Songs of the Old Regular Baptists
SONGS OF THE OLD REGULAR BAPTISTS
By Jeff Todd Titon, adapted and used with his permission from his notes for “Songs of the Old Regular Baptists,” issued in 1997 as Smithsonian Folkways CD 40106.
In the heart of the coal mining country in the Southern Appalachian Mountains lies one of the oldest and deepest veins of the British-American melodic tradition. Folk music collectors have been here for more than a century, recording ballads and fiddle tunes. An equally rich, and certainly more vigorous, tradition lies in the area's religious music, particularly in the singing of a Protestant denomination known as Old Regular Baptists. But unlike the ballads and the dance music, this hymnody is not well known outside central Appalachia. It has not entered into any folk music revivals, and until now very little of it has been available on recordings. Yet Old Regular Baptist singing is a regional and national treasure that deserves to be honored, celebrated, encouraged within its community, and made available to the world outside.
This recording of Old Regular Baptist singing is the result of a friendship and collaboration among Old Regular Baptists in southeastern Kentucky and two visitors, John Wallhausser and Jeff Titon, professors from Berea College and Brown University, who have long felt the drawing power of this culture and its music.
In an Old Regular Baptist worship service the songs are chosen by leaders at the moment just before their performance. The leader first pitches the tune within a comfortable range, perhaps humming a bit to himself. Each song has its characteristic lining tune, and various leaders sing the lining tune more or less elaborately, often but not always ending each line on the same note with which the congregation begins. For this recording the leaders chose to sing only three or four of the verses of each song. In a worship service they might do the same, or they might sing every verse.
Because the Indian Bottom Association churches do not permit tape recorders, cameras, microphones, wires, and the like to interfere with their worship services, Elwood invited all who could and would to two special meetings in order to make the recordings. I recorded the songs on this album using a digital audio tape recorder, three microphones, and a mixer, on August 20, 1992 and June 10, 1993. Songs number 1, 9, and 12 were recorded in 1993; all others come from the 1992 meeting. The statements following the songs were recorded at both meetings. John Wallhausser was present and helped out in many ways; Elwood made it possible in the first place and gently directed the proceedings throughout.
The following Notes have circulated among the participants and met with their approval. In what follows; Elwood Cornett writes first about his people and their music. Next John Wallhausser writes about their history and theology. Finally Jeff Titon writes about the music on this album.
1. Old Regular Baptists
By Elwood Cornett, Moderator, Indian Bottom Association, Old Regular Baptists
The thing about being an Old Regular Baptist is the unspeakable joy of everyday life! In a world where both spiritual and secular commentators are predicting doom and gloom our conversation concerns the precious promises of the Lord Jesus Christ. To quote one of our members, “So many people complain and gripe about getting up and getting started every morning, but I can’t wait to get up and get out to see what the Lord has in store for me each day.”
We Old Regular Baptists are a peculiar people. We sing differently. Some say our worship has a sad and mournful sound. But I’ve never heard a more beautiful melody, and the sound of the worship causes my heart to feel complete.
Worship.
On a typical Sunday morning we Old Regular Baptist worshipers are at church by 9:30. The churches, which are adorned in simplicity, are clean and neat. They are usually full well before church services begin.
Old Regular Baptists shake hands a lot. Most church members will shake hands with everyone else. Up one aisle and down the next we go to enjoy a precious handshake and a warm embrace as we experience the love of God as it flows from breast to breast.
A custom that marks Old Regular Baptists is the once-a-month meetings. Some churches meet on the first weekend, some on the second, some on the third and some on the fourth weekend of every month. This enables members from each church to visit other churches. If my home church meets only on the first weekend then I can visit one of several nearby churches that meets on the second weekend, others on the third, and so on. There has evolved a unique set of relationships. It is a special blessing to have members of other churches visit our church.
At about 9:30 most of the congregation is in place. A brother selects an appropriate song and starts singing. Others join in the singing as the leader lines the words of the song. The songs on this album are some of the songs we would sing at an Old Regular Baptist meeting. Some continue to shake hands and greet everyone as we sing. There is an atmosphere of orderliness, and yet individual freedom of expression is accepted and often encouraged. Humbleness is expected and reverence is demanded.
Several songs are sung in succession without a formal list or prepared order. Individuals select the songs by picking up a book and starting a song as they feel moved. Silence endures only long enough for someone to find and start another song. At about 10 a.m. the moderator steps to the pulpit and welcomes everyone. Often references are made to those needing prayer and emphasis is placed on the duty of mankind to honor God.
The moderator selects a brother that has been called to the ministry to do what we call “open” or “introduce” the church service. A good introduction or opening sets the atmosphere for the service. It provokes thought and promotes spirituality. It is relatively short and not meant to be an articulated sermon.
After a few minutes the opening minister asks that a song be started. Everyone stands and sings and again there is a lot of handshaking and spiritual embracing. After the song the minister leads in prayer. During prayer, many individuals would kneel on the floor. Whether individuals remain seated or get on their knees on the floor is entirely up to the individual and how they feel at the time.
The prayer is a powerful, extemporaneous plea to the Lord. It may be rather loud and last several minutes. A good prayer is a genuine, sincere desire of the heart expressed aloud without shame or embarrassment. After the prayer, perhaps three or four other brothers will each deliver an extemporaneous sermon. Each sermon has its own message and may or may not be related to the other sermons.
A good sermon may last twenty to thirty minutes. It is powerful, bound in love and well ordered. It is not read nor taken from notes, but it is delivered by the minister as God moves upon him in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. During a powerful and spiritual meeting there will be shouting and tears of joy.
A few minutes before noon the church service comes to an end. When the last minister has finished with his sermon, he will extend an invitation for membership by experience and baptism. (A man or woman desiring to belong to the church will step forward and tell how conviction and repentance led to their being born again.) As the invitation is given an appropriate song is lined and sung. The service is closed by prayer.
Baptisms.
I have described a typical Sunday morning meeting. Now I will speak from my own experience and describe our baptizings and our communion services and I will conclude by writing about who we are.
In August, 1973 I surrendered my being unto the will of God. At that time I made peace with the Almighty God by understanding my condemnation for a sinful life. In belief and with a repentant heart I pleaded for the Lord’s mercy. In a moment, I felt--I experienced the Lord’s spiritual rebirth. Memories of that unspeakable joy still bring glad tears to my eyes.
In early January, 1974, I joined the nearest Old Regular Baptist church. During the closing of a service, when the invitation was given, I stepped forward and related my experience of condemnation, repentance and spiritual rebirth with Christ Jesus the Lord. After a move and second to receive me into the full fellowship after baptism I was given a glorious welcome.
In the middle of winter in mid-January I was immersed in the Kentucky River near my home by two ministers that I had chosen. The two ministers and I were each wearing white pants and white shirts. One of the deacons of the church tied a large cloth napkin around my head immediately before the baptism. I do not have words to explain the warmth, joy and peace I experienced as the brothers baptized me in obedience to the heavenly Father’s command and in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
As a minister I have baptized adult believers in rivers, lakes, creeks and ponds. I have baptized when the water was warm and when I had to cut through the ice with an ax. Summer or winter, rain or snow, day or night, we stand ready to baptize true believers that have been born again and want to be a member of an Old Regular Baptist church.
Communion / Sacrament.
The church to which I belong has designated the first Sunday in August as the annual communion or sacrament service.
On the first Sunday in August, 1974, I arrived at church with the intention of taking communion for the first time. I had read in the Bible that to partake of the sacrament unworthily brought damnation to myself. I took this statement very seriously. I had been advised as had all of the church members to examine my own relationship with God. The other members’ relationship with God was not my concern, but theirs. It was much in fear and humbleness that I approached the situation. The regular church service was warm and spiritual that day. It was over by noon.
At the end of the service the moderator invited members of other Old Regular Baptist churches to participate with our church in the communion service. He also announced that the deacons would make preparations after the congregation stepped outside; and when a song was started we were to re-enter the church. Considering the seriousness of the impending event, I found myself quite nervous. However, I was warmly reassured by older members. I prayed constantly.
After several minutes I heard singing from inside. We re-entered the church house to find some of the seats had been moved apart to increase the space between them. Where the pulpit had been, a table now stood. It obviously had several items on it and they were covered with a beautiful white table cloth. Beneath the table was a large container of water, a stack of old-fashioned porcelain wash pans and a box of white towels.
I took a seat against the wall in back of the stand opposite the entrance door of the church. The brothers of the church sat on one side of the church. The sisters, most dressed in white, sat on the other side.
When all were seated, the song stopped and the moderator, with help from another brother, removed the cloth covering the table and its contents. I could see bottles of fruit of the vine—grape juice. I could see a small plate that contained the unleavened bread. (The bread had been prepared by deacons’ wives from plain flour and water, baked and perforated or scored for the occasion.)
The moderator asked one of the ordained elders to conduct the next part. He spoke of the meaning of the unleavened bread in terms of the Passover and the body of Christ. He then took the bread in his hands, knelt down on the floor and diligently prayed the Lord’s blessing on the bread and on us.
I still remember what it was like as the deacon made his way up the row in which I sat. Finally he came to me. He shook my right hand, offered me a morsel of the bread to eat and gave me a warm embrace. I ate the bread representing the body of Christ.
The moderator asked another one of the ordained elders to conduct the next part. He spoke of the meaning of the fruit of the vine in terms of the Passover and the blood of Christ. He held the fruit of the vine and knelt and asked God to bless it and the brothers and sisters.
The deacon started serving the row on which I sat. He shook my hand and invited me to take one of the glasses. As I closed my eyes I could almost see the blood flowing from the wounds of my Savior. I drank the contents of my glass--all of it. I still remember how I felt the Holy Spirit all around me.
The moderator read from John 13:1-17. Then he picked up one of the towels from the box and tied it around his waist using the strings that had been attached at one end. He poured water into one of the wash pans and knelt at the feet of one of the brothers nearby and began to wash that brother’s feet.
The deacons soon delivered a towel and a pan of water to the end of each pew. A brother next to me humbly and reverently girded himself with the towel and placed the pan of water at my feet. I removed my shoes and socks as he knelt at my feet. He gave me a warm and holy embrace and tenderly washed my feet and dried them with the towel. Then it was my glorious privilege to kneel at his feet and wash and dry them in the name of Jesus.
All around me were brothers washing each other’s feet and sisters washing each other’s feet. Throughout the church there was singing, shouting, tears of joy and heavenly peace. I had never experienced anything so moving. I felt my acceptance with the Lord in a way that I still remember.
Old Regular Baptists—Who We Are.
The Old Regular Baptist members come from many walks of life. Some are highly educated--some are not. Some are well off financially--some are not. Some are old—-some are young. We come together as equal children of God.
We do not say we are better than someone else. We are totally unconcerned about the opinions of modern theologians. Each person has an individual relationship with God and that spiritual relationship overshadows everything else.
We hold family and place in high regard. Children are taught by the light of the life of Christians much more than either written or oral words. Sincerity and humbleness and reverence are marks of God’s people.
The Old Regular Baptists may travel far and wide, but they are anxious to return to the place where they grew up. They want to hear those special sounds and see familiar scenes. Those that move away return often and are likely to return for retirement.
It is my desire to not sound self-righteous, but I humbly proclaim that I have found home. It has been decades since I searched for a people to fellowship with. I have found just what I was looking for. These are my people. This is my home!
2. Old Regular Baptist Traditions
by John Wallhausser, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Berea College
The doctrines of Old Regular Baptist faith are still embedded in the life, preaching and singing of Appalachian communities today. The convictions of Old Regular faith and practice are easily discerned in two living expressions of their faith: their chanted sermons and distinctive song. In addition, one finds the outlines of their transformed Calvinist theology in each Association's "Articles of Faith," published every year in the Association's annual "Minutes." That such doctrinal, creedal statements are used at all by Old Regular Baptists is a signal that something distinctive is still present in Appalachia. There is treasure in the Appalachian mountains, historical treasure preserving complexities of Reformation and post-Reformation theologies within the setting of America's early frontier.
Old Regular Baptist language is shaped by their old hymns, biblical stories, and doctrinal convictions. As one becomes sensitive to this traditional language, it is possible to hear and understand the continuing distinctive historical and theological nuances in the preaching and singing of the Old Regular Baptists today. All these traditions form a rather peculiar balance, but one that is "bred in the bones." Perhaps that is what they mean when they proudly refer to themselves with the biblical phrase—"a peculiar people."
The central Appalachian mountains contain sixteen associations of Old Regular Baptists.1 These Associations planted new churches outside the Appalachian region in Ohio, Indiana, and as far away as Michigan, Florida, and Arizona. Mountain counties remain the home for many traditional churches, particularly in the Virginias and eastern Kentucky where these churches were historically secured by the terrain. Because the mountains have bestowed on them a degree of anonymity, the substance of their traditional faith and practice has been preserved.
The traditions of "old time" Baptist churches are found in layers, like seams of Appalachian coal. The earliest layers are composed of sixteenth and early seventeenth century Reformation beliefs and creeds—particularly, for English Baptists who followed the theology of John Calvin, the First (1644) and Second (1689) London Confessions. The next layer consists of eighteenth-century pietism and the revival movements in New England and the American frontier. Finally, one finds the theological controversies of the nineteenth century which led old Regular Baptist churches to consolidate and preserve their traditions, their "old fashioned way." Twentieth century efforts by Appalachian churches to hold on to their past kept much of that past intact. Consequently, we can still discern today the remarkable heritage of the mountains: their distinctive way of being "in the world but not of the world."
The doctrines of Old Regular Baptists emerge from the larger Baptist history in the Colonies. The American roots reach back to tensions in eighteenth century New England. Disputes arose in the aftermath of "The Great Awakening," the revival movement that broke out in New England in response to George Whitefield's preaching during 1739-1740. Whitefield's preaching continued the Calvinist emphasis on the sovereignty of God alone. He had broken with John and Charles Wesley, finding them too Arminian—that is, attributing too much to the role of human freedom in salvation. This Calvinist - Arminian controversy would eventually also take root in the Appalachian mountains.
The name "Regular" appears to go back to changes arising from that eighteenth century revival. "The Great Awakening," supported by Jonathan Edwards, was proving divisive as it sundered churches into two camps. The division split Presbyterians into the Old Sides and the New Sides, and New England Congregationalists into the Old Lights and the New Lights. Those "New" who went with Whitefield and approved the revival became the "Separates." The traditional groups (the "Old") who resisted the revival were called the "Regulars."
By 1742 the controversy penetrated the Baptist churches of New England, resulting in a division between Separate Baptist Churches and Regular Baptist Churches. The Regular Baptist churches gave their allegiance to the more traditional Calvinist Philadelphia Association. The Baptist faith that moved south in the 1750s, and then west into the Appalachian mountains in the 1770s, carried with it these layers of theological history.
Churches in Virginia formed the first Association of Regular Baptists in 1765—the Ketockten Association. During the 1770s, Baptist preachers came into Kentucky with early settlers by way of Virginia and North Carolina. By 1785 two associations of Regular Baptist Churches were formed in Kentucky, the Elkhorn and Salem Associations. Theological disputes between Separate and Regular theologies continued in Kentucky. Yet late eighteenth century efforts to overcome these differences led eventually to a reunion of churches as United Baptists in 1801.
Sixty years after the Great Awakening in New England, revivalism came to the American frontier with a robustness that matched its setting. The Great Western Revival—the "Second Great Awakening"—erupted at Cane Ridge in north-central Kentucky in 1801. In the decades that followed, the religious life of frontier America was rearranged.
Baptists in Kentucky doubled during the opening years of the nineteenth century. The Cane Ridge revival also added emotional rawness to the doctrinal faith; subjective experiences of grace joined with the "objective standard of orthodoxy" (creeds) in a marriage of experiential fire and doctrinal deliberation. The Great Revival of Kentucky, however, was essentially anti-Calvinistic in theology, and tensions between Calvinist and Arminian beliefs broke out anew. The dynamism of the revival created new denominations (e.g., the Disciples of Christ, Free Will and Missionary Baptists), new movements, new religious/social agencies, and new conflicts.
In the midst of this ferment and challenge, old time Baptist churches in Appalachia turned to the task of preservation. They sought to hold on to their modified Calvinistic doctrine, their local identities, their "old fashioned ways." In this nineteenth century response of preservation and consolidation, Old Regular Baptist churches established their distinctive features.
Turn of the century churches that previously called themselves "United" Baptists began reclaiming earlier identities. "Primitive" ( meaning "apostolic") Baptists separated from other Baptists in the third decade of the nineteenth century and formed the Kehkee Association in North Carolina; they adhered to the stricter form of Calvinism. In 1854, The New Salem Association began calling itself "Regular Baptist," and later (1870) "Old Regular Baptist." The Old Regulars moved away from strict Calvinism by rejecting double predestination and the doctrine of limited atonement, which held that Christ died only for the elect. The dispute over predestination heated up again in the 1890's and out of this struggle new associations arose. The Indian Bottom Association, for example, developed in 1896 as a result of a dispute within the Sandlick Association over the atonement. This new Association held to a belief in universal atonement (Christ died for all) and the accompanying doctrine of human responsibility within the structure of divine grace and providence.
The singers of the songs in this collection are members of the Indian Bottom Association of Old Regular Baptists in Letcher, Perry, and Knott counties located in the southeastern corner of Kentucky. In September, 1907, this union of churches changed its name to "The Indian Bottom Association." This new Association saw itself in opposition to "hard-shell" Calvinist predestinarian doctrines.2 At present there are thirty-four churches in the Indian Bottom Association and more than sixteen hundred members.
In the nineteenth century, Old Regular Baptist churches combined with other "old time" Baptists to resist popular modernizing movements they thought altered the character of the Church. They resisted innovations which would transfer the churches' local responsibilities to specialized agencies or "societies" that proliferated in the early decades of the century—e.g., foreign mission societies, societies to disseminate tracts and Bibles, agencies promoting Sunday Schools and distributing Sunday School literature.
"Old time" Baptists of the mountains resisted these developments because they saw them as movements of specialization funneling responsibility into autonomous bureaucracies. Resistance to these new agencies had a theological basis: the witness and mission of the church was being transferred to ad hoc professional agencies instead of coming from the congregations themselves. For example, Old Regular Baptists are often charged with being "anti-mission." However, their position is that no specialized group should assume responsibility for the local churches.
Moreover, Old Regular Baptists did not adopt the practice of Sunday Schools that was introduced into American congregations in the nineteenth century. The Sunday School movement was originally sponsored by independent societies and advocated through their periodicals. The early stages of this "ecumenical" movement suggested that Sunday School and Church were distinct entities. In addition, the Sunday School movement, absorbing the nineteenth century belief in process as upward organic growth, came to reflect a kind of "Christian gradualism," implying that Christianity is not so much the struggle of an adult decision, but a guided, evolving growth into maturity. Such a model does not accord with the Old Regular Baptist theology of regeneration through a powerful experience of grace—the personal upheaval of being "born again."
Even today the Old Regular Baptists do not have Sunday School. Young children are not set aside into their own rooms and programs. They are part of the worship service. Because the service lasts from two to two and a half hours, they are given remarkable freedom to move about, to sit with Mamaw and Papaw, even to go outside for a time, or to the water cooler, usually located at the side or in front of the pulpit.
Old Regular Baptists retain the tradition of worker preachers. There is no group of specially trained professional preachers. Each is a "tent-maker," has a job, a source of income independent of the congregation. Preaching is the responsibility of the community and its leaders. Preachers are ordained by the laying on of hands by the older ministers in the congregation. There are no paid, professional preachers. I was told, "No one can say I won't preach unless I get paid. I wasn't hired, so I can't be fired. The Lord called me and I'll preach 'till He calls me home."
Old Regular Baptists worship in stark and unadorned buildings. They shake hands all the time—before, during, and after worship. Handshaking is almost a sacramental act of touching. Foot-washing is celebrated together with communion as a sacrament. They appeal to John 13:1-20, wherein Christ instructs his disciples to wash each other's feet. This simple, profound, intimate act of washing someone's feet explodes into a most powerful expressions of reconciliation within the faithful community. "Community" is an event; it erupts during the worship service.
After their Sunday services, Old Regulars open their homes in the tradition of mountain hospitality. They not only talk about and remember "the old fashioned way;" they enact it and celebrate it in generous meals placed on their tables. They invite others to share it.
The characteristics that identify the present Old Regular Baptist faith are now also guiding them into the twenty-first century: a traditional pattern of simplicity, untrained ministers without salary, only vocal music in worship. Foot washing is a sacrament. They oppose mission societies, Bible societies, tract societies, Sunday School, seminaries and all centralized bureaucracy which diminishes the independence of the local church. They retain a doctrinal faith rooted in sixteenth century Reformation confessions transposed into the Appalachian mountains. Having held themselves apart and having held onto an older authentic Christian tradition, The Old Regular Baptists may have something to say about what it means to be a Christian "in the world but not of the world."
3. Old Regular Baptist Songs
by Jeff Todd Titon, Professor of Music, Brown University
I met Elder Elwood Cornett and a group from the Mt. Olivet Old Regular Baptist church in Blackey, Kentucky at Berea College in 1979, where they demonstrated their lined-out hymnody. When I returned to Berea as Goode Visiting Professor of Appalachian Studies in 1990 I knew I wanted to hear more of their music. Through the kindness of John Wallhausser, who had been visiting with them for many years, I was reintroduced, and on most Sundays I drove two hours east into Letcher, Knott, and Perry counties, and went to church among them. I realized I had been looking for these melodies and this way of singing for a long time, and when I found it I stayed with it the best I could. As one of the elders remarks on this recording, the sound has "a drawing power." I will be teaching them how to make professional tape recordings and document it for themselves and future generations. This album is a step in that direction.
Old Regular Baptists think of this music mainly in terms of worship. They usually call them songs, not hymns. Their voices at the end of this album tell us that the songs have a special purpose and sound. When sung in the Spirit of God, these songs bring people closer to God and to each other. This experience is most truly felt by a Christian saved by grace, and yet many speak of how the sound of the singing drew them powerfully even when they were children and did not understand its full meaning. Worship, not history or the way the songs are put together, is the most important aspect of the music. Yet many are curious about this music and its past, and Elwood Cornett more than once asked me to speak to them about it.
Before the first recording session he asked me to say something to the assembled group of about seventy Old Regular Baptists about the music's history. As I spoke, my professor's identity clinging to me like a wet shirt, I mentioned that lining-out dates from the early 1600s. "Would you say again about how long this tradition has been going on?" Elwood asked when I got done. "More than 350 years," I replied. "It would not be wise," Elwood said, addressing the group, "if we were known as the generation that lost this way of singing." Everyone agreed.
"This way of singing" has a lot in common with other Protestant hymnody. The whole congregation is invited to sing. Their aim is to praise the Lord. The songs are sung in church, at memorial meetings, baptisms, and in homes. They are sung by men, women, and children alike. But Old Regular Baptist singing also has its own particulars. The singing is very slow. It gets along without a regular beat; you can't tap your foot to it. The melodies are very elaborate, and they come from the Anglo-American folk music tradition, not from classical music or from popular songs written to make money. The group sings in unison, not in parts (harmony). A song leader gives out the words line by line.
Form.
Like almost all Christian hymns, Old Regular Baptist congregational songs consist of rhymed, metrical verse in a series of stanzas to which a repeating tune is set. The metrical verse patterns include common meter (alternating lines of 8 and 6 syllables; that is, 8,6,8,6, and represented in their songbooks by C.M.; an example from this album is “On Jordan’s stormy banks”); long meter, represented by L.M. (8,8,8,8; an example is “Salvation o the name I love”); short meter, or S.M. (6,6,8,6; an example is “The day is past and gone”); and various others. The leader sings the very first line and the congregation joins in when they recognize the song. After that the song proceeds line by line: the leader briefly chants a line alone, and then the group repeats the words but to a tune that is much longer and more elaborate than the leader's chant or lining tune. Music historians call this procedure "lining out."
Words.
Song books are kept at the pulpit and passed around to the song leaders. These books have words without musical notation. The oldest lyrics are the 18th-century hymns, written chiefly by familiar English or American devotional poets and hymn-writers such as Isaac Watts. These fill their two favorite song books, the collections Sweet Songster (hereafter SS; see References for full bibliographic information) and the Thomas Hymnal (TH). The newer song books, including Some of Our Favorite Songs (SFS), The New Baptist Song Book (NBSB), and the Old Regular Baptist Song Book (ORBSB, now the Baptist Hymn Book [BHB]) are contemporary collections published nearby. They contain a mix of the older hymns, 19th-century camp-meeting songs and spirituals, gospel hymns from the later 19th century onwards, and finally a number of contemporary gospel songs--some written by Old Regulars known to have this gift, others popular on the radio and recordings. The congregation catches the words from the song leader as he lines out the song. They do not have song books at their seats.
Rhythm and Tempo.
The rhythmic framework is governed not by metronome time, but by breath-time (the words breath and spirit come from the same root). The singers' sense of overall line length is remarkable. For example, each line in "On Jordan's stormy banks" lasts for either 16 or 20 seconds, depending on whether it is a 6- or an 8-syllable line. "We believe in being tuned up with the grace of God and his Holy Spirit; and when that begins, it makes a melody, makes a joyful noise," said Elder I. D. Back, and I think he was speaking literally as well as figuratively. When they are "tuned up" in this way they are together musically as well as spiritually. This contemplative state of being, as the meaning of the words registers, accounts for the slow tempo and helps to guide the rhythm to an extraordinary degree of accuracy.
Tunes.
Tunes are passed along from one singer, one generation to the next. Singers learn by following and imitating others, not by reading notes. Melodies are highly elaborated: many syllables have three or more tones, and many have at least two. Their closest parallel in melodic elaboration is to the Gaelic sean-nos singing tradition in Ireland. Each singer is free to "curve" the tune a little differently, and those who are able to make it more elaborate are admired. Outsiders are mistaken if they think the intent is singing with unified precision and that the result falls short; on the contrary, the singing is in step and deliberately just a bit out of phase—-and this, I think, is one of its most powerful musical aspects.
Their structure reveals that most of the tunes come from the Anglo-American folksong tradition.3 Some of these, such as the one used for both "Guide me o thou great Jehovah" and "Every moment brings me nearer" are quite old, while others are more recent compositions in the same folksong style. Some tunes, such as those for "Salvation o the name I love" and "The day is past and gone," are clearly related to tunes that were printed in 19th-century shape-note hymnals. I mention these tune relationships below, in the headnotes before each song. But this does not mean that the Old Regulars' songs came from those printed versions, for the book tunes were written down from melodies in oral tradition. More likely, the Old Regulars were already singing the tunes before they were written down by the editors of 19th-century shape-note hymnals. Newer tunes are either adaptations of gospel hymn tunes ("Precious Memories," for example, done in a lined-out format) or compositions by local and regional song writers that draw on the resources of all available melodic traditions.
History.
The Old Regular Baptist way of singing derives from the music of the 16th-century English parish church.4 In 1644 the Westminster Assembly of Divines recommended the practice of lining out, and it was adopted in Massachusetts a few years later. By the end of the 17th century it had become the “common way of singing” among Anglicans and in other Protestant denominations (Lutherans excepted) throughout Britain and her Colonies.5 African Americans learned it and carry a parallel tradition today, particularly among Baptists in the rural South. As settlers moved during the 18th and early 19th centuries into the frontier South, to the Shenandoah Valley and later across the Cumberland Gap, they carried the "common way" (now called "the old way") of singing with them. Most Appalachian settlers from the English/Scottish borderlands were familiar with this music, for it had lingered there well into the 18th century even after it had declined in southern England and the urban parts of the American Colonies. The new texts called for new tunes, and so the Old Baptists used well-known secular tunes and composed other, similar-sounding tunes to carry the sacred texts. 19th-century camp meetings gave rise to spiritual songs--usually easily sung, rapid choruses with refrains; but the more conservative Old Baptist ancestors of the Old Regulars clung to the old ways in singing, also resisting musical notation in shaped notes, a reform designed to drive out the "old way of singing." Shaped notes (diamonds, triangles, squares, circles aided in learning to sing by sight) spread via singing schools from New England to Appalachia and the South in the 19th century and were featured in such prominent southern hymn collections as the Southern Harmony and the Sacred Harp, and in various gospel hymn collections from the late 19th century onwards.
While the shape-note collections, which printed music in parts (harmony) and discouraged lining-out, influenced some of the Old Regulars' Appalachian neighbors, such as the Primitive Baptists, who have now lost lining-out probably beyond recovery, the greatest challenge to "the old way of singing" among the Old Regulars today comes from the gospel songs on radio and recordings. Some of the churches have succumbed to part-singing and many include a far higher percentage of gospel hymnody, but in the Indian Bottom Association most remain steadfast in keeping the older hymns, lined out, as recorded here.
Sammie Ann Wicks has pointed out that the melodic elaborations of the "old way" predominate in the styles of several contemporary country music singers--George Jones, Merle Haggard, Randy Travis, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt, to name some of the more prominent--whose turns and graces link this music with its cultural past and make it attractive to knowing listeners.6 Old Regular Baptist music is what it is today because their people continue to believe strongly "In the Good, Old-Fashioned Way," as the title of one of their songs has it. They have been able to preserve the old songs to a remarkable degree. These powerfully affecting, richly complex songs deserve to be honored and celebrated. In my view they are a national treasure.
End Notes
1. Howard Dorgan, The Old Regular Baptists of Central Appalachia (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 8ff. Also see Deborah MacCauley, Appalachian Mountain Religion: A History (Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press) 1995.
2. A brief statement of the dispute is found an edited summary of Minutes of the Indian Bottom Association published in 1968. See also J. Gordon Melton, "The Baptist Family," The Encyclopedia of American Religions, [Wilmington, North Carolina: McGrath Publishing Company, 1978], pp. 370-371.
3. In Sing to Me of Heaven (Gainesville: Univ. of Florida Press, 1970), Dorothy Horn discusses the musical characteristics of these folk hymns, and how they differ from the others.
4. Nicholas Temperley, “The Old Way of Singing,” Journal of the American Musicological Society. 34 (1981): 511-544.
5. For a discussion of lined-out singing in the American Colonies, see Gilbert Chase, America’s Music, 3rd ed. (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1987), pp. 19-30.
6. “A Belated Salute to the 'Old Way' of 'Snaking' the Voice on its (ca) 345th Birthday," Popular Music, 8 (1989): 59-96. This style is also the norm in bluegrass singing, no matter whether the lyrics are sacred or secular.
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Jeff Todd Titon was a Professor of Music at Brown University.
He was present during the filming of While the Ages Roll On in 1989. His first CD was followed by Songs of the Old Regular Baptists, Vol. 2, in 2003. In 2015 the Library of Congress added them to the National Recording Registry of "American Treasures" recognized for their “cultural, historical, and/or aesthetic merit” in contributing to American society and its aural history (see https://sustainablemusic.blogspot.com/2015/03/old-regular-baptist-field-recordings.html).
