The Angels Changed My Name

I know I’ve been changed

McKEE 

I. Origins

The roots of this spiritual trace back to the early collections of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, where this song first appeared in The Story of the Jubilee Singers, with Their Songs, edited by J.B.T. Marsh (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1875 | Fig. 1). These collections were cumulative, so the song continued to be printed in successive editions through the end of the century. In this instance, the song was given in two verses, the first beginning “I went to the hillside, I went to pray,” with an inner refrain, “I know the angels done changed my name.” It also had a full refrain (or chorus), beginning “Done changed my name for the coming day,” etc.

The first verse of the Fisk version was presented as the basis for a sophisticated piano arrangement by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, in Twenty Four Negro Melodies (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1905 | Fig. 2)

A similar version of the song appeared in R. Emmet Kennedy’s Mellows: A Chronicle of Unknown Singers (NY: Albert & Charles Boni, 1925 | Fig. 3). Kennedy explained, “Mellow is the Negro word for melody, and by this term their devotional songs are called in Southern Louisiana.” Kennedy (1877–1977) was the son of Irish immigrants, raised in Gretna, across the river from New Orleans, on 7th Street, next door to New Hope Baptist Church, through which he became enamored with spirituals. Regarding this spiritual, he remembered “. . . Negro families sitting out on their front galleries, the rude false-floors just a few inches above the water line, with an old shovel or a battered dishpan filled with smoldering rags to smoke off the mosquitoes as they sat there resignedly singing with impressive confidence, ‘Angel Done Changed My Name’” (p. 35).

II. Early Analysis & Commentary

This song has sometimes been used to illustrate doctrinal beliefs as expressed in spirituals. In an article by J.C. Ryder in the Afro-American Encyclopedia (1895), “Christian Truth in Slave Songs,” the writer referred to this song as an example of the concept of spiritual conversion:

How tenaciously they hold to the doctrine of Conversion and Regeneration, the union of the Divine and human in this great change of the soul, is abundantly proved. . . . We find their idea of conversion and regeneration, and the joy of a new-born soul illustrated in the following quaint hymn, “The Angels Done Changed My Name.” . . . Souls that sung and felt that, knew the experiences of the great apostle, when he said, “Wherefore if any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.” 2 Cor. v. 17. N.V. [pp. 259–260]

A similar article by H.H. Proctor, “The Theology of the Songs of the Southern Slave,” appeared in The Southern Workman, vol. 36, no. 11 (Nov. 1907), a publication of Hampton University. Proctor categorized this song as being representative of the repertoire’s focus on angels:

Perhaps the most beautiful of all their doctrines was that of the angels. Angels were God’s messengers. They stood for all that was beautiful and lovely. It was the angels that officiated at conversion: “I went to the hillside, I went to pray; I knew the angels done changed my name . . .” It was the angels that rejoiced around the throne when a sinner returned. . . . It was the angels that welcomed their departed ones to glory. . . . It was the angels that would come and convey the righteous to the better land. . . . It was an angel, Gabriel, who would stand with “one foot on the dry land and the other on the sea and declare that time shall be no more.” . . . It was the angels who, when the world was on fire, the moon bleeding, the stars falling, and the elements melting, would attend the Saviour in the middle of the air to accompany the righteous home. [p. 589]

In H.F. Kletzing and W.H. Crogman’s Progress of a Race: The Remarkable Advancement of the Afro-American Negro (Atlanta: J.L. Nichols & Co., 1898), the writers also looked to the slave songs, including this one, as expressions of religious belief:

While the Negro brought out from bondage no literature and no theology, yet he did bring with him the plantation songs which show in Christian song that the doctrines of Christianity were held by these people in the days of slavery. We cannot expect to find the same modes of expression now that prevailed among them while in slavery, but that they held to the fundamental truths of religion must be recognized by all who study these songs. [p. 584]

Taking a different approach, Daniel Gregory Mason, for his article “Folk-Song and American Music” in The Musical Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3 (July 1918), examined the musical qualities of the song:

We seem to discover such a richer vein in the songs of the negroes—not the debased forms found in rag-time and the “coon songs” of the minstrel shows, but the genuine old plantation tunes, the “spirituals” and “shouts” of the slaves. In idiomatic individuality, to begin with, both of harmonic interval and rhythmic figure, these songs will compare favorably with those of any European nation. With many of these they share, indeed, odd modal intervals of great antiquity, such as the lowered seventh scale-step in major and the raised sixth-step in minor.

Like Scottish tunes they make frequent use of the incomplete or pentatonic scale, omitting the fourth and seventh steps. A peculiarity in which they are almost unique is a curious oscillation bewteen a major key and its relative minor, especially at cadences, so that one gets a haunting sense of uncertainty that enhances tenfold their plaintiveness. In “The Angels Done Changed My Name” are exemplified the lowered seventh step—at “I went to pray”—and the pentatonic scale. . . .

It is noteworthy that both these songs [including “You May Bury Me in the East”] have to be harmonized strongly and simply with the staple triads—it is impossible to harmonize them otherwise. In other words, they are the product and expression of a primitive but pure and strong tonal sense, refreshingly free from the effeminate chromatic harmonies—the “barber-shop chords”—of rag-time. The one compares with the other as the fervent childish poetry of the lines here, “Thank God the angels done changed my name,” or “I’ll hear the trumpet sound in that morning” compares with the slangy doggerel of the cabarets.

It is often stated that the chief rhythmic characteristic of the negro music is the so-called “Scotch jerk,” the jump away from the normally accented note to another, thrice exemplified in the third line of “The Angels Done Changed My Name,” and imitated in rag-time. [pp. 326–327]

In all of the above examples, the texts and melodies as presented by the authors were essentially identical to what Fisk University had printed, demonstrating an unusual stability in the recording and dissemination of this spiritual. Compare this to the breadth of variations printed of the related song, “I know I’ve been changed,” in section IV below.

III. McKEE

This spiritual was adapted and arranged as a hymn tune by African American composer-performer Harry T. Burleigh (1866–1949), intended for the text “In Christ there is no east or west” by John Oxenham. Burleigh’s arrangement was first printed as a broadsheet (Fig. 4) and submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office on 15 April 1940, then included in the Episcopal Hymnal 1940 (1943 | Fig. 5) and called McKEE, named after Elmore McNeill McKee, rector of St. George’s Episcopal, New York City, where Burleigh was a member.

The copyright for the tune was not renewed in 1968, according to the rules at the time, and thereafter became public domain.

IV. I Know I’ve Been Changed

Early in the 20th century, another spiritual emerged with a similar thematic idea, a similar inner refrain, although musically different in many respects, known generally as “I know I’ve been changed.” The earliest known copy of the song was printed in the National Baptist collection National Jubilee Melodies (1915). In this instance, the text was printed on one page, headed “Lord, I Know I’ve Been Changed,” the first stanza beginning “One day, one day I was walking along,” with the alternating refrain “The angels in heaven done wrote it down.” The tune indication was for a song called “Lord, I Can’t Turn Back.” The chorus featured rising and falling major triads and the tagline “just because I’ve been born again.” No earlier or later sources for “Lord, I Can’t Turn Back” are presently known.

A few years later, the song was included in Rodeheaver’s Negro Spirituals (Chicago: Rodeheaver, 1923 | Fig. 7). This version also featured major triadic shapes, with a slightly different inner refrain or tagline, “The angels in heav’n have changed my name.” The stanzas were entirely different from what the National Baptists had published, beginning “I told the Lord if He’d take my heart.”

Homer Rodeheaver provided some information about how the songs, including this one, had been collected:

A large number of these songs were “discovered” by Mr. Rodeheaver when the “Billy” Sunday evangelistic campaign was held at Columbia, S.C. Arrangement was made with Dr. J.B. Herbert to go to Columbia, secure these songs, and put them in shape for publication. Dr. Herbert is an expert musician and has long been a close student of negro spirituals. The task was a long and expensive one, but the result is far beyond our fondest anticipation. Credit and appreciation is hereby extended to Rev. Dr. T.H. Wiseman, now of Detroit, formerly a leading colored divine of Columbia, S.C. who rendered invaluable aid to Dr. Herbert in the work of preparing these songs for publication.

Herbert’s 1923 arrangement of the song was repeated in Rodeheaver’s Gospel Solos and Duets (1925), Quartets for Men (1926), Southland Spirituals (1936), and Sixty-Two Southland Spirituals (1946), then much later, in the AMEC Bicentennial Hymnal (1984).

Rev. Wiseman would become the first person to record the song, with his Wiseman Sextette, on 10 Aug. 1923 in New York City, for Rodeheaver’s Rainbow Records (Rainbow 1086). Musically, the recorded version differs somewhat in the way the melody is shaped and in the construction of the harmonies, but the text is mostly the same, with an extra stanza, which is difficult to make out. The tempo is quick. This recording has been reissued by Document Records on Wiseman Sextette/Quartet Complete Recorded Works (DOCD-5520).

A notably different version of the song appeared in Saint Helena Island Spirituals (1925). St. Helena Island, South Carolina, was the home of the Penn Normal, Industrial, and Agricultural School. The songs were collected and transcribed by Nicholas Ballanta, a student-scholar from Sierra Leone, and he gave some indications of his methods:

The melodies of the spirituals contained in this volume were written down as sung by different individuals and by different groups of singers at Penn. . . . The harmonies of the spirituals were supplied by the St. Helena Quartette, . . . whose singing is an evidence of the advance in harmonic conception, that is, the feeling for definite tonality, attained by the Negro in his new environment. [p. xvii]

Like the others, this version is in a major mode, but the chorus is very different, repeating “O write my name, O write my name, O write my name; the angel in heaven going to write my name,” and the solos are different too.

A version very similar to the St. Helena Island printing was arranged for voice and piano by John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954) for The Second Book of Negro Spirituals (NY: Viking Press, 1926 | Fig. 9). Notice the tempo indication, “Moderately Fast.”

In 1934, Cleavant Derricks (1910–1977) published his own interpretation of the song in Pearls of Paradise (Chattanooga, TN: Stamps-Baxter, 1934 | Fig. 10). At the time, Derricks was developing a reputation in the Chattanooga community as a capable music director and songwriter, and he had developed ties with the Stamps-Baxter office there. Although this version did not have a tempo marking, the note values suggest a brisk tempo, like what Rev. Wiseman had recorded a decade earlier. The song was written in a major mode in the chorus, in which the angels have “changed my name,” but the verses indicate minor thirds and sevenths in the solo voice, sometimes against major thirds in the accompaniment. The pattern “I’ve been redeemed / Jordan’s stream” is reminiscent of Rodeheaver’s version (Fig. 7), otherwise the rest of the verses were new.

Little is known of the song’s development over the next twenty years. After WWII, its history played out on audio discs and airwaves moreso than in print. The song re-emerged in a big way in 1952 when it was recorded by the Dixie Hummingbirds on Peacock 1705. On the label, the song was credited to “Tucker,” that is, longtime group member Ira B. Tucker (1925–2008). A copy of the song had been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office on 17 December 1951, words and music by Don Deadric Robey and Ira Tucker. In this version of the song, the singers initially hint at a minor opening triad, but the accompanying voices settle and stay squarely in a major mode. The tempo was more relaxed, and Tucker exercised a lot of freedom over his interpretation, nicely contrasted against the tightly constructed background harmonies. Here the angels have “changed my name,” and “One of these mornings it won’t be long / You’ll look for me but I’ll be gone,” and “If you get there before I do / Look out for me, I’m coming too.” Particularly notable is the extended ending with the soloist’s cadenza and some advanced harmonies.

When the Dixie Hummingbirds recorded the song again on 20 March 1966 at Hotel Philadelphia for a live album, Louise Williams the Gospel Queen of Radio WDAS, Presents a Live Gospel Concert (Artic A-LPM 1002), the harmonies had clearer leanings toward a minor interpretation, with a slower tempo, but the group’s original major harmonization was also present, ultimately giving a mixed-mode feel.

Other early recordings include The Famous Davis Sisters on the album Plant My Feet on Higher Ground (Savoy MG 14030, 1958), which is the first known version with a gospel vamp; The Staples Singers, recorded in 1963 but not released until 1975 on the album Great Day (Milestone M-47028), which includes the influential variant “the angels in heaven done signed my name”; Dr. C.J. Johnson leading a congregation on The Old Time Song Service recorded live in Atlanta in 1967 (Savoy MG-14173); Rev. Cleophus Robinson on He’s Done Great Things (Peacock PLP 132, 1967); and a funk-inspired version by The Victory Travelers on a 1967 single (Courtn 1003) and their subsequent self-titled LP (Jade LP-100, 1970), in which the angels “done signed my name.” This latter variant seems to suggest being registered in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Phil. 4:3, Rev. 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12–15, 21:27). See also “The Blood Done Sign My Name.”

Aside from Rodeheaver’s version appearing in the AMEC Bicentennial Hymnal (1984), and the appearance of another version in Old Time Prayer Meeting Hymns (1970), and apart from its general popularity in the recording industry, the song has not yet achieved inclusion in modern hymnals or congregational songbooks.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
8 February 2023

Related Resources:

J.C. Ryder, “Christian Truth in Slave Songs,” Afro-American Encyclopedia (Nashville: Haley & Florida, 1895), pp. 259–260: HathiTrust

H.F. Kletzing and W.H. Crogman, Progress of a Race: The Remarkable Advancement of the Afro-American Negro (Atlanta: J.L. Nichols & Co., 1898), p. 584: HathiTrust

H.H. Proctor, “The Theology of the Songs of the Southern Slave,” The Southern Workman, vol. 36, no. 11 (Nov. 1907), p. 589: HathiTrust

R. Emmet Kennedy, Mellows: A Chronicle of Unknown Singers (NY: Albert & Charles Boni, 1925), pp. 35–36: Archive.org

“In Christ there is no east or west,” The Hymnal 1940 Companion (NY: Church Pension Fund, 1949), p. 174.

Eileen Southern & Josephine Wright, African-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale, and Dance, 1600s–1920: An Annotated Bibliography, Greenwood Encyclopedia of Black Music (NY: Greenwood Press, 1990). 

Robert M.W. Dixon, et al. Blues and Gospel Records, 1890–1943 (Oxford: University Press, 1997): Amazon

Cedric Hayes & Robert Laughton, Gospel Discography 1943–2000, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Canada: Eyeball, 2014): Eyeball