooo- ooo
Soloist #2 - A long time ago
Group – [continues their clapping routine to the beat]
Soloist #2: This is what I hear
Soloist #1- Oh, I heard the best songs
oh just I did
Soloist #2- If you ever meet Him
Soloist #1 – It was early one morning
Soloist #1- Oh
Soloist #2- Listen
Master!
Soloist #1- My soul
Soloist #2- was feeling bad
Soloist#1- feeling so bad
Soloist #2- let me tell you
about my heart
Soloist #- My heart [stretch the word "heart" out]
Soloist #2- Yes, man.
It was heavy leaden.
Yes it was.
Group-[continues clapping to the beat and humming “ooo”]
Church, you know what I had.
Soloist #1- I had ah bow.
Soloist #2- Let me see your hands if you ever had ah bow down head.
Soloist #1- Ah bow down head.
Soloist #2- You know what God done for me.
Soloist #1- Ah!
Soloist #1- He paid me a kindness.
Picked me up once early in the morning.
He lifted my burdens.
Oh, yes he did.
Soloist #2- Not tomorrow, but
Soloist #1: Right now.
Soloist #2- Right now.
Soloist #1- My soul
is glad.
Jesus it is.
Soloist #2- That’s why I can stand here tonight and say that ALL things
Soloist #1 – All things
Group - All things are possible
Soloist #1- are possible
Group- with God
Soloist #1- And remember that I told you this
if I never see you no more
Group- Oh yeah
Oh
Soloist #1- If you will only
Ah, only believe
Group- [humming- eh e eh e; eh, e, eh, e]
-snip-
Transcription by Azizi Powell. I'm not sure about some words in this transcription. Additions and corrections are welcome.
Note: The group (except for Soloist #1 and Soloist #2) clap to the beat and hum throughout the entire song-when they aren't singing themselves.
Also, the word "lame" means unable to walk.
"A head bow" (pronounced "Ah head bow" means a person whose head is bowed down (in sadness). That term isn't used in everyday English. Maybe it's an old Southern phrase that I'm not familiar with.
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