20th century
1901 - 1959
The year 2008 marks the centennial anniversary of the last printed Shaker hymnal, published by the Shakers at East Canterbury, New Hampshire in 1908.
Title page is shown above with signatures of two departed Canterbury Shaker Sisters,
who are shown in this photograph -- Gertrude M. Soule on the left and Bertha Lindsay on the right...
A reprint of the hymnal is available at this link:
A Shaker Hymnal: A Facsimile Edition of the 1908 Hymnal of the Canterbury Shakers
Twenty of the hymns and anthems in this 1908 hymnal are performed by the Canterbury and Sabbathday Lake Shakers on this 2 CD set from Rounder Records:
Let Zion Move: Music of the Shakers
After this 1908 hymnal was published, only a small number of hymns and songs were composed.
One of these Shaker songs was "Let mine be the hand to reach out to the wayward,"
written by Sister Lillian Phelps (1876-1973) at Canterbury in 1914
[sung by Eldress Bertha and Sister Lillian on Let Zion Move: Music of the Shakers ].
Perhaps the last song by a Shaker was written in 1959, again by Sister Lillian Phelps.
1960 - 1980
In 1961, the most extensive recording project on the Shakers was completed. It was compiled and produced by William Randle, the Cleveland disc jockey who had introduced Elvis Presley on television in 1956. The 10 LP box set was privately printed as: The Shaker Heritage. Only 250 copies were made and distributed to museums and libraries. This set contained material about all aspects of Shaker culture: religion, history, education, poetry, cooking and music. All the music from this LP album set is now available on the 2 CD set titled:
Let Zion Move: Music of the Shakers
In more recent times, the Shakers have sung music from their long and prolific past.
Some of their tunes have been borrowed by other songwriters and folksingers.
Probably the best known one is "Lord of the Dance", written by Sydney Carter in 1963, and based on Elder Joseph Brackett's Shaker dance tune, "Simple Gifts."
Another one is "Run, Shaker Life" by Richie Havens, based on another Shaker dance song, "Come Life, Shaker Life," by Elder Issachar Bates.
In 1966, the first known television program about the Shaker heritage
was shown on a program titled: "What's New,"
a series on NET (National Educational Television).
This program was about the Shaker Village Work Camp at New Lebanon, New York for teenagers. The host of the program was Tony Saletan, who explained the Work Camp's activities and showed a music and dance performance by the teenagers at Hancock Shaker Village. Mr. Saletan also spoke briefly with Sister Mildred Barker at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, and he ended the program by singing "Simple Gifts."
Six years later, in 1972, Roger Hall completed the first Master's Thesis devoted to Shaker music. Titled,The Shaker Letteral System: A Practical Approach to Music Notation, it was completed while he was a grad student at the State University of New York at Binghamton
(now Binghamton Unversity).
In the late 1940s, Harold Cook had written the first Ph.D dissertation on Shaker music. His work was later edited by his widow and published in 1973 as
Shaker Music: A Manifestation of American Folk Culture
In 1976, the Sabbathday Lake Shakers recorded an LP album
with notes by Daniel W. Patterson titled:
This title is now available on CD at this link:
Early Shaker Spirituals
Also in 1976, a private pressing was made of an LP album titled: Harp of Joy. The notes were written by Roger L. Hall. This album featured one side of New England psalmody and the other side devoted to Shaker spirituals. The 13 Shaker songs, hymns and anthems included the famous dance song, "Simple Gifts," in a rare version found in a Shaker manuscript. The album has been out-of-print for a long time,
but all of Shaker music is now available with this eBook:
THE STORY OF SIMPLE GIFTS
In 1979, a massive collection of Shaker music was published, titled
The Shaker Spiritual
It was written by Daniel W. Patterson and published by Princeton University Press.
The book went out-of-print and was not available for many years.
It was reprinted in a Dover paperback 2nd edition in 2000.
1981 - 2001
In 1981, the first of the "Shaker Song Series" appeared in The Shaker Messenger magazine, published by Diana and Paul Van Kolken in Holland, Michigan. By the time this magazine had ceased publication in 1996, there were 56 Shaker hymns and songs featured in the Shaker Song Series, all transcribed and edited by Roger Hall.
Some of these Shaker spirituals have been included in CD and songbook:
Love is Little
At the end of the next decade, all the music from the 10 LP set, The Shaker Heritage (mentioned previously) and a few interviews with several Shaker sisters was released on a 2 CD set from Rounder Records, with the Shakers narrating and performing their music. The greatest Shaker singer of the past fifty years was Sister R. Mildred Barker (1897-1990). She was the champion of Shaker music in Maine and spent countless hours singing and recording their music. She is a crucial part of the CD set, with her narrating, singing and being interviewed.
The CD set is titled: Let Zion Move: Music of the Shakers
Released by Rounder Records in 1999, it includes 40 Shaker spirituals sung by the Shakers from Canterbury, New Hampshire and Sabbathday Lake, Maine. It includes a history of Shaker music narrated by Sister Mildred Barker and Sister Lillian Phelps. There are also interviews with Sister R. Mildred Barker, Eldress Bertha Lindsay, and Sister Lillian Phelps. The interviews were done in 1960 by Bill Randle and in 1972 and 1980 by Roger Hall, who has also edited this unique historical collection.
The set also has a 72 page illustrated booklet with many illustrations
and the words to all 40 of the Shaker spirituals.
Many other programs have been shown on television since that first one in 1966. Perhaps the best known is the one hour PBS documentary made by Ken Burns
in the 1980s, now available on VHS and DVD.
Several other recordings have been made in the past ten years featuring the Sabbathday Lake Shakers performing with other singers :
Simple Gifts - Shaker Chants and Spirituals with the Boston Camerata and Schola Cantorum; recorded at Sabbathday Lake, Maine.
The Golden Harvest - More Shaker Chants and Spirituals with the Boston Camerata, Members of he Harvard University Choir and Youth Pro Musica; recorded at Sabbathday Lake, Maine.
Also there have been two CDs released by Sampler Records Ltd. of Shaker music
sung in authentic versions:
Love is Little: A Sampling of Shaker Spirituals with Mitzie Collins, Roger Hall and other soloists, and The Sampler Chorus; recorded in Rochester, New York.
Joy of Angels: Shaker Spirituals for Christmas and the New Year with Mitzie Collins, Colleen Liggett, Randy Folger and other soloists, The Eastman Bach Children's Chorus (their recording debut) and The Sampler Chorus; recorded in Rochester, New York.
As the interest in Shaker culture continues to grow,
the number of their members have gotten smaller.
But this does not concern the present day Shakers for they believe
their tradition will live on. And it is a very extensive tradition too.
To give an example of their prolific music tradition -- in their article in Smithsonian magazine from April 2001-- Richard and Joyce Wolkomir quote Sister Frances Carr
at Sabbathday Lake who says "this community's repertoire is 400 to 500 songs. "
[For more about the writers, see their website: www.richardjoycewolkomir.net ]
The United Society of Believers (or Shakers) have had a long and productive history.
Their music, which spans over two centuries, beginning in the 1780s,
will continue to inspire those who value Mother Ann's motto...
"Put your hands to work and your heart to God."
For more information see
Books and Articles
CD Releases
Joseph Brackett's 'Simple Gifts'
Shaker Music Today
Are you interested in scheduling a program on Shaker music for your organization?
See the list of available
Lectures and Workshops
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