When I posted about Pete Seeger's version of "Oh What A Beautiful City," I said I wanted to know more about Marion Hicks, who has song writing credit in the liner notes. I wrote a query to Guy Carawan, who replied saying he doesn't know much about Marion Hicks but said:
Marion Hicks was a cook in Brooklyn who taught this traditional song to the Seeger family.
Guy reports that Marion Hicks is credited with new words and adaptation of words and music.
Before I got this reply, I combed through my CDs to see if I had another version of the song on one of my blues or gospel CDs. Lo and behold Reverend Gary Davis recorded "Twelve Gates To The City" in 1960 on a record called, Harlem Street Singer.
Of course, when I heard back from Guy Carawan, he mentioned the Reverend Gary Davis version of the song and said he considers it the "gold standard."
In my original post, I also referred to Edward Boatner, who seemed like an interesting figure in African American musical history whom I had not known about. DK wrote in with some interesting details about Boatner, his arrangement of "Oh What A Beautiful City," and two of the singers who have sung his arrangements. The closing quote from Barbara Hendricks is wonderful.
Edward Boatner arranged gospel songs for real divas (I hate the way the word is applied these days) Jessye Norman and Barbara Hendricks. Hendricks, one of the greatest voices in opera, released a 1983/4 recording on EMI called Negro Spirituals, using Boatner's arrangement of What A Beautiful City. . . . She recorded the spirituals after a trip to South Africa where she had been invited to celebrate the inauguration of Nelson Mandela. She said:
I was reminded with deep emotion of the roots of my beloved Negro Spirituals, the first music that I heard or sang as a child... This music is an integral part of who I am and lives in me at all times, even as I sing Mozart, Debussy, Shostakovich or Puccini. The Negro Spiritual is the music of all past and present victims of human rights abuse and refugees everywhere; the universality of the emotion they express places them among the songs of humanity.
Here's a link to a bio of Hendricks.
Take a listen:
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