Talk About A Child That Do Love Jesus: A Song History
"Talk About a Child That Do Love Jesus" is a spiritual of unknown authorship; Carnegie Hall's performance archive files it under an anonymous composer of spirituals.[1] Where and when it was first sung or written down is not documented in the sources consulted here.[1]
Arthur Rothstein, African American Family at Gee's Bend, Alabama, gelatin silver print, 1937. An African American family in rural Alabama in 1937, shown for the decade in which concert singers such as Marian Anderson took up the spiritual; the photograph has no connection to the song.
In the twentieth century the song entered the concert repertoire; Carnegie Hall credits its arrangement to William L. Dawson.[1] Marian Anderson sang it at Carnegie Hall in March 1930 and Dorothy Maynor in December 1941, and Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman performed it there on March 18, 1990, in a program of spirituals conducted by James Levine.[1] The tenor Charles Holland recorded it for Victor in Hollywood on May 2, 1941, with Ralph Linsley at the piano; the Discography of American Historical Recordings, which lists the issued disc as Victor 4556, credits Dawson as composer.[2] Battle and Norman's album Spirituals in Concert, with Levine conducting, lists the song under Dawson's name.[3] Carol Crocker includes it in Songs Of The Spirit, her collection of sixteen African American spirituals set for solo mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning with the words included, which she publishes herself.[4]
Sources
- Carnegie Hall Data Lab: "Talk about a child that do love Jesus".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix PBS-061225. Talk about a child that do love Jesus / Charles Holland; Ralph Linsley".
- Prairie View A&M University: "Henry Music Library: Vocal Solo".
- Carol Crocker: "Songs Of The Spirit".
- Image: Arthur Rothstein, African American Family at Gee's Bend, Alabama, gelatin silver print, 1937. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.