Now My Dear Companions: A Song History
“Now My Dear Companions” is a Shaker song that Roger Lee Hall credits to Augustus Blase of the Shaker community at Watervliet, New York, dating it to about 1865.[1] Watervliet is remembered as the first Shaker settlement in America.[2] Ann Lee’s followers, a group of former Quakers from Manchester, England, moved onto land west of Albany in 1776, and the community was first known as the Niskayuna Shakers.[3] By the 1850s about 230 Shakers lived there, and their 1848 Meeting House left wide, uncluttered space for worship through song and dance.[3]
United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (Shakers), Bonnet, palm leaf, 1800–1900. A Shaker sister's bonnet, shown for the song's makers.
The song has found a place in the modern revival of Shaker music: in a survey of commercial recordings released between 1961 and 2011, compiled by Roger Lee Hall, it ranks eleventh among the most recorded Shaker tunes.[1] Shelley Stevens includes it in Baker’s Dozen #4: Shaker Music, a collection of traditional Shaker melodies arranged for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, with standard notation and tablature, published by Fingers Of Steel; sources differ on the composer’s name, as her listing credits the tune to August P. Blase.[4]
Sources
- American Music Preservation (Roger Lee Hall): "Most Recorded Shaker Tunes".
- Shaker Heritage Society: "America's First Shaker Settlement".
- Shaker Heritage Society: "About the History of Watervliet".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #4: Shaker Music".
- Image: United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (Shakers), Bonnet, palm leaf, 1800–1900. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.