Talk:Good Shepherd (song)

Good Shepherd (song) has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 16, 2009	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on July 27, 2009.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the 1969 Jefferson Airplane psychedelic folk-rock song "Good Shepherd" is derived from an early 1800s hymn from a backwoods preacher and a 1930s gospel blues recording by a blind axe murderer?

Other instances of the theme

movie "The Good Shepherd by Niro
The Lord's my Shepherd, lyrics adapted from Psalm 23, various tunes incl the well-known but dreary Crimond. --Philcha (talk) 08:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are many of these; see Good Shepherd (disambiguation). Wasted Time R (talk) 15:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Good Shepherd (song)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: hamiltonstone (talk) 01:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

General points

This article is neutral, stable, generally well-written, and appropriately referenced. The article contains no images, so image review is not an issue. Apart from attempting to get an image of a printed song-sheet version of the song (if one exists), the most obvious illustration to include would be of the band Jefferson Airplane. However, the only Airplane image in use at the band's article is fair-use, not free use, and it would not be appropriate to include it here (the fair use rationale would not apply). I have undertaken some copyediting, but I still feel some of the prose style is a little idiosyncratic (like mine :-)) and needs smoothing out. i raise a couple of examples below that still need resolution.

I've made a few minor tweaks to your copyedits, which you can look over.

You may not like my copyedits, but several of your reversions don't work, so perhaps we can find some other compromise. These are the issues:

"reaching its form with Jefferson Airplane" just doesn't read well. Happy to avoid the word 'contemporary'. How about "before its arrangement by JA"?

I don't like "arrangement" because it seems too narrow and I'm trying to get across a feeling of culmination of a process. I've put in "attaining its realization", see what you think about that.

"and the hymn with its first line" is confusing. Why would it not have its first line? Who would publish a hymn starting at the second line? You / the source is obviously making a point that i have missed - i assumed the point was that only the first line was there. Since I was wrong, can you clarify what you are getting at here?

This was my blunder – I misremembered the source, I should have checked it. Your change was correct and I've restored it.

The "however" was inserted for prose-flow reasons that draws attention to the contrast that arises because, while he was a blind street singer, he was not recorded singing in a street. I don't mind greatly either way but thought it had a better rhythm to it this way.

The street singing is described in the pluperfect tense ("had made a living playing on street corners"), so it's clear that the singing happened before the period being described now. So I don't think the "however" is necessary, and when it isn't necessary, it's generally a good word to leave out.

"from the early 1970s on" - no. The "on" is redundant as the article already says "from the early 1970s."

I still think that could be confused with the identification-with-a-time-period meaning of "from", so I've reworded this to "beginning in the early 1970s". Wasted Time R (talk) 02:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Look forward to seeing the other points tweaked and I'll keep tabs as things progress. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 22:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have a more substantial disagreement with one of those edits, which is your changing all references to "the Airplane" to "Jefferson Airplane", saying "I don't the colloquial 'the Airplane' should be used in an encyclopedia article". I understand your perspective, but in practice, virtually every book written about the group uses the phrasing "the Airplane"; see this Google Books search result, for example. So I don't the usage is colloquial, but instead is a common alternate, abbreviated usage used by writers in every context. (Similar usages are "the Stones" for The Rolling Stones and "the Dead" for the Grateful Dead, both of which you will often see in books as well.) To me, the repetition of "Jefferson Airplane" over and over looks awkward, and suggests that the writer isn't familiar with the alternate term.

Personally, I'd prefer not to see an encycl. article using "The Stones" either. But as you say, these short forms are widely used so feel free to go back to your version. hamiltonstone (talk) 22:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As for images, I haven't tried looking for sheet music covers. The one time I did this, for the Wide Open Spaces (song) article, I had to defend it at IfD twice in short order, here and here, which left me less than eager to try again :-) Wasted Time R (talk) 13:07, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, i imagined this would also be an issue. I wouldn't waste your time, wasted time! hamiltonstone (talk) 22:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Specific points

I would not redlink publishers in the refs, I think it is distracting. The redlinks in the article text seem fair enough.

WP:REDLINK doesn't say anything about references being considered differently from main article text. These publishing houses, journals and newspapers are all likely to get an article at some point, and so redlinks are warranted. I suspect most 'real' readers (i.e. not us editors) never look at references in the first place and thus are in no danger of finding them distracting.

(lead): "Several of these different strains of the song are still played in the 21st century". Is "strain" the right word here? I'd have though "variation" or "arrangement" might be more appropriate. And should it be "played" or "sung" or "performed"? The current version of this sentence just doesn't seem right.

You're right, "performed" is better. I meant "strains" in the biological metaphor sense, and didn't realize it had a different specific musical meaning. Now changed to "variants".

(Hymn): "Granade worked in part in the world of shape-note singing...". This seems a strange turn of phrase: 'to work in the world of shape-note singing'. Perhaps "Granade's compositions were influenced by the shape-note singing of the Shenandoah Valley..."?

What you propose is a stronger statement than the source supports. At present, I just know that he worked in that environment. If I can find a source that says he was directly influenced, I'll change the text then.

(Hymn): "associated to the tune "Good Shepherd" with an 8 7 D meter". This is very technical - "associated to" - is that a precise musical term (rather than the common English "associated with"? And what is 8 7 D meter??

I have changed it to "metrical pattern" and linked it to meter (poetry). The "8 7" refers to the lines alternating between 8 and 7 syllables each – if you count them off in the quoted segment, you'll see. To be honest I'm not sure what the "D" means, but it's in the hymnal and I've seen it in other music sites, so I used it.

(Hymn): "The most likely tune for it, however, is different from the eventual gospel blues one." I just didn't get this - why "most likely"?

The world of music back then could be quite confusing, with hymnals just giving words because it was assumed the congregation knew the music, or with the same words being used for multiple pieces of music or vice versa, or with pieces of songs spliced and recombined with other pieces. Thus it's not always possible to make definitive statements.

(Gospel blues): "The influence of Methodist hymns on Negro spirituals is a complex topic that scholars often disagree on..." You need to join the dots here. The article needs to say that the transformation to a gospel blues-style song may have been in part a result of hte influence of Methodist hymns on negro spirituals (if that is your point), but whatever the esact point the sources are making just here, the phrase I have quoted is currently not linked to the song in question. Alternatively you could change the sentence (which i copyedited to its current form) "It subsequently was transformed by the more general forces shaping American musical forms" to say something like "It subsequently was transformed into a gospel blues song by the more general forces shaping American musical forms". In fact, that latter change may be desirable in any case, but you see what you think.

I'd love to connect the dots better, but exactly how the song got from the 19th century hymn to the early 20th century gospel blues is still unclear to me, despite a fair amount of looking. Not knowing the actual path, I'm trying to outline a few of the forces at play that the path likely went through. But for me to say anything more definitive here would mean WP:OR, WP:SYN, and so forth. If I find out more down the road I will surely add it here.

(Gospel blues): "recording was released in 1942 by the Library of Congress as Archive of Folk Song, Recording Laboratory AFS L3 Folk Music of the United States: Afro American Spirituals, Work Songs and Ballads,..." I think this is mostly info that should be in a reference footnote, not in the article text? Something like ""recording was released in 1942 as Folk Music of the United States: Afro American Spirituals, Work Songs and Ballads,..."
(Gospel blues): "...issued as Archive of Folk Song, Recording Laboratory AFS L52 in 1941" Ditto. Just "...issued as Archive of Folk Song in 1941." and the full ref in the note would be better.

These Library of Congress recordings are very well known within the field of folk music and spirituals, and writers often refer to them by these full names. For example this Google Books search shows a number of books giving the full name. At the very least, the Library of Congress and the Archive of Folk Song would have to be mentioned, as these are quite famous (see John Lomax for some of the history, for example).

(Kaukonen and Jefferson Airplane): "...which Kaukonen then played against with his fills and solos". I'm not familiar with this use of the word "fill". Is there a relevant wikilink or alternative term available?

Now linked to Fill (music).

I think that's it. I found this fascinating. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:44, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for doing the review and for the compliment; I'll start looking at the issues you have raised. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:32, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've now finished with my responses. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for all those responses. I read the source on the shape-note singing thing, and I see the problem. That source mentions a 1966 book that perhaps you will be able to hunt one day and see if it helps. Thanks for your work and consideration of the issues raised. Passing this. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Death of wife?

I don't know the origin or why references listed might state that Strothers killed his wife with an axe. Local newspaper accounts at the time state that he shot in wife, who happen to be (by the way) a domestic servant of a well-to-do local businessman in Culpeper, Virginia. She was in a hospital for a few days before she passed away.FirstBassman13 (talk) 00:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)FirstBassman —Preceding unsigned comment added by FirstBassman13 (talk • contribs)

Hmm. The axe comes from two of the references, this All Music Guide bio of Strothers, no source given, and page 62 of Bruce Bastin's Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast. The latter's source, given in footnote 43 on this page, is Spivacke's recollection as given on page 3 of Richard K. Spottswood's 10-page brochure notes to Folk Music in America Vol.2 LBC-2 (which I don't have but can be ordered here). Of course this recollection may have been wrong, or may have reflected a prison tale told him at the time. Can you give specific names and dates of the local newspaper reports that you have in mind? Wasted Time R (talk) 01:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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