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| I'll See You There lori arthur, 2006, BMI |
| Children I'm going up home to glory - I'll see you there - Children I'm going up home to glory - I'll see you there Don't you fret now, don't you cry - Children dry your weeping eyes - 'Cause I'm just going up home to glory - I'll see you there I'll see you there - I'll see you there - Children I'm going up home to glory I'll see you there Don't you fret now ... Children just follow Jesus home - I'll see you there - Children just follow Jesus home - I'll see you there When we meet in paradise - Won't say no more sad goodbyes - Children just follow Jesus home - I'll see you there - chorus - When we meet in ... Don't you worry about me children - I'll see you there - Don't you worry about me children - I'll see you there Old man death can't hold me down - Hallelujah I'm glory bound - Don't you worry about me children I'll see you there - chorus - Old man death ... |
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| Beyond the Blue charles york, 1958 |
| Beyond the blue there lies a new tomorrow - Where the lover of each lonesome weary soul - Waits to heal the wonded heart from all sorrow - Just up ahead around the bend - Beyond the blue No skies of gray beyond the blue horizon - Where the bright morning star is ever shining - And when we gather there in joy by the river - Remember this I'll look for you - Beyond the blue Beyond the blue the blessed Savior is calling - Who bled and died to bring the lost and wander-ing home - Just look to Him though darkest night may be falling - He'll lead you through beyond the blue - Just wait and see |
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| God in heaven "Gloryland". Lori Arthur (top right) wrote It's a Long Long Road to Gloryland as the title song for this CD. She said that she wrote it with the plight of two neighbors in mind, a husband whose wife passed away in childbirth, and the grandmother of a little boy who died in an accident. Arthel Doc and Rosa Lee Watson (center right), husband and wife, wrote My Heart Breaks as You Take Your Long Journey in 1970, a funeral song that could only be written by old married folks. Doc became blind as an infant, picked-up a homemade banjo made out of the skin of his gramdmother's cat at age 11 and then a flat picked guitar from Sears at age 13. Rosa Lee came from a musical family herself. Doc and his son Merle toured together for 20 years after they were discovered by the folk-music scene in the 1960's . Wilkes Community College in North Carolina hosts Merlefest each year in memorium for Merle. |
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| Some glad morning when this life is over - I'll fly away - To a home on God's celestial shore - I'll fly away I'll fly away - O glory - I'll fly away - In the morning - When I die - Hallelujah by and by - I'll fly away When the shadows of this life have grown - I'll fly away - Like a bird from prison bars have flown - I'll fly away - chorus - Just a few more weary days and then - I'll fly away - To a land where joys shall never end - I'll fly away - chorus - |
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| Shoutin' on the Hills p.d., eugene bartlett, 1920 |
| Threre'll be shouting on the hills of glory - Shouting on the hills - Shouting on the hills - There'll be shouting on the hills of glory - There'll be shouting on the hills of God Oh what a blessed reunion - Oh what a blessed reunion - When we gather over yonder - There'll be shouting on the hills of God - chorus - No more sorrow in that city - No more sorrow in that city - Jesus prepared a place in heaven - There'll be shouting on the hills of God - chorus - Now's the time to make your preparations - Now's the time to make your preparations - So stop and make your reservation - There'll be shouting on the hills of God - chorus - |
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| Down Where h.allen / p.roberts, 1965 |
| Hard to keep the tear out of my eyes - For this might be our last goodbye - Your country calls you to defend a great land - So do your part just like a man Down where the river bends - With God's help we'll meet again - Under the same old sycamore tree Proud of each other in the land of the free I'll go down to the ocean blue - Just as close as I can to you - This old ocean might keep us apart - But it won't keep you dear from out of my heart - chorus - Proud of each other in the land of the free If the worst should happen and the flag should wave - Over your far distant lonely grave - All the rest of my life I'll spend in prayer - I'll meet you in heaven there'll be no wars there - chorus - Proud of each other in the land of the free |
| I'll Fly Away albert brumley, 1932 |
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| Contacting Fret Not mailing address P.O. Box 19020 Oakland, CA 94619 Attn: Greg V. Arthur telephone (510) 532-1211 (510) 967-8411 info@fretnotgospel.com |
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| We'll, it's cool down here On the banks of Jordan - It's cool down here - On the banks of Jordan - It's cool down here - On the banks of Jordan - My Lord says come on in - I'll meet you there Teach me Jesus teach me - Teach me just how to pray - If my voice then should fail me - Lord God teach me just what to say - chorus - When I get to heaven - When I get there I'll sing and shout - I'll be welcome there in heaven - No one's going to porter me out - chorus - I'll go up with the Father - I'll go up and talk with the Son - I'll tell Him about this mean world - No more sorrow my victory's won |
| It's Cool Down Here traditional, ca.1900 |
| Gloryland lori arthur, 2006, BMI |
| Why oh why - Tell me why Jesus why - Hear the lonesome voices wailing - In the night For every soul gone winging home - There's one left here to weap and moan - Crying why Lord why Jesus why It's a long long road to gloryland - It's a long long road to gloryland For every soul gone winging home - There's one left here to weap and moan - Crying why Lord why Jesus why It's a long long road to glory land - It's a long long road to gloryland |
| Deep River traditional, pre-1865 |
| Deep river - My home is over Jordan - Deep river, Lord - I want to cross over into campground Oh don't you want to go to that gospel feast - My home is over Jordan - To that promised land where all is peace - I want to cross over into campground - chorus - Gonna walk into heaven and take my seat - My home is over Jordan - Gonna cast my crown at Jesus' feet - I want to cross over into campground - chorus - |
| Everlasting Arms p.d., elisha hoffman,1887 |
| What a fellowship - What a joy divine - Leaning on the everlasting arms - What a blessedness - What a peace is mine - Leaning on the everlasting arms Leaning, leaning - Safe and secure from all alarms - Leaning, leaning - Leaning on the everlasting arms What have I to dread - What have I to fear - Leaning on the everlasting arms - I have blessed peace with my Lord so near - Leaning on the everlasting arms - chorus - Oh how sweet to walk - In the pilgrim's way - Leaning on the everlasting arms - Oh how bright the path grows from day to day - Leaning on the everlasting arms - chorus - |
| Let God Lead You traditional, ca. 1900 |
| There's no need to worry - When mother goes away - She lived a good life - She even taught us how to pray - She said if we let God lead us - On to the end - To the other side of Jordan - We'll meet again Dry your eyes don't cry no more - One of these days we all must go - Think of the words Job said one day - The Lord giveth and taketh away - chorus - She lived a good life she kept the faith - Now she's gone on to that resting place - Now I really do believe that mother did her best - Now that she's gone on to be with Jesus - In that sweet and happy rest - chorus - |
| How About You thomas dorsey, 1932 |
| How well do I remember - How Jesus brought me through - I walked the floor - And prayed a night or two I said Lord take and use me - That's all that I can do - And I gave my heart to Jesus - How about you How about you - Oh how about you - I hope my Savior is your Savior too I said Lord take and use me ... When shadows overtake me - And troubles start to brew - And when I've done - The best that I can do My best friends talk about me - Sometimes my kinfolks too - But I take it all to Jesus - How about you - chorus - My best friends talk about me ... Over there I'll meet my mother - And see my father too - And talk about the things we used to do And then some friend will ask me - How did you make it through - I came through tribulation - How about you - chorus - I said Lord take and use me - That's all that I can do - And I gave my heart to Jesus - How about you And I gave my heart to Jesus - How about you |
| Your Long Journey doc&rosalee watson,1970 |
| God's given us years - Of happiness here - Now we must part - And as the angels come and call for you - The pangs of grief tug at my heart Oh my dailing, my darling - My heart breaks as you take - Your long journey Oh the days will be empty - The nights so long - Without you my love - And when God calls for you I'm left alone - But we will meet in heaven above - chorus - Fond memories I'll keep - Of happy days - That on earth we trod - And whe I come we will walk hand in hand - As one in heaven in the family of God - chorus - |
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| This World's p.d., william walker, 1875 |
| This world's not my home - I'm just passing through - My treasures and my hopes - Somewhere beyond the blue - Many friends and kendred - Have gone one before - And I can't feel at home - In this world anymore Oh Lord you know - I have no friend like you - If heaven's not my home - Oh Lord what will I do - Angels beckon me - To heaven's open door - And I can't feel at home - In this world anymore - chorus - Over in gloryland - There'll be no dying there - The saints all shouting victory - And singing everywhere - I hear the voice of them - That's gone on before - And I can't feel at home - In this world anymore - chorus - He's expecting me - That's one thing I know - A fixed it up with Jesus - A long time ago - He will take me through - Though I am weak and poor - And I can't feel at home - In this world anymore - chorus - |
| He Knows It All p.d.,ophelia adams, 1905 |
| I love to think my Father knows - Why I have missed the path I chose - And that I soon shall clearly see - The way He lead was best for me I love to think my Father knows - The thorns I pluck with every rose - The daily griefs I seek to hide - From those dear souls I walk beside He knows it all - He knows it all - My Father knows - He knows it all - Those bitter tears how fast they fall - He knows - My Father knows it all I know my heavenly Father knows - The storms that would my way oppose - But He can drive the clouds away - And turn my darkness into day He knows My Father knows it all |
| Ain't No Grave traditional, pre-1865 |
| Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down - Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down - When I hear that trumpet sound - Gonna get up out of the ground - Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down The Lord Himself from heaven - Descending with a shout - O glory Hallelujah - From the grave He'll call me out - Meet me Jesus meet me - Meet me in the middle of the air - When I go I'll sing and shout - For I'll be welcome there - chorus - |
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| Hallelujah I'm Ready traditional, ca.1900 |
| Hallelujah I'm ready - I'm ready Hallelujah - I can hear the voices singing soft and low - Hallelujah I'm ready - I'm ready Hallelujah - Hallelujah I'm ready to go In the darkness of night - Not a star was in sight - On a highway that leads down below - But Jesus came in - And saved this soul from sin - Hallelujah I'm ready to go - chorus - Sinner don't wait - Before it's too late - He's a wonderful Savior you know - Well I fell on my knees - And he answered my pleas - Hallelujah I'm ready to go - chorus - |
| Lori Arthur - guitar, vocals, percussion Rachel Butler - vocals Reed Sutton - bass Spiro Tsingaris - fiddle, vocals Rich Ferguson - dobro, banjo, vocals Craig Turner - drums, other percussion Brian Smith - banjo, executive producer Max Butler - guitar, vocals, percussion, producer Greg Arthur - mandolin, vocals, executive producer Jose Alvarez - recording, engineering Damian Rasmussen - vocal recording, rough mixing Kelly Alterman - artwork Sean Coleman - digital mixing and mastering CDMan - production Kurt Stevenson - slide guitar on "Beyond the Blue" Gordon Butler - fiddle on "How About You" |
| piano player. After two nervous breakdowns and a faith healing, at the age of 28 he devoted himself to gospel, music that he called "good news either side". Churches were slow to accept his music. He once remarked, "I've been thrown out of some of the best churches in America." Lori wrote and Max played the guitar on Children I'm Going Up Home to Glory I'll See You There in a style reminescent of Sister Rosetta Tharpe from the 1940's. She was best known for "Just a Closer Walk With Thee, Grant It Jesus, Is My Plea" which swept through America at the start of World War II, perhaps because it expressed a national sentiment. Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down is a pre-Civil War slave spiritual that made it into the hymnbooks during the Depression as a Pentacostal shouting song. We first heard it on a 1953 recording by Brother Claude Ely compiled in an anthology of sacred songs on Dust-to-Digital |
| Records, entitled Goodbye, Babylon. Every thought and word in this song is taken from the Bible, where God has promised us eternal life in His Son, Jesus. The slave spirituals were first glorified to the whole world by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (above) in 1871. They often carried with them tunes taken from the British or Irish fiddle music of the times. Hallelujah I'm Ready to Go is a traditional banjo-driven song from near the turn of the last century. Some where along the way the banjo migrated from African music to the heart and soul of American bluegrass. Ralph Stanley is among the notable recorders of this and another bluegrass standard, This World is Not My Home I'm Just Passing Through. This song, like many American gospel songs, calls the Kingdom of |
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| There'll Be Shouting on the Hills of Glory echoes the Bible, which states in many places that the saints will shout for joy and give God glory shouting on the mountaintops. This and many other American traditional gospel songs refer to shouting as victory in Jesus over death. For example, in Bright Morning Stars, the title of which refers to Jesus, one verse declares, "Where are our dear mothers? They've gone to heaven shouting". Down Where the River Bends With God's Help We'll Meet Again is a patriotic funeral song written by the Country Gentlemen during the Vietnam War in which the river could be in the piney woods back home or the River Jordan of our eternal home. A great line is "proud of each other in the land of the free". Ella Shepherd (bottom left) was the piano player and a singer for decades with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. She undoubtedly performed the first and possibly |
| both of the next two songs derived from slave spirituals that refer to crossing over the River Jordan to the promised land of eternal life. We first heard on Christian radio, while driving home in the rain late past midnight, Deep River My Home is Over Jordan performed by a choir, or maybe it was a symphony, we can't remember. Perhaps it was a recording of the modern-day Fisk University JubileeSingers, who still carry on the choral tradition started at their school 135 years ago. We do remember that the music was so stately and the words so eloquent that we were moved to tears as we sat in our driveway listening our Savior's promises sung. It's Cool Down Here On the Banks of Jordan, sometimes listed also as Cool Down By the Riverbanks, is one of the many songs of unknown origin that were likely |
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| We found Beyond the Blue There Lies a New Tomorrow in a little hymnbook called "Cowboy Hymns in a Western Style", 1958, given to us by someone at church. Lori added the second verse in order to first sing it at Max and Rachel's wedding on a ranch near Descanso. It rained all that day. All the guest prayed inside our cars for the downpour to let up. As God is our witness, He held back the rain a few minutes before the ceremony was to start and only while we were cleaning up father of gospel music but started as a barrelhouse |
| later that night did it start to rain again. Thomas Dorsey (left) wrote I Gave My Heart to Jesus How About You soon after he lost his wife and son in childbirth. He is considered to be the |
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| derived from portions of slave spirituals. We first heard it on a recording by the Mello-Tones, 1951, on a Columbia-Okeh anthology entitled, "There Will Be No Sweeter Sound." Their version takes after the name of their band. Our version is a runaway train. When I Die Hallelujah By and By I'll Fly Away was first conceived by Albert Brumley (below left) as he was picking cotton but wishing he wasn't, and humming a popular secular song of the time called "If I Had Wings Like the Angels" . There was something in that song about being in prison and flying away, a quintessential mom-prisons-divorce-trains-and-my-dog country song, but all of that is forgotten now. However, all of American gospel now sings Albert Brumley's I'll Fly Away, from the African-American church to country music, folk, and even Christian rock bands like Jars of Clay. Everyone. William Showalter was a singing school evangelist who wrote letters with words in the chorus of What a Fellowship What a Joy Divine Leaning on the Everlasting Arms upon hearing that two of his ex-pupils had both lost their wives. He sent the idea along to Elisha Hoffman who wrote the rest and the music to what is surely one of the prizes from the American gospel tradition. When we lived in the Pacific for a year, we found that the islanders in the born-again evangelical church loved this song above all others. There's No Need to Worry Let God Lead You is a traditional gospel song of unknown origin that we first heard on a 1955 recording by the Dixie Hummingbirds. The perspective is turned in a complicated way with this song placing the words of reassurance in the memory of what was once said by a dear mother who has gone on to glory. These are the words that we would wish our children might one day sing about us. We added a congregational rave-up to the end of the song - "I'm on my way - To the other side" - through the magic of digital recording. My grandfather, Walter B. Arthur, was a Methodist preacher, saved at the age of 16 in a tent revival meeting. Somehow we inherited his papers and found in them a small typed sermon delivered at a funeral for a young girl in 1934 entitled: The Adverse Winds of Life - Light, Hope, Comfort, and Victory in Him. At the end of the service he apparently sang My Father Knows He Knows It All, a forgotten old hymn that without fanfare express just what makes it possible to face death with hope in our hearts. And so this song will be our last word as well. |
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| If you would like someone to pray with you, we would be honored to be the ones ... Click Prayer for any reason! |
| Released Memorial Day 2006 |
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| Gloryland - American Funeral Songs, is a collection of old-time gospel Funeral Music, released on Memorial Day 2006. These funeral songs aren't what you would expect from songs about dying, gospel songs written by Thomas Dorsey, Doc and RosaLee Watson, Albert Brumley, Harlan Allen, spirituals written by American slaves, public domain hymns written by Eugene Bartlett, Elisha Hoffman, Ophelia Adams, William Walker, western songs written by Charles York, traditionals of unknown origin, and a couple by Lori Arthur. |
| American Funeral Songs. These funeral songs aren't what you would expect from songs about dying. Where you might expect mournful and solemn sorrow, there is instead something uplifting. Where you might expect bleakness, there is something beautiful, sometimes achingly so. Where you would expect hopelessness, there is deep joy. It is unexpected enough to beg the question why. Why are funeral songs like these from our American gospel tradition so beautiful and uplifting, full of hope, going straight from the grave to the resurrection? For that matter why are Christmas songs from the same American gospel tradition often mournful, so quick to go from the manger to the cross? Perhaps it is that the songwriters see life and death and eternity in the same way as our Savior Jesus did. For this Jesus, the Son of God, did the unexpected himself, emptying himself of power, to be born as a baby, so that he might die on the cross for the forgiveness of all mankind's sins, to be buried in a tomb for parts of three days, and then rise from the grave, resurrected never to die again. It is His story that baptizes these funeral songs into being what they are - beautiful, uplifting, full of hope, joyful, songs to sing on the road to Gloryland. |
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