Title: Spencer Kimball’s Record Collection: Essays on Mormon Music
Author: Michael Hicks
Publisher: Signature Books
Genre: Essay collection
Year of Publication: 2020
Number of Pages: 232
Binding: Paper
ISBN13: 978-1-560852865
Price: $17.95
Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton for the Association for Mormon Letters
Spencer Kimball’s Record Collection: Essays on Mormon Music, by Michael Hicks was one of the most delightful books that I read in 2020. It was informative, interesting, and plain old fun to read. Hicks, who is a recently retired BYU music professor and author of five other scholarly books on music, composed this book from ten of his essays. In his brief Preface, he explains that he:
picked a few old essays, rewrote some, and wrote new ones, then arranged them into something like a row of stained-glass windows, each self-contained, but, all told, making an odd narrative of tableaux. (p. vii)
“Stained-glass windows (forming) an odd narrative of tableaux” is an excellent metaphor for the essays in this book which paint a beautiful yet eclectic picture of Mormon culture and musical history.
The essays in Spencer Kimball’s Record Collection are divided into three sections. The first four essays, “roam through the nineteenth century’s popular songs, hymns, and musical theatre.” The next three, “wander into the twentieth century with the stories behind two record albums, followed by some lifting of the curtain of Mormon hymnbook-making near the century’s end.” The final three, “collect ad hoc slices of criticism and memoir, from Broadway to Spencer Kimball’s shelves to, in the end, a lip-chewing account of the making of the two other books in my Mormon music trilogy” (p. vii). As readers follow Hicks’ tableaux on their journey through this book, they encounter history, folk stories, theology, social criticism and commentary, insights on Mormon myth and culture, and insights in personal essays that will make them glad that they took the journey.
The essays in Spencer Kimball’s Record Collection are all excellent. Each and everyone is filled with fascinating, illuminating, and entertaining moments. I’ll highlight a few of them. Essay number one is the perfect leadoff for the collection. It sucked me right into the book and made me not want to put it down. The essay that begins the reader’s “roam through the nineteenth century” is titled, “Joseph Smith’s Favorite Songs (Or Not).” It addresses one of Mormonism’s most beloved myths, that Joseph Smith loved the hymn, “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” and asked for it to be sung not once, but twice shortly before his murder, and uses that to start a discussion about Smith’s personality and behaviors. Hicks describes how Smith’s favorite songs had military themes tied to the “romanticism” of his era that often-featured soldier archetypes. Hicks states that Smith’s love for these songs demonstrates, “how seriously he took his role as Lieutenant-General of the Nauvoo Legion.” They also show that Smith:
Loved the parading, the horsemanship, the inspections, the uniforms and epaulets, even, presumably, the band playing its marches and serenades, all of the accoutrements of the military, though with no real battle front to daunt him. These soldier lyrics reveal a fantasy that may have colored his vision of himself more than we care to notice. (p. 14)
This essay caused me to view Smith and his personality and behaviors in a whole new way.
I was also really captivated by the second essay, “How the Church Left Emma Smith and Why You Should Care.” This essay is an important study of sexism and patriarchy in the LDS Church. In the essay, Hicks reminds the reader that Emma Smith had been given the authority to create a hymnal for the Church by a direct revelation through her husband Joseph Smith (the “Elect Lady” revelation, now D&C 25). Hicks then narrates how Brigham Young and the early Quorum of the Twelve stepped on Emma’s authority and used their position of power to write their own hymnal to replace Emma’s. They did this to shut Emma and her ideas on doctrine out of the early Church. This action by the Twelve is in part responsible for, or at least helps to demonstrate, the modern differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ (sometimes called “Emma’s Church”). If you want to understand the two churches’ differing approaches to their teachings on grace, peace, and other ideas, read this essay. “How the Church Left Emma Smith” ends with this crucial statement:
the men’s hymnody, plump with masculine airs, militaristic undertones, and monarchial visions, overrode the woman’s intimate divine impulses. That’s how the church left Emma Smith and why you should care. (p. 50)
The fourth essay, “Ministering Minstrels,” is a painful essay to read. In it, Hicks tackles racism in Mormonism by examining the long love that Mormons had for blackface minstrel shows. Essay number seven is called, “How to Make and Unmake a Mormon Hymnbook.” I was very intrigued by this essay and I think that you will be too. People often wonder what goes on behind the closed doors in top-level meetings of LDS church leaders. “How to Make and Unmake…” opens a few of those doors and reveals some of that mystery. Hicks uses quotes, charts, and stories to compose the captivating story behind the years-long process needed to create and get approval for the green hymnal that has been used by the LDS Church since the mid-1980s. In this essay, you will encounter politics and discussions, wheelings and dealings, and details that may just blow your mind! I never thought that getting fifteen men to agree on the contents of a hymnal could be so complicated!
The final two essays are the most personal. The last essay, “Making Book on The Tabernacle Choir” recounts Hicks’s attempts to write scholarly books on Mormon music as a BYU employee. Hicks narrates an almost unbelievable story of the hoops that he had to jump through, the cajoling that took place, and the threats of being fired if he wrote the wrong thing or used a frowned upon story or quote. This essay was a real wild ride. I learned more about the workings of the LDS Church and Hicks along the way. I thoroughly enjoyed it. As “Joseph Smith’s Favorite Songs (Or Not)” was the perfect way to start this journey through these odd tableaux forming stained glass windows of a book, this essay was the perfect conclusion.
Now, I jumped a bit there. I skipped over chapter. That is because the penultimate essay was the one that I enjoyed reading the most. Lending its name to the book, “Spencer Kimball’s Record Collection,” recounts the story of Hicks meeting Spencer W Kimball’s son Ed. The younger Kimball offered Hicks his father’s collection of 78’s and 33’s. It is an entertaining and amusing essay. I even found out that there was a Mötley Crüe album in Spencer Kimball’s collection! TAKE THAT Teenage Andrew’s bishop circa 1985!
Spencer Kimball’s Record Collection: Essays on Mormon Music was one of my favorite books of 2020. It was a real pleasure to read. I was previously familiar with Hicks’s name, but this was the first time that I read one of his books. Reading Spencer Kimball’s Record Collection was such an enjoyable experience that I have now added Hicks’s other books to my “must-read” list. If you want to take a fun and fascinating trek through Mormon history, culture, and music, this is the book for you.
