Fret Not Gospel - Ain't No Grave

[Tc2301]

A Johnny Cash song done in gospel form wow

[coy0te9]

@Tc2301

Sorry brother but it was a gospel song that Cash did his style.

[Tc2301]

@coy0te9 You're right,I did some research like a week after I left that post.

[VintageMusicFan]

Brother Claude Ely wrote the song when he was a young man. The song has been sung by many artists even before it was recorded professionally by Brother Claude Ely ... but everyone knows he wrote the song ... and more importantly, he copyright belongs to him, too.

[fretnotgospel]

The Library of Congress posts a 1942 field recording by Bozie Sturdevant and group in a Clarksdale, Miss. church, collected by Alan Lomax and Fisk University, about 10 years before Ely recorded it. Ely could have written it or it could be a folk song as the Lomax/Fisk project documents. The question is who heard it from whom. The earlier date in a rural church point to folk origins. But I could be wrong.

[VintageMusicFan]

There are individuals still alive today that testify remembering Brother Claude Ely writing and singing the song in the early 1930s as a young man ... Ely's own pastor at the time and other traveling evangelists took the song and sang it in many churches across the Southeastern region in the 1930s - including at a tent revival held around the Clarksdale, MS area. Brother Claude Ely performed the song on the radio for years before he recorded it in the early 1950s for King Records.

[fretnotgospel]

These testimonies would be compelling evidence. Are there any recordings of the earlier radio performances? Vanderbilt has a long scholarly paper, "Lost Delta Found", on the 1941-42 Lomax project and involved Fisk faculty, namely John Wesley Work III, who were documenting Negro spiritual and African-American vernacular music, and from which the Bozie Sturdevant recording came. But if it is as you say, then the source could very well have been travelling evangelists who first heard Ely.

[fretnotgospel]

YouTube won't let me post the url, so Google the following:

library of congress, traditional and spoken word catalog, bozie sturdevant

[xilvorn]

Rev. Claude Ely wrote this song!!! Ask anybody who knew him. Gerald Crabb will tell you!!!

[fretnotgospel]

Thanks for your comment. However, Rev. Claude Ely just recorded his rendition of this song. I think this was a slave spiritual recovered in the years just after the Civil War.

From the Claude Ely website - "Brother Claude’s rendition of songs like Holy, Holy, Holy (That’s All Right), There’s A Leak In This Old Building and especially There Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down are outstanding and the latter number went on to become something of a standard in the Gospel field."

xilvorn

[xilvorn]

@fretnotgospel My family is well aquainted with bro. Ely and my wifes cousin is married to his granddaugther. I have never heard of any earlier version of this song with these verses. The chorus yes, but the verses are bro. Claude's. If you have an earlier version, I would love for you to post it.

[judyfaye222]

marine456ful your full of it , they are awsome

[ouazaki]

love this type of music

[FiveIronOBrien]

I've been looking for the music for this song. Is there sheet music or tab on this song somewhere?

[bryanhembree]

I would love to hear more dobro solos. bt still great. We love this music in GA!!!

[Poodlepups]

You forgot the drummer's name!

[fretnotgospel]

How could we same on us. His name is Robbie Bean, and he is a great drummer. He plays with us at times and we really enjoy him.

[bltnohio]

Wonderful and encurageing, thank you.