Robert H. Kemp

Background

Robert H. Kemp was born on June 6, 1820 in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Nathan and Hannah (Wharf) Kemp.

Career

Brought up in a community where most of the wage earners followed the sea, Kemp spent three years on a fishing boat. At the age of twenty he became a shoe-dealer in Boston as junior member of the firm of Mansfield & Kemp. For a short time about 1843 he was a member of the Boston Fire Department. Soon after his marriage he purchased a farm in Reading, and established his home in that suburban town. From 1854 to 1870 he was occupied as conductor of the Reading Old Folks' Musical Society. The development of this unique institution, by which "Father" Kemp will be remembered, was a natural growth of the times in which he lived.

The absence of public entertainments called for a substitute in the home and community. Robert Kemp's pleasure in singing the old songs of the church suggested to him that he might gather the singers from around his home in Reading and spend the evenings in reviving the music of their fathers. From these neighborhood gatherings the Reading Old Folks' Musical Society sprang. So much enthusiasm was aroused by the rehearsals that it was determined to give a public concert to please the many friends who were accustomed to crowd into and around the house when the "Old Folks" sang. On a December evening in the early fifties an entertainment was held in the Lyceum Hall in Reading. The hall was packed and many were unable to gain admission, but listened from the outside. Concerts in Lynn and Boston followed. Next a short trip was taken extending as far south as Washington, and in New York more than six thousand persons attended one of the concerts in the Academy of Music, the proceeds of which were devoted to charity. The following season a seven months' tour was made into the West. In 1861 thirty members left Boston for a tour in England. Liverpool, London, and Chester heard their entertainments, but the proceeds were not paying expenses, and at Brighton the conductor decided to return home.

After his return, Kemp went back to selling shoes in Boston. The next season a series of "Monday Popular Concerts" was projected for Tremont Temple in Boston, and these were repeated in many cities in other parts of the United States. In 1868 Kemp published Father Kemp and His Old Folks: A History of the Old Folks' Concerts, Comprising an Autobiography of the Author. Perhaps the book of songs most used in the earlier Old Folks' Concerts was the Billings and Holden Collection of Ancient Psalmody (1836), one of a long line of collections of ancient music.

Some contributions were made by Father Kemp to the Continental Harmony (1857), which was especially intended for Old Folks' Concerts. In 1874 he sponsored Father Kemp's Old Folks Concert Music, published that year. During the Temperance agitation, The Faneuil Hall Temperance Song Book (1876) was compiled by Mother Kemp.

As old age came on, he became an inmate of the Old Men's Home in Charlestown, where he died in his seventy-seventh year.

Achievements

• Robert H. Kemp was remembered as the leader of the Reading Old Folks' Musical Society from 1854 to 1870. He played an important role in making Old Folks songs popular in the United State and in Europe in the 60's.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Father Kemp and his old folks: A history of the old folks' concerts, comprising autobiography of the author

    (Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

Views

Quotations: "Although I have swung my baton before a large choir in upwards of six thousand concerts, my word upon it, I never knew a note of music, and cannot distinguish a 'minim' from a 'demisemiquaver. ' I flatter myself, however, that I can beat time with the most accomplished impressario. "

Connections

Father:

Nathan Kemp

Mother:

Hannah (Wharf) Kemp

References

• Nebraska Folklore