Music Notes – Sunday, February 20th:
This Sunday’s musicians are Alicia Burkle and UUCC Music Director Mike Carney.
Opening Hymn: # 151 I Wish I Knew How – Taylor and Dallas
#151 in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnbook, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” is a jazz-gospel song written in 1963 by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas. The song became one of the anthems of the American Civil Rights Movement and has been covered by dozens of artists, most famously by Nina Simone in 1967.
Centering Music: What’s Going On – Gaye, Cleveland, and Benson
“What’s Going On” was co-written by legendary Motown singer/songwriter Marvin Gaye (1939-1984), along with Al Cleveland (1930-1996) and Renaldo “Obie” Benson (1936-2005), best-known as a member of The Four Tops. Benson began writing “What’s Going On” with songwriter Al Cleveland after he witnessed an incident of police brutality in Berkeley, California. Benson wanted The Four Tops to record the song, but the other members of the group felt it was too much of a departure from their existing catalog. Benson then offered the song to fellow Motown artist Marvin Gaye, who rewrote the melody and added verses of his own, then recorded the song and released it as the title track of his 1971 album What’s Going On. Gaye achieved commercial and critical success with both the album and its title song. “What’s Going On” was a #2 hit in the U.S. and was nominated for two Grammy Awards, and today is recognized as one of the most memorable and important songs in the history of American popular music. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked “What’s Going On” as the fourth-greatest song of all time, and it is also included in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll as well as NPR’s list of The 300 Most Important Songs Ever Recorded.
Offertory music: God Bless the Child – Herzog and Holiday
“God Bless the Child” was written in 1939 by jazz legend Billie Holiday (1915-1959) and songwriter Arthur Herzog, Jr. (1900-1983) The song and its signature lyric of “God bless the child that’s got his own” was inspired by an argument Billie Holiday had with her mother over money. Today, “God Bless the Child” is acknowledged as one of the all-time great jazz standards. It was honored in 1976 with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and was chosen as one of the 365 “Songs of the 20th Century” by the Recording Industry Association of America along with the National Endowment for the Arts. Dozens of artists have recorded covers of “God Bless the Child”, including Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Sonny Rollins, and Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Exploration Hymn: #348 Guide My Feet – African American Spiritual
#348 in Singing the Living tradition, “Guide My Feet” is an African American Spiritual believed to have originated in or near Georgia during the mid-1800s The song was ‘collected’ and first published by Willis Laurence James (1900-1966), an African American musician, composer and educator who spent several decades researching and championing songs from the Spiritual tradition.
Closing Hymn: #149 Lift Every Voice and Sing – Johnson/Johnson
#149 in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnbook, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” began as a 1900 poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) which was set to music in 1905 by his younger brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954). First performed in 1909 as part of the centennial celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the NAACP adopted the song in 1919 as “the Negro national hymn”, and for the past 100 years it has held an important place as an anthem for Black Americans and for everyone who supports racial justice.
Postlude: A Change Is Gonna Come – Cooke Written and originally performed by Sam Cooke (1931-1964), “A Change Is Gonna Come” is one of the most significant songs in the history of American music. The song first appeared on Cooke’s 1964 album Ain’t That Good News, and was inspired by Cooke’s experiences as a person of color, especially a 1963 incident when he and his entourage were refused entry to a motel in Shreveport, Louisiana because of their race. The song’s original release only met with modest success, but “A Change Is Gonna Come” is now thought of as Cooke’s signature song, becoming an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement and meeting with near-universal acclaim by music critics and historians. In 2005, “A Change Is Gonna Come” was voted number 12 by representatives of the music industry and press in Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, it made NPR’s list of “The 300 Most Important Songs Ever Recorded”, and the song was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress in 2007. The words “A change is gonna come” are inscribed on a wall of the Contemplative Court, a space for reflection in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Cooke’s lyrics were famously quoted by Barack Obama in his acceptance speech after winning the U.S. Presidential Election in 2008. “A Change Is Gonna Come” has also been covered and sampled by many other artists, including Beyoncé, Lil Wayne, Céline Dion, and Seal.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director