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Original sacred harp : containing a superior collection of standard melodies, of odes, anthems, and church music, and hymns of high repute : rudiments, retaining all valuable standard regulations, arr. with all modern up-to-date improvements. , an annotated digital edition

Page 71

14

p. 71

BOUND
FOR
CANAAN.
"
Ye
see
him
not,
yet
believing
ye
rejoice
with
joy
unspeakable
and
full
of
glory."-1
PET.
1:
8.
REV.
JOHN
LELAND,
1833.
Key
of
B
Flat
Major.
E.
J.
KING,
1844.
CHORUS.
1.
O
when
shall
I
see
Jesus,
And
reign
with
Him
above,
And
from
the
flowing
fountian
Drink
everlasting
love.
I'm
on
my
way
to
Canaan,
I'm
on
my
way
to
Canaan,
I'm
on
my
way
to
Canaan,
To
the
new
Jerusalem.
2.
When
shall
I
be
delivered
from
this
vain
world
of
sin,
And
with
my
blessed
Jesus,
Drink
endless
pleasures
in?
I'm
on
my
way
to
Canaan,
I'm
on
my
way
to
Canaan,
I'm
on
my
way
to
Canaan,
To
the
new
Jerusalem.
3.
{
But
now
I
am
a
soldier,
My
Cap-tain'
gone
beforem
He'
s
given
me
my
or-ders,
And
bids
me
not
give
o'er.
I'm
on
my
way
to
Canaan,
I'm
on
my
way
Canaan,
I'm
on
my
way
to
Canaan,
To
the
new
Jerusalem.
1
The
original
name
of
this
song
was
"
Evening
Song."
Rev.
John
Leland
was
born
in
1754
and
died
in
1844.
He
was
a
Baptist
preacher.
In
1801
he
took
a
preaching
tour
from
his
home
in
Massachusetts
to
Washington
with
his
Cheshire
cheese,
which
made
his
name
national
on
account
of
that
trip.
He
wrote
his
own
hymns.
He
composed
the
hymn,
"The
Day
is
Passed
and
Gone,
the
Evening
Shades
Appear."
The
farmers
of
Cheshire,
for
whom
he
was
pastor,
conceived
the
idea
of
sending
the
biggest
cheese
in
America
to
President
Jefferson.
Mr.
Leland
offered
to
go
to
Washington
with
an
ox
team
with
it
and
preach
along
the
way,
which
he
did.
The
cheese
weighed
1,450
pounds.
He
died
with
great
hope
of
rest
in
the
glory
world.
E.
J.
King
made
material
changes
in
the
tune,
and
re-arranged
it
about
the
year
1844.
He
prepared
it
for
"Sacred
Harp."
EDGEFIELD.
8s.
JOHN
NEWTON,
1779.
Key
of
F
Sharp
Minor.
"
None
upon
earth
that
I
desire
besides
thee.-Ps.
73:
25.
J.
T.
WHITE,
1844.
How
tedious
and
tasteless
the
hours
When
Jesus
no
longer
I
see!
Have
lost
all
their
sweetness
to
me,
Sweet
prospects,
sweet
birds,
and
sweet
flowers,
Have
lost
all
their
sweetness
to
me.
I
See
sketch
of
John
Newton,
author
of
the
words,
under
tune
"
New
Britain,"
page
45.
J.
T.
White
prepared
this
tune
for
"
Sacred
Harp,"
in
1844.
  • Wilson Marion Cooper added an alto part to “Bound for Canaan” in his 1902 revision of The Sacred Harp. This uncredited alto part, likely arranged by Seaborn McDaniel Denson, is nearly identical to Cooper’s alto.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • Some late twentieth-century singers from The Sacred Harp appreciated James’s historical notes for the humor that came from his mistakes, his idiosyncratic way with words, and the sometimes surprising stories he told about the figures included in the tunebook. This note on John Leland and the great cheese led some singers to adopt the name “cheese notes” for James’s annotations. Singers in the Boston area even established an annual “cheese notes singing” in the early 1980s, featuring dramatic readings of this and other choice historical notes from Original Sacred Harp. Undeniably comical, the propensity of the notes to encourage jokes at the tunebook’s expense, along with the uneven display of pages after seventy-five years of additions and substitutions, was embarrassing to the tunebook’s revisers, in whose cultural context Sacred Harp singing was often regarded as “old fogy.”

    This note, and two other notes in which James touches on Leland’s character (106, 319), evince James’s awareness of Leland’s friendship with Thomas Jefferson, which began during the minister’s time in Virginia from 1776–1791. The notes also demonstrate James’s appreciation of the potential of the story of the great cheese to entertain readers through illustrating what Leland’s Baptist pastor contemporaries called his “peculiarities.” The story was a widely reported-upon political event in 1801 and was still well known in the nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries. Leland’s journey to Washington celebrated Jefferson’s election and also carried a political message. The “mammoth cheese” was an expression of the Connecticut Baptist’s support of Jefferson’s advocacy for separation of church and state as well a mark of the pastor’s opposition to slavery. The cheese was made only from the milk of owned by non-slaveholders and “federalist cows” were also excluded.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • Should read “besides.”

    jesse.karlsberg
    Printing Error
  • B. F. White and E. J. King, eds., The Sacred Harp (Philadelphia, PA: T. K. & P. G. Collins, 1844), 82.

    jesse.karlsberg
    Sacred Harp 1844
  • John Newton published “How tedious and tasteless the hours” in his book Olney Hymns. The hymn text features four verses written in 8s, double, an anapestic meter featuring eight lines of eight-syllable text. Each verse pairs a picture of gloomy resignation in the first four lines with a brighter picture of the joy that comes from beholding God’s presence in each verse’s second half. The better-known tune “Green Fields” (127) accommodates this hymn text’s full eight-line stanzas in an upbeat, major mode setting. In contrast, “Edgefield” adopts a minor melody to set just the gloomy first half of the hymn’s first verse, omitting its cheerier conclusion.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • Elisha James King composed “Bound for Canaan” in three parts (tenor, bass, and treble) and contributed the revival chorus to the 1844 first edition of The Sacred Harp. The song appeared on page 82, where it remained unchanged during successive nineteenth-century revisions of the tunebook. “Bound for Canaan” is a perennially popular song, often used to open all-day singings from The Sacred Harp.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • B. F. White and E. J. King, eds., The Sacred Harp (Philadelphia, PA: T. K. & P. G. Collins, 1844), 82.

    jesse.karlsberg
    Sacred Harp 1844
  • The first printing of Original Sacred Harp omitted the word “vain” from this phrase of John Leland’s 1793 hymn text. In correcting the error for the second edition, the tunebook’s typesetters relied on a smaller point size of a different typeface in order to fit the lengthened text into the limited space available on the page’s stereotyped copper plate.

    jesse.karlsberg
    Correction
  • John Leland authored five common meter double stanzas of this popular hymn in 1793.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • Born in South Carolina on May 27, 1821 to father Robert White Jr. brother of Sacred Harp co-compiler Benjamin Franklin White, Jesse Thomas White moved to Georgia as a young man. White married Caroline Penelope Eldridge, and moved west, first to Winston County, Mississippi, and then to Smith County, Texas. A farmer and innkeeper in Texas, White contributed ten songs to the first edition of The Sacred Harp, including “Edgefield.” He died on July 28, 1894.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • Elisha James King was The Sacred Harp’s “junior author,” co-compiling the tunebook in 1844 with Benjamin Franklin White. He was born in 1821 in East Georgia to parents John King and Elizabeth Dubose. He moved with his parents to West Georgia’s Talbot County in 1828. As a young adult, King farmed with his family and taught singing schools. In A Brief History of the Sacred Harp, Joseph Stephen James credits White with training King in music (129–30). King died on August 31, 1844, just after work on The Sacred Harp had been completed.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • The Original Sacred Harp’s editors added this fermata to “Bound for Canaan,” which unusually sits on the first syllable of a word. No recording of “Bound for Canaan” from the first half of the twentieth century documents the observance of this fermata. The editors of Original Sacred Harp: Denson Revision removed it in 1936.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • Jesse Thomas White arranged this variant of “Bethany,” a song contributed by Solomon Howe to the ca. 1804 Psalm-Singer’s Amusement, for the 1844 first edition of The Sacred Harp. Although James followed the practice of competing Sacred Harp revisionist Wilson Marion Cooper in adding alto parts to the book’s songs, “[i]n all tunes which could not be improved by adding alto, it has been left out.” In practice, the Original Sacred Harp’s editors added alto parts to the vast majority of tunes. “Edgefield” is one of only twenty-two that remain in three-part settings in the tunebook today.

    jesse.karlsberg
  • In the first printing of Original Sacred Harp, the book’s editors shortened the first note of “Bound for Canaan” from a half note to a quarter note, and removed the half note rest which had preceded the first note in the 1844–1870 editions of The Sacred Harp. This subtle change brought the song into closer alignment with gospel songs, which often begin with quarter or eighth note pickups. In contrast, many songs in The Sacred Harp begin with half or whole notes, providing singers an opportunity to sound a strong starting chord before launching into a succession of shorter notes as the song continues.

    James made similar alterations to several other songs in the first edition of Original Sacred Harp but restored the original half note entrances to all of these songs in this second printing of the book. The resistance of singers to such musical modernizations likely caused the Original Sacred Harp’s editors to moderate their reforms. Rather than retypeset page 82, the book’s typesetters resorted to modifying the stereotyped copper plate they had produced for the book’s first edition, as a result, the song’s half rest and half note seem squeezed into the limited space previously occupied by song’s quarter note pickup.

    jesse.karlsberg