Where Old Negro Spirituals Meet A Pop King
11.13.06By Deanna DahlsadProvenance is the evidence of the history of the ownership of an item. Most collectors know that a bookplate, a photograph, a signature, auction or other seller records, a diary, etc. adds legitimacy to claims of age, origin and/or the item’s connection to a famous person. It’s the tangible evidence of the item’s family tree so to speak. This adds value to an item so provenance is a ‘good thing’, as Martha would say.
Of course, there is more to an object’s paper trail than who owned it. Photographs, diaries, and assorted ephemera can help you track time periods, authors, origins etc., can help you identify objects and discover context and history as well.
Following the history of the object is much like genealogy. Not only do you discover this item’s history or immediate family, but find it has relatives. For example, a piece of art which can be traced to a specific time period and location may provide clues to that work or artist inspiring other artists, other works of art. Entire artistic movements may have been impacted or founded upon this work. As the art piece traveled, so did the idea, style and technique. Provenance can also be used to return art to it’s proper owner. For the collector, provenance and the paper trail of history may also mean the expansion of a collection. As you discover new connections or relatives the scope of your collection increases.
Case in point, our recent finding of an old RCA Victor Red Seal recording of Traditional Negro Spirituals.
On just this past Saturday night, hubby and I were going through our stacks of old recordings and listening to most of them. One of them was this Red Seal 78 RPM of Negro songs.
The first song we listened to was “Poor Me” (which I thought was sung by a man). The second song was “Hold On” which quite clearly was a woman — one with very classical training. Struck by the opera sounding voice with the very powerful sound I think of for these spirituals, something tingled in the back of my brain. As soon as the song was over I asked, “Who was that singing?” Hubby read off the credits off red label, “Marian Anderson, Contralto, with Franz Rupp at the Piano.”
That name! I knew that name!
Making him promise not to play any more records until I returned, I ran to the basement where we have our store inventory. I went to the ephemera area, where I quickly found what I was looking for, & dashed back up the stairs.
“I knew it! Here she is and she is black!”
Hubby read the old program from the Avion Musical Club (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), dated Friday, November 8, 1946, which presented Marian Anderson with Franz Rupp at the piano. It also listed the four Negro spirituals used to end her performance. They were not the songs we had on the RCA Victor record, but still most exciting.
How often can folks who don’t seek these spirituals just find they own not only the recording, but the old program from the same time period? Not even packrats like we two can say this very often! (And I do believe I have one of her biographies as well, but I have not searched for it yet.)
We continued listening to more records that evening, but I knew what I would be writing about for today *wink*
Sunday, thanks to the Internet and good-old-Google, I found a few more interesting things about Marian Anderson; a woman worthy of belonging to my “What it means to be female” collection.
This wonderful & talented woman was, because she was black, not allowed to sing at Constitution Hall. While she eventually won the right, she did not consider herself a fighter. She would later say of herself, “There are people who will, if they want something, they fight, fight, fight; they don’t mind–with their feet and their hands and everything–and those people are very, very necessary, but there are some who hope that if they’re doing something worthwhile, that it will speak for them.”
An extraordinary woman, most of her items were donated to the University of Pennsylvania, including correspondence; more than 2, 000 songs in manuscript; her library of printed scores; more than 4, 400 photographs; interviews and lectures; as well as other audio tapes of home studio recordings, rehearsals, vocal coaching, and test pressings of her recordings.
Following Anderson’s life is like a who’s-who of African-American music — especially classical music. The record we have also credits the “Poor Me” with the following: Melody from Work Brothers “Folk Songs of American Negro” — a book I’ll be getting for my “folk song and folk tales” collection.
But I also discovered that the Marian Anderson items I owned could also fit into one of my other seemingly unrelated collections: My Tom Jones collection. This because in my searching I discovered that Marian Anderson also recorded “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”, which is one of my favorite Tom Jones songs. Elvis had his Gospel, Jones his Spirituals. Can I get an Amen?
So now the paper trail connecting two objects shows a larger family tree, not only identifying other family members, but new objects to seek as well. It’s a good day for this collector. But I’m probably preaching to the choir, aren’t I?
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