Spirituals Songs of Praise

There's a kind of music that resonates

with a story of exploitation and suffering.

But also of courage and salvation.

This week I look back at one of the principle roots of popular music

and introduce some of the most inspiring of all songs of praise.

'African-American spirituals

'are sublimely sung for us

'by the Adventist Vocal Ensemble,

'Tessera

'and new talent Jeharna South,

'and I meet experts

'who regard these wonderful songs as having lasting significance.'

It's the music of being an African-American,

being a black American, being a descendant of enslaved peoples,

it is the music.

Spirituals were born in slavery but they transcended slavery,

they came out of slavery and they rose above it,

and they created hope out of hopeless circumstances.

They are beautifully crafted and they take you on a journey

and that enables you to transcend this world.

We're going to hear some of the finest spirituals

sung in the splendid surroundings of St John at Hackney Church

and we begin with an all-time favourite.

The story of spirituals begins in the 16th century

when millions of Africans were forcibly shipped across the Atlantic

to the Americas.

And these people were transported on ships,

stacked up like pieces of wood at the bottom of the ship

and brought over to the United States,

to the Caribbean.

These people were counted as assets, the way you would count

a house or a car, or an animal.

Your slaves were your wealth.

So you're thrown into this hole

and you have to figure out how to dialogue with one another

and one of the ways that you do is through music.

You use music as a way of being able to communicate,

as a way of soothing each other

and as a way of saying, "We're going to survive."

And like any human being,

these people had to find some way of healing themselves inside

so they could keep going.

# Nobody knows... #

'Spirituals have always been an important part of the repertoire

'of the Adventist Vocal Ensemble.'

# Nobody knows the trouble... #

Could you tell us the distinctive qualities

that spirituals have that make them identifiably different

to any other music.

It's very much this element of call and response

that is very, very central to spirituals.

What's the meaning of that? What is call and response?

"Swing low, sweet chariot" is a call phrase.

-For example, if we have...

-KEN PLAYS PIANO CHORDS

# Swing low, sweet chariot... #

-That's the call?

-That's a call.

# Coming for to carry me home

# Swing low, sweet chariot

# Coming for to carry me home. #

You have these different lyrics...

# I looked over Jordan and what did I see...? #

Response.

# Coming for to carry me home

# There's a band of angels coming after me

# Coming for to carry me home. #

-And what's...?

-I want to be on your next single.

-THEY LAUGH

-Done! So was this the first form of music

to feature call and response extensively?

Well, music is a universal language,

so call and response you will find if you look at the Psalms -

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercies endure for ever",

and you see practices right across the world of call and response

and of different types of scales being used.

One of the central elements of spirituals is a pentatonic scale.

-What is that?

-Pentatonic scale - "pent" meaning "five"...

-Yes.

If we use as our reference point the Sound Of Music -

# Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do. #

-Yes.

-If we take...

# Do-re-mi...

# Sol-fa... #

KEN PLAYS MATCHING SCALE ON PIANO

Pentatonic scale is a universal scale

used a lot in folk music, such as...

HE PLAYS A SPRIGHTLY MELODY

OK.

Oriental music.

HE PLAYS A SLOW AND GENTLE MELODY

Spirituals.

HE PLAYS NEW CHORDS

Somebody once joked that actually,

-if you find...

-HE PLAYS CHORDS

the pentatonic scale on the piano,

they are found exclusively on the black keys.

Ah!

We're going to hear a song by four gentlemen called Tessera of whom you're a member.

Tell me about it.

The message of the song is a deep faith and trust in Jesus.

It says you can have all this world, your silver, your gold,

but give me Jesus.

# In the morning

# When I rise

# In the morning

# When I rise

# In the morning

# When I rise

# Give me Jesus

# Give me Jesus

# Give me Jesus

# You may have all this world

# Give me Jesus

# Just about the break of day

# Just about the break of day

# Just about the break of day

# Give me Jesus

# Give me Jesus

# Give me Jesus

# You may have all this world

# Give me Jesus

# You may have silver

# You may have gold

# Give me Jesus

# You may have riches

# And wealth untold

# Give me Jesus

# You may have this whole wide world

# Give me Jesus

# Nothing compares to you

# Oh, Jesus

# Give me Jesus. #

I suppose the term spiritual really originates with Isaac Watts

who published a book called Hymns And Spiritual Songs

in, round about 1700.

This book of songs went to America

and was really taken up and adopted

by what were then the slaves on the plantations,

who took the songs and adapted them to their own circumstances

and read into it something that spoke to their condition

and appealed to them as melodies as well,

so that's really where the term spiritual comes from.

Slave Christianity

and the spirituals born within slave Christianity

are really protest songs.

They're songs by slaves

attempting to resist the tyranny of slavery

and calling on God to deliver them.

We shouldn't just interpret them as nice music,

they go beyond nice music,

they are songs of resistance

and that's how we should sing them and celebrate them.

It was very important to them that they held onto stories

that gave them a sense of hope.

We know from the spirituals that songs about Moses

and God's deliverance of the Hebrew people, songs about Joshua,

the battle of Jericho, these images of God as a warrior,

defeating oppressive regimes were songs that they could hold onto

because they gave them a sense of hope.

# Joshua fit the battle of Jericho... #

In the 1870s, concert performances by the Fisk Jubilee Singers

brought spirituals

to international prominence.

Queen Victoria was reportedly

so moved that she wept

when she heard them and commissioned their portrait.

Later, spirituals were to provide the basis of gospel music.

Now, the word "gospel" means "good news"

and next up we have a quartet called Resurrection

singing a song appropriately named Good News.

# I've got a home up in that kingdom Ain't that good news?

# I've got a home up in that kingdom Ain't that good news?

# I'm gonna lay down this world

# I'm gonna shoulder up my cross

# I'm gonna take it home to my Jesus

# Ain't that good news?

# Good news

# Good news

# I've got a saviour

# In that kingdom

# Ain't that good news?

# I've got a saviour In that kingdom

# Ain't that good news?

# I'm gonna lay down this world

# I'm gonna shoulder up my cross

# I'm gonna take it home to my Jesus

# Ain't that good news?

# I'm gonna take it home to my Jesus

# Ain't that good news?

# I'm gonna take it home to my Jesus

# Take it home to my Jesus

# Take it home to my Jesus

# Ain't that...?

# Good news

# Good news

# Good news

# Good news

# Good news

# Good news

# Good news. #

Spirituals have a double meaning.

On one level, they're concerned with the Bible

and stories or themes within the Bible

or images that they have conjured up from hearing Bible stories.

On another level, they are political songs,

they tell the slaves about how to resist slavery

and how to escape the plantation.

We know for example, that songs like Wade In The Water

were not just nice songs about God

but also coded directions of how to get off the plantation,

to cross the water to make sure the dogs could not follow you

and to make sure that you gave yourself the best chance of freedom.

# Wade in the water

# Wade in the water, children

# Wade in the water

# God's gonna trouble the water

# Wade in the water

# Wade in the water, children

# Wade in the water

# God's gonna trouble the water

# I stepped in the water

# And the water was cold

# God's gonna trouble the water

# It chilled my body but not my soul

# God's gonna trouble the water

# Ooh

# Wade in the water

# Wade in the water, children

# Wade in the water

# God's gonna trouble the water

# If you don't believe I've been redeemed

# God's gonna trouble the water

# Then follow me down to the Jordan stream

# God's gonna trouble the water

# Oh-oh-oh-ooh-oh

# Wade in the water

# Wade in the water, children

# Wade in the water

# God's gonna trouble

# God's gonna trouble

# God's gonna trouble

# God's gonna trouble

# God's gonna trouble

# God's gonna trouble the water

# Ooh

# Ooh-oh. #

# Joshua fit the battle of Jericho... #

'Spirituals continue to have a meaning for people today.

'This is certainly true for the members of our choir,

'the Adventist Vocal Ensemble.'

# And the walls come a... #

Nice!

# Tumbling

# Down. #

When you think of the background of spirituals,

they tell the whole gospel story.

They speak of people's problems that they've had

and how they've overcome them

and with the help of God, how we can get through things.

Since I am not a preacher,

I like to use singing in the choir as a way of preaching,

reaching other people and letting them know what God means to me.

There's still slavery in the 21st century,

it may not be the way it was a few centuries ago,

but in individual lives,

I think we can all identify with things that we feel enslaved to.

Bad habits, bad traits of character, bad circumstances.

I work with drug addicts and alcoholics

and I see it day in, day out.

The sense of hope and encouragement that spirituals gives me,

gives me the courage to think that these plans that they work with

can also turn their lives around.

There is hope. One's life can change. Freedom is there, available.

The Beckford name is a slave-holding name.

The Beckford's were the second-largest slave owners

in Jamaica,

in the west of the island, in Westmoreland in particular.

So this name isn't a name that was bequeathed to me,

it is instead a stamp of ownership.

I really wrestled with whether or not I should keep this name,

after all it is a brand of ownership and I'm no slave,

I don't want anything to do with that slave past.

But when I was researching at the national records office -

the history of slavery,

I came across a slave by the name of Robert Beckford

and this guy just happened to be a Christian,

and he fought in the 1831 slave rebellion in Jamaica.

But I decided to keep the name to retain his memory and his struggle.

As we've heard, spirituals were inspired

by the understanding enslaved Africans had of the Bible

and I'm sure these verses from Psalm 95

would have resonated with many of them.

"Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord.

"Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.

"Let us come before him with thanksgiving

"and extol him with music and song."

'Next week, join me again

'to celebrate Pentecost Sunday with

'spirit-filled, house-shaking gospel music

'from our congregation at St John at Hackney,

'plus special guests Kym Mazelle

'and Avery Sunshine.'

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd