Etta James's This Little Light of Mine: Why the civil rights anthem was an inspired way to close the royal wedding
After the pomp, the vows and the rustle of prayer booklets, the curtain came down on the royal wedding to the strains of Etta James and her hauntingly affirmative gospel hymnal This Little Light Of Mine .
The song, the last to be played during the ceremony, is not an obvious choice but it's arguably an inspired one. James had a tumultuous life and all of that emotion is invested in her rendering of the beloved protest tune – a soulful invocation of the simple joy of being alive.
It’s a celebration – but also a vow to the universe to burn more brightly and be the best person you can. The appeal to both Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who, as with James, have overcome torrid circumstances, is obvious.
James’s version – which opens with a brisk jazz grove and a seemingly impromptu chorus of “Amen” – started as a studio outtake and did not win a following until later in a career. However, it instantly became a favourite among fans and has featured in several compilations of her most-acclaimed work.
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That the Californian, born in humble circumstance, should so effortlessly inhabit a deceptively jaunty (yet ultimately deep and nuanced) number is no surprise. The tune contains multitudes, blending open-hearted optimism with the understanding that living well and honestly is a serious business.
Such, at any rate, is the meaning it has acquired through circumstance. This Little Light of Mine was popularised during the early Civil Rights era by the pioneering community rights organiser Zilphia Horton.
In a classical American story that has echoes of Meghan Markle’s upbringing in a mixed-raced family Horton was of Spanish and Native American heritage. Born in a poor mining town in Arkansas she was a firebrand from her youth – a disposition that brought her into conflict with her mother, who disapproved of her labour volunteering and her fraternising with musicians. Among the ne’er do wells was folk singer Pete Seeger, to whom she introduced older material such as We Shall Overcome and This Little Light of Mine.
Tragically, Horton died in 1956 having suffered liver failure after mistaking toxic typewriter cleaning fluid for a glass of water. However, her legacy lived on and This Little Light Of Mine became a rallying cry in the struggle to tear down racial segregation. At the time the song was widely assumed to be a traditional African-American hymnal, so convincingly did it seem to bring together belief in the religious redemption with the raw anguish of slavery.
The truth was rather stranger. Far from coalescing in the fields of the Antebellum South, it was written in the Twenties – and by a Northerner. Surreally, This Little Light Of Mine had started not as a gospel lament but was intended as a somewhat throwaway ditty for the amusement and education of children.
Its composer, Harry Dixon Loes, was a teacher at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and is reported to have conceived of the tune as a miniature Bible lesson for kids, with lyrics said to have been inspired by Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works”.
At the time Loes surely had scant inkling at what he had wrought. He certainly little time to dwell, given that, in his career he is estimated to have written 3,000 songs – 1,500 of them gospel pieces in the vein of This Little Light Of Mine.
The composition took on its own life, however, and was soon part of the repertoire of bluesmen (and women) in the south. Here it was “discovered” in 1939 by American folk anthropologist Alan Lomax, who recorded a version at Gorree State Farm women’s prison by in Huntsville Texas by Doris McMurray. The grainy taping was archived and can be heard today at the American Library of Congress.
As interpreted by James and others, This Little Light Of Mine is a masterpiece of simplicity. Each verse finished with the coda “I’m gonna let is shine, let it shine, let it shine” – easy to sing in the Sunday Schools where Loes had no doubt imagined it would be performed.
Thanks to Horton the tune found new audiences and was widely covered. Ray Charles performed a “secularised” version under the name This Little Girl of Mine in 1955, his take in turn re-imagined two years later by the Everly Brothers.
The original was later recorded by Australian folk-pop group The Seekers while pioneering soul singer Sam Cooke had success with a swinging Vegas rendition and Aretha Franklin with a jazz-infused take. It was more recently interpreted by Bruce Springsteen during his Pete Seeger-inspired folk phase, and is included on his 2007 Live In Dublin album. “I want you to all rise from your seats now and join us,” pleads Springsteen as the start, more preacher man than blue-collar belter.
The amateur psychologist may be tempted to conclude that it is the James rendition to which Meghan Markle has, especially, responded most strongly. Both were born in Los Angeles and, in their own way, each discovered early in life the degree to which racial prejudice is woven into the fabric of America. James by a considerable distance had the more torrid upbringing – she never knew her father, was abandoned by her mother and mistreated by a succession of foster parents.
Markle’s childhood was obviously very different. Still, she will no doubt have empathised with James's determination not to be undermined by the myopia and self-interest of others. In their ways each rose from humble origins – and for that reason when This Little Light Of Mine rings out it will be a celebration not just of what lies ahead for the newlyweds but of obstacles already overcome and trials endured.
