He's Got The Whole World In His Hands: A Song History

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Like most folk spirituals, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" has no known author or date of origin; it comes from the African American spiritual tradition, and its earliest known written appearance is in Edward Boatner's 1927 collection Spirituals Triumphant Old and New.[1] Boatner (1898-1981), who collected and arranged that book, gave the song as number 68, with the singular "hand" rather than "hands."[2]

Black-and-white photograph of a terrestrial globe on a carved wooden tripod stand with casters

James Wilson, Terrestrial Globe, mahogany, plaster, paper, brass, 1828. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

The spiritual reached concert audiences through the contralto Marian Anderson, who took up a setting by the composer Hamilton Forrest that Mills Music published in 1951 with a dedication to her.[1] With pianist Franz Rupp she recorded it on May 14, 1952, and RCA Victor Red Seal issued it that year on Marian Anderson Sings Eleven Great Spirituals; she programmed it regularly in her recitals, returned to the Lincoln Memorial to sing it during the 1963 March on Washington, and closed every recital of her mid-1960s farewell tour with it, and in 2003 the recording was named to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.[1] In 1957 and 1958 the song also crossed into popular music, when the English teenager Laurie London had an international hit with it.[2]

It remains a favorite of choirs and choral publishers and appears in hymnals such as Songs of Zion (1981) and the African American Heritage Hymnal (2001), the latter going back to Boatner's singular "hand."[2] Maureen Sellers includes it in Simply Gospel, Book Two, a collection of 24 songs with lyrics, arranged for solo mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[3]

Our books that contain the song "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands"

Sources

  1. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry: "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands - Marian Anderson" (essay by Randye Jones).
  2. Discipleship Ministries: "History of Hymns: He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" (C. Michael Hawn).
  3. Fingers Of Steel: "Maureen Sellers, Simply Gospel, Book Two".
  4. Image: James Wilson, Terrestrial Globe, mahogany, plaster, paper, brass, 1828. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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