He actually contributed to Rise Again, he was on the song selection committee. He inspires so many, and we were lucky enough to have him be a really supporter in the early days of Rise Up Singing. Who and/or what inspires you to do the work you’re doing?Īnnie: We were mentored by our friend, Peter Seeger. Our biggest fans of the new book are the Young Adult Friends that grew up with the old book. And a lot of those Young Adult Friends helped us think about what sorts of songs they wanted to see in the new book two years ago. My parents used the book as I grew up.” is like a family member. Peter: Rise Up Singing came out in 1988, so there’s been many Young Adult Friends who have come up to us over the years and said “this book has been with me in my family since as early as I can remember. We also heard from people who used the book for all sorts of situations – hospice situations, gatherings, that sort of thing. Right in front of me! That was the thing we wanted, we wanted the book to be a vehicle for bringing people together in community. At one of our concerts, during the intermission, people were standing in a line to talk to us, and I watched as two people met each other for the first time, who lived two blocks from each other, and decided to have a monthly sing-along. Peter and I have traveled all over with the songbooks, and with Rise Up Singing, I remember going around and just having people tell me all kinds of stories. Have you heard of any stories over the years of people who used your songbooks in a unique way?Īnnie: I have so many memories. And when it ended up selling hundreds of thousands of copies and became popular in many different churches, camps, schools, peace groups, and things like that, we were as surprised as anybody that it was so widely used across the country. Peter: We were kindof shocked when it became so…we thought, if we sold 50,000 copies we’d be really surprised and pleased. So we had that to start from, and then we decided to do it up and made a book with 1,200 songs in it. Peter had already been going around with a collection of songs he had put together and other people had been using that. We’d run off mimeograph song sheets for lots of groups over the years, and we wanted to move beyond that and have a real book that could be used widely among Quakers and other groups singing together.Īnnie: Peter and I both came out of musical families, and when we met each other, we both had our big collections. Peter: We have led singing among Quakers for many, many years and we wanted to have an inexpensive songbook that included a wide range of songs that people enjoyed singing together, not just the kind of songs that went into the old Friends’ hymnal that was used by meetings. How did the Rise Up Singing and Rise Again Songbooks come to be? I recently caught up with Peter and Annie at New England Yearly Meeting's Annual Sessions at Castleton University in Vermont to ask them about their work, their inspiration, and what's next. When they produced the original Rise Up Singing Songbook, Peter Blood and Annie Patterson never imagined that it would become such a widely-used book in churches, camps, and peace groups beyond the Quaker community. Spiritual Practice for children under 8įeatured in the September BookMusings and Vital Friends eNewsletters of FGC.For Children: On God, Prayer, and the Bible.Clerking, Recording, & Business Meeting.Children's Books on African American Experience.

To book Annie, please contact us at call us at 41. See Annie's upcoming concerts on this site at the events tab at top of each page. Little Red Rockin' Chair (traditional Appalachian).Bonnie Light Horsemen (traditional Irish).I Can't Give You Anything But Love (McHugh & Fields).Do You Love an Apple? (traditional Irish).I Ain't Got No Home (w: Woody Guthrie, m: Billy Bragg).It showcases the wide variety of genres that Annie performs from traditional Appalachian and British Isles ballads to jazz, blues, and singer-songwriter material. This live concert video was recorded in 2016 at a benefit for the Pioneer Valley Folksong Society's 'Song & Story Swap' in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Annie pat and peter blood glory bound