Amazing Grace: A Song History

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The words of "Amazing Grace" come from John Newton, a former slave trader who became an Anglican clergyman[1]. Newton's turn toward faith began during a violent storm at sea in 1748[1], but he did not leave the slave trade at once. He went on to take charge of slaving voyages and only gave up the sea after a stroke some years later[2]. He was ordained in 1764 and became curate at Olney, where he befriended the poet William Cowper[2]. Newton most likely wrote the hymn late in 1772[2][3], and it seems to have gone with his New Year's Day sermon of January 1, 1773[4]. It first appeared in print in Olney Hymns (1779), the collection Newton and Cowper produced together, under the title "Faith's Review and Expectation"[4][1]. Later Newton spoke out against the trade he had once worked in. He published the essay "Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade" and encouraged William Wilberforce in his campaign for reform[2].

Winslow Homer wood engraving of a congregation gathered at a church porch on Thanksgiving Day

Winslow Homer, Thanksgiving Day – The Church Porch, wood engraving, 1865. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

The melody everyone knows today was not Newton's. It is an American tune, probably a folk melody at first, that was printed in shape notes as early as 1829 under other names and set to other words[5][4]. William Walker first joined it to Newton's text in The Southern Harmony (1835), where the tune was called "New Britain"[5][6]. The pairing was reprinted in The Sacred Harp (1844), and the hymn spread widely through shape-note singing[6][3]. One familiar extra verse, about singing God's praise for ten thousand years, was not written by Newton. It was attached to "Amazing Grace" in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) and entered hymnals in the early 1900s through editor E. O. Excell[4].

Few songs have been recorded as often. The Library of Congress holds a collection of 3,049 published recordings of the hymn, and the Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the largest collection of recordings of a single musical work[7]. Performers range from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Mahalia Jackson to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson[7][3]. Judy Collins took an a cappella version into the pop top forty in 1970[8][3], and a bagpipe recording by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards reached No. 1 in Britain in 1972[3]. In the hymnal, too, it is everywhere: Hymnary.org counts the tune "New Britain" in more than 900 hymnals[5].

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Sources

  1. Encyclopedia Britannica: "Amazing Grace".
  2. Library of Congress: "The Creation of 'Amazing Grace'".
  3. Wikipedia: "Amazing Grace".
  4. Hymnology Archive: "Amazing Grace".
  5. Hymnary.org: "NEW BRITAIN".
  6. Wikipedia: "New Britain (tune)".
  7. Library of Congress Information Bulletin: "'Amazing Grace'" (May 2007).
  8. Wikipedia: "Whales & Nightingales".