“Just a Closer Walk With Thee” is one of the most widely known gospel songs in America, and like many of the deepest hymns its origins are not firmly documented. The strongest evidence points to the African American church tradition of the nineteenth-century South, and some accounts trace it back as far as the years before the Civil War.
The song reached print and wide circulation around 1940, largely through the Chicago gospel publisher and arranger Kenneth Morris. By a well-known account, Morris heard a railroad-station porter singing the song, was haunted by it, and went back to learn it before publishing his arrangement. From there it spread swiftly through gospel singing, became a staple of New Orleans jazz funerals, and entered the folk and country repertoires.
The song’s plain, humble plea — for the strength of a closer walk beside the Lord through a weak and troubled life — has kept it in constant use. The version heard here is by Cliff Waldron, the bluegrass singer who made it the title song of a 1971 album.
