LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING: Part I, James Weldon JOHNSON’S poem as Call & Response

This is part one of an ANTIPHON or Call & Respone interpretation of the famous James Weldon Johnson hymn. It’s in three parts: (1) poem as speech choir; (2) melody as pure sound, sung with ground tone without the text; (3) put one and two together, but still pure melody. I actually perform it this way COLD with random audience as a kind of COMING TOGETHER when I do my slideshows, COLD SPRING MOUNTAIN:—Climate Breakdown in Whitebark Country… If you have a choir, or lead a congregation, you might experiment in doing the piece this way. You really have to know the poem by heart—fully embody it, have it in your BONES, in your FEET, so to speak—to bring it to life. I don’t mean to be critical, but Johnson’s brother, Jay’s harmonization dimenishers greatly and cheapens the power of the sound. It’s also why most contemporary performers miss altogether, in my view, the striking originality of the songs inspiration: liberation. IMAGE: Stentinel Whitebark pine, dead already hundreds of years, silent witness of a HOTTER, DRIER climate, key member of what I think of as our beloved Highcountry community. 2500m. The Wallowas, OREGON