FREE AT LAST
Created on 14/02/2008Latest update on 13/12/2023
Artist: Revelators
Author: traditional
Label: Mirror
Year: 1946
Even Abraham Lincoln was once very moved hearing this spiritual performed by a group led by a former White House employee (Aunt Mary Dines).
Covers:
- 1948:
Sons Of Heaven [als I'm Free]
- 1950:
Dock Reed & Vera Hall [John A. Lomax held them among his main discoveries; Courtlander/Tartt recording for lp Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 2: Religious Music; reissued on Every Tone A Testimony (Smithsonian Folkways)]
- 1963:
Soul Stirrers [with Sam Cooke]
- 1963:
Dr. Martin Luther King [at the end of his famous Lincoln Memorial speech in Washington, D.C. with the words of this spiritual (see footnote); Free at last is also his gravemark]
- 1968:
- 2001:
Simon [hit UK]
- 2008:
"...From every mountainside let freedom ring. And when this happens (...) we will be able to (...) join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty we are free at last."
