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| The circular chapel at Davis & Elkins College, where this story begins |
After we had assembled in the chapel, the instructors were introduced. Each one briefly described their backgrounds and qualifications and then sang a sample of the music he or she would be teaching that week. The variety ranged from cowgirl music (taught by Patsy Montana, the first woman vocalist to record a million-selling record) to Slavic folk music to Southern Appalachian hymn singing, taught by Ginny Hawker.
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| Ginny Hawker holding her Primitive Baptist hymnal |
When she had finished, we were all speechless. Her voice was spectacular, and the listener sensed that they were hearing generations of devoted, deeply religious disciples captured in a single event. There was no applause, as there had been for the previous instructors. Instead, one of the girls sitting in the front pew rose, went over to Ginny, and quietly hugged and thanked her. Another followed, and then another, and soon, in the silence of that vast space, every member of the audience proceeded in line to embrace and thank Ginny Hawker. We all knew that we had just experienced something very special.
I resolved at that moment that I would eventually take a class from Ginny Hawker if the opportunity ever presented itself.
The following year, I received the Augusta catalog and there was the opportunity. Ginny and her father, Ben Hawker would be teaching a class in "Primitive Baptist Hymn Singing" at the workshops that next summer. I signed up immediately.
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| Ben Hawker, holding the infant Ginny, from her album cover, "Letters from my Father," |
Not long after that, Margo and I made our annual trek to Elkins. We had a pop-up camper that we set up every year at Revelle's campground, located on the banks of Shavers Fork of the Cheat River, 9 miles east of Elkins, West Virginia. Margo planned to spend her days reading, writing, and tending to three dogs. I would attend class during the day, then pick Margo up for evening activities -- mini-classes, concerts, and socializing.
Sunday evening, we had a "get acquainted" meeting at the chapel on campus. We learned that the class would be conducted in one of the classroom buildings during the mornings. We had about twenty people in the class. There would be plenty of time for give-and-take with both Ginny and Ben. We would have a general outline of material to be covered, but the class would go where the conversation would take us. We eagerly looked forward to Monday morning.
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| The Primitive Baptist church at Cades Cove, in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park |
Ben shared that one of the effects of growing up in a town in which everyone was a member of the Primitive Baptist church was a lack of gossip. It was the worst form of sin to gossip about your neighbor, since their relationship with God and therefore their conduct is a private, sacred matter. Very interesting. We spent a good part of Monday morning captivated by Ben Hawker's narrative of his growing up in this religious tradition. Primitive Baptists reject the idea of Sunday School, viewing it as non-scriptural and interfering with the right of parents to give religious instruction to their children. Instead, children are expected to attend at least part of the church service. Primitive Baptists consider theological seminaries to have "no warrant or sanction from the New Testament, nor in the example of Christ and the apostles." They perform foot washing as a symbol of humility and service among the membership. The sexes are separated during the ritual where one person washes the feet of another. The practice is credited with increasing equality, as opposed to hierarchy, within Primitive Baptist churches. I was completely uninformed of this unique set of religious practices.
One important part of their tradition was their music -- unaccompanied, unadorned by excessive ornamentation, and passed on aurally from one generation to the next. Over the next four days, Ginny and Ben would gradually share a small but precious portion of that tradition with the members of our class.
"In compiling this book, our design has been to supply a want long felt amongst us, and to encourage the love and practice of Sacred Music in our Churches and the social circle which has, of late years, been greatly neglected.
Throughout our labors, which have been attended with great anxiety of spirit and pecuniary expense, our constant and prayerful aim has been to select only such hymns as comport with sound doctrine and tend to encourage the spirit of devotion; to bring hymns and tunes together in such manner as to secure an appropriate adaptation of song to sentiment; and to produce a work in every respect equal to the demands of our Churches, and, as a whole, inferior to none of the kind ever before published in this country. How far success in our endeavors may justly be claimed is submitted to the decision of an intelligent and unbiased Christian denomination."
We proceeded during the week to learn several traditional hymns from our Father/Daughter mentors. We realized that within the aural tradition, the most minuscule affectations get passed down. The tiniest grace note, a slight hesitation, or a yodel-like lead note was present when either Ginny or her dad sang the same song. It was uncanny. (and it caused me to wonder how many successive generations are represented by these tiny melodic irregularities).
The week went by in a flash and we had been promised something special on Friday. That morning, Ben told the heartwarming story of his tiny home church in Southwestern Virginia, the church in which he had grown up. When he was a young boy, very few of the church's members had cars. They arrived at church on horseback or in modest wagons, often the working wagons from their hardscrabble farms. The roads in the winter months often became impassable, so church services were suspended for about three months each year. On the last service of the year, they recognized that some members might not make it through the Winter. They closed out the service with the very same hymn that Ginny had sung on Sunday evening. But as the hymn proceeded in our small classroom, Ben Hawker started a procession in which each member of the class approached each of the other members and embraced them with a hug as the hymn proceeded.
Oh, sing to me of heav'n.
When I am called to die;
Sing songs of holy ecstasy
To waft my soul on high.
Chorus:
There'll be no sorrow there;
There'll be no sorrow there;
In heav'n above, where all is love,
There'll be no sorrow there.
When cold and sluggish drops
Roll off my dying brow,
Break forth in songs of joyfulness,
Let heav'n begin below.
When the last moments come,
Oh, smooth my dying face,
To catch the bright, seraphic gleam
Which o'er my features plays.
Then to my raptured ear
Let one sweet song be giv'n;
Let music charm me last on earth,
And greet me first in heav'n.
There were no dry eyes in the room when we concluded. We had reenacted the farewell service that played out in Ben's old church at the end of every season. We had, in our feeble way, bid goodbye to each other. It was a memorable way to conclude a most memorable class.
I corresponded with Ben for a few years after the class, but never saw him again. I have seen Ginny in concerts a few times since then and she never ceases to amaze me with her voice and knowledge of traditional music.
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