WHITE
Photographed from a tintype of the early 1870s in possession of
the White family.
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| BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WHITE and THURZA (GOLIGHTLY) WHITE Photographed from a tintype of the early 1870s in possession of the White family. |
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Benjamin Franklin had been dead but ten years when the wife of a young farmer, Robert White, living near Spartanburg, South Carolina, gave birth to the first of their fourteen children and named him after the great American statesman. Benjamin Franklin White's schooling, three short terms, was quite meager according to today's standards. It was, however, about the average for those times when many boys acquired on their own initiative much of that education which has since been given over to institutions.
An important part of his self-acquired education was in music; for music, in those times, was a matter of singing schools here and there and, other than this, self-instruction. In the singing schools of Ben White's youth they may have been using any one of half a dozen good books of the sort we have just described. He may have learned his first music from Ananias Davisson's Kentucky Harmony (1815), Freeman Lewis' Beauties of Harmony (Pittsburgh, 1813), Allen D. Carden's Missouri Harmony (1820); or he might have known even Ingalls' Christian Harmony (1805) from copies which may have wandered southward.
But early in his musical career young White must have realized that he and his fellow Carolinians needed a book better than these, one which would contain also those many songs in their own southeastern "unwritten" tradition. Be that as it may, we find young White associated early with his brother-in-law, William Walker (they had married the Golightly sisters, Ben's wife being Thurza Golightly), in the compiling of just such a song collection. By the year 1835 it was finished and Walker took the manuscript to New Haven, Connecticut, where the book appeared the same year.
Just what happened at this juncture is not certain. But Joe S. James, in his A Brief History of the Sacred Harp (Douglasville, Georgia, 1904, p. 29f), tells that Walker, when he got to New Haven, seemed to forget completely that he had a brother-in-law and that the latter had done a goodly part of the work on the new book and that he deserved credit of some sort. But be the facts as they may, the book came out as "The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, by William Walker" and with no mention at all of B. F. White. Mr. James was usually fairly correct in his statements. But he would himself doubtless have admitted that he presented but one side of the case.
This incident, according to James, caused White to pack up his worldly goods, leave friends and kindred in the Spartanburg section, and move with his family to Hamilton, Harris County, Georgia. This was in the late 1830's.
In his new home White soon became a prominent citizen, editor of the official county newspaper, The Organ, clerk of the superior court of his county, and a leading teacher of singing schools there and in the country roundabout. And there it was that he commenced at once to make a new collection of songs. Many of these songs he published one at a time in The Organ; and the whole collection appeared in the 1844 as The Sacred Harp, printed in Philadelphia "for the proprietors, B. F. White and E. J. King." (See the frontispiece of this booklet.)
Higher up, on the title page of the Sacred Harp, the name "E. J. King" appears with White's name as joint author. Were E. J. King and Joel King the same man? James thought they were brothers, an opinion based on what he had been able to learn from the oldest Sacred Harp singers then living (1904). It is to be regretted that we are unable to tell more of White's associate in creating the notable book.
The Sacred Harp was widely used from the start. It was the official song book of the Southern Musical Convention (organized at Huntersville, Upton County, Georgia, 1845), The Chattahoochee Musical Convention (organized at Macedonia Church, Coweta County, Georgia, 1852), the Tallapoosa Singing Convention (organized in Haralson County, Georgia, in 1867), and of countless other conventions organized during the following decades in the territory including Georgia and stretching westward with the tide of migration as far as Texas and Oklahoma.
Sacred Harp singing has never spread, as a real country institution, farther north than the southern reaches of Tennessee and Missouri. In the Carolinas the Southern Harmony and other books seem to have offered stiff competition. The most recently organized convention, one which is at the same time the farthest north, is the Tennessee Sacred Harp Singing Association, organized in 1939 and meeting in Nashville.
Major Benjamin Franklin White (he gained this title in the Georgia militia before the Civil War) died in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1879, and is buried in the Oakland Cemetery in that city beside his wife under a beautiful memorial stone set by kindred and Sacred Harp singers. James says that just before he died he sang plainly and distinctly "Behold, the morning sun begins his glorious way" (Sacred Harp, p. 391).
Among the offspring of B. F. White who carried on after their father ceased to labor were J. L. White, D. P. White, W. D. White, R. H. White, B. F. ("Frank") White, Jr., Mary Caroline (White) Adair, Nancy Ogburn (White) Byrd, and Mrs. E. H. Clarke. And these were followed in the work by large numbers of White's grandchildren and great-grandchildren, some of whom are still active singers today.
Among those prominently associated with the Whites were James R. Turner (b. 1807), J. P. Rees (b. 1828), H. S. Rees (his twin brother), I. M. Shell (b. 1826), Absalom Ogletree (b. 1819), Edmund Dumas, Leonard P. Breedlove, S. R. Pennick, R. F. M. Mann, E. L. King, E. T. Pounds, R. F. Ball, J. T. Edmonds, and Marion Patrick.
Among the leading singers of still later years, that is, toward the end of the nineteenth and in the early years of the twentieth century, James lists the following: Miles Edwards (b. 1822), J. M. Hamrick (b. 1838) Stephen James (b. 1821), Joe S. James (son of Stephen, author of the Brief History and chief editor of the 1911 edition of the Sacred Harp), C. H. Newton, J. A. Burdette, J. B. Henslee, Thomas McLendon, Mrs. A. J. McLendon, Mrs. W. C. Smith, W. S. Turner, J. H. Tyson, G. L. McEwen, Jesse M. Moseley, P. H. Chandler, J. E. Gurley, J. W. Dunford, T. B. Newton, S. P. Barnett, James Storey, J. M. Hutcheson, T. S. Andrews, J. M. Denson, and Tom Waller.
Members of the editorial committee which, under the guidance of the chairman, Joe S. James, revised and enlarged the Sacred Harp in 1911 were W. H. Bell, M. F. McWhorter, C. H. Newton, Absalom Ogletree, J. E. Eason, B. S. Aiken, J. C. Brown, M. D. Farris, J. G. Moore, J. H. Tyson, A. J. McLendon, T. M. Payne, J. W. Harding, G. B. Holder, S. W. Everett, C. J. Griggs, S. M. Denson, T. J. Denson, J. D. Laminack, G. B. Daniel, T. R. Newton, and J. W. Long. Together they present a cross section of leading singers, composers, and teachers in the Sacred Harp field around the turn of the present century.
The 1911 edition of the Sacred Harp was the fifth; the preceding ones having been made, after the first edition of 1844, in 1850, 1859, and 1869. With each edition the formerly published parts of the book remained practically unchanged. Merely a supplement of additional songs was added. Thus the original 263 pages of the book grew with the successive editions to 366, 429, 477, and 550. The chief change suffered by former editions at the hands of later editors was the removal of a score of older songs from the 1869 issue. Most of these songs, however, were returned to the book in the James edition of fifty years later and placed on their original pages, thus justifying the title of the later revision—The Original Sacred Harp.
Those just mentioned seem to have been all the important and straight-line editions during the 1844-1911 period. There was, however, another Sacred Harp which I cannot fully explain. It appeared in 1870, just one year after the edition which was sponsored by B. F. White, Dumas, Olgetree, Mann, and Patrick—a committee of "The Southern Musical Convention of the State of Georgia," in 1869. The preface to the 1870 book was signed by B. F. White alone and the book was copyrighted by him and D(avid) P(atillo) White, his son. Aside from the preface, the book is identical with that of the year before.
The 1870 book was reprinted in 1911 (same year as the James edition) and from the original plates but with a new supplement of 73 pages of song. The additional songs were different. They were composed music signed by such well known nineteenth-century musicians as William B. Bradbury, N. E. Everett, William Havergal, George Kingsley, Thomas Hastings, R. M. McIntosh, George F. Root, G. J. Webb, and Lowell Mason. The book is known as the "J. L. White edition" (after its chief editor) and is still in use in a number of Georgia and Alabama conventions. Sam C. Mann, a grandson of B. F. White, is active in its propagation.
Still another form of the Sacred Harp, widely used today in many states, more especially in the southern parts of Alabama and in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas, is what is popularly known at "The Cooper edition." It was made in 1902 by W. M. Cooper of Dothan, Alabama, and was a frank attempt at the "correction" and modernization of the old book. It has appealed thus to those who feel that such changes are justified. The revision work was done by a committee the members of which were entirely different from those active a few years later in making the James and the J. L. White editions. The Cooper edition is now owned by Judge B. P. Poyner of Dothan, Alabama.
The latest authentic Sacred Harp is the "Denson Revision" of 1936. It was made by a committee consisting of Thomas J. Denson, Seaborn M. Denson, L. P. Odem, L. A. McGraw, H. N. McGraw, T. B. McGraw, O. A. Parris, George H. Parris, George M. Maddox, Otis L. McCoy, Howard Denson, and Paine Denson. Those were formed into the Sacred Harp Publishing Company, Inc., of which Howard Denson was president and Paine Denson, secretary. The financial load of this radical revision was lightened materially by the funds which Lonnie P. Odem generously devoted to the cause which he loved—still loves. Thomas and Seaborn Denson (of whom we shall have more to say presently) died while the revision was being made. The chief music-editorial work was shifted thus to the shoulders of Paine Denson.
The new Sacred Harp is based squarely on the James edition. But 176 rarely or never used songs of the latter book have been discarded, and 41 have been added. Some little violence was done also to the earlier page placing of the songs. But the new song sequences has been accepted by singers with but a little initial confusion.
The Denson revisers have, however, not changed the character of the old book one whit. All the newly added pieces have that combination of traits which distinguishes Sacred Harp music from all other tonal types. According to my count, about three out of four of the newly added pieces are fuguing songs, composed largely by Densons and other living Sacred Harp musicians.
Six thousand copies of the Denson Revisions have been printed in the last eight years; and most of them have already been sold. It is the book in general use, especially in the Georgia, Alabama, and southern Tennessee region.
If imitation is the sincerest flattery, the Sacred Harp folk should be pleased with The Colored Sacred Harp. For this book, edited by J. Jackson for the negro Dale County (Ala.) Musical Institute and the Alabama and Florida Union State Convention, and published in 1934 in Ozark, Alabama—is clearly inspired by the white man's Sacred Harp and its song tradition. It has the same oblong shape and dimensions, the same fa-sol-la solmization, four-shape notation and four-part harmonization, and the same sorts of song—Old Baptist, revival spirituals, and fuguing tunes. And despite the fact that each tune is signed by a "composer," I find many of them merely variants of the white Sacred Harp melodies. The white singers greet the singers of The Colored Sacred Harp and wish them success in their undertaking.
When the Sacred Harp was young it had to fight its way as one of a half-dozen song books of its sort or similar.
William Walker's Southern Harmony, which I have mentioned, was its keenest competitor in Georgia and the Carolinas.
And this book was followed by Walker's somewhat modernized Christian Harmony with its added grist of songs by Lowell Mason and others and with its 7-shape notes.
In eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama competition was offered by the Harp of Columbia, a good 7-shape book by W. Harvey Swan and Markus Lafayette Swan which came out in Knoxville in 1849.
Another excellent Georgia book, one which was however too bulky for wide use, was William Hauser's Hesperian Harp (1848).
Large numbers of the lively revival songs or camp-meeting spirituals were published in two books:
Walker's Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist (1845) and John Gordon McCurry's Social Harp, Andersonville, Georgia, 1855.
It is also quite likely that many copies of the old, frequently reprinted Missouri Harmony were still in use in the
These competing books have all but disappeared today. The Southern Harmony is the song book of one lone singing in Benton, western Kentucky. A few years ago the Benton singers, with the help of the federal Works Projects Administration, got out a 1,000-copy photographic reproduction of the 1854 edition of the Southern Harmony. On the fourth Sunday in May, 1944, they held their sixty-first annual Southern Harmony singing convention. The grist of new books may add years to the life span of their singings; but it shows no signs as yet of bringing new singing groups to life. The other William Walker book, The Christian Harmony, was obtainable up to a few years ago. There are a number of Alabama singing conventions still using it. Its Philadelphia publisher died recently; but a movement is on foot in Alabama, I understand, to have the old book reprinted from the original plates. The plates of Swan's Harp of Columbia are now held by The Methodist Publishing House in Nashville; but there has not been enough demand for the book during the past twenty years to warrant a reprinting. So the "Old Harp" singers, largely in eastern Tennessee, must be running short of books. Thus the Sacred Harp stands practically alone today in its unique angle of the musical field as a vigorously living book and institution.
