Help- Southern Gospel hymns

[FreeThinker]

I need suggestions for two or three really lively Southern gospel songs that some blue-collar Southern whites would sing at a Wednesday night service in 1970. I was raised Episcopalian and you know how we are; it's just really embarrassing and a bit unseemly, don't you know, if we get too filled with the Holy Spirit. You know, what would the neighbors think? Episcopalians just don't do "spirit-filled." So, if you know of a few songs with a lively beat, something to clap to and tap your foot, at a church where the preacher says that dancing is Satanic, I would appreciate your sharing your suggestions with me. :-)

[Cole Parker]

These are all spirited gospel or spiritual songs from the past. I would think maybe you could Google them to hear them.

Stand Up, Stand Up, for Jesus

Shall We Gather at the River

Now Let Me Fly

Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho

Oh, a-Rock-a My Soul

Sit Down, Sister

My Lord, What a Morning

C

[Chris James]

Sorry FT, I just have this image of white folks in a church singing and clapping along with the religious music and it just doesn't work. In a black church perhaps, but the white church folk might sing Amazing Grace and be somber in the performance. Cole has some interesting suggestions but still, Joshua Fit De Battle of Jerico? None of that is appropriate for white Southern Baptists in 1970 who might just feel more comfortable wearing their white sheets and hoods.

[DesDownunder]

Amazing Grace and Stand Up for Jesus, are the two that sprung to my mind ,too. Then I remembered the most popular hymn in my primary school, which I might say was not one that the protestant religious instruction 'teacher' was happy about; Onward Christian Soldiers. See the link in case its history is not in keeping with your purpose.

We kids loved the hymn because if we were going to have sing about Jesus we preferred to do it to a marching song that stirred us.

Then there was the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and also When Johnny Comes Marching Home, both of which we kids (in the fifties) thought were better than the dull hymns like Abide With Me.

I tried Googling for Gospel songs of 1960 or even 1950, which should have provided reference for what would have been popular in 1970, but the word 'gospel' immediately biases the results towards Afro-American soul religious songs.

So I tried Googling for hymns 1960 and came across hymnals of the period. Maybe there is something there that you might consider.

[FreeThinker]

Thank you, Cole, for the suggestions! I will check them out.

Yes, Chris, I thought that it might be a bit of a stretch for a white Southern church, and the white hoods would certainly be appropriate for the church I'm writing about, but there might be something appropriate for the story.

Des, I am surprised theBattle Hymn of the Republic was known to you growing up in Australia. It is so identified with the Northern side in the American Civil War that it never occurred to me that people outside the US would know it. How interesting. Now, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, makes more sense to me, because I could see American soldiers in the First World War singing it at the front and passing it on to Allies fighting along side them.

Thanks everyone.

[JamesSavik]

Will the Circle be Unbroken

When We All Get To Heaven

[JamesSavik]

No Hiding Place

[EleCivil]

Southern Baptist preacher's kid, chiming in.

(Give it a bit to warm up - I've heard fast, revival-style arrangements of this one that very much fit the stompin' and clappin' kind of thing you're going for.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQXQKflJNA

(Originally an "African-American church song", but this was in EVERY white, Southern Baptist church I've ever been in. If you wanted to show that a character is more "liberal" for 1970, have them use this - it was released in '67, and for a church to play anything less than 25 years old is rather radical.)

[DesDownunder]

Des, I am surprised theBattle Hymn of the Republic was known to you growing up in Australia. It is so identified with the Northern side in the American Civil War that it never occurred to me that people outside the US would know it. How interesting. Now, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, makes more sense to me, because I could see American soldiers in the First World War singing it at the front and passing it on to Allies fighting along side them.

Thanks everyone.

I had at least two recordings (on vinyl LP) of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and it is important to realise that we were, and are, subject to U.S. media and Hollywood movies, both of which made these songs very familiar, and popular, to us in Australia. As for Johnny Comes Marching Home, it was featured in many films and we were taught that it came from the American Civil War in our history classes. I think I had a recording of the Battle Hymn which morphed into Johnny comes Home, performed by Leonard Slatkin and the Los Angeles symphony orchestra, but maybe I am romancing my teen memory.

[clay49]

[clay49]

[JamesSavik]

[Paco]

Yes, Chris, I thought that it might be a bit of a stretch for a white Southern church, and the white hoods would certainly be appropriate for the church I'm writing about, but there might be something appropriate for the story.

Des, I am surprised theBattle Hymn of the Republic was known to you growing up in Australia. It is so identified with the Northern side in the American Civil War that it never occurred to me that people outside the US would know it. How interesting. Now, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, makes more sense to me, because I could see American soldiers in the First World War singing it at the front and passing it on to Allies fighting along side them.

Thanks everyone.

Hey people! Granted I am not old enough to know what went on in the 1970's South, but the very idea of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" being sung in a southern church, much less any street in Mississippi would be grounds for a "legal lynchin'"!!

Whites in the South do NOT boogie-woogie in the aisles, unless they are Pentecostals. Even then they would be circumspect about what they were singing... in some strange language.

[clay49]

Watch the Feet from @ 2007

from about 1954

[clay49]

"Dig A Little Deeper..." By The Fairfield Four

[DesDownunder]

OMG I have finally found songs that I never want to hear again; more than country and western. But the real crime against performance art is that awful hall in the Watch the feet @ 2007 video, with all the room lights on full blast, and the stage looks like it was constructed from left-over bits of some porta-loos. That is one ugly room. I'm guessing its normally a basketball or something, school gym. I doubt whether America's Got Talent will use that 'venue.'

[FreeThinker]

Okay. I'm a little Southern-Gospeled out, now. I think I have what I need. Although the image of Southern conservatives singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" brought a smile to my face! I think I could die happy after hearing that! Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I appreciate all the help!