McIntosh County Shouters - Topic, May 30, 2015
Provided to YouTube by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
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This sound file begins with a man saying "We're gonna sing one of the slave songs that they like to sing just after they come out of slave. They sing this song "Jubilee In The Morning"
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Read the lyrics for this song that are found in the NPR transcript that is found below.
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Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post showcases three YouTube examples of the McIntosh County Shouters performing the Spiritual and ring shout "Jubilee".
An excerpt of a 2019 NPR program about the power of communal song in African American history is also included in this post. That excerpt in this post focuses on the ring shout and includes lyrics for the Spiritual "Jubilee".
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, educational, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all past and present members of the McIntosh County Shouters. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of this video on YouTube.
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Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/05/african-american-ring-shouts-origins.html for a 2013 pancocojams post entitled "African American Ring Shouts (Origins & Video Examples)".
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #2: McIntosh County Shouters - "Jubilee" [Behind The
Scenes Documentary]
Smithsonian Folkways, Feb 14, 2017
Producer Art Rosenbaum, and Freddie Palmer and Brenton
Jordan of the McIntosh County Shouters talk about the triumphant meaning behind
"Jubilee", a song that was sung and shouted at the Emancipation. This
track is featured on 'Spirituals and Shout Songs from the Georgia Coast,' out
on Smithsonian Folkways.
'Spirituals and Shout Songs from the Georgia Coast' is available on CD and Digital.
Acclaimed upholders of the African American ring shout, the
McIntosh County Shouters keep the faith, form, and fervor of the
generations-old tradition rooted in their small community of coastal Georgia.
Companion songs to the shuffle-step devotional movement called “shouting” have resisted
slavery, strengthened spirit, and left us a cultural keystone for the future.
Through their classic shout songs and spirituals, the Shouters beckon us to
remember the past while envisioning the future of the African American cultural
legacy.
The collection is part of the African American Legacy
Series, co-presented with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American
History and Culture....
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #3: McIntosh County Shouters "Jubilee"
Africana Digital Ethnography Project, Jun 27, 2023
EXCERPT OF A 2019 NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO (NPR) TRANSCRIPT
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/711806804 "Wade In The Water Ep. 5: The Power Of Communal Song", June 20, 2019 9:23 AM ET
…."BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON, HOST:
The Power of Communal Song. From National Public Radio and the Smithsonian Institution, I'm Bernice Johnson Reagon, and this is WADE IN THE WATER.
[….]
JOHNSON REAGON: When Black people come together to sing in a group, you have a communal experience that you can feel and hear. Congregational singing is a musical vocal expression of collective power and spirit, an experience of great beauty that came to America with the Africans by way of the Middle Passage. There are different traditions of congregational singing that have evolved as Black people made their way through the American journey. One of the oldest is a continuation of African singing, a company with sacred dancing known as the ring shout tradition.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUBILEE")
MCINTOSH COUNTY SHOUTERS: Yeah. We're the McIntosh County Shouters. We sing the songs that our old ancestors have sang years ago. We don't have a piano. They didn't have them. That's why we ain't got near one (ph). We don't have a drum. (Unintelligible). We get our rhythm from the patting of the stick and the clapping of our hands, and then we sing the song.
(Singing) Come on, children. Gather round. Oh, my Lord. Help me sing this little song. My Lord, jubilee. Jubilee, jubilee. Oh, my Lord. Jubilee in the morning. My Lord, jubilee. Jubilee, jubilee. Oh, my Lord. Jubilee in the evening. My Lord, jubilee. (Unintelligible). Oh, my Lord. (Unintelligible). My Lord, jubilee. Now, my children, you are free. Oh, my Lord. My Lord brought you liberty. My Lord, jubilee. Jubilee, jubilee. Oh, my Lord. Jubilee in the evening. My Lord, jubilee. Call me a Sunday Christian. Oh, my Lord. Call me a Monday devil. My Lord, jubilee. Don't care what you call me. Oh, my Lord. I know Jesus love me. My Lord, jubilee.
JOHNSON REAGON: "Jubilee," performed by the McIntosh County Shouters from southeast Georgia. This is one of the rare groups who continue to sing the songs and move along with the singing in a ring counterclockwise fashion, creating the ritual called the ring shout. Black people during slavery often had their drums banned, but because Black people needed the drumming in order to worship, they created the rhythms in the clapping, in the stomping of the feet, in the beating of the stick. And the McIntosh County Shouters are excellent examples of the survival of this African tradition.
[…]
JOHNSON REAGON: The ring shout performed by the McIntosh County Shouters is the same ritual described by Lucy McKim Garrison in her introduction to the slave songs of the United States. It was the first publication that was a collection of Black songs that appeared in 1867.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1, BYLINE: (Reading) The most peculiar and interesting of their customs is the shout, an excellent description of which we are permitted to copy from the New York Nation of May 30, 1867. The true shout takes place on Sundays or on praise nights through the week and either in the praise house or in some cabin. The benches are pushed back to the wall when the formal meeting is over. And old and young, men and women, all stand up in the middle of the floor and, when the spiritual is struck up, begin first walking and by and by shuffling around, one after the other, in a ring. The foot is hardly taken from the floor, and the progression is mainly due to a jerking, hitching motion which agitates the entire shouter and soon brings out streams of perspiration. Sometimes they dance silently. Sometimes as they shuffle, they sing the chorus of the spiritual.
[…]
JOHNSON REAGON: The practice of shouting - that is, any kind of sacred movement with the singing - met resistance from Christian missionaries. These leaders of the church wrote critically about what they felt were extremes in worship practices evolving within African American communities during the 18th and 19th centuries. Because of the opposition, they sometimes had to conduct their services where they shouted in secret. By the latter part of the 19th century, there were strong efforts to stamp out all vestiges of the ring shout, and these efforts were led by white and Black leaders of the Protestant church.
STERLING STUCKEY: In 1878, roughly 13 years after the cessation of the Civil War, Bishop Daniel Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was visiting Philadelphia and saw a group of Blacks - this is after slavery - saw a group of Blacks doing the ring shout and went over to these Blacks and said to the young minister, have your people sit down and worship in a rational manner.
JOHNSON REAGON: Historian Sterling Stuckey.
STUCKEY: And the young minister responded by saying that people worship God in various ways. Unless there's a ring here, a ring there and a ring over yonder, sinners won't get converted. In other words, the act of conversion itself had a much better chance of occurring after slavery as during slavery if Blacks were permitted to be converted within the circle of the ring shout."...
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I added italics to highlight the lyrics that were given for "Jubilee".
That NPR website includes a 58 minute audio feature of this radio program. In addition to lyrics for "Jubilee", this transcript also includes some lyrics for these Spirituals or other religious songs used for ring shouts: "Wade In The Water", "Sign Of The Judgement", "Satan Is Here", "Daniel", "Good Time In Zion, I Believe", and "I Want To Go Where Jesus Is". That radio program also includes sound bites for and some lyrics for the following labor union songs and/or civil rights songs: Roll The Union On" and "Lord, Hold My Hand While I Run This Race", "This Little Light Of Mine", "I Want My Freedom Now", "Oh Freedom", and "We'll Never Turn Back". In addition, that transcript includes some lyrics for and soundbites of the songs "Go Tell It On The Mountain", "I'm On My Way", "Got On My Traveling Shoes", "Eyes On The Prize", and" We Shall Overcome".
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