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Before I'd Be a Slave/ Oh Freedom/ Befo' I'd Be A Slave
Traditional Old-Time Gospel;
ARTIST: Collected from "Uncle Joe Williams" from "Old Plantation Hymns" By William Eleazar Barton. William E. Barton also published "Before I'd Be a Slave," with score, in New England Magazine, vol. 25, issue 5, Jan. 1899, p. 617, in the article "Hymns of the Slave and the Freedman."
Listen to Oh Freedom by Baez [Version 3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfXdTWFwPLk
Sheet Music: http://books.google.com/books?id=aqcNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA25&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html
CATEGORY: Traditional and Public Domain Gospel;
DATE: 1800s; circa 1898 Barton
RECORDING INFO: Before I'd Be a Slave/Oh Freedom
Rt - Sweet Freedom
Sm - Lilly Dale
Scott, John Anthony (ed.) / Ballad of America, Grosset & Dunlap, Bk (1967), p239
Carawan, Guy & Candie / Sing for Freedom, Sing Out, sof (1990), p 74
Lomax, John A. & Alan Lomax / Folk Song USA, Signet, Sof (1966/1947), #108 (Freedom)
Winds of the People, Sing Out, Sof (1982), p 35
Fowke, Edith & Joe Glazer (eds.) / Songs of Work and Protest, Dover, Sof (1973/1960), p164
Blood, Peter; and Annie Patterson (eds.) / Rise Up Singing, Sing Out, Sof (1992/1989), p 62
Sandburg, Helga (ed.) / Sweet Music, Dial, Bk (1963), p161
Seeger, Pete; and Bob Reiser (eds.) / Carry It On!, Simon & Schuster, Sof (1985), p 42
Songs for America. American Ballads, Folk Songs, ..., Workers Library, Sof (1939), p31
Baez, Joan. Joan Baez in San Francisco, Fantasy 5015, LP (1964), trk# 4
Calicanto Singers. Days of Gold!, Calicanto, CD (1999), trk# B.21
DePaur Chorus. Bicentennial Celebration, Columbia M 33838, LP (1975), trk# B.02
Freedom Singers. Freedom Singers Sing of Freedom Now, Mercury MG 20924, LP (1964), trk# B.05
Hinton, Sam. Wandering Folk Song, Folkways FA 2401, LP (1967), trk# 11
Odetta. Odetta at Town Hall, Vanguard VRS-9103, LP (1962), trk# B.07a
Odetta. Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, Tradition TLP 1010/TCD 1, CD (1996/1956), trk# 16a
Rucker, Sparky (James). Bound to Sing the Blues, Traditional SR-372, LP (1972), trk# B.04
Sandburg, Carl. Cowboy Songs and Negro Spirituals, Decca DL 9105, LP (196?/1940s), trk# B.04a
Seeger, Pete. We Shall Overcome, Columbia C2K 45312, CD (1989), trk# 1.19 [1963/06/08]
Trafidlo, Greg. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, Folk Era FE 1419, CD (1994), trk# 2.18b [1994]
Washington, Jackie. Jackie Washington at Club 47, Vanguard VRS 9172, LP (1965), trk# B.07b
OTHER NAMES: "Holy Bible! Holy Bible!;" "O Freedom"
SOURCES: "Old Plantation Hymns" By William Eleazar Barton
NOTES: The song also known as "Oh Freedom" was published byWilliam E. Barton under the usual title, "Before I'd Be a Slave," with score, in New England Magazine, vol. 25, issue 5, Jan. 1899, p. 617, in the article "Hymns of the Slave and the Freedman." "Old Plantation Hymns" by Barton was the title of an article published in the preceeding year.
Collected from "Uncle Joe Williams." "He always hired his time from his master and made money enough to pay for his labor, and had a good start towards buying his wife and children when freedom came. But this was the hymn he loved to sing, sitting before his door in the twilight."
This is what Barton wrote about the song:
But there is one hymn which I used often to hear which speaks the freedman's joy in his new manhood. I have heard it sung sometimes in the North by companies of educated jubilee singers, who introduce it with the lines,
"Holy Bible! Holy Bible! Holy Bible, Book Divine, Book Divine!" But I never heard these words sung as a verse of this or any native plantation hymn in the South. Their references to the Bible are few, and such as are given in the songs of this series, namely, allusions to wellknown narrative portions of Scripture. The "Holy Bible" stanza was probably the addition of some "reading preacher." It is quite as appropriate, however, as those which are sung to the song in the South; for the freedman, preferring death to slavery, and singing his solemn joy in a strong and stirring strain, comforts himself in the thought of the possibility of death, with the details of the first-class funeral, in which he is to play the chief role. Such a funeral as is described in this hymn is, next to heaven, the desire of the average colored man even in a state of grace. But apart from all this, which may provoke a smile, there is something that thrills one in the words:
"Before I'd be a slave,
I'd be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord and be saved!"
The earliest version titled "Dar'll Be No Mo' Slavery" [see version 2] was collected several years earlier. Writing in 1894, the collector, Mrs. E. M. Backus, said:
"The following cradle-song is still to be heard in the cabins of the Negroes of this state; it has the sound of a wild triumphant death chant:-" High Point, North Carolina.
Although called a cradle-song because it was sung as such, I have given the song a name based on the first line of the last verse." Journal of American Folk-Lore, 1894, vol. 7, no. 27, p. 310, submitted by E. M. Backus.
The 'Before I'll be a slave' verse has not yet been found in Civil War song collections, but its occurrence in the 1880s strongly suggests that its origin is there.
The song under the title "Oh Freedom" became an anthem for the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. It was recorded by Odetta in 1956. On the morning of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C., Joan Baez opened the day's events by singing this classic song of liberty and the inalienable right to freedom. [See version 3].
BEFORE I'D BE A SLAVE (OH, FREEDOM)- "Old Plantation Hymns" William Eleazar Barton 1899
CHORUS: Before I'd be a slave
I'd be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord
And be saved
O, what preachin'!
O, what preachin'!
O, what preachin' over me, over me
CHORUS:
O, what mourning…
CHORUS:
O, what singing…
O, what shouting…
O, weeping Mary…
Doubting Thomas…
O, what sighing...
O, Freedom…
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