"Kumbaya" or "Kumbayah" (Gullah, "Come By Here" — "Kum ba yah") — is an African-American spiritual song from the 1930s. It enjoyed newfound popularity during the folk revival of the 1960s and became a standard campfire song in Scouting and nature-oriented organizations. Contemporary use of the song is linked with themes of human and spiritual unity, closeness and compassion.
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The origins of the song are disputed. Research in Kodaly Envoy by Lum Chee-Hoo has found that sometime between 1922 and 1931, members of an organization called the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals collected a song from the South Carolina coast.[1] "Come By Yah", as they called it, was sung in Gullah, the creole pidgin dialect spoken by the former slaves living on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia.[2] Between 1926 and 1928, four more versions of traditional spirituals with the refrain "Come by Here" or "Come by Yah" were recorded in South Carolina and Georgia on wax cylinder by Robert Winslow Gordon, founder of what became the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.[3] In May 1936, John Lomax, Gordon's successor as head of the Library of Congress's folk archive, discovered a woman named Ethel Best singing "Come by Here" with a group in Raiford, Florida.[4]
These facts contradict the longstanding copyright and authorship claim of Reverend Marvin V. Frey.[1] Rev. Frey (1918–1992) claimed to have written the song circa 1936 under the title "Come By Here," inspired, he claimed, by a prayer he heard delivered by "Mother Duffin," a storefront evangelist in Portland, Oregon. It first appeared in this version in Revival Choruses of Marvin V. Frey, a lyric sheet printed in Portland, Oregon in 1939. Frey claimed the change of the title to "Kum Ba Yah" came about in 1946, when a missionary family returned from Africa where they had sung Frey's version and slightly changed the words. This family toured America singing the song with the text "Kum Ba Yah".[1] This account is contradicted by the fact that a nearly identical Gullah version of the song was recorded almost two decades earlier. According to a November 20, 2010, New York Times article by Samuel Freedman, the metamorphosis to the "African" word Kumbaya was explained in liner notes to a 1959 Pete Seeger album, but "no scholar has ever found an indigenous word 'kumbaya' with a relevant meaning.".[5] Freedman goes on to discuss the usage of kumbaya as a term of political rhetoric.
Joe Hickerson, one of the Folksmiths, recorded the song in 1957, as did Pete Seeger in 1958. Hickerson credits Tony Saletan, then a songleader at the Shaker Village Work Camp, for introducing him to "Kumbaya" (Saletan had learned it from Lynn Rohrbough, co-proprietor with his wife Katherine of the camp songbook publisher Cooperative Recreation Service).[6][7][8] Joe Hickerson later succeeded Gordon at the American Folklife Center.[9] The song enjoyed newfound popularity during the folk revival of the 1960s, largely due to Joan Baez's 1962 recording of the song, and became associated with the Civil Rights Movement of that decade.
| Version No. 1 | Version No. 2 |
|---|---|
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Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya; |
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya; |
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Someone's laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya; |
Hear me crying and laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya; |
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Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya; |
Hear me singing, my Lord, kum bay ya; |
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Someone's praying, Lord, kum bay ya; |
Hear me praying, Lord, kum bay ya; |
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Someone's singing, my Lord, kum bay ya; |
Oh, I need you, my Lord, kum bay ya; |
| "Kum Bah Yah" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by The Folksmiths including Joe Hickerson from the album We've Got Some Singing To Do | ||||
| Recorded | August 1957 | |||
| Length | 2:09 | |||
| Label | Folkways Records F-2407 | |||
| We've Got Some Singing To Do track listing | ||||
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The Folksmiths including Joe Hickerson recorded the first LP version of the song in August 1957. As this group traveled from summer camp to summer camp teaching folk songs, they may be the origin of Kumbaya around the campfire.
It was recorded by Pete Seeger in 1958, and The Weavers released it on Traveling on With the Weavers in 1959.
Joan Baez's 1962 In Concert, Volume 1 included her version of the song. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach also sang "Kum Bah Yah" in a 1962 concert, a recording of which was subsequently released in 1963 on the album Shlomo Carlebach Sings.
The Seekers recorded it in 1963 for their first album, "Introducing the Seekers". They later re-recorded for their third album, "Hide & Seekers" (also known as "The Four & Only Seekers"); it was re-released on their 1989 album "The Very Best of the Seekers".
Ballad singer Tommy Leonetti gave the song chart status in 1969. His single reached #54 pop, #4 easy listening, released on Decca 32421.
It was included on The Sandpipers' 1969 album The Wonder of You.
Raffi recorded it for his Baby Beluga album.
In 1984, the proto-punk band, Guadalcanal Diary, recorded a version on their album Watusi Rodeo.
Peter, Paul & Mary recorded Kumbaya on their 1998 Around the Campfire album
German rock band Guano Apes and German comedian Michael Mittermeier did a cover of "Kum Bah Yah" called "Kumba yo!" and made a music video. The "Kumba yo!" single was released in 2001.