Just Over In The Glory Land: A Song History
"Just Over In The Glory Land" is a gospel song with words by James W. Acuff and music by Emmett S. Dean, and Hymnary.org dates both to 1906.[1][2] Acuff (1864–1937), born in Freestone County, Texas, was a singer and songwriter whose work among the state's Churches of Christ spanned close to fifty years.[1] Dean (1876–1951), an Alabama-born Methodist, is credited with around 500 songs and four decades of singing-school teaching; he also headed the Trio Music Company for four years and co-founded a normal music school in Waco, Texas, where he died.[2] Hymnary.org's entry for the Cyber Hymnal gives the song's source as Glad Hosannas, published by the Trio Music Co. of Waco in 1906, and the song was printed again in The Song Harvest: a Book of Gospel Songs in 1915.[1][3]
Winslow Homer, Camp Meeting Sketches: The Tent, wood engraving, 1858. An American camp-meeting tent at prayer, shown for the revival setting of gospel singing; it has no connection to the song.
Hymnary.org lists the text in 140 hymnals, including Great Songs of the Church (Revised) (1986), The Hymnal of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (2000) and the African American Heritage Hymnal (2001).[1] Maureen Sellers includes it in Simply Gospel, Book Three, a Fingers Of Steel collection of spirituals, hymns and old-time gospel songs in DAD tuning for novice to intermediate players, with tablature, standard notation, lyrics and chords.[4]
Sources
- Hymnary.org: "Just Over in the Glory Land".
- Hymnary.org: "IN THE GLORYLAND (Dean)".
- Hymnary.org: "The Song Harvest (1915), no. 65: Just Over in the Glory-Land".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Maureen Sellers, Simply Gospel, Book Three".
- Image: Winslow Homer, Camp Meeting Sketches: The Tent, wood engraving, 1858. The Cleveland Museum of Art.