Appalachian History

Jesus, Jesus, rest your head.
You have got a manger bed.
All the evil folk on earth,
Sleep in feathers at their birth.

(But) Jesus, Jesus, rest your head.
You have got a manger bed.

Have you heard about our Jesus?
Have you heard about his fate?
How his mother came to the stable,
On that Christmas Eve so late?

Winds were blowing.
Cows were lowing.
Stars were glowing, glowing, glowing.

Jesus, Jesus, rest your head.
You have got a manger bed.

---Kentucky folk carol; collected by John Jacob Niles: 1912-1913 and 1932-1934

John Jacob Niles (1892-1980) began collecting Appalachian folk songs and composing music as a Kentucky teenager. In 1925, Niles published his first song collection---"Impressions of a Negro Camp Meeting"--- and in 1933, he toured the U.S. and Europe with Marion Kerby to critical acclaim. He released his first album for RCA's Red Seal label, "Early American Ballads" in 1938.

"Like a psalmodist, he intoned his verses in an ethereal chant which the angels carried aloft to the Glory seat. When he sang of Jesus, Mary and Joseph they became living presences. A sweep of the hand and the dulcimer gave forth magical sounds which caused the stars to gleam more brightly, which peopled the hills and meadows with silvery figures and made the brooks to babble like infants. We would sit there long after his voice had faded out, talking of Kentucky where he was born, talking of the Blue Ridge mountains."

Henry Miller, Plexus: Book 2 of the Rosy Crucifixion, pp. 366-367, Grove Press, 1965

Sources: johnjacobniles.com/articles.htm
www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dylan/dylan_niles.html

Christmas+in+Appalachia Christmas+carols John+Jacob+Niles appalachia appalachian+culture appalachian+mountains+history

John Jacob Niles composed the Appalachian influenced Christmas carols 'The Carol of the Birds,' 'The Flower of Jesse,' 'What Songs were Sung,' 'Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head,' and 'Sweet Little Boy Jesus.''

'I wonder as I wander,' one of his most popular carols (as of 2008 it’s been recorded at least 231 times) illustrates the working methods of this inveterate collector of homegrown musicality:

"I Wonder As I Wander grew out of three lines of music sung for me by a girl who called herself Annie Morgan,” Niles explained. “The place was Murphy, North Carolina, and the time was July, 1933.

"The Morgan family, revivalists all, were about to be ejected by the police, after having camped in the town square for
some little time, coking, washing, hanging their wash from the Confederate monument and generally conducting themselves in such a way as to be classed a public nuisance.

“Preacher Morgan and his wife pled poverty; they had to hold one more meeting in order to buy enough gas to get out of town. It was then that Annie Morgan came out--a tousled, unwashed blonde, and very lovely. She sang the first three lines of the verse of "I Wonder as I Wander". At twenty-five cents a performance, I tried to get her to sing all the song.

Duke Park in 1910/1911, Murphy, NC, where the Morgan family probably camped.

“After eight tries, all of which are carefully recorded in my notes, I had only three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material--and a magnificent idea. With the writing of additional verses and the development of the original melodic material, "I Wonder As I Wander" came into being. I sang it for five years in my concerts before it caught on. Since then, it has been sung by soloists and choral groups wherever the English language is spoken and sung."

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky

sources: http://johnjacobniles.com/
www.uky.edu/FineArts/Music/Niles/
www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/Biographies/john_jacob_niles.htm
www.familychristmasonline.com/music/trad_american_carols/i_wonder_as.htm



Christmas+in+Appalachia John+Jacob+Niles Murphy+NC appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history