“Amazing Grace” is one of the most famous Protestant songs of Great-Britain, Ireland and the United States. Lyrics were written by John Newton probably between 1760 and 1761. It was published by Newton and William Cowper in 1779, in Olney Hymns collection. John Newton (1725-1807) was the captain of a slave ship. He wrote in his diary on May 10, 1748, that there was a storm and that there was a risk for the ship to sink on his way back. He felt a “great release.” After surviving the storm, he became a vicar and gave up on slave trading; he even campaigned for the abolition. Newton did not compose the melody and there were many tries before being definitely associated with this one. It is said to be an old Irish or Scottish melody, but some people would say that it was a slave song and so it would come from South Africa. Anyway, this spiritual even influenced Celtic music; it is today one of the most melody played on the bagpipes. Barbara Pollard Dawson was born in 1957 in Derby, England. She was a nurse supervisor but suffering from an industrial accident, she went back to studying the piano, singing and theory. She is now teaching music in Dordogne and conducting the vocal ensemble “Les Vocalies.”
