Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace


In the late 1700s, before John Newton composed Amazing Grace, he was the owner and captain of a slave ship.
     He experienced what he was later to refer to as his "great deliverance" while attempting to steer his ship through a violent storm in the middle of the Atlantic. When all seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, it is reported that he exclaimed, "Lord have mercy upon us," and miraculously the ship, its crew and cargo of Africans were spared.
     Later in his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to believe that God had addressed him through the storm and that grace had begun to work for him. According to popular folklore, Newton then turned his slave ship 180 degrees and took those people back to their homes.
     He sailed back to England, joined the Methodist Church, became a minister, and spent the rest of his life in service of the church. In that time, Newton composed some 280 hymns, including Amazing Grace which describes his great epiphany at sea.
     In the southern United States, this hymn is traditionally sung in long-meter style, where the preacher lines out the lyrics to a congregation that may not have been able to afford hymnals or been able to read them.

Sources:
• Folk Song USA, Alan Lomax, Editor, New American Library
• Ford Hall Forum audio cassette, “The New American Gazette” with Pete Seeger.
• John Newton page on the World Wide Web.
Recordings on File by: The Blind Boys of Alabama, Judy Collins, Buell Kazee, Pete Seeger.