Amazing Grace by Celtic Woman with Lyrics

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Description

Sung by Celtic Woman.

Comment added by Linda Wolfe:
"Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognizable Christian hymns in the English-speaking world. The text by English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725--1807) was first published in 1779. The words describe in first person the move of a "wretch" from a "lost" to a "found" state by a merciful act of God. The melody, "New Britain", was first published in 1829 by Charles H. Spilman and Benjamin Shaw (Cincinnati). Unattributed to any composer, the melody combines two earlier melodies ("Gallaher" and "St. Mary") and possibly represents a confluence of oral traditions. "New Britain" was wedded to Newton's text in 1835 by composer William Walker to form the hymn familiar today.[1]

Anglican cleric John Newton in his later years

William Walker first joined John Newton's verses to the "New Britain" melody to create the hymn known as "Amazing Grace"
Author Gilbert Chase describes "Amazing Grace" as "without a doubt the most famous of all the folk hymns."[2] Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer, estimates that it is performed about 10 million times annually.[3] "Amazing Grace" stands as an emblematic African American spiritual and exemplar of Appalachian shape note hymnody. In the nineteenth century the hymn was sung by Native Americans enduring the ordeal of the Trail of Tears, by abolitionists, by soldiers in the U.S. Civil War, and by homesteaders settling the Prairies.[4] Today it has attained international popularity, and benefited from renewed popularity among members of America's civil rights movement