Day 12 - Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow
I can't believe we are here again . . . at 12 days before Christmas! So, there's nothing really to be done but to start exploring some gorgeous music for the 2022 Holiday season.
We'll begin with a classic American Christmas spiritual - Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow. I've found a number of websites which delve deeply into the origin of this song:
C. Michael Hawn's History of Hymns: 'Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow'
and
Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow at the Hymnology Archive
They both make for fascinating reading into the origins and historical framework of this traditional (or so it appears) tune.
C. Michael Hawn writes:
"Though the dating of Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow may not be until the Reconstruction Era, the memory of days in bondage would have lingered among the formerly enslaved Africans. The first known publication of Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow was a text-only printing in the body of a short story titled Christmas-Gifts by Ruth McEnery Stuart (1891). In the story, slaves were participating in a Christmas celebration hosted by their Louisiana plantation owner family. During an entertaining dance, two of the slaves began to sing the spiritual. Stuart was known for her use of dialect, and the spiritual was published as follows:
Dey’s a star in de eas’ on Chris’mas morn,
Rise up, shepherd, and foller!
Hit’ll take yer ter de place whar de Saviour’s born,
Rise up, shepherd, and foller!
Ef yer taken good notice ter de angels’ words,
You’ll leave yo’ flocks and leave yo’ herds,
An’ rise up, shepherd, and foller!
Leave yo’ sheep
An’ leave yo’ lamb,
Leave yo’ ewe
And leave yo’ ram,
An’ rise up, shepherd, and foller!
The singers invited the others to join in on the refrain:
Foller, foller, foller, foller,
Rise, O shepherd, rise an’ follow,
Foller de star o’ Bethlehem!
The story continues with this additional stanza that shifts the imperative to “rise” from “shepherd” to “sinner”:
Oh, dat star’s still shinin’ dis Chris’mas day.
Rise, O sinner, an’ foller!
Wid an’ eye o’ faith yo’ c’n see its ray.
Rise, O sinner, an’ foller!
Hit’ll light yo’ way thro’ de fiel’s o’ fros’.
While it leads thro’ de stable ter de shinin’ cross.
Rise, O sinner, an’ foller!
Leave yo’ father,
Leave yo’ mother,
Leave yo’ sister,
Leave yo’ brother,
An rise, O sinner, an’ foller!
Additional stanzas were improvised.
The spiritual’s first appearance with music was in The Southern Workman (January 1902), following a letter to the editor by W.B. Davenport of Staunton, Virginia, titled A Sermon to Farmers, describing the need to employ African Americans in agriculture.
Eileen Guenther notes, 'by far, the largest number of spirituals is in the call-and-response style, in which a leader sings a line or more of text, and a group responds with a refrain.' Even though the Hampton edition provides melody only, with no indication of alternating call-response, it was most likely sung in this manner. Most current hymnals include rubrics for the leader to sing a phrase with the choir and congregation responding, “Rise up, shepherd, and follow.” A refrain for all singers concludes each stanza.
Let's start with a true Gospel version, and then select from some of the many different arrangements available!
Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow
Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow - sung by Odetta
Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow - arr. Stacey V. Gibbs / USC Chamber Singers
Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow - The King's Singers
Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow - arr. by Rutter / The Cambridge Singers
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