Amen

I. Introduction

In the award-winning film The Lilies of the Field (1963), adapted from a novel by the same name by William Edmund Barrett (1900–1986), a character named Homer Smith, played by esteemed actor Sidney Poitier, comes across a group of eastern European nuns who have taken residence in Arizona and need help fixing up their property. He ends up helping them by building a chapel, and in the process of cultural exchange, teaches them to sing a spiritual-like song, “Amen.” The film famously concludes with Smith (Poitier) and the nuns singing the song, and as Smith leaves, a title card displays “Amen” rather than the customary closure of “The End.”

Poitier, not known for being a good singer, was overdubbed by composer-conductor Jester Hairston (1901–2000), but Hairston was credited only for the film’s choral arrangements. The authorship of the song was not credited. Several years later, in a television interview with Bette Yarbrough Cox, Hairston explained the situation:

They used my song in [Lilies of the Field]. Sidney Poitier sang “Amen,” which was my voice singing it and my song. A lot of people thought that was Sidney [singing] and still do. I gave a concert last night in Redondo Beach. I mentioned the song, and I asked them had they seen that [film], and practically everybody in the audience had seen it. I said, “Do you remember how lovely Sidney’s voice was?” “Yes.” “That was me.”[1]

While Hairston’s role in the development of the song is well attested, the actual origin and transmission of the song are far more complicated.

II. Hogan & Davis

The story begins with Broadus Henry (B.H.) Hogan (1888–1953), a black pastor and musician from Georgia who in the early 1930s had become pastor of North Side Baptist Church of Indianapolis, Indiana, at the corner of 30th and Ethel. In his lifetime, he was known both for his skills in the pulpit and his skills as a singer, songwriter, and organist. While in Indianapolis, he struck up a songwriting partnership with local musician Laura Belle Davis (1909–). Together they wrote at least two songs, “Amen” and “On My Journey Home,” both copyrighted on 1 October 1935 by Homer A. Rodeheaver in Chicago, featuring arrangements by Texas-based musician E. Edwin Young (1895–1980).

The first printing of “Amen” is presently unknown. It did not appear, for example, in Rodeheaver’s Youth Hymnal (1935), Rodeheaver-Ackley Choruses (1935), New Awakening Songs (1936), or in Southland Spirituals (1936). It could have been available as a leaflet. Hogan almost certainly used it in his own ministry endeavors. For example, on 19 September 1938, he conducted a musical program at Fourth Street Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky, where he was advertised as “pipe organ builder and song composer,” presenting an evening of “original Hogan gospel songs and spirituals” in celebration of the restoration of their organ.[2]

Both of his songs written with Davis appeared on successive pages of Old Fashioned Revival Hour Songs (1950 | Fig. 1).

This original version of “Amen” starts with the refrain. The amens rise in triadic fashion; the melody notes are static while the other parts move underneath, including interjections of “Everybody said” and “Hallelujah, praise Jehovah.” The five stanzas are presented as a solo with humming accompaniment, using a different harmonization than the refrain (not intended to be sung over the amens). The stanzas follow no particular progression of thought and could be sung in any order. The first alludes to Psalm 23, the second to the book of Revelation, while the rest are statements of personal experience promoting honesty, conversion, and determination.

Rodeheaver renewed the copyright in 1963, then the company and its rights were purchased by Word Music in 1969. The hymn was published in two editions of the New National Baptist Hymnal (1977, 2001 | Fig. 2) and in Lead Me Guide Me (1987), properly credited to Hogan and Davis.

III. Wings Over Jordan

A couple of years prior to the outbreak of WWII, in the summer of 1937, Rev. Glenn Settle of Gethsemane Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, approached local radio station WGAR, where Worth Kramer was program director, about having his touring church choir sing on the radio. Kramer agreed but recommended they enlarge the group; he provided vocal coaching and took over as conductor. They first appeared on the station’s Negro Hour on 11 July 1937, then after only a few months were picked up by CBS and given a national audience under the name Wings Over Jordan. Their first advertised national broadcast was on Tuesday, 9 November 1937. Their popularity quickly exploded, leading to extensive touring and recording opportunities. In March 1945 they were offered an opportunity to tour Europe to entertain troops under the auspices of the U.S.O. (United Service Organizations). They spent ten months overseas, reconvening in Los Angeles in February 1946 before launching out on another American tour.

On 8 June 1948, the choir recorded six tracks for RCA Victor in New York, conducted by Gilbert F. Allen, released as three 78-rpm two-sided singles. Among those songs was “Amen.” On the RCA disc (20-3242-B), Gilbert was credited as conductor, and Gerald L. Hutton as soloist, but the songwriter was not named, as was often the custom. This performance was very different from Hogan’s hymn. It featured a recurring refrain of “Amen” with short phrases sung over it in alternation with the choir, outlining the life of Christ. This version of the song was later claimed by Jester Hairston (more on this below).

In a curious turn of events, Allen left Wings Over Jordan at the end of April 1949 to become conductor and chair of the music department at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. About sixteen months earlier, B.H. Hogan had moved there to become pastor of Bethesda Baptist Church, officially installed in February 1948 and serving until his retirement in late 1952 or early 1953. Between Gilbert using “Amen” at the college and Wings Over Jordan singing the song on the nationwide Mutual Broadcasting System, Hogan would have been in a good position to question Allen about the song and assert his copyrighted authorship. It’s also possible someone from Rodeheaver’s company notified the choir about their ownership of the copyright, and the newfound interest in the song led them to republish both of Hogan’s hymns in 1950 (Fig. 1).

When Wings Over Jordan recorded the song again in 1953 for King Records in Cincinnati (released on EP 232 and LP 395-519, prominently titled Amen), they credited Hogan and Davis as authors.

The backside of the LP included an important note. The Wings Over Jordan choir was known for singing spirituals, but here they expressly set this song apart from the rest of their repertoire:

AMEN is from the works of a contemporary song writer and although it contains much of the elements of Negro spirituals, it is not a spiritual. It does rather fully assimilate the atmosphere and the emotion of the ordinary Negro church service or worship. The soloist could easily be the preacher in a narration of biblical events. The resounding amens could easily be the emotional response of the members of the audience. The crescendo ending is very typical and expresses the hysteria to which both preacher and congregation ascended during the sermon.

The song was uncredited on their 1958 album (Dial LP-5163), credited only to B.H. Hogan in 1960 (ABC-Paramount ABCS-338), then “PD” (public domain) on the 1974 reissue of the same material (ABC SBLP-246). Hairston was never credited by Wings Over Jordan for his adaptation, even though they performed and recorded his version. This was likely because of Hogan’s 1935 copyright and Hairston’s lack of one until relatively late.

IV. Jester Hairston

Jester Hairston was born in Belews Creek, North Carolina, in 1901, near the plantation where his grandparents were enslaved, but at a young age moved with his family to Homestead, Pennsylvania. He earned a music degree from Tufts University in Massachusetts in 1929, then moved to New York to try to build a career there. In 1932, he joined the Hall Johnson choir, whose specialty was singing spirituals and similar material in theatrical productions. Because of his skills as an arranger and his ability to read music, he quickly became assistant conductor of the group. After a successful production of Green Pastures in New York City, the choir was invited to take the production to Hollywood, leaving December 1935. Hairston quickly made a name for himself in Hollywood as an arranger and conductor and eventually also got into acting. When the Hall Johnson choir returned to New York City in 1943, Hairston stayed in Los Angeles.

Hairston was invited to be a performer with the U.S.O., going over seas from May to November 1945. Wings Over Jordan was in Europe at the same time, April 1945 to February 1946, then made Los Angeles their first stop back in the U.S., and planned their forthcoming U.S. tour from there. This would have been a key time for Hairston and the choir to cross paths, but according to the choir’s tour manager Mildred Settle, the choir toured Europe by itself without accompanying acts, and according to Hairston’s biographer Richard J. Hatch, Hairston made no mention of the choir in his journals from that time period.[3] Additionally, in spite of giving multiple interviews over his career, Hairston does not appear to have left any accounts of when or how exactly he composed his version, or how Wings Over Jordan came to be the earliest recorded performers of it.[4] It is possible, or even likely, the choir did not learn the song directly from Hairston but learned it from another choir or source in California on one of their many trips to Los Angeles. Wings Over Jordan did not record the song in their sessions for King Records in Cincinnati in the summer of 1946. Their first recording of “Amen” was for RCA Victor in June 1948, and in that instance the song was uncredited.

When Hairston wasn’t busy arranging music for films, he picked up work by acting. In 1943, he joined the Amos & Andy radio show as an occasional voice actor, then when it became a TV show in 1951, he was brought into that version, lasting until April 1953. Around that time, Hairston began to focus more on touring the country as a choral clinician, working with high school and college choral festivals. The earliest known evidence of Hairston’s name being connected to “Amen” was when he was described as the arranger of the song as part of a Christmas program given by the choirs of Petaluma Junior High School (near San Francisco) on 17 December 1953, under the direction of Harrill D. Johnson.[5] In April 1954, Hairston was the featured conductor of a festival in Eugene, Oregon, where the following was reported:

As a finale to the individual choir performances, Mr. Hairston directed the combined groups in three of his own selections in which he was the featured soloist. It was a “thrilling experience” for participants and audience, according to reports. These same numbers, “Great Gettin’ Up Morning,” “Amen,” and “Wonderful Counselor,” have been recorded by Mr. Hairston with the Walter Schumann Singers.[6]

Hairston had indeed recorded an album with the Voices of Walter Schumann in 1952, Great Gettin’ Up Mornin’ (Capitol H-316), including the title song, but not the other two songs. “Wonderful Counselor” was on a Schumann Christmas album in 1951. Schumann’s choir does not appear to have ever recorded “Amen.” In spite of many early examples of choirs singing his arrangement of “Amen,” a published version did not appear until 1957, an anthem published by Walter Schumann, credited solely to Hairston. This was registered with the U.S. Copyright office on 2 May 1957.

Hairston’s published version is different from Hogan’s in the way the verses are not sung separately from the refrain, they are overlaid above it in alternation with a choir. His text is narrative, covering the life of Christ from his birth to his presence in the temple, his baptism, his recruitment of the disciples, his triumphal entry, his prayer in the garden, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and his eternal reign. Mary Dobbin Williams discussed Hairston’s version and its cultural context:

Amen is a call-and-response congregational hymn. The lead vocalist calls out the lyric, and everyone singing responds with the pattern of Amen. Wings Over Jordan performed the choral pattern of Amen in harmony. The lead vocalist has complete freedom in the application of rhythm and melody when calling out the lines, while the chorus supports with the call of Amen. Amen is commonly used after a prayer, meaning “It is so,” or “certainly.” The cadence and posture of the “Amen” in song is a declaration that “All that I’ve said, all that has been heard, it so and it is truth, and I agree, Amen.”[7]

The earliest identifiable recording of Hairston performing or conducting his arrangement of “Amen” is on an LP featuring the San Mateo Union High School District in its Third Annual Music Festival, 22 February 1958, for which Hairston was credited as conductor and composer.[8] He recorded it with his own choir on an album called A Profile of Negro Life in Song (Murbo MCS 6000, 1965). Numerous videos survive of him conducting the song with groups as large as 25,000. The video below was recorded in 1990 in Missoula, Montana.

V. Adoption into Hymnals

Hairston’s version of the song has been more widespread in hymnals and songbooks than Hogan’s, starting especially in the 1970s. Unfortunately, around this same time, publishers started to refer to the song generically as a traditional spiritual, in spite of the influence of Wings Over Jordan and the advocacy of Jester Hairston.

John F. Wilson (1926–2014), staff editor for Hope Publishing Company, composed a choral anthem arrangement in 1970, which was simplified as a congregational hymn in A New Now (1971), 50 Sacred Favorites (1972), Hymns for the Living Church (1974), and elsewhere. In these collections, the song was credited as a traditional spiritual. Wilson made small modifications in Hairston’s text and reduced the number of stanzas from eight to seven. He deleted a reference to Palm Sunday and focused more extensively on Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, adding the stanza “See him on the cross, / bearing all my sins / in bitter agony.” Some other hymnals follow this example.

Hairston’s version was used in the Episcopal supplement Lift Every Voice and Sing (1981), using an arrangement by Richard Smallwood and credited as a traditional spiritual. The second edition of that songbook (1993) used an arrangement by Horace Clarence Boyer (1935–2009). Presbyterians use an arrangement by South Carolina school teacher and church musician Nelsie T. Johnson (1912–2009), made for The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990), attributed as an African American spiritual while using John Wilson’s extra stanza without credit. Starting with the African American Heritage Hymnal (2001), hymnals produced by GIA have used an arrangement by Valeria A. Foster, credited as a traditional spiritual on the page while at the same time indexed in the back as “AMEN (Hairston)”!

Given the pervasive lack of credit in modern hymnals and other sources, the proper attribution and copyright status are worth repeating: The refrain was written by B.H. Hogan and Laura B. Davis, copyrighted in 1935, renewed in 1963, acquired in 1969 by Word Music. The words and melody conveying the Christ narrative above the refrain are by Jester Hairston, copyrighted in 1957, acquired in 1965 by Bourne Music Co., renewed in 1985, and licensed by ASCAP.

by CHRIS FENNER
and C. MICHAEL HAWN
with special thanks to BOB MAROVICH
for Hymnology Archive
3 September 2021
rev. 9 September 2021

Footnotes:

1. “Jester Hairston interviewed by Bette Yarbrough Cox,” part of Black Experience as Expressed through Music (BEEM) TV series, UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive: Archive.org

2. “Music program tonight,” Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, KY: 19 Sept. 1938), p. 8.

3. Madalin Olivia Trigg Price, Wings Over Jordan and American Radio, 1937–1947 (1995), p. 134 [with the exception of two events, “the choir performed complete concerts alone while overseas”]; email correspondence from Richard J. Hatch, 8 Sept. 2021 [“As for Wings over Jordan, Jester never mentions them in his journals, but they only cover his life until about the late 1950s”].

4. When asked directly about the song by Richard J. Hatch in an oral history interview in May 1993 (Part 4, ca. 9:30, YouTube), Hairston simply replied, “I just created it out of my mind.” See also Hatch’s interview of Hairston’s friend and fellow conductor Dr. Albert McNeil, ca. 1996, in which McNeil acknowledged an authorship dispute and named Joe Crawford as an involved party (“Albert McNeil Origins of Amen and the Spiritual,” YouTube).

5. “Jr. High Students to Give Annual Program,” Petaluma Argus-Courier (CA: 14 Dec. 1953), p. 4.

6. “High School Choir Attends Festival; Work is Praised,” Medford Mail Tribune (OR: 6 Apr. 1954), p. 6.

7. Mary Dobbin Williams, ‘‘I’ll Be Somewhere Listening for My Name’’: Wings Over Jordan Choir, The Spirituals, and the African American Experience During the Second World War, thesis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2019), p. 41.

8. https://www.discogs.com/Piero-Bellugi-Jester-Hairston-Clarence-Sawhill-Third-Annual-Music-Festival-February-22-1958/release/17786659

Related Resources:

Donald P. Hustad, “Amen, Amen!” Dictionary-Handbook to Hymns for the Living Church (Carol Stream, IL: Hope, 1978), p. 60.

LindaJo H. McKim, “Amen, Amen,” The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 212–213.