Amen: A Song History
Many hymnals label "Amen" an African American spiritual, but the hymnologists consulted here trace a more complicated history involving named songwriters.[1][2] The earliest dated attribution they cite is a 1935 copyright, registered by Homer A. Rodeheaver in Chicago, for a song by B. H. Hogan, a Baptist pastor from Georgia, and Laura Belle Davis.[1][2] The narrative verses that follow the life of Christ are credited to the composer and choral conductor Jester Hairston, whose version was published in 1957.[1][2] A 1953 concert program already named Hairston as its arranger, and in a 1993 interview he said he had simply made it up, though the Hymnology Archive also records an authorship dispute.[1] The Cleveland choir Wings Over Jordan recorded it for RCA Victor in June 1948, but the sources differ: they give different days, and one treats the recording as Hairston's version while the other notes only that Hairston later claimed it and that the choir may not have learned it from him.[1][2]
John Collier Jr., Penasco, New Mexico. The choir of the Catholic church singing Christmas hymns, photograph, 1943. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.
The song reached a wide audience through the 1963 film Lilies of the Field, in which Sidney Poitier plays Homer Smith, a handyman who teaches it to a community of nuns.[1][2] The singing voice heard on screen is Hairston's, though the film credited him only for choral arrangements, and he later confirmed in a television interview that the voice was his.[1][2][3] After seeing the film, Curtis Mayfield set out to cover the song with The Impressions, and their 1964 single topped the R&B chart and peaked at number seven on the pop chart.[4] The scholar Aldon Lynn Nielsen links the arrangement's march-like rhythm to the youthful resolve of the civil rights era.[4]
From about 1970, publishers issued arrangements labeled "traditional spiritual," and the song has since appeared in Baptist, Presbyterian and other hymnals.[1][2] Its refrain was also adapted at civil rights marches and sit-ins, sometimes with "Freedom" sung in place of "Amen."[2]
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