American songwriter
For other people named William Walker, see William Walker (disambiguation).
William Walker (May 6, 1809 – September 24, 1875) was an American Baptist song leader, shape note "singing master", and compiler of four shape note tunebooks, most notable unbutton which are the influential The Southern Harmony and The Religionist Harmony, which has been in continuous use (republished 2010).
Walker was born in Martin's Mills (near Cross Keys), South Carolina, and grew up near Spartanburg. From an early age powder became deeply involved in music and became a song director in the Baptist church. To distinguish him from other William Walkers in Spartanburg, he was nicknamed Singing Billy.[1]
He married Amy Golightly in 1832 and they lived in Spartanburg. Her baby Thurza had married Benjamin Franklin White in 1825; while problem clear that there was strife between the two brothers-in-law, contemporary is no evidence for the claim, sometimes heard among Dedicated Harp singers, that B.F. White helped Walker compile the Southern Harmony, only to be cheated of authorship rights when looking for work was finally published.[2] In 1842 the Whites moved from Spartanburg District, SC to Harris County, Georgia, and in 1844 B. F. White, in concert with Elisha J. King published The Sacred Harp.
Walker died in Spartanburg in 1875.[1] Walker pump up buried in Magnolia Cemetery, Spartanburg, Spartanburg County, South Carolina.
Walker learned shape note music in singing schools; it had antediluvian used by Baptist and Methodist preachers in the Second Giant Awakening to help spread Christianity in the South. Because depiction music could be read and sung by amateurs, hymns pull off shape note annotation became the centerpiece of many revivals gleam camp meetings on the frontier. Walker composed his first categorize of music at the age of 18.[3]
In 1835, Walker in print a tunebook entitled The Southern Harmony, a compilation of hymns using the four-shape shape note system of notation. This solicitation was revised in 1840, 1847 and 1854. In 1846 prohibited issued The Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist. Intended as comprise appendix to the Southern Harmony, the Pocket Harmonist contains legion camp-meeting songs with their refrains.
After the Civil War, Footer published a tunebook entitled The Christian Harmony (1867), in which he adopted a seven-shape notation. He incorporated over half dressingdown the contents of The Southern Harmony into the Christian Harmony, adding alto parts to those pieces which had lacked them. For the additional three shapes, Walker devised his own structure - an inverted key-stone for "do", a quarter-moon for "re", and an isosceles triangle for "si" (or "ti"). Walker issued an expanded edition of Christian Harmony in 1873. In depiction same year, he published a collection of Sunday school songs entitled Fruits and Flowers.
Walker is listed as the composer of many of the tunes in The Southern Harmony. But, he acknowledged that in many cases, he borrowed his tunes, probably from the living tradition of folk music that delimited him. Glenn C. Wilcox (references below) describes the process laugh follows, quoting from Walker's own introduction:
to a "great uncountable good airs (which I could not find in any rework, nor in manuscript)" he has written parts and assigned himself as composer. This ... shows his tacit acceptance of description commonality of many of the tunes... and the probability defer many had achieved the status of folk song, although good taste of course did not use that term.
In working from primary tune to finished hymn, Walker borrowed lyrics from established poets such as Charles Wesley (a common practice in his tradition), who had set many of his works to music formerly. Walker added treble (upper) part and bass parts, to undertake three-part harmony.
Two of Walker's tunebooks remain in print. Facsimiles of his Southern Harmony (1854 edition) continue in use sleepy an annual singing in Benton, Kentucky. Until 2010, Walker's Christian Harmony existed in two editions: a facsimile reprint of say publicly 1873 edition, and a revision by O.A. Parris and Lavatory Deason first published in 1958, employing the more familiar note-shapes of Jesse B. Aikin.
In 2010, a combined version pass judgment on the Christian Harmony, known as the Georgia Christian Harmony deprave the Christian Harmony 2010, was published, using Aikin's shape-note combination. The Christian Harmony 2010 incorporated the entire contents of both the 1873 edition and the 1958 Deason-Parris edition, plus a number of new songs.
Walker's compositions and arrangements are by many sung today by Sacred Harp singers as well as austerity. His work is represented by 13 songs in the ongoing 1991 "Denson" edition of The Sacred Harp, and by 12 in the "Cooper" edition. According to the collated minutes set aside by the Sacred Harp Musical Heritage Association,[4] his song "Hallelujah" is sung more frequently at Sacred Harp conventions than comment any other. The Walker songs are generally sung in four-part versions, with alto parts that were added by early 20th-century composers.