Good Shepherd (song)

Add links
This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Good Shepherd" is a traditional song, best known as recorded by Jefferson Airplane on their 1969 album Volunteers. It was arranged and sung by the group's lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, who described their interpretation of it as psychedelic folk-rock.

Called by nearly a dozen different names and with varying words, melodies and purpose but common themes, the song's history reflects many of the evolutionary changes and cross-currents of American music. It begins early in the 19th century with a backwoods preacher who wrote

folk song
, before attaining its realization by Jefferson Airplane. Several of these different variants of the song are still performed in the 21st century.

Hymn

"Good Shepherd" originated in a very early 19th century hymn written by the

shape-note singing in the Shenandoah Valley, where a variety of musical sources both sacred and profane were at play.[6]

This new hymn had an immediate effect. A Thomas Griffin recalls hearing it in a

Methodist meeting in Oglethorpe, Georgia in 1808.[7] He wrote that the singing of the hymn "made the flesh tremble on me, and caused an awful sense of the hereafter to press on my mind"; he converted to Christianity a few days later.[7] Granade's work can be seen in the 1817 hymnal A Selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs in Two Parts as "Come good shepherd, feed thy Sheep",[8] while the first line of the hymn also makes an appearance in one Eleazer Sherman's 1832 memoir.[9]

It then appeared in

metrical pattern.[11] It contained lines such as:[11]

Let thy kingdom, blessed Savior,
Come, and bid our jarring cease;
Come, oh come! and reign for ever,
God of love and Prince of peace;
...
Some for Paul, some for Apollos,
Some for Cephas—none agree;
...
Not upheld by force or numbers,
Come, good Shepherd, feed thy sheep.

It appears in this form in several hymnals of the 1830s and 1840s, including one created by the Mormons.[12][13][14] The most likely tune for it, however, would have been different from the eventual gospel blues one.[15] Titled "The Good Shepherd" and with only two verses printed instead of the previous six or seven, it appeared again in an 1853 New England Christian Convention hymnal.[16]

The hymn is on occasion still sung today.[17]

Gospel blues

By the 1880s, "Let Thy Kingdom, Blessed Savior" could be found in Marshall W. Taylor's hymnal of African American religious songs, A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies.

Negro spirituals is a complex topic that scholars often disagree on,[20] while there was a more definite and direct influence of African-American spirituals upon the blues.[21]

In any case, the aging blind blues player

Allmusic describes as a "group of songs that explore the boundaries between the sacred and the profane."[2]

If you want to get to heaven
... Over on, the other shore
Stay out of the way of the blood-stained bandit —
Oh good shepherd,
Feed my sheep.
One for Paul, one for Silas ...
One for to make, my heart rejoice.
Can't you hear, my lambs acallin'?
Oh good shepherd,
Feed my sheep.

"Blood-stained Banders" has been called a "dark homily [that] bubbles up archaic invectives for the devil that huddles behind every stranger's face."

Compact Disc as Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs & Ballads, which is also available from the Library of Congress.[35] It also appears on the CD The Ballad Hunter, Parts VII and VIII from the Library of Congress,[25] originally issued as Archive of Folk Song, Recording Laboratory AFS L52 in 1941.[36]

Transcribed in

2
2 time,[27] the Strothers recording's rhythm and melody are somewhat similar but still measurably different from what would come later.[37] Not a Negro spiritual per se, it was not listed in the top 500 spirituals in a listing of some 6,000 constructed by scholar John Lovell, Jr. in 1972.[38]

Folk

In 1953, Ruth Crawford Seeger collected and transcribed the song as "Don't You Hear The Lambs A-Crying" in her acclaimed volume American Folk Songs for Christmas.[31] Dartmouth College music professor Larry Polansky comments that in doing so, Ruth Crawford Seeger took the hard-edged gospel blues and "revoice[d] it as a beautiful, shape-note influenced hymn."[31]

The "Blood Stained Banders" form was then recorded by

Broadside Magazine in 1963.[40]

Meanwhile, a recording of the Ruth Crawford Seeger "Don't You Hear The Lambs A-Crying" was done for the 1989 album American Folk Songs for Christmas by

Spoleto Music Festival.[42]

The original strain of "Blood-Stained Banders" is still played;

Horatio's Drive.[43] Hickerson also still performs the tune in the first decade of the 21st century.[44]

Kaukonen and Jefferson Airplane

"Blood-Stained Banders" was thus the proximate source

Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco during a jam session of area musicians led by Jerry Garcia.[51]

Now titled simply "Good Shepherd", a recording of the song became Kaukonen's major showcase number on the Airplane's November 1969 Volunteers album, where it avoided the political topicality of the most visible tracks on the rest of the album.[47] "Good Shepherd" encompassed elements of both gospel and blues in its playing[46] and showed that folk roots were still quite present in the Airplane's mixture of sounds and influences that led to psychedelic rock.[49] Indeed, folk music underlay many aspects of the San Francisco psychedelic sound, with the Airplane as a prime example.[45] The recording of "Good Shepherd", which took place from late March to late June 1969,[52] featured a rare Kaukonen lead vocal backed by mellow harmonies from the group.[53] Its arrangement incorporated Kaukonen's sharp, stinging electric guitar lines set against an acoustic guitar opening,[49] with singer Grace Slick wordlessly doubling Kaukonen's guitar line during the instrumental break. The track was considered a beautiful standout on the album.[54] Kaukonen himself later referred to it as "a great spiritual that I really liked. It's a psychedelic folk-rock song."[47]

The arrangement was copyrighted by Kaukonen under

gold record[56] and gave the song its greatest visibility since its early days as a hymn. The Airplane "Good Shepherd" has been described as "an ageless representation of genius".[57] It was included on the band's 1970 greatest hits album The Worst of Jefferson Airplane
.

The song's first live performance by Jefferson Airplane was on May 7, 1969, in

CD reissue of Volunteers included a live rendition of "Good Shepherd" as one of five live bonus tracks recorded November 28 and 29, 1969, at the Fillmore East in New York. This performance arrangement had no acoustic guitar part, but instead featured Kantner on electric guitar setting out a repeating but flexible pattern for the song, which Kaukonen then played against with his fills and solos. The song was last played during the original Airplane era in 1972.[58]

"Good Shepherd" was part of the

2400 Fulton Street
.

As Kaukonen and Airplane bassist Jack Casady focused on the offshoot group Hot Tuna beginning in the early 1970s, "Good Shepherd" became a regular entry in their performance repertoire.[60] One such performance was included on their 2000 DVD Acoustic Blues Live at Sweetwater.[61] Hot Tuna performances of the song would occasionally draw old Airplane members to join in.[62] By 2004, it was often used as a vehicle for a solo bass excursion by Casady.[63]

Besides Hot Tuna's, renditions of "Good Shepherd" also appeared on Kaukonen's 1985 live album Magic (and the 1995 expanded release Magic Two), which contained selections from his solo acoustic performances; as one of Kaukonen's efforts on the 1999 Phil Lesh and Friends live album Love Will See You Through;[45] and on the 2001 Jorma Kaukonen Trio Live album.

In the 21st century, the song continued to draw commentary from listeners.

scripture: "I guess you could say I loved the Bible without even knowing it. The spiritual message is always uplifting – it's a good thing."[66]

References

  1. ISBN 1-112-42663-9
    .
  2. ^
    Allmusic
    . Retrieved January 4, 2009.
  3. ^ The Advent Christian Hymnal (Thirteenth ed.). Boston: The Advent Christian Publication Society. 1906. p. 349.
  4. ^
    JSTOR 1498253
    .
  5. ^ "Important dates in our history". Jonesborough United Methodist Church. Archived from the original on May 27, 2009. Retrieved May 19, 2009.
  6. ^ Steel, David Warren (February 11, 2004) [1997]. "Shape-Note Singing in the Shenandoah Valley". Singers Glen Music and Heritage Festival. Archived from the original on March 3, 2006. Retrieved May 19, 2009.
  7. ^
    ISBN 1-60034-480-1
    .
  8. ^ Parkinson, William (1817). A Selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs in Two Parts (Third ed.). New York: John Tiebout. pp. 156–157.
  9. ^ Sherman, Eleazer (1832). The Narrative of Eleazer Sherman. Providence: H. H. Brown. p. 70.
  10. ISBN 0-393-04810-1
    .
  11. ^ a b Leavitt, Joshua (1833). The Christian Lyre: A Collection of Hymns and Tunes (Eighteenth ed.). New York: Jonathan Leavitt. pp. 48–49.
  12. ^ Smith, Emma (1835). A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints. p. unknown.
  13. ^ Revival Melodies, or Songs of Zion. Boston: John Putnam. 1842. pp. 40–41.
  14. ^ Everett, L. S. (1843). Sacred Songs: Adapted to Social Religious Meetings, Sabbath Schools, and Family Worship. Boston: A. Tompkins. p. 40.
  15. ^ "Unknown now". EarlyLDSHymns.com. Archived from the original on October 20, 2007. Retrieved March 13, 2009.
  16. ^ The Christian Harp: A Collection on Hymns and Tunes (Second ed.). Newburyport, Boston, Portland: New England Christian Convention. 1853. p. 49.
  17. ^ "Blessed Hope Services: December 9–10, 2006". Liberty, Kentucky: Blessed Hope Old Regular Baptist church. December 2006. Archived from the original on January 13, 2008. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  18. JSTOR 1214400
    .
  19. ISBN 1-57999-163-7
    .
  20. ISBN 0-913729-53-1
    .
  21. ^ Lovell Jr., Black Song, pp. 463–465.
  22. ^
    ISBN 0-252-06521-2
    .
  23. ^ a b "The 1936 Virginia Prison Recordings". The Historical Marker Database. April 27, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
  24. ^
    ISBN 0-8264-1752-3
    .
  25. ^ a b "Folk Recordings Selected from the Archive of Folk Culture". Library of Congress. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  26. ^
    ISBN 0-14-051384-1
    .
  27. ^
    ISBN 0-486-41089-7
    .
  28. ^ a b "Mug Shot Monday: James 'Jimmie' Strother, No. 33927". Library of Virginia. October 10, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2017. See in particular letters to governor of March 27, 1938 and May 1, 1939.
  29. ^ a b Tarte, Bob (1998). "From Bauhaus to Shoe House". The Beat. Vol. 17, no. 2.
  30. ^ a b Keefer, Jane. "Folk Music - An Index to Recorded Resources: Blackbe to Blow". ibiblio. Retrieved March 23, 2009.
  31. ^ a b c Polansky, Larry (June 1, 2005). "Music 36: John Cage (C) and Ruth Crawford Seeger (CS)". Dartmouth College. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  32. ISBN 0-313-32872-2
    .
  33. Allmusic
    . Retrieved March 23, 2009.
  34. Discovery Education. Archived from the original
    on January 21, 2013. Retrieved July 23, 2009.
  35. ^ "Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs, and Ballads". Library of Congress Shop. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  36. ^ "Southern Mosaic: Selected Discography". Library of Congress. Retrieved July 23, 2009.
  37. ^ "Blood-Stained Banders: MP3 Downloads: Jimmie Strothers". Amazon. Retrieved April 5, 2009. Free sample available.
  38. ^ Lovell Jr., Black Song, p. 637.
  39. ^
    ISBN 0-8078-4866-2
    .
  40. Broadside Magazine
    . No. 33. October 12, 1963. Retrieved March 14, 2009.
  41. ^ "Don't You Hear the Labms A-Crying: MP3 Downloads: Peggy and Penny Seeger Mike". Amazon. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  42. ^ Polansky, Larry (June 10, 1999). "1. 'Don't you hear the lambs a'crying?'" (PDF). Dartmouth College. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  43. ^ "Blood-Stained Banders (Album version): MP3 Downloads: Bobby Horton". Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  44. ^ "Playlist". No Time to Tarry Here. KDHX. November 5, 2006. Retrieved April 5, 2009.[permanent dead link]
  45. ^
    S2CID 162210055
    .
  46. ^
    ISBN 0-671-03403-0
    .
  47. ^
    BMG Heritage
    .
  48. ISBN 0-8133-4306-2
    .
  49. ^
    ISBN 0-87930-743-9
    .
  50. ^ Tamarkin, Got a Revolution, p. 26.
  51. ^ "Jerry Garcia and Friends: Tuesday, May 21, 1968". The Jerry Site. Archived from the original on April 12, 2013. Retrieved February 23, 2013.
  52. ISBN 0-7414-3656-6
    .
  53. ISBN 0-87972-821-3
    .
  54. Allmusic
    . Retrieved January 4, 2009.
  55. Broadcast Music Incorporated. Archived from the original
    on July 15, 2012. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  56. RIAA
    . Retrieved October 8, 2017.
  57. ^ Fenton, Take Me to a Circus Tent, p. 276.
  58. ^ a b c Fenton, Take Me to a Circus Tent, p. 18.
  59. ^ Tamarkin, Got a Revolution!, p. 351.
  60. ^ Cohick, Ryan (September 3, 2008). "Hot Tuna's musical odyssey continues at Penn's Peak". The Express-Times. Easton, Pennsylvania. Retrieved March 8, 2009.
  61. ASIN 6305870845
    .
  62. Wolfgang's Vault
    . Retrieved March 13, 2009.
  63. ^ Collette, Doug (December 2, 2004). "Hot Tuna In Concert: The Triumphant Return of Higher Ground". All About Jazz. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  64. ^ Dalton, Michael (February 27, 2008). "Good Shepherd – Jefferson Airplane". Retrieved January 2, 2009.
  65. Salt Lake Tribune, archived from the original
    on September 24, 2015, retrieved October 25, 2017
  66. ^ Barry, John W. (November 26, 2004). "Leftover turkey, Hot Tuna Thanksgiving staples: Band plays annual concert at Bardavon Sunday". Poughkeepsie Journal.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Good_Shepherd_(song)&oldid=1117386499"