The Gospel Truth

Ruff has been to Lewis and was further convinced of the link between cultures as soon as he heard the congregation sing in Stornoway.

His own great-great-grandparents were slaves in Alabama and his grandmother’s maiden name was Robertson, giving him every right to appear in the pages of a Highland Perthshire magazine! And we’re not talking minority interest either. Financially, Gospel music is the staple of the black Church in the United States with CD sales bringing in a colossal half a billion dollars annually. Willie Ruff states quite categorically that he and his fellow black Americans have been living under a misconception. “Our cultural roots are more Afro-Gaelic than Afro-American,” he says, adding “Just look at the Harlem phone book - it’s more like the book for North Uist.”

Ruff’s research has found records detailing how Highlanders settled in North Carolina in the 1700s and he has discovered evidence of slaves in North Carolina who could speak only Gaelic. He was told a story, also, of how some emigrants from the Hebrides landed at Cape Fear and heard a Gaelic voice in their own village dialect. On rounding the corner they saw a black man speaking the language and assumed they, too, would turn that colour because of the sun!

Scotland’s role in the slave trade is well documented, though not often mentioned in polite company. Scots were influential in founding the Ku Klux Klan, which borrowed the traditional burning cross symbol and whose oath ceremony is of Highland origin. Set against these blemishes, however, is the role of the Scots abolitionists who established schools for black children after emancipation.

In a wider context, the blues is one musical form that is unarguably Afro-American yet it contains very discernible influences from both British and African folk music. Many musical characteristics associated with the blues such as bent or ‘blue’ notes, the art of improvisation and the melancholy sound of playing in a minor key can all be found in other musical cultures, so why not gospel singing?

Scots composer, broadcaster and writer John Purser, in his book Scotland’s Music, cites another example of this crossover in a piobaireachd song called McIntosh’s Lament which seems to have inspired the famous theme in Dvorak’s New World Symphony. According to Purser, Dvorak used tunes he had heard and this most famous of Scottish laments would have been sung and played regularly by Scottish emigrants. Independent of Purser’s account, I was told this same story by the late Scots playwright W Gordon Smith, who heard it from the legendary Afro-American singer Paul Robeson at a miners’ gala in Leith!

As expected, Ruff’s research has caused much dissent in The United States and more research is sure to follow. Let‘s leave him with the last word: “Why did they leave this to a musician? This is the job of an anthropologist,” he says.

As a footnote, it’s always been a contention of mine that the famous black jazz bass player, composer and bandleader Charles Mingus (1922-1979) has a name very pertinent to Highland Perthshire. As we know, slaves sometimes took the name of the plantation owner or overseer and it’s not beyond belief that a Menzies from this part of the world was the man in question. Following the example of the estimable Willie Ruff, some more research is called for and I welcome any contribution to the debate.