Michael, Row the Boat Ashore
[2] The best-known recording was released in 1960 by the U.S. folk band The Highwaymen; that version briefly reached number-one hit status as a single.
The song was sung by former slaves whose owners had abandoned the island before the Union navy arrived to enforce a blockade.
Charles Pickard Ware was an abolitionist and Harvard graduate who had come to supervise the plantations on St. Helena Island from 1862 to 1865, and he wrote down the song in music notation as he heard the freedmen sing it.
Ware's cousin William Francis Allen reported in 1863 that the formerly enslaved Black Americans sang the song as they rowed him in a boat across Station Creek.
One of the oldest published versions of the song runs in a series of unrhymed couplets:[4] Michael row de boat ashore, Hallelujah!
The River Jordan was where Jesus was baptized and can be viewed as a metaphor for deliverance and salvation, but also as the boundary of the Promised Land, death, and the transition to Heaven.
(repeated thus until end) A similar version was collected by Guy Carawan on an unspecified Sea Island.
1 on the hit parade – a version of "Michael" was among the songs that civil rights activists arrested for protesting the killing sang to keep their spirits up, led by Hollis Watkins, according to a note smuggled out of the county jail by COFO and SNCC leader Bob Moses:[12] Michael row the boat ashore, Alleluia Christian brothers don't be slow, Alleluia Mississippi's next to go, Alleluia.
Harry Belafonte sang a rather different rendition on his 1962 album Midnight Special which combines elements drawn from Christianity, American slavery, and Civil Rights Movement.
The version of "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" that became a folk standard was adapted in 1954 by Boston folksinger, songfinder and teacher Tony Saletan from the 1867 songbook Slave Songs of the United States.
As Saletan later explained, "I judged that the tune was very singable, added some harmony (a guitar accompaniment) and thought the one-word chorus would be an easy hit with [younger singers].
But a typical original verse consisted of one line repeated once, and I thought a rhyme would be more interesting to the teenagers at Shaker Village Work Camp, where I introduced it.
[17] Seeger taught it to the rest of the Weavers, who performed it at their Christmas Eve 1955 post-blacklist reunion concert.
[22] The American folk quintet the Highwaymen had a #1 hit in 1961 on both the pop and easy listening charts in the U.S. with their version, under the simpler title of "Michael", recorded and released in 1960.
[26] Out of respect for the original, unknown authors of the song, Saletan kept his royalties from the Highwaymen's hit in escrow "seeking some good use for it.
"[27] The Highwaymen version that went to #1 on the Billboard charts had these lyrics: Michael row the boat ashore, hallelujah.
The recording begins and ends with one of the singers whistling the tune a cappella, later accompanied by simple instruments, in a slow, ballad style.
All the Highwaymen sang and harmonized on the Michael lines but individual singers soloed for each set of additional lyrics.
Seeger likewise included "Michael" when he appeared as a guest on Sesame Street in 1970, during the iconic children's television show's second season, using it to teach Big Bird the idea of a participatory sing-along.
The same lesson was included when Seeger recorded a Sesame Street album for Children's Television Workshop in 1974 with Brother Kirk.
[28] In the Jan 12, 1968 TV episode of Tarzan ("The Convert"), the song is performed by a trio of nuns arriving at an African village by canoe.
The song was recorded by The Beach Boys for their 1976 15 Big Ones album but was left off the final running order.
A German gospel version is "Hört, wen Jesus glücklich preist" (A song of the Beatitudes).
It was used for the end credits of The Librarian and the Banjo, Jim Carrier's 2013 film on Dena Epstein, author of the book, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals.
Greg & Steve appropriated the Saletan tune and substituted original lyrics for their song, "A Man Named King," on their 1989 Holidays & Special Times album.
The melody, as adapted by Saletan in 1954, was also appropriated for use in a hymn entitled Glory Be to God on High.
