No. 8 Little Family, Ws 195 Ff
Pentatonic, mode 1 (I II — IV V VI —)
There was a little fam’ly
That liv’d in Bethany,
Two sisters and a brother
Compos’d that family.
With shouting and with singing
Like angels in the sky,
At morning and at evening
They rais’d their voices high.
See White Spirituals for the full text of seven stanzas about the raising of Lazarus. For references see JAFL, xxv., 17, and xxix., 182.
Almost the same tune is ‘Johnny German’, Sharp, ii., 256. ‘Joe Bowers’, Cox, 527, is also similar. Another spiritual ballad using this tune in variant form is ‘Wedlock (A)’, in this collection.