Hop Up And Jump Up: A Song History
"Hop Up and Jump Up" is one of the Shaker spirituals on the album Celestial Praises, whose track list assigns it to the Shaker community at Shirley, Massachusetts, about 1847; the sources consulted here give no other evidence for that origin.[1] According to the National Park Service, the Shirley Shakers founded their village in 1793 after four benefactors donated land, numbered 150 people by 1853, and dissolved in 1908.[2] If the album's date is right, the song belongs to the years 1837 to 1850, which the Shaker scholar Daniel W. Patterson describes as a period of intense revival known as "Mother's Work," when new songs poured forth in great numbers.[3] Patterson also notes that dance had become a regular part of Shaker worship by the 1780s, with marching forms added from the 1820s, and that in the early dances a separate group of singers supplied the music while the rest of the congregation danced.[3]
United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (Shakers), Revolving Chair, maple, white oak, pine and birch, 1840–70. Shaker furniture of the song's time, shown for its makers; it has no connection to the song.
On Celestial Praises, a 2013 release of the American Music Recordings Collection whose producer, according to a review on the album's page, was Roger Lee Hall, the song is sung by Susan and Annelise Papinsick.[1] In that review, Benjamin Sears and Bradford Conner single it out as an example of the joy found in the album's songs.[1] Shelley Stevens includes it, dated to 1847, in Baker's Dozen #4: Shaker Music, a thirteen-song book of traditional Shaker melodies for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, with both standard notation and tablature, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]
Sources
- American Music Recordings Collection: "Celestial Praises CD - A Celebration of Shaker Spirituals".
- National Park Service: "Shirley Shaker Village".
- Folkstreams (Daniel W. Patterson): "The Shaker Song Tradition".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #4: Shaker Music".
- Image: United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (Shakers), Revolving Chair, maple, white oak, pine and birch, 1840–70. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.