“Gospel Plow” is a traditional African American spiritual, also known as “Hold On” and “Keep Your Hand on the Plow.” Its title and central image come from Luke 9:62, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” No author is known, and, as with many spirituals, there is no single standard set of words.
It appears in print in 1917, in the collection Cecil Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell published as English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, and again in Newman Ivey White’s American Negro Folk-Songs in 1928. Its earliest known recording is “Keep Yo’ Hand on the Plow, Hold On” by the Hall Johnson Negro Choir in 1930. John and Alan Lomax printed it in Our Singing Country (1949) with Paul and Silas verses, referring to a 1937 field recording by Elihu Trusty of Paintsville, Kentucky, in the Library of Congress. Mahalia Jackson sang it as “Keep Your Hand on the Plow” with Duke Ellington at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, Odetta recorded it at Carnegie Hall in 1960, and Bob Dylan put it on his first album in 1962.
The Civil Rights Movement song “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” is built on it. The lyrics are often credited to Alice Wine of Johns Island, South Carolina, but Mrs. Wine is credited only with passing on the revised title; the Paul and Silas stanzas were already present in older versions of “Keep Your Hand on the Plow.” The 1987 PBS documentary series on the movement, Eyes on the Prize, took its name from the song.
The Nashville Bluegrass Band recorded “Gospel Plow” in January 1987 at the Cowboy Arms Hotel & Recording Spa in Nashville for their Rounder album To Be His Child, with Mike Compton on lead vocal and mandolin, Alan O’Bryant on tenor and banjo, Pat Enright on guitar, Stuart Duncan on fiddle and Mark Hembree on bass. Their lyric keeps the refrain, “Hold on, keep your hands on the plow,” and adds a verse naming Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and a verse about the streets of heaven being “made of gold.”
