The story of an African origin for the phrase circulated in several versions, spread also by the revival group the Folksmiths, whose liner notes for the song stated that "Kum Ba Yah" was brought to America from Angola. Frey said the Cunninghams then toured America singing the song with the text "Kum Ba Yah". According to Frey, they brought back a partly translated version, and "Kum Ba Yah" was an African phrase from Angola (specifically in Luvale). In an interview at the Library of Congress quoted by Winick, Frey said the change of the title to "Kum Ba Yah" came about in 1946, when a missionary family named Cunningham returned from Africa where they had sung Frey's version. Frey, a lyric sheet printed in that city in 1939.
It first appeared in this version in Revival Choruses of Marvin V. Frey (1918–1992) said he wrote the song circa 1936 under the title "Come By Here", inspired, he said, by a prayer he heard delivered by "Mother Duffin", a storefront evangelist in Portland, Oregon. These facts contradict the longstanding copyright and authorship attribution to the white Anglo-American songwriter, Reverend Marvin V.
#CINEMATICA CUMBAYA ARCHIVE#
In May 1936, John Lomax, Gordon's successor as head of the Archive of Folk Song, discovered a woman named Ethel Best singing "Come by Here" with a group in Raiford, Florida.
Because the individual songs in this society's publications are not dated, however, it cannot be dated with certainty to before 1931. It is possible this is the earliest version, if it was collected before 1926. "Come by Yuh", as they called it, was sung in Gullah, the creole language spoken by the formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants living on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, as well as The Bahamas. Īccording to an article in Kodaly Envoy by Lum Chee-Hoo, some time between 19, members of the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals collected a version from the South Carolina coast. Of the other two, one has been lost, and one cylinder was broken, so it cannot be determined if they are versions of "Kumbaya". Between 19, Gordon recorded three more versions of traditional spirituals with the refrain "come by here" or "come by heah".One of these is a different song concerning the story of Daniel in the den of lions. Wylie, and the song was recorded within a few hours' drive of Darien, Georgia, although Gordon did not note the exact location. The other 1926 version was recorded on wax cylinder by Robert Winslow Gordon, founder of what began as the Library of Congress's Archive of Folk Song, which became the American Folklife Center.
This version, collected in Alliance, North Carolina, is a manuscript featuring lyrics but no music. Boyd, later a professor of history at Princeton University and president of the American Historical Association. One was submitted as a high-school collecting project by a student named Minnie Lee to her teacher, Julian P. No precise month or day was recorded for either version, so either may be the earliest known version of the song. The two oldest versions whose year of origin is known for certain were both collected in 1926, and both reside in the Library's American Folklife Center. Problems playing this file? See media help.Īccording to Library of Congress editor Stephen Winick, the song almost certainly originated among African Americans in the Southeastern United States, and had a Gullah version early in its history even if it did not originate in that dialect.
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