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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SONG "SAY BROTHERS, WILL YOU MEET US?"
Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown%27s_Body
..."History of the tune
Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us", the tune that
eventually became associated with "John Brown's Body" and the
"Battle Hymn of the Republic", was formed in the American camp
meeting circuit of the late 1700s and early 1800s.[2] These meetings were
usually held in frontier areas, when people who lacked regular access to church
services would gather together to worship before traveling preachers.[3] These
meetings were important social events, but developed a reputation for wildness
in addition to wild religious fervor experienced by attendees.[4] In that
atmosphere, where hymns were taught and learned by rote and a spontaneous and
improvisational element was prized, both tunes and words changed and adapted in
true folk music fashion:
[…]
According to George Kimball, the second publication of the
John Brown Song and the first including both music and text, with music
arranged by C.S. Marsh, dated 1861. See George Kimball, "Origin of the
John Brown Song", New England Magazine, new series 1 (1890):371–76
Specialists in nineteenth-century American religious history
describe camp meeting music as the creative product of participants who, when
seized by the spirit of a particular sermon or prayer, would take lines from a
preacher's text as a point of departure for a short, simple melody. The melody
was either borrowed from a preexisting tune or made up on the spot. The line
would be sung repeatedly, changing slightly each time, and shaped gradually
into a stanza that could be learned easily by others and memorized quickly.[5]
Early versions of "Say, Brothers" included
variants, developed as part of this call-and-response hymn singing tradition
such as:
Oh! Brothers will you meet me
Oh! Sisters will you meet me
Oh! Mourners will you meet me
Oh! Sinners will you meet me
Oh! Christians will you meet me
This initial line was repeated three times and finished with
the tag "On Canaan's happy shore".[6]
The first choruses included lines such as
We'll shout and give him glory (3×)
For glory is his own[7]
The familiar "Glory, glory, hallelujah" chorus—a
notable feature of the "John Brown Song", the "Battle Hymn of
the Republic", and many other texts that used this tune—developed out of
the oral camp meeting tradition sometime between 1808 and the 1850s.
Folk hymns like "Say, Brothers" circulated and
evolved chiefly through oral tradition rather than through print.[8] In print,
the camp meeting song can be traced back as early as 1806–1808, when it was
published in camp meeting song collections in South Carolina, Virginia, and
Massachusetts.[9]
The tune and variants of the "Say, brothers" hymn
text were popular in southern camp meetings, with both African-American and
white worshipers, throughout the early 1800s, spread predominantly through
Methodist and Baptist camp meeting circuits.[10] As the southern camp meeting
circuit died down in the mid 1800s, the "Say, brothers" tune was
incorporated into hymn and tune books and it was via this route that the tune
became well known in the mid 1800s throughout the northern U.S. By 1861,
"groups as disparate as Baptists, Mormons, Millerites, the American Sunday
School Union, and the Sons of Temperance all claimed 'Say Brothers' as their
own."[11]
For example, in 1858 words and the tune were published in
The Union Harp and Revival Chorister, selected and arranged by Charles Dunbar,
and published in Cincinnati. The book contains the words and music of a song
"My Brother Will You Meet Me", with the music but not the words of
the "Glory Hallelujah" chorus; and the opening line "Say my
brother will you meet me". In December 1858 a Brooklyn Sunday school
published a hymn called "Brothers, Will You Meet Us" with the words
and music of the "Glory Hallelujah" chorus, and the opening line
"Say, brothers will you meet us".[12]
Some researchers have maintained that the tune's roots go
back to a "Negro folk song",[13] an African-American wedding song
from Georgia,[14] or to a British sea shanty that originated as a Swedish
drinking song.[15] Anecdotes indicate that versions of "Say,
Brothers" were sung as part of African American ring shouts;[16]
appearance of the hymn in this call-and-response setting with singing,
clapping, stomping, dancing, and extended ecstatic choruses may have given
impetus to the development of the well known "Glory hallelujuah"
chorus. Given that the tune was developed in an oral tradition, it is
impossible to say for certain which of these influences may have played a
specific role in the creation of this tune, but it is certain that numerous folk
influences from different cultures such as these were prominent in the musical
culture of the camp meeting, and that such influences were freely combined in
the music-making that took place in the revival movement.[5]
It has been suggested that "Say Brothers, Will You Meet
Us", popular among Southern blacks, already had an anti-slavery sub-text,
with its reference to "Canaan's happy shore" alluding to the idea of
crossing the river to a happier place.[17][18] If so, that sub-text was
considerably enhanced and expanded as the various "John Brown" lyrics
took on themes related to the famous abolitionist and the American Civil War."...
****
Excerpt #2
From https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=20569 Lyr Req/Add: Say Brothers Will You Meet Us?
Numbers added for referencing purposes only.
1.
Subject: Lyr Add: SAY, BROTHER, WILL YOU MEET US? etc.
From: Rex
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 12:32 PM
[…]
Say, Brother, Will You Meet Us?
(No. 202 in "Spiritual Songs of Early America" by
George Pullen Jackson)
Say, Brother, will you meet us?
Say, Brother, will you meet us?
Say, Brother, will you meet us?
On Canaan's happy shore.
Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
As we go marching on.
Say, Sister, will you meet us? ....
By the grace of God we'll meet you, ....
That will be a happy meeting,.....
Jesus lives and reigns forever,....
Glory, glory hallelujah....
Forever, evermore.
Here's another version.
Say Brothers Will We Meet You [title]
Say brothers will you meet us on Canaan's happy shore,
Say brothers will you meet us on Canaan's happy shore,
When the day of Judgement comes?
Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
When the day of Judgement comes?
**
2.
Subject: Lyr Add: SAY, BROTHERS
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 12:19 AM
SAY, BROTHERS
Say, brothers, will you meet us?
Say, brothers, will you meet us?
On Canaan's happy shore?
Say, sisters, will you meet us, etc.
By the grace of God we'll meet you
Where parting is no more;
That will be a happy meeting
On Canaan's happy shore.
Jesus lives and reigns forever,
On Canaan's happy shore.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Forever, evermore!
The Revivalist, No. 173, p. 95. From American Negro Folk
Songs, 1928, Newman L. White, 1965 reprint, Appendix, p. 434-435. A variant of
the version posted by Rex.
**
3.
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Say Brothers Will You Meet Us?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:12 AM
George Pullen Jackson notes:
"This ["Say Brothers"] will be recognized as
the tune which Julia Ward Howe used for the chorus of the 'Battle Hymn of the
Republic'. It is still popular in the above form [as "Say Brothers"]
in negro churches of the South." (Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America,
p. 207)
He presents, in addition, a Negro spiritual version of
"Say Brothers" in his White and Negro Spirituals (1944; Da Capo,
1975, p. 179), with this comment: "Recorded by the present author as sung
May 21, 1933, in Zema Hill's Primitive Baptist Church, Nashville, Tennessee. Earlier
variants are in White's Fisk Jubilee Songs of 1872, pages 14 and 140." (p.
179); the tune is practically the same.
The ol'-time religion it is good enough for me,
The ol'-time religion it is good enough for me,
The ol'-time religion it is good enough for me
As we go marching home.
~Masato
**
4.
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Say Brothers Will You Meet Us?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:33 AM
Ellen Jane Lorenz, in her Glory, Hallelujah!: The Story of
the Campmeeting Spiritual (Abingdon, 1978, p. 121), writes (underline added):
Say, brothers, will you meet us illustrates the singability
of the campmeeting choruses; it is the campmeeting chorus most parodied, from
the time of its first creation up to the present. ... L.A. Banks relates its
story in his Immortal Songs of Camp and Field [1898]. His first meeting with
the song was in Charleston in 1859, with a performance soon after at the YMCA
of Albany, N.Y. (But the present study reveals a publication in Songs of Zion,
1851.) Banks says, "It has been claimed that the Millerites [Adventists]
used the tune to a hymn, 'We'll see the angels coming through the old church
yard (3 times) / Shouting through the air / Glory, glory, hallelujah.'"
****
Excerpt #3
From https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=71356
Numbers added for referencing purposes only.
1.
Subject: RE: Origins:John Brown's Body/ Battle Hymn of
Republic
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 03:42 PM
"Very interesting!
Do we have a firm date on the hymn, "Say Brothers, Will
You Meet Us?"? Posted in thread 32038: Civil War Songs
One website says 1856-1858 (the Steffe story*), and another
says it appeared in 1858 as the hymn (copyright and/or sheet music), or
"Oh, My Brothers Will You Meet Me?" (Union Harp [?] but I have no
means of checking. See Say brother
Some of the information is questionable. The sheet music I
have is from an article published much later.
According to Lois Eagan, a letter from Port Royal said the
song was sung by slaves "at General Drayton's plantation," in a
"shouting exercise" to the tune of "Say, Brothers."
"Sisters, soldiers, preachers," etc. were given an invitation to meet
on "Canaan's happy shore." Anecdotes
I cannot find a date or further details about this 'letter'.
According to a note (p. 259) in Dena J. Epstein, "Sinful Tunes and
Spirituals," the song may have been heard at St Helena in 1862 by Laura
Towne."
-snip-
*Pancocojams Editor’s note: Here's some information about William Steff from https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=71356, "John Brown's Body", posted by raredance,11 May 01
...."The source of this is "The Singing Sixties" by W A and PW Heaps (1960 Univ Oklahoma Press). They say that the tune was composed some time before 1855 by a South Carolinian named William Steffe and had bcome popular at camp meetings with a chorus line of "Say, brothers, will you meet us on Canaan's happy shore?". When a battalion of the 12th Massachusetts Regiment was stationed at Fort Warren in Boston early in the war, some of the members used the tune to taunt a soldier named John Brown. The conversion to the Abolitionist John Brown was not a big step"..
-snip-
This complete comment is given in Part II of this pancocojams series.
**
2.
Subject: RE: Origins:John Brown's Body/ Battle Hymn of
Republic
From: masato sakurai
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:10 AM
"According to James J. Fuld (The Book of World-Famous Music,
5th ed., 2000, p. 132):
The written record begins in 1857-1858. On Dec. 19, 1857, there
was a copyright entry by Charles Dunbar, Camp Meeting Harp and Revival
Chorister. Though no copy of a book with this title has been found, a book
entitled The Union Harp and Revival Chorister, with the collection selected and
arranged by Charles Dunbar, and a statement that it was published in Cincinnati
in 1858, has been found; and it contains at page 264 the music and words of
"My Brother Will You Meet Me." The opening words are "Say my
brother will you meet me." The music of the Glory Hallelujah chorus is
present, but not the words. No copyright entry was made for this book in 1858,
although Dunbar copyrighted several other books during that year and
copyrighted the second edition of The Union Harp and Revival Chorister on April
30, 1859."
****
This concludes Part I of this three part pancocojams series.
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
1.@bernadinegray9375, 2020
"Ricky Dillard; "Yahweh has blessed you with a talent to get all ages to SANG!! I love the excitement and joyful of Praising Yahweh!!" ** 2.@boyinthechoclate, 2021
Yesssssssssss yall better sang I miss that old school church ⛪ 😪
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"Old school gospel. Nothing like it. They sanging y'all...do not pass me by. Amen 🙏🏽"
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Discussion thread "B".
from Showcase Video #4 in this pancocojams post
@emmanorth2547, 2023
"YES , YES SANG the song!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We don't never need to stop. Yes Lord."
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Discussion thread "C."from Showcase Video #5 in this pancocojams post
1.@lizzylove7060, 2024
"SAAAAAANNNNNNNGGGG YALL!!!❤❤❤❤❤"
** @ProfessorofPraise, 2024
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