The History of "Amazing Grace" by Wintley Phipps

I admit to being a wannabee bass. For 48 years I've sung in church and community choirs and love music. Many of my favorite singers are true basses -- names like George Younce, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Jim Nabors, Johnny Cash, Ed Ames, J. D. Sumner, Paul Robeson, Johnny Ray Watson, Johnny Hartman, Richard Sterban, Harold Reid, Tim Duncan, and of course, the first bass I ever recall hearing on the radio, George Beverly Shea. Bev as he preferred being called, sang for 50 years on the road with Billy Graham, and after retiring, was replaced by Wintley Phipps. My first intro to Wintley was on a Bill Gaither Homecoming DVD, three performances from which follow below.

Below is Wintley singing "Amazing Grace," but after hearing a bit of this amazing singer, please click the video that follows and hear his brief but poignant "sermonette" on the history of Negro Spirituals -- many of which are written using the "slave scale" or pentatonic scale, the five black notes on the piano -- and Wintley's explanation of how "Amazing Grace" came to be written as the first "white man's Negro spiritual" by John Newton, a former slave ship captain turned evangelical Anglican priest, whose life and conversion are described in the song lyrics. But the tune Newton chose for his words is a Negro slave chant melody he no doubt heard his captors singing on one of his slave ship journeys.







Wintley Phipps is an ordained minister of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. He has performed for the last 6 presidents, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and Oprah, and he sang at Diana Ross's wedding. He has also sung at 2 Democratic National Conventions, at the Vatican, on "Saturday Night Live" and at National Prayer Breakfasts. He founded the U.S. Dream Academy, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to providing a values-based, interactive, tutorial and remedial education program targeted at children and youth-at-risk through community Family Learning Centers located in various states.

This organization came about as a result of his 6 years serving on the board of directors for Chuck Colson’s ministry, Prison Fellowship. He traveled to various prisons around the country and had a wake-up call. “They all looked like my sons,” says Wintley. “For a moment, I thought I was on a black college campus.”

He studied the problem and discovered that nearly 2.8 million children live with a parent in prison today. Children with parents in prison are six times more likely to end up in prison themselves and over two-thirds of juveniles in the criminal justice system are family or children of prisoners. And since eighty percent of the inmate population is composed of high school dropouts and dropouts are more likely to commit crimes and be incarcerated than those with more education, he founded the Dream Academy to fight the problem at its roots. “We aim to break the cycle of incarceration by giving children the skills and vision needed to lead productive and fulfilling lives,” says Wintley. Amen!

If you enjoy dramatic readings, check out Wintley's rendition of James Weldon Johnson's famous poem, "The Creation" from another of the Gaither Homecoming series, shown below. (BTW, as the camera pans through those on the stage, near the end, the faces of fellow bass-profundos George Younce and George Beverly Shea are shown transfixed by Wintley's captivating performance. And the portrait seen on the back wall is Billy Graham.)



And here is Wintley with another dramatic reading of another James Weldon Johnson poem, "Come Down, Death."



Attending one of his church services and listening to one of his sermons must be special treats!