Re: Amazing Grace black keys…It is a great, heart-warming story, but unfortunately, it is not true. Newton wrote the words of the hymn as a poem, which was how it was published in 1779. We have no idea whether he sang it to any particular tune, but we do know that the melody it is currently sung with (New Britain) was not associated with the song until the 1830’s. Before that time, it was undoubtedly sung to numerous other melodies.

To be clear, it allows sentimentality to replace historical fact. Yes, John Newton (1725-1807) was a slave trader (until 1754), and, yes, John Newton was later ordained an Anglican priest (in 1764), and, yes, John Newton penned the hymn text , “Amazing Grace” (published without music in 1779 in “Olney Hymns,” a text collection co-authored with William Cowper). Yes, the indigenous folk melodies of Africa are generally pentatonic (as is true of the folksong of most every culture on the planet), and, yes, the song of African slaves was often characterized by the musical traditions of their homeland (though the all-important role of drumming was regularly discouraged and even prohibited by slave owners), and, yes, both black and white spirituals in North America are also often pentatonic (more a product of their folk origin than of any sort of cross-culturization).

However, the well-known folk tune now universally associated with Newton’s text originated on this continent, first appearing in print with a different text in 1829 in the American folk hymnal, “Columbian Harmony.” The tune and Newton’s text did not come together until 1835 (28 years after Newton’s death) when hymnal editor William Walker paired them in “Southern Harmony,” a text and tune collection published, ironically, in New Haven, Connecticut. Thus, despite the romance of Winley Phipps’ story of Newton “setting his words to a slave melody,” and of a similar anachronistic implication in a recent popular movie about the 1807 abolition of the slave trade in England, Newton, no doubt, never heard, sang, or even encountered the melody now so closely associated with his famous words.

Does that historical fact in any way diminish the significance of this beloved hymn and its familiar tune? Absolutely, not! On the other hand, attempting to increase its significance through hymnological mythology is not only irresponsible, but, in this instance, absolutely unecessary.