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All God's Children Got to Humble Down
Tradtional Old-Time, Bluegrass Gospel;
ARTIST: From Folk-Songs of America: The Robert Winslow Gordon Collection, 1922-1932; Betty Bush Winger, Point Pleasant, West Virginia Ca. 1931
CATEGORY: Traditional Bluegrass Gospel;
DATE: 1900s; First Recorded in 1931 by Robert Winslow Gordon
RECORDING INFO: All God's Children Got to Humble Down
Winger, Betty. Folk Songs of America. The Robert Winslow Gordon Collection...., Library of Congress AFS L68, LP (1978), trk# 15b [1931-32ca]
OTHER NAMES: "Humble down"
SOURCES: Robert Winslow Gordon Collection
NOTES: From Folk-Songs of America: The Robert Winslow Gordon Collection, 1922-1932: Band B6
In 1931 Gordon received a letter from Betty Bush Winger of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. A native of the Ozark region of Missouri, Miss Winger had read an article Gordon had written (possibly in the New York Times) on Negro spirituals and sent a manuscript containing some of the songs she recalled. Like others whom Gordon recorded, she was not only an informant but also a collector who responded to Gordon's "scientific" interest in the songs. Gordon learned of Winger's songs at a time when he was experimenting with portable disc recording equipment. He convinced the Amplion Company to loan him a new disc recording machine and visited Winger in West Virginia in late 1931 or early 1932 in order to record her songs.
Miss Winger continued to correspond with Gordon, and in the mid-1940s resumed her correspondence with the Archive of Folk Song, contributing various materials until the mid-fifties. She not only collected songs, she also composed songs and wrote religious plays, some of which she sent to the archive. Such materials, though of limited interest to folksong researchers, tell us much about persons such as Winger who contributed so generously to Gordon's collections over the years. She perceived an essential connection between the collection of rare old songs which had historical value, and the creation of new compositions—songs or stories—based on these models or dealing with the same subject matter. Content and not process was the most important facet of folksong traditions for her.
"All God's Children Got to Humble Down" was one of the spirituals in Winger's repertoire which Gordon found of great interest. He cited her collection in his part of the 1932 Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress (p. 322) as an important new piece of evidence for spiritual scholarship. Presumably the non-stanzaic form appealed to his interest in the earliest spirituals, as discussed above with regard to Mary Mann.
ALL GOD'S CHILDREN GOT TO HUMBLE DOWN- Gordon Collection
Listen: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Gordon/sound/Allgodschildren.mp3 Betty Bush Winger Point Pleasant, West Virginia Ca. 1931
All God's children got to humble down, humble down, humble down.
All God's children got to humble down, if they gwine to wear a crown.
All God's children got to humble down, got to stretch out a hand and-a humble down.
Got to stretch out a hand and-a humble down, while the blood come trickling down.
Get you the blood of-a Jesus, a fallin' right down on you.
Got to humble-a down child if you want-a be washed clean through.
All God's children got to humble down, humble down, humble down.
All God's children got to humble down, if they gwine to wear a crown.
Brother, sister, take off your shoe, humble down, humble down.
Honey and oil gonna fall-a fall on you, humble down, humble down.
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