October 23, 2024 • 47 mins
American folk singers, Sparky and Rhonda Rucker, discuss their popular and historically significant “Glory Hallelujah Suite” as part of our Julia Ward Howe/Battle Hymn of the Republic week. Learn about “Say Brothers Will You Meet Us?” “John Brown’s Body,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the “Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment.” All of these were important songs in the Civil War era, but they have been given a higher beauty by being turned into a suite by Sparky and Rhonda. One of our best shows ever! Episode 571.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hello, everyone, that's Professor Buzzkill here. It's day two of
our Julia Ward Howe battle him of the Republic Appreciation Week.
And fortunately for all of you, we have two great
American folk singers, two specialists in Americana and helping preserve
and promote it. And that is of course Sparky and
(00:34):
Ronda Rucker, who join us from Central Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Is that right, East Tennessee, the part that stayed in
the wanted to stay in the Union, but they were
forced by the Confederacy to join the Confederacy.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh, I didn't know that we need to do a
show on that. But before we go any further, thanks
so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You've done such wonderful work, not only just as singers
and recorders and performers and teachers and all that sort
of thing. But really, what was so wonderful I found
in your work is that you decided to use songs
from American history. So when did you make that decision,
particularly songs from the period of the Civil War.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, to be honest, I've been doing stories before I
do songs for a long period of time in my career.
All of the American as you call it. The songs
come from situations that happened in this country, are in
the Old World, from people who came here as refugees,
(01:35):
as people trying to start a new life, people coming
to you second sons who didn't inherit, came to this
country to form their own empires, and they brought with
them the stories, the folk tales, the folk songs with them,
and of course after they got here, we started to
(01:57):
change those songs around. And so my my interest has
always been what is the story behind those songs. In fact,
I have been doing research just in ballads that come
from the Old Country as well as the new ballads
that were written in this country, like John Henry, John Hardy, Staggerly,
(02:17):
Delia and so forth, and that the stories behind them,
because those were all written or should say, composed by
people who had actually seen the events that the stories
are about.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Right, Well, Ronda, why do you have so many songs
and so much concentration on the Civil War period?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Let me say something about what he just said.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
His first albums came out in the nineteen seventies, and
I think that's probably when he first started telling stories
before songs. And also doing a lot of the research,
because on your second album, Sparky, you had at least
one ballad, and you had already done a lot of
that research. So it has been going on for a
(03:00):
really long time now. The Civil War we did not
meet until nineteen eighty six, and he already was doing
Civil War material when I met him. In fact, he
had an album out, a live album called a Magic Night,
and he had done a Civil War medley of songs
and stories on that and that was recorded in eighty three,
(03:23):
so that means you were doing it before then.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well. The thing is, I grew up in the projects,
housing that Roosevelt made available to people who lived in
cities but didn't own property. And one of the projects
that I lived at was actually on the Union siege lines,
trying to take Knoxville, my hometown, from the Confederates. And
(03:47):
as a kid, you know, you're out there digging in
the yard and whatnot, and I would find these mini balls.
And my father was a cop, and so I thought
there were just bullets. Maybe he'd been practicing using his gun.
What I didn't know. And then later on, as I
got older, I found out that I had been digging
out mini balls in my front yard, basically because I
(04:08):
grew up in a town that was played a part
in the Civil War. And one of the first books
that my mother bought for me was a children's book
picture book history of the Civil War. So it's just
been something that had been part of my growing up.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, we should tell the buzz killers, by the way,
who don't already know, that a mini ball was actually
the type of bullet used during the Civil War. They
were led, weren't they.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yes, they were leading. They were about the size of
the tip of your thumb.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
And when it went in, it went in with a
small hole and came out with a hole the size
of your fist. The day's medicine could not help you
if you had been shot by one of those mini balls.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well, I hope you save them, because I know they're
worth a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Now I've got a couple of them.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Well, you know how it is. We were all addicted
to baseball cards, but never saved them. And now there
were my old baseball cards in the sixties and seventies,
so worth zillions, and I I don't have any of them.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I even had Davy Crockett bubblegum cards too.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Oh yeah, well, tell me when did you first learn
about the four songs that make up your Glory Hallelujah Sweet.
The Glory Hallelujas Sweet is what we're going to play today,
both in the parts of it, but then we're going
to play the full thing at the end bus Killers.
But when did you learn about those four different songs?
So many of us have only ever heard the battle hymn,
(05:25):
but not the other three.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, at least three of the songs were songs that
I had been doing before ken Burn's Civil War series started,
and that's one of the reasons that I was adding
them in my concerts. So we're talking late nineteen seventies.
It's when I began to be especially interested in the
(05:48):
music from the Civil War, just various songs. I would
learn about a battle and then I would oh, here's
actually a song it talks about that battle, and so
of course, when I went on stage, I tell people
the history of that battle, then sing that song. And
so when I did my Heroes in Hard Times album,
I had dedicated the song to Harriet Tubman because I
(06:11):
had heard that there was a rumor she had written
one of the verses, the one that said I've seen
him in the watchfires of one hundred circling camps, saying
when she was crossing the Union lines, she knew she
was safe with her crew of people she was bringing
to freedom. I don't know if that's true in terms
of her having written that one verse or not, but
that was what got me started on this, on doing
(06:33):
those songs. And as we began to do our CD,
the Blue and Gray and Black and White, I thought, wow,
I had been doing John Brown's Body in some of
my concerts, and I had been doing the Battle Him
of the Republic. In fact, that slow version that you
told me you liked so much was one that just
one day, I had my banjo and I was just
(06:55):
all a strumming and think about something else, and then
all of a sudden I realized I was playing the
two for but I was playing it slow, and I thought, well,
that's really beautiful, and I started performing it that way
in concert.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Well, when we did a lot of the research for
the Blue and Gray and Black and White CD back
in around nineteen ninety one or so, and later on
in that year, Sparky had an article published in sing
Out magazine that was called Glory Hallelujah, Anatomy of a
Civil War Song, and it talked about those songs because
(07:29):
he had been doing research into that. So anyway, that's
when we were doing a lot of that research. I
guess around the same time we were also performing at
places back in early nineteen ninety. I think February first
was our first Civil War performance and it was at
Petersburg for the Battlefield. So anyway, we were already doing performances,
(07:52):
costumed performances.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Well, the first song in your suite is say brothers,
will you meet us? And that's a camp meeting sing
alongside from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. Now,
even though most people don't know that version of the song. Now,
when you perform your songs, not just this sweet that
I love so much, but your other songs and you
get people sing along, do you feel like you're performing
(08:14):
modern versions of camp meetings? In other words, that the
audience really does connect and join with you.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I've been getting people to sing along with me for
a long time because I like to add the harmonies,
you know, I get the audience to sing the melody
that I'll add the harmony to it because I've found
that a lot of audiences do not know how to
sing harmony. It's really interesting. That's why, In fact, that's
why singing rounds got to be so popular, because it
(08:40):
helped people to hear the harmonies. But I had done
some research at the Foster Hall Collection of the Universe
at Pittsburgh, and that's where I began to find the
lyrics to say, brothers, will you meet us? Because I
was really interested, and I said, I know that song
has been around longer than John Brown's body and the
battle him of the Republic. So my curiosity got me
(09:02):
to start doing more and more research. In fact, I
found out that the tune had come from old sea
shanties and drinking song. And then the church decided, well,
since people already know the tune, we can write a
version that gets people's souls brought to Jesus so to speak.
Of course, they attribute those to a guy named William Stepfi.
(09:23):
I don't know if across that in your research. So
many of the things like that, you can't really go
on who published it first. Ned CHRISTI used to do
that to a lot of people's songs and say that
he wrote them and Stephen Foster's songs. A lot of
his songs were stolen by Ned Christie.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
The camp meetings, there was more than just white people
at these camp meetings. They actually started a pinpoint. One
particular camp meeting is the first in Logan County, Kentucky
in eighteen hundred in Kentucky's my home state, in the
Presbyterian Church, actually, and there were just too many people
that showed up to hear this renowned speaker, and so
(10:01):
they said, well, let's just go outside.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
It was summertime, so they went.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Outside and held the first camp meeting, and they liked
it so much, you know, that they kept doing it.
And the Baptist and Methodists followed suits. So they'd have
these huge outdoor gatherings and just last you know, several
days with a battery of sermons and preachers and that
sounds scary, and then people camping on the grounds. And
(10:24):
then later it was the Methodists that continued the tradition,
and singing was always a part, an important part of
camp meetings, and diaries from the era tell us that
both blacks and whites.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Came to these camp meetings, so it wasn't just white people.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
And there was an exchange of music both ways, and
the traditional hymns and the white tradition the ones I
grew up singing with the four verses and the amen
at the end, not the.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
But the ahmen.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
They would bring those songs and then some of those
people couldn't read, so the verses were simple. And then
the black people would bring their songs, and a lot
of times they would have choruses that would go with
those songs, and they had add the syncopation, the call
in response. And then sometimes the white people would hear
some of the songs they would do like Joshua fit
(11:15):
the Battle of Jericho. So there was this exchange back
and forth. So you know, it's an interesting thing that
camp meetings. I mean, I had always thought of them
as being, you know, mainly white. But when I was
doing research into one of our albums that focused on
southern Appalachia, the mountains above and the valleys below, and
we were wanting to, you know, record some of these things,
(11:38):
I've looked into it and found this out, and it
was just so interesting because it's part of what brought
the cultures together and formed the unique sound and culture
that's in our area of the world.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Well, you know, nowadays would call it our audience participation
what these camp meetings were like. But I'm interested to
hear how you get people to join in with you,
and then how does it when they do join in
with you? How does that change the way you perform
the song while it's going on? If you see what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Well, one thing that happens with me is Rondie calls it,
I start ray Charles ing the song because I grew
up in my grandfather's church of God, Comma Sanctified Church.
He was the bishop of that church, and famous people
like Ida Cox, the famous blues singer, used to attend
(12:29):
my grandfather's church. But after he died, the Sanctified people
decided to kick her out of the church because she
was singing the blues. But the music has always been
what drew me to stay in the church, and so
that's been a part of my life. And people singing together.
I never have like just being on stage and singing
and then get the polite applause afterwards. I really want
(12:52):
people to sing and then when they leave have that
song running in their head singing along with me.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh, it absolutely works.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, we kind of have a reputation for trying to
get people to sing along. A reviewer once called Sparky
the black peat seeger.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
So I need to lose a little more weight.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
But but now we can't let Pete know those of
course he's passed on. But your voice is better.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
He had a pretty good voice.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, but you know what I mean right now?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
So I mean, I mean, isn't that the point of
folk music, you know, to get people, you know people.
We have people come up to us afterwards and say,
you know, I haven't heard that song since I was
a child, and my grandfather used to sing it. And
there's nothing greater, in my opinion, to hear, you know
(13:48):
than somebody saying that afterwards. And old music just touches
people deeply their old memories and singing together builds community,
and it also strengthens people morale.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
In the civil rights movement, yeah, when.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
They're fighting against injustice, I mean, it makes them remember
that they're not alone.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
In fact, that's how I got my start as a
folk singer, was in the civil rights movement. Before that time,
I had been a soul singer and a rock and
roll guitar player. But then when I started hearing those
old songs and even the new songs that were written
as if they were old songs that got people singing
along and on the picket lines and in the in
(14:30):
the mass meetings. It it changed my life.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well everyone, here's here's a clip of that portion of
the suite again. This is the glory Hallelujah swite from
a Sparky in Ronda and this is the first section.
Say brothers, say bro, there's moll you need.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Us, say Bro's you need us? Say bro, there's will
you need us? On Cainan's Happy Sure Bye. The grace
of God will be you bye. The grace of God
(15:14):
will me you bye. The grace of God will be
you were Bardy.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
Is normal.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Geeesus lives and range for avver geeesus lives and range
forever geeesus lives.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
In range for avver on Cainan's Happy Sure.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Or you see immediately after you've heard that, folks, that
that's what those camp meetings were like. The single Long
your Life. So imagine not just Sparking Ronda singing it,
but dozens of people sing it. My next question is,
you know it's about John Brown's body. Now most people,
or at least most Americans have heard the song John
Brown's Body. It's one of the most powerful abolitionist songs
(16:09):
in our history. But for John Brown's Body, you moved
to a more upbeat tempo and approach, more like a march.
Why do you think that that works best with John
Brown's Body.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Well, once again, I would do that particular version when
I was trying to get the audience to sing along
with me. You know, because it was originally sung by
soldiers as they marched, And of course it wasn't about
Osawatamie John Brown. So I suppose your researcher showed you that.
But maybe the listeners don't know this. But if I'm
(16:41):
remembering correctly, it was a Connecticut regiment. They had a
fello in their name, John Brown, and they started kidding
him because they knew that about John Brown being hanged,
and they started saying, oh, John Brown's body is a
moldering in the grave, and they would laugh about it
and whatnot. But then as time went on and more
more soldiers heard the original Connecticut regiment singing that song,
(17:04):
it spread throughout the Army of the Potomac, and of
course it began to mean os Wotamie John Brown. There
was also a version singing Elmer Ellsworth list moulden in
the grave because he was a good friend of Lincoln's.
And when he went over into the suburbs of Washington,
d c. To tear down a rebel flag, and as
(17:27):
he was coming down from where he'd come downstairs, the
owner of that place shot him in the chest and
killed him instantly. And Lincoln was very sad because he
was truly that was one of his protegees, Elmer Ellsworth.
And so that Elmer Ellsworth lies moulden in the grave
(17:48):
was also a version of the song.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Okay, well, here's the clip of that again. That portion
of the suite the Glory Halley Sweet that we keep
talking about, the John Brown's body section.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
John Brown's body lies molding in the grave. John Brown's
body lies molding in the grave. John Brown's body lies
molding in the grave. His soul cost marching on the
(18:25):
stars of heaven. They are looking candy down.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
The stars of heaven.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
They are looking candy down the stars of heaven. They
are looking candy down on the grave.
Speaker 6 (18:43):
Barfl John Brown. He has gone to be a soldier
in the army of the law.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
He has gone to be a soulderund beyond of the Lord.
Speaker 6 (18:58):
He is gone be a soldier in the army of
the Low. Its song is myrch on.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
Singing glad glory allado o recor hallado, lo glory allado.
His solist marching on, singing glow recordy hallado o, reglory
(19:41):
hallad go reglory allada.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
It's alstrching on.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Well. Now, your version of the Battle Hymn of the
Republic is among the most moving I've ever heard. I
think that slowing it down and making it more of
a folk song only increases its power. And many people
have told me that they greatly prefer your version, partly
because they can pay close attention to the specific lyrics,
(20:27):
which sometimes when a full chorus is singing, sometimes you
don't hear the actual words. Why did you take that
slower approach?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
I quite often will have the instrument sitting beside me,
and I had my banjo, and I had it tuned
in open G tuning, and it's a beautiful tuning, and
I was sort of strumming it and just picking out notes,
and all of a sudden I realized I was playing
the battle Hymn of the Republic, and I was playing
it really slow, and I realized that it's a beautiful song.
(20:57):
It really, really is a beautiful and when I started
performing it on stage, I thought, this is a good
way to get people to actually hear the song, but
also to sing with me, because I always get them
singing on the chorus. They may not know the lyrics,
but they know the chorus. Everybody knows that song. They've learned,
they learned it in kindergarten. Everybody knows that song, but
(21:21):
hardly anybody performs it.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
I think some songs lend themselves to a slow tempo
more than others, you know.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I mean that one definitely does, and.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
It brings out not only the lyrics, you know, the
beauty of the lyrics, but also the harmonies. And I
mean another one that we do that with is Dixie,
and we usually do that toward the end of a
Civil War program when the South is really losing and
not doing very well, and do it as a dirge
or a lament and the first and we only do
(21:53):
the first verse.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
We don't do the silly verses.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
You know. It's actually a beautiful tune and that also
lends it self to harmony.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I've seen it bring tears to people's eyes when we
sing that song as well. Both of the songs beautiful songs.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Well, Ronda, I'm so glad you mentioned the harmonies, because
your harmonies in the battle Hymn section of the suite
you really are just wonderful. I was bowled over first
by that you decided to use close harmony singing right
on that part of the suite. But it's soft and
it's subtle, incredibly powerful And this is a word I
don't use very often because it's so overused, but they're ethereal, really,
(22:33):
and I mean that in the best sense. And I
think then that they're especially perfect when you think about
how you two have presented the battle Hymn section of
the suite as a sort of touching ballad rather than
a march. Why did you choose that type of harmony.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I did not grow up singing harmony. It was a
rare person.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Most of the music was in my church, and it
was only a rare person that sang harmony in church.
I thought it had to be some special talent or whatever.
But then when I met Sparky and we started touring together,
he put music on in the car and we would
sing along with it.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And he has a penchant for bass. If there's no
bass already being sung, that's what he does. And I
usually do alto. But I learned really from him.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
And when I learned how to sing harmony, it was like,
why did I think this was so difficult?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Because it came natural to me. I was already a musician.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
I already you know, I'd been playing piano since I
was four. I knew about chords, and harmony is really
just an extension of that.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
It's chord structures and that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Also in his church, you know, everybody sings harmony. Everybody
does now, everybody does their own thing. It's not prescribed
like in white churches. You know, they don't tell you
what to sing. Everybody sings something that their voice will do,
you know. And like I would sing an alto in
his church, and his mother also sang alto, but it
(24:02):
was a different alto part slower than mine.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
His father sang bass.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
I mean, it all goes, you know, perfectly together, except
they're not always completely together. It's there's a lot of
call and response and you know, some syncopation and all
that kind of thing. But when I learned how to
sing harmony, I was wondering why I ever thought it
was a mystery, because it didn't seem like a mystery
to me. It just seemed like it was a natural thing.
(24:29):
And I don't remember working out the harmony to battle him.
It was just an intuitive thing. I thought it sounded
best doing it that way. There are a lot of
I guess notes that I could have sung that would
also go with it, but I liked the close harmony,
and I do stick closely with him.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
He sings lead on that song, and so I.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
And for that type of song, I think it is
best to stay, you know, together on it, and so
I usually and watching him closely and trying to stay
with him on it.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
One thing about our voices is that when she's singing lead,
my voice can sing perfect harmony with her, and vice versa.
And I don't speak this way often, but it's a
god blessed gift that we both have that we can
sing together. I think, more than anything else is what
people say to us after our concerts that they love
our harmonies.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Well, you're going to hear exactly those harmonies now in
the battle him. And the Republic section of the suite
that we're going to play now. But also please, I
hope all of you will appreciate the slower tempo and
the increased beauty that comes along with it.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Min eyes have seen the blow of the.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Calming of the Lord.
Speaker 8 (26:21):
He is tramping out of vantage where the grapes of
a story he had losed, the faithful lighting of his
the revals of soul, his true things modal.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
I have seen him in the watch.
Speaker 9 (26:52):
Forest of the hundred circin cans.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
They have builted him.
Speaker 10 (27:01):
Ter and evening news and dance.
Speaker 6 (27:07):
I can read his riighteous sentence.
Speaker 8 (27:11):
By the dam and flaring lamps his day.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Matin, Oh rep hallellou.
Speaker 11 (27:34):
O glory, Holy body.
Speaker 10 (27:44):
Rea glory, how.
Speaker 9 (27:51):
He's true things Morty, I have read a fiery gospel,
read and burnished rows of steel, as you do with
my condemner, So with you, my grace.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Shll do you let the hero born of bomb and
crush the serpo with his heel. Since God is march,
(28:35):
Oh glory, halleluya, O.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
Glory, how.
Speaker 10 (28:51):
Your oh glory howl.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
True this march.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Well you know, as our listeners who have heard the
other shows, we've done on Julia Wardhowe and the Battle
Him of the Republic. This week, the marching song of
the first Arkansas Colored Regiment was adapted from the Battle
Hymn and from John Brown's Body during the middle of
the Civil War, and you obviously sing it as a march.
What feelings did you have about that version and is it,
(29:35):
for instance, more motivating to do it as a march
for civil rights than to do it in other ways?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, especially that song, I got my only chance to
play drum song. But it's a march, and it's these
black soldiers marching into war, singing these songs and knowing
that this war is going to set them free. And
especially when you listen to the lyrics, it just talks
(30:03):
about how proud they are. This is some of these
people the first chance they got to be fully a
man a woman in freedom, singing a song that was
going to forever set them free. And when you listen
to the lyrics, it just talks about how they're going
to show Jeff Davis how the African can fight. That's
(30:26):
one of the lines in the song. It's to be uplifting.
And it's been a long time since I've listened to
the album, but if I'm remembering correctly, it's one of
the last songs on the album, and to leave people
feeling that they've been through the experience.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
A lot of times we'll close the show with it
if we're doing a Civil War program because of that.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Well, and here it is, folks, and you know it
was sung by lots of colored regiments in the Civil War,
not just the First Arkansas.
Speaker 12 (31:05):
MM.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
We're the bullish soldiers of the First of Arkansas, abiding
for the unity, a fighting for the law. We can
hear the rebel further than a white man ever saw.
We all marching on and see there about the center where.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
The flag is waving playing We're going out of slavery,
rebound for freedom's life. We need to show jep D this.
Speaker 13 (31:36):
All the African confity as we call marching on.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
Go recordale Y.
Speaker 8 (31:49):
Recordingland recorded, Alny, ask me all marching.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
We are done with hoy cot, We are done with
polling corn. You are come a gangy soldiers, towers as
you are born with the masters. Here are shellon.
Speaker 6 (32:12):
They will think his cables.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Horns egle marching on, Father Abraham, the spoken and the message.
Hastenson the prison doorsy opened, then out.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
The prisoners which to join the Sable Army.
Speaker 9 (32:30):
You have the.
Speaker 14 (32:30):
African descent as Gigle marching on, singing reg the Halad,
the Haldy.
Speaker 12 (32:46):
Go the helado as go marchin the Halada.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Well, I guess my wrap up question for this show
would really be why did you decide to do it
as a suite? Why put all four songs in a suite?
Once everyone listens to it, would they'll be able to
do at the end of the show. We're going to
play it after we're finished, they'll understand why it all
flows together so well. But lots of people would have
(33:46):
done the four songs independently, you know, on different tracks
on the record or whatever. But you made it a
suite for a reason that I'd love to hear what
that reason is.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
I'm a nerdy what are you doing on this show?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
So there's only professional people.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
But one thing I wanted to do was to let
people see the progression that the song went through, just
to see its growth and high it changed and how
it changed and how it changed and how it changed.
That was my reason for putting those four together like that.
The way it goes on the album. It just flows
one song to the next.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah, and by using different tempos or different approaches that
they become distinctive enough. The parts become distinctive enough in
their own right, but it really hangs together as a
sweet so well, it just seemed.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Natural that that was the way to do it.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
I'll have to say that.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I mean, one of my favorite things to do in
being a musician is arranging things, and I love doing it.
I think it's important, you know, to for people to
enjoy a performance or the music or whatever. But I
probably can't hold a candle to my husband here. He's
a really good ranger, and that was his idea, and
(35:01):
I think it worked well.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
It's just wonderful and I listened to it for an enjoyment,
just like I listened to the Beatles or anything else.
I don't listen to it just because I'm a history professor,
just because I want to study these things. It really is,
it really is a very moving approach to all these songs.
So before we go though, and before we let people
hear the whole suite together, let me thank you for
(35:24):
coming on the show.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Thank you for having you, thanks for having us, and
thanks for you really complimented as a lot, and I
really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
It's really nice of you.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Good as you can tell, I don't have anything but
a humble version of me.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Well, I don't think of them as compliments. I think
it's just the truth. And I think our listeners, when
they hear this suite fully well, will agree with me.
It's just glorious. But please, we have to tell them
where they can find out more about you and your work.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
We have a website www dot Sparkyanderhonda dot com, so
it's s E E A R K Y A N
D R h O n DA dot com. And we
also sell our CDs and books on there. So those
are those are in the store I've got. My most
(36:14):
recent book is Welcome to Bombingham, and it's about It's
a novel, a historical novel that takes place during the
months and weeks leading up to the Birmingham Children's March
in nineteen sixty three, and also a picture book that
tells the story of Sparky's first civil rights demonstration here
(36:35):
in Knoxville.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I've been a troublemaker for a long time.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
Well, we need more of you.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Well, it's a great website, and we have to have
you back on the show, Ronda, to talk about the
novel from one of our Fiction Friday versions of the show,
so I hope that can happen, so please everyone, I'm
going to put Sparkineronda dot com on the on the
blog post for this episode so that you'll have it,
and I'm going to promote it widely on social media
as much as I can. So again, Sparking Ronda, thank
(37:03):
you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
I should also say that our CD let Freedom Ring,
has a lot of historical material on it as well
and has some freedom songs and as well as Scott
Marching through Georgia.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
On there too.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
All right, okay, boskellers, please listen to this song carefully.
Please share it with as many people as you can,
and I'll talk to all of you later this week.
Speaker 6 (37:33):
Say brothers, will you be us?
Speaker 5 (37:38):
Say bro there will.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
You need us? Say brother's will you need us? Song
Cain and happy.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Bye.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
The Grace of God will be you bye. The Grace
of God will be you Bye. The Grace of God
will meet you. Where Barty is norm.
Speaker 7 (38:11):
Geeesus slips and range for aver geezus slives and range
for adver geeesus slips and range for adver on Cainan's
happy sure. John Brown's body lies molding in the grain.
(38:47):
John Brown's body lies molding.
Speaker 6 (38:50):
In the grave.
Speaker 5 (38:53):
John Brown's body lies mold in the grain. His all
coust marching on the stars of heaven. They are looking
Canna down the stars of heaven. They are looking candy
(39:14):
down the stars of heaven. They are looking candad down
on the grave barfle John Brown. He has gone to
be a soldier in the army of the Law. He
has gone to be a soldering army of the Lord.
(39:38):
He is gone be a soldier in the army of
the load.
Speaker 6 (39:44):
Is sold is.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Marching on, singing clodladcaldu goody Halla Loo y'all his soul
(40:08):
is marching on, singing glove begory halla.
Speaker 6 (40:15):
Loop y.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
O glory hallada, gogory hallado.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
Yeah. It alst marching on.
Speaker 8 (41:25):
Mynyes seen of blow of the calming of the Lord.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
He is tramping off the.
Speaker 15 (41:37):
Dvantage where the grace of the story he had losed,
the faithful lighting of hist.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
Revals of soul his true things.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
May I have seen him in the watch fires of
a hundred circling cans they have builded.
Speaker 10 (42:12):
Him and.
Speaker 6 (42:15):
Evening news and dance.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
I can read his righteous sentence by the dam and
flaring lamps, his days mating.
Speaker 10 (42:37):
Oh rep.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
Hallelou o.
Speaker 11 (42:48):
Glory haly booy.
Speaker 10 (42:55):
O read glory, how.
Speaker 9 (43:03):
He is true things, myry, I have read a fiery gospel,
read and burnished rows of steeve.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
As you do with my condemner, so with you, my grace,
shall do you let.
Speaker 10 (43:30):
The hero born of bomb and.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
Crush the serpo with his heel. Since God is marching.
Speaker 6 (43:48):
Oh.
Speaker 10 (43:50):
Glory, how.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Ya o.
Speaker 6 (43:58):
Glory due.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
Yeah, read.
Speaker 6 (44:12):
Yeah, his true thing margy.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
M h m.
Speaker 6 (44:36):
We're the bully soldiers of the First of Arkansas Almighty
called the un abiding. All the lawn. We can hear
the grapple further than a white man every song. As
we go marchin on see there about the center where
the flag is waving. Brain. We're going out of slavery, a.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Bound for freedom's life. We need to show Jeffy, this.
Speaker 13 (45:03):
Are the afritenn Bank. As we call marching on o
Regord Halladal recorded Haled. As we all marchinge, we are
(45:29):
done with hol re cod. We are done with holling corn.
Speaker 6 (45:33):
We have come a gangy soldiers, towser as you are born.
Speaker 5 (45:37):
When the master's here is shelon, they will think it's
Cable's horns, Egal.
Speaker 6 (45:43):
Marching on.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
Bothering. Raham has spoken and the message has been sent.
The prison doors, the open man out the prisoners with
you joined the Sable army.
Speaker 12 (45:57):
You have the African descent as the goal, marting on
singing a record the Dalador record, the Arable record the
Alador Baskey go marching.
Speaker 6 (46:23):
Regor.
Speaker 12 (46:24):
The Aladoro.
Speaker 6 (46:28):
Recall the Arable
Speaker 12 (46:32):
Recall the alad of Baskey go Barting
Hello, everyone, that's Professor Buzzkill here. It's day two of
our Julia Ward Howe battle him of the Republic Appreciation Week.
And fortunately for all of you, we have two great
American folk singers, two specialists in Americana and helping preserve
and promote it. And that is of course Sparky and
(00:34):
Ronda Rucker, who join us from Central Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Is that right, East Tennessee, the part that stayed in
the wanted to stay in the Union, but they were
forced by the Confederacy to join the Confederacy.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh, I didn't know that we need to do a
show on that. But before we go any further, thanks
so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You've done such wonderful work, not only just as singers
and recorders and performers and teachers and all that sort
of thing. But really, what was so wonderful I found
in your work is that you decided to use songs
from American history. So when did you make that decision,
particularly songs from the period of the Civil War.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, to be honest, I've been doing stories before I
do songs for a long period of time in my career.
All of the American as you call it. The songs
come from situations that happened in this country, are in
the Old World, from people who came here as refugees,
(01:35):
as people trying to start a new life, people coming
to you second sons who didn't inherit, came to this
country to form their own empires, and they brought with
them the stories, the folk tales, the folk songs with them,
and of course after they got here, we started to
(01:57):
change those songs around. And so my my interest has
always been what is the story behind those songs. In fact,
I have been doing research just in ballads that come
from the Old Country as well as the new ballads
that were written in this country, like John Henry, John Hardy, Staggerly,
(02:17):
Delia and so forth, and that the stories behind them,
because those were all written or should say, composed by
people who had actually seen the events that the stories
are about.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Right, Well, Ronda, why do you have so many songs
and so much concentration on the Civil War period?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Let me say something about what he just said.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
His first albums came out in the nineteen seventies, and
I think that's probably when he first started telling stories
before songs. And also doing a lot of the research,
because on your second album, Sparky, you had at least
one ballad, and you had already done a lot of
that research. So it has been going on for a
(03:00):
really long time now. The Civil War we did not
meet until nineteen eighty six, and he already was doing
Civil War material when I met him. In fact, he
had an album out, a live album called a Magic Night,
and he had done a Civil War medley of songs
and stories on that and that was recorded in eighty three,
(03:23):
so that means you were doing it before then.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well. The thing is, I grew up in the projects,
housing that Roosevelt made available to people who lived in
cities but didn't own property. And one of the projects
that I lived at was actually on the Union siege lines,
trying to take Knoxville, my hometown, from the Confederates. And
(03:47):
as a kid, you know, you're out there digging in
the yard and whatnot, and I would find these mini balls.
And my father was a cop, and so I thought
there were just bullets. Maybe he'd been practicing using his gun.
What I didn't know. And then later on, as I
got older, I found out that I had been digging
out mini balls in my front yard, basically because I
(04:08):
grew up in a town that was played a part
in the Civil War. And one of the first books
that my mother bought for me was a children's book
picture book history of the Civil War. So it's just
been something that had been part of my growing up.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, we should tell the buzz killers, by the way,
who don't already know, that a mini ball was actually
the type of bullet used during the Civil War. They
were led, weren't they.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yes, they were leading. They were about the size of
the tip of your thumb.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
And when it went in, it went in with a
small hole and came out with a hole the size
of your fist. The day's medicine could not help you
if you had been shot by one of those mini balls.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well, I hope you save them, because I know they're
worth a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Now I've got a couple of them.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Well, you know how it is. We were all addicted
to baseball cards, but never saved them. And now there
were my old baseball cards in the sixties and seventies,
so worth zillions, and I I don't have any of them.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I even had Davy Crockett bubblegum cards too.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Oh yeah, well, tell me when did you first learn
about the four songs that make up your Glory Hallelujah Sweet.
The Glory Hallelujas Sweet is what we're going to play today,
both in the parts of it, but then we're going
to play the full thing at the end bus Killers.
But when did you learn about those four different songs?
So many of us have only ever heard the battle hymn,
(05:25):
but not the other three.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, at least three of the songs were songs that
I had been doing before ken Burn's Civil War series started,
and that's one of the reasons that I was adding
them in my concerts. So we're talking late nineteen seventies.
It's when I began to be especially interested in the
(05:48):
music from the Civil War, just various songs. I would
learn about a battle and then I would oh, here's
actually a song it talks about that battle, and so
of course, when I went on stage, I tell people
the history of that battle, then sing that song. And
so when I did my Heroes in Hard Times album,
I had dedicated the song to Harriet Tubman because I
(06:11):
had heard that there was a rumor she had written
one of the verses, the one that said I've seen
him in the watchfires of one hundred circling camps, saying
when she was crossing the Union lines, she knew she
was safe with her crew of people she was bringing
to freedom. I don't know if that's true in terms
of her having written that one verse or not, but
that was what got me started on this, on doing
(06:33):
those songs. And as we began to do our CD,
the Blue and Gray and Black and White, I thought, wow,
I had been doing John Brown's Body in some of
my concerts, and I had been doing the Battle Him
of the Republic. In fact, that slow version that you
told me you liked so much was one that just
one day, I had my banjo and I was just
(06:55):
all a strumming and think about something else, and then
all of a sudden I realized I was playing the
two for but I was playing it slow, and I thought, well,
that's really beautiful, and I started performing it that way
in concert.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Well, when we did a lot of the research for
the Blue and Gray and Black and White CD back
in around nineteen ninety one or so, and later on
in that year, Sparky had an article published in sing
Out magazine that was called Glory Hallelujah, Anatomy of a
Civil War Song, and it talked about those songs because
(07:29):
he had been doing research into that. So anyway, that's
when we were doing a lot of that research. I
guess around the same time we were also performing at
places back in early nineteen ninety. I think February first
was our first Civil War performance and it was at
Petersburg for the Battlefield. So anyway, we were already doing performances,
(07:52):
costumed performances.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Well, the first song in your suite is say brothers,
will you meet us? And that's a camp meeting sing
alongside from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. Now,
even though most people don't know that version of the song. Now,
when you perform your songs, not just this sweet that
I love so much, but your other songs and you
get people sing along, do you feel like you're performing
(08:14):
modern versions of camp meetings? In other words, that the
audience really does connect and join with you.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I've been getting people to sing along with me for
a long time because I like to add the harmonies,
you know, I get the audience to sing the melody
that I'll add the harmony to it because I've found
that a lot of audiences do not know how to
sing harmony. It's really interesting. That's why, In fact, that's
why singing rounds got to be so popular, because it
(08:40):
helped people to hear the harmonies. But I had done
some research at the Foster Hall Collection of the Universe
at Pittsburgh, and that's where I began to find the
lyrics to say, brothers, will you meet us? Because I
was really interested, and I said, I know that song
has been around longer than John Brown's body and the
battle him of the Republic. So my curiosity got me
(09:02):
to start doing more and more research. In fact, I
found out that the tune had come from old sea
shanties and drinking song. And then the church decided, well,
since people already know the tune, we can write a
version that gets people's souls brought to Jesus so to speak.
Of course, they attribute those to a guy named William Stepfi.
(09:23):
I don't know if across that in your research. So
many of the things like that, you can't really go
on who published it first. Ned CHRISTI used to do
that to a lot of people's songs and say that
he wrote them and Stephen Foster's songs. A lot of
his songs were stolen by Ned Christie.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
The camp meetings, there was more than just white people
at these camp meetings. They actually started a pinpoint. One
particular camp meeting is the first in Logan County, Kentucky
in eighteen hundred in Kentucky's my home state, in the
Presbyterian Church, actually, and there were just too many people
that showed up to hear this renowned speaker, and so
(10:01):
they said, well, let's just go outside.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
It was summertime, so they went.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Outside and held the first camp meeting, and they liked
it so much, you know, that they kept doing it.
And the Baptist and Methodists followed suits. So they'd have
these huge outdoor gatherings and just last you know, several
days with a battery of sermons and preachers and that
sounds scary, and then people camping on the grounds. And
(10:24):
then later it was the Methodists that continued the tradition,
and singing was always a part, an important part of
camp meetings, and diaries from the era tell us that
both blacks and whites.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Came to these camp meetings, so it wasn't just white people.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
And there was an exchange of music both ways, and
the traditional hymns and the white tradition the ones I
grew up singing with the four verses and the amen
at the end, not the.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
But the ahmen.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
They would bring those songs and then some of those
people couldn't read, so the verses were simple. And then
the black people would bring their songs, and a lot
of times they would have choruses that would go with
those songs, and they had add the syncopation, the call
in response. And then sometimes the white people would hear
some of the songs they would do like Joshua fit
(11:15):
the Battle of Jericho. So there was this exchange back
and forth. So you know, it's an interesting thing that
camp meetings. I mean, I had always thought of them
as being, you know, mainly white. But when I was
doing research into one of our albums that focused on
southern Appalachia, the mountains above and the valleys below, and
we were wanting to, you know, record some of these things,
(11:38):
I've looked into it and found this out, and it
was just so interesting because it's part of what brought
the cultures together and formed the unique sound and culture
that's in our area of the world.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Well, you know, nowadays would call it our audience participation
what these camp meetings were like. But I'm interested to
hear how you get people to join in with you,
and then how does it when they do join in
with you? How does that change the way you perform
the song while it's going on? If you see what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Well, one thing that happens with me is Rondie calls it,
I start ray Charles ing the song because I grew
up in my grandfather's church of God, Comma Sanctified Church.
He was the bishop of that church, and famous people
like Ida Cox, the famous blues singer, used to attend
(12:29):
my grandfather's church. But after he died, the Sanctified people
decided to kick her out of the church because she
was singing the blues. But the music has always been
what drew me to stay in the church, and so
that's been a part of my life. And people singing together.
I never have like just being on stage and singing
and then get the polite applause afterwards. I really want
(12:52):
people to sing and then when they leave have that
song running in their head singing along with me.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh, it absolutely works.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, we kind of have a reputation for trying to
get people to sing along. A reviewer once called Sparky
the black peat seeger.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
So I need to lose a little more weight.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
But but now we can't let Pete know those of
course he's passed on. But your voice is better.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
He had a pretty good voice.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, but you know what I mean right now?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
So I mean, I mean, isn't that the point of
folk music, you know, to get people, you know people.
We have people come up to us afterwards and say,
you know, I haven't heard that song since I was
a child, and my grandfather used to sing it. And
there's nothing greater, in my opinion, to hear, you know
(13:48):
than somebody saying that afterwards. And old music just touches
people deeply their old memories and singing together builds community,
and it also strengthens people morale.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
In the civil rights movement, yeah, when.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
They're fighting against injustice, I mean, it makes them remember
that they're not alone.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
In fact, that's how I got my start as a
folk singer, was in the civil rights movement. Before that time,
I had been a soul singer and a rock and
roll guitar player. But then when I started hearing those
old songs and even the new songs that were written
as if they were old songs that got people singing
along and on the picket lines and in the in
(14:30):
the mass meetings. It it changed my life.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well everyone, here's here's a clip of that portion of
the suite again. This is the glory Hallelujah swite from
a Sparky in Ronda and this is the first section.
Say brothers, say bro, there's moll you need.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Us, say Bro's you need us? Say bro, there's will
you need us? On Cainan's Happy Sure Bye. The grace
of God will be you bye. The grace of God
(15:14):
will me you bye. The grace of God will be
you were Bardy.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
Is normal.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Geeesus lives and range for avver geeesus lives and range
forever geeesus lives.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
In range for avver on Cainan's Happy Sure.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Or you see immediately after you've heard that, folks, that
that's what those camp meetings were like. The single Long
your Life. So imagine not just Sparking Ronda singing it,
but dozens of people sing it. My next question is,
you know it's about John Brown's body. Now most people,
or at least most Americans have heard the song John
Brown's Body. It's one of the most powerful abolitionist songs
(16:09):
in our history. But for John Brown's Body, you moved
to a more upbeat tempo and approach, more like a march.
Why do you think that that works best with John
Brown's Body.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Well, once again, I would do that particular version when
I was trying to get the audience to sing along
with me. You know, because it was originally sung by
soldiers as they marched, And of course it wasn't about
Osawatamie John Brown. So I suppose your researcher showed you that.
But maybe the listeners don't know this. But if I'm
(16:41):
remembering correctly, it was a Connecticut regiment. They had a
fello in their name, John Brown, and they started kidding
him because they knew that about John Brown being hanged,
and they started saying, oh, John Brown's body is a
moldering in the grave, and they would laugh about it
and whatnot. But then as time went on and more
more soldiers heard the original Connecticut regiment singing that song,
(17:04):
it spread throughout the Army of the Potomac, and of
course it began to mean os Wotamie John Brown. There
was also a version singing Elmer Ellsworth list moulden in
the grave because he was a good friend of Lincoln's.
And when he went over into the suburbs of Washington,
d c. To tear down a rebel flag, and as
(17:27):
he was coming down from where he'd come downstairs, the
owner of that place shot him in the chest and
killed him instantly. And Lincoln was very sad because he
was truly that was one of his protegees, Elmer Ellsworth.
And so that Elmer Ellsworth lies moulden in the grave
(17:48):
was also a version of the song.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Okay, well, here's the clip of that again. That portion
of the suite the Glory Halley Sweet that we keep
talking about, the John Brown's body section.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
John Brown's body lies molding in the grave. John Brown's
body lies molding in the grave. John Brown's body lies
molding in the grave. His soul cost marching on the
(18:25):
stars of heaven. They are looking candy down.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
The stars of heaven.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
They are looking candy down the stars of heaven. They
are looking candy down on the grave.
Speaker 6 (18:43):
Barfl John Brown. He has gone to be a soldier
in the army of the law.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
He has gone to be a soulderund beyond of the Lord.
Speaker 6 (18:58):
He is gone be a soldier in the army of
the Low. Its song is myrch on.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
Singing glad glory allado o recor hallado, lo glory allado.
His solist marching on, singing glow recordy hallado o, reglory
(19:41):
hallad go reglory allada.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
It's alstrching on.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Well. Now, your version of the Battle Hymn of the
Republic is among the most moving I've ever heard. I
think that slowing it down and making it more of
a folk song only increases its power. And many people
have told me that they greatly prefer your version, partly
because they can pay close attention to the specific lyrics,
(20:27):
which sometimes when a full chorus is singing, sometimes you
don't hear the actual words. Why did you take that
slower approach?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
I quite often will have the instrument sitting beside me,
and I had my banjo, and I had it tuned
in open G tuning, and it's a beautiful tuning, and
I was sort of strumming it and just picking out notes,
and all of a sudden I realized I was playing
the battle Hymn of the Republic, and I was playing
it really slow, and I realized that it's a beautiful song.
(20:57):
It really, really is a beautiful and when I started
performing it on stage, I thought, this is a good
way to get people to actually hear the song, but
also to sing with me, because I always get them
singing on the chorus. They may not know the lyrics,
but they know the chorus. Everybody knows that song. They've learned,
they learned it in kindergarten. Everybody knows that song, but
(21:21):
hardly anybody performs it.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
I think some songs lend themselves to a slow tempo
more than others, you know.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I mean that one definitely does, and.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
It brings out not only the lyrics, you know, the
beauty of the lyrics, but also the harmonies. And I
mean another one that we do that with is Dixie,
and we usually do that toward the end of a
Civil War program when the South is really losing and
not doing very well, and do it as a dirge
or a lament and the first and we only do
(21:53):
the first verse.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
We don't do the silly verses.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
You know. It's actually a beautiful tune and that also
lends it self to harmony.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I've seen it bring tears to people's eyes when we
sing that song as well. Both of the songs beautiful songs.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Well, Ronda, I'm so glad you mentioned the harmonies, because
your harmonies in the battle Hymn section of the suite
you really are just wonderful. I was bowled over first
by that you decided to use close harmony singing right
on that part of the suite. But it's soft and
it's subtle, incredibly powerful And this is a word I
don't use very often because it's so overused, but they're ethereal, really,
(22:33):
and I mean that in the best sense. And I
think then that they're especially perfect when you think about
how you two have presented the battle Hymn section of
the suite as a sort of touching ballad rather than
a march. Why did you choose that type of harmony.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I did not grow up singing harmony. It was a
rare person.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Most of the music was in my church, and it
was only a rare person that sang harmony in church.
I thought it had to be some special talent or whatever.
But then when I met Sparky and we started touring together,
he put music on in the car and we would
sing along with it.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And he has a penchant for bass. If there's no
bass already being sung, that's what he does. And I
usually do alto. But I learned really from him.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
And when I learned how to sing harmony, it was like,
why did I think this was so difficult?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Because it came natural to me. I was already a musician.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
I already you know, I'd been playing piano since I
was four. I knew about chords, and harmony is really
just an extension of that.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
It's chord structures and that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Also in his church, you know, everybody sings harmony. Everybody
does now, everybody does their own thing. It's not prescribed
like in white churches. You know, they don't tell you
what to sing. Everybody sings something that their voice will do,
you know. And like I would sing an alto in
his church, and his mother also sang alto, but it
(24:02):
was a different alto part slower than mine.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
His father sang bass.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
I mean, it all goes, you know, perfectly together, except
they're not always completely together. It's there's a lot of
call and response and you know, some syncopation and all
that kind of thing. But when I learned how to
sing harmony, I was wondering why I ever thought it
was a mystery, because it didn't seem like a mystery
to me. It just seemed like it was a natural thing.
(24:29):
And I don't remember working out the harmony to battle him.
It was just an intuitive thing. I thought it sounded
best doing it that way. There are a lot of
I guess notes that I could have sung that would
also go with it, but I liked the close harmony,
and I do stick closely with him.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
He sings lead on that song, and so I.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
And for that type of song, I think it is
best to stay, you know, together on it, and so
I usually and watching him closely and trying to stay
with him on it.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
One thing about our voices is that when she's singing lead,
my voice can sing perfect harmony with her, and vice versa.
And I don't speak this way often, but it's a
god blessed gift that we both have that we can
sing together. I think, more than anything else is what
people say to us after our concerts that they love
our harmonies.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Well, you're going to hear exactly those harmonies now in
the battle him. And the Republic section of the suite
that we're going to play now. But also please, I
hope all of you will appreciate the slower tempo and
the increased beauty that comes along with it.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Min eyes have seen the blow of the.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Calming of the Lord.
Speaker 8 (26:21):
He is tramping out of vantage where the grapes of
a story he had losed, the faithful lighting of his
the revals of soul, his true things modal.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
I have seen him in the watch.
Speaker 9 (26:52):
Forest of the hundred circin cans.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
They have builted him.
Speaker 10 (27:01):
Ter and evening news and dance.
Speaker 6 (27:07):
I can read his riighteous sentence.
Speaker 8 (27:11):
By the dam and flaring lamps his day.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Matin, Oh rep hallellou.
Speaker 11 (27:34):
O glory, Holy body.
Speaker 10 (27:44):
Rea glory, how.
Speaker 9 (27:51):
He's true things Morty, I have read a fiery gospel,
read and burnished rows of steel, as you do with
my condemner, So with you, my grace.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Shll do you let the hero born of bomb and
crush the serpo with his heel. Since God is march,
(28:35):
Oh glory, halleluya, O.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
Glory, how.
Speaker 10 (28:51):
Your oh glory howl.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
True this march.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Well you know, as our listeners who have heard the
other shows, we've done on Julia Wardhowe and the Battle
Him of the Republic. This week, the marching song of
the first Arkansas Colored Regiment was adapted from the Battle
Hymn and from John Brown's Body during the middle of
the Civil War, and you obviously sing it as a march.
What feelings did you have about that version and is it,
(29:35):
for instance, more motivating to do it as a march
for civil rights than to do it in other ways?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, especially that song, I got my only chance to
play drum song. But it's a march, and it's these
black soldiers marching into war, singing these songs and knowing
that this war is going to set them free. And
especially when you listen to the lyrics, it just talks
(30:03):
about how proud they are. This is some of these
people the first chance they got to be fully a
man a woman in freedom, singing a song that was
going to forever set them free. And when you listen
to the lyrics, it just talks about how they're going
to show Jeff Davis how the African can fight. That's
(30:26):
one of the lines in the song. It's to be uplifting.
And it's been a long time since I've listened to
the album, but if I'm remembering correctly, it's one of
the last songs on the album, and to leave people
feeling that they've been through the experience.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
A lot of times we'll close the show with it
if we're doing a Civil War program because of that.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Well, and here it is, folks, and you know it
was sung by lots of colored regiments in the Civil War,
not just the First Arkansas.
Speaker 12 (31:05):
MM.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
We're the bullish soldiers of the First of Arkansas, abiding
for the unity, a fighting for the law. We can
hear the rebel further than a white man ever saw.
We all marching on and see there about the center where.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
The flag is waving playing We're going out of slavery,
rebound for freedom's life. We need to show jep D this.
Speaker 13 (31:36):
All the African confity as we call marching on.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
Go recordale Y.
Speaker 8 (31:49):
Recordingland recorded, Alny, ask me all marching.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
We are done with hoy cot, We are done with
polling corn. You are come a gangy soldiers, towers as
you are born with the masters. Here are shellon.
Speaker 6 (32:12):
They will think his cables.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Horns egle marching on, Father Abraham, the spoken and the message.
Hastenson the prison doorsy opened, then out.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
The prisoners which to join the Sable Army.
Speaker 9 (32:30):
You have the.
Speaker 14 (32:30):
African descent as Gigle marching on, singing reg the Halad,
the Haldy.
Speaker 12 (32:46):
Go the helado as go marchin the Halada.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Well, I guess my wrap up question for this show
would really be why did you decide to do it
as a suite? Why put all four songs in a suite?
Once everyone listens to it, would they'll be able to
do at the end of the show. We're going to
play it after we're finished, they'll understand why it all
flows together so well. But lots of people would have
(33:46):
done the four songs independently, you know, on different tracks
on the record or whatever. But you made it a
suite for a reason that I'd love to hear what
that reason is.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
I'm a nerdy what are you doing on this show?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
So there's only professional people.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
But one thing I wanted to do was to let
people see the progression that the song went through, just
to see its growth and high it changed and how
it changed and how it changed and how it changed.
That was my reason for putting those four together like that.
The way it goes on the album. It just flows
one song to the next.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah, and by using different tempos or different approaches that
they become distinctive enough. The parts become distinctive enough in
their own right, but it really hangs together as a
sweet so well, it just seemed.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Natural that that was the way to do it.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
I'll have to say that.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I mean, one of my favorite things to do in
being a musician is arranging things, and I love doing it.
I think it's important, you know, to for people to
enjoy a performance or the music or whatever. But I
probably can't hold a candle to my husband here. He's
a really good ranger, and that was his idea, and
(35:01):
I think it worked well.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
It's just wonderful and I listened to it for an enjoyment,
just like I listened to the Beatles or anything else.
I don't listen to it just because I'm a history professor,
just because I want to study these things. It really is,
it really is a very moving approach to all these songs.
So before we go though, and before we let people
hear the whole suite together, let me thank you for
(35:24):
coming on the show.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Thank you for having you, thanks for having us, and
thanks for you really complimented as a lot, and I
really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
It's really nice of you.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Good as you can tell, I don't have anything but
a humble version of me.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Well, I don't think of them as compliments. I think
it's just the truth. And I think our listeners, when
they hear this suite fully well, will agree with me.
It's just glorious. But please, we have to tell them
where they can find out more about you and your work.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
We have a website www dot Sparkyanderhonda dot com, so
it's s E E A R K Y A N
D R h O n DA dot com. And we
also sell our CDs and books on there. So those
are those are in the store I've got. My most
(36:14):
recent book is Welcome to Bombingham, and it's about It's
a novel, a historical novel that takes place during the
months and weeks leading up to the Birmingham Children's March
in nineteen sixty three, and also a picture book that
tells the story of Sparky's first civil rights demonstration here
(36:35):
in Knoxville.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I've been a troublemaker for a long time.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
Well, we need more of you.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Well, it's a great website, and we have to have
you back on the show, Ronda, to talk about the
novel from one of our Fiction Friday versions of the show,
so I hope that can happen, so please everyone, I'm
going to put Sparkineronda dot com on the on the
blog post for this episode so that you'll have it,
and I'm going to promote it widely on social media
as much as I can. So again, Sparking Ronda, thank
(37:03):
you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
I should also say that our CD let Freedom Ring,
has a lot of historical material on it as well
and has some freedom songs and as well as Scott
Marching through Georgia.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
On there too.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
All right, okay, boskellers, please listen to this song carefully.
Please share it with as many people as you can,
and I'll talk to all of you later this week.
Speaker 6 (37:33):
Say brothers, will you be us?
Speaker 5 (37:38):
Say bro there will.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
You need us? Say brother's will you need us? Song
Cain and happy.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Bye.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
The Grace of God will be you bye. The Grace
of God will be you Bye. The Grace of God
will meet you. Where Barty is norm.
Speaker 7 (38:11):
Geeesus slips and range for aver geezus slives and range
for adver geeesus slips and range for adver on Cainan's
happy sure. John Brown's body lies molding in the grain.
(38:47):
John Brown's body lies molding.
Speaker 6 (38:50):
In the grave.
Speaker 5 (38:53):
John Brown's body lies mold in the grain. His all
coust marching on the stars of heaven. They are looking
Canna down the stars of heaven. They are looking candy
(39:14):
down the stars of heaven. They are looking candad down
on the grave barfle John Brown. He has gone to
be a soldier in the army of the Law. He
has gone to be a soldering army of the Lord.
(39:38):
He is gone be a soldier in the army of
the load.
Speaker 6 (39:44):
Is sold is.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Marching on, singing clodladcaldu goody Halla Loo y'all his soul
(40:08):
is marching on, singing glove begory halla.
Speaker 6 (40:15):
Loop y.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
O glory hallada, gogory hallado.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
Yeah. It alst marching on.
Speaker 8 (41:25):
Mynyes seen of blow of the calming of the Lord.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
He is tramping off the.
Speaker 15 (41:37):
Dvantage where the grace of the story he had losed,
the faithful lighting of hist.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
Revals of soul his true things.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
May I have seen him in the watch fires of
a hundred circling cans they have builded.
Speaker 10 (42:12):
Him and.
Speaker 6 (42:15):
Evening news and dance.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
I can read his righteous sentence by the dam and
flaring lamps, his days mating.
Speaker 10 (42:37):
Oh rep.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
Hallelou o.
Speaker 11 (42:48):
Glory haly booy.
Speaker 10 (42:55):
O read glory, how.
Speaker 9 (43:03):
He is true things, myry, I have read a fiery gospel,
read and burnished rows of steeve.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
As you do with my condemner, so with you, my grace,
shall do you let.
Speaker 10 (43:30):
The hero born of bomb and.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
Crush the serpo with his heel. Since God is marching.
Speaker 6 (43:48):
Oh.
Speaker 10 (43:50):
Glory, how.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Ya o.
Speaker 6 (43:58):
Glory due.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
Yeah, read.
Speaker 6 (44:12):
Yeah, his true thing margy.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
M h m.
Speaker 6 (44:36):
We're the bully soldiers of the First of Arkansas Almighty
called the un abiding. All the lawn. We can hear
the grapple further than a white man every song. As
we go marchin on see there about the center where
the flag is waving. Brain. We're going out of slavery, a.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Bound for freedom's life. We need to show Jeffy, this.
Speaker 13 (45:03):
Are the afritenn Bank. As we call marching on o
Regord Halladal recorded Haled. As we all marchinge, we are
(45:29):
done with hol re cod. We are done with holling corn.
Speaker 6 (45:33):
We have come a gangy soldiers, towser as you are born.
Speaker 5 (45:37):
When the master's here is shelon, they will think it's
Cable's horns, Egal.
Speaker 6 (45:43):
Marching on.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
Bothering. Raham has spoken and the message has been sent.
The prison doors, the open man out the prisoners with
you joined the Sable army.
Speaker 12 (45:57):
You have the African descent as the goal, marting on
singing a record the Dalador record, the Arable record the
Alador Baskey go marching.
Speaker 6 (46:23):
Regor.
Speaker 12 (46:24):
The Aladoro.
Speaker 6 (46:28):
Recall the Arable
Speaker 12 (46:32):
Recall the alad of Baskey go Barting
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