The 'brother James' who wrote this beautiful tune was James Leith Macbeth Bain. He was born in Scotland in 1840 and died in Liverpool in 1925. Besides being a musician, he was a poet, mystic and had a great interest in healing. He published a book called 'The brotherhood of healing' in 1906 and spent the latter years of his life working with the underprivileged in Liverpool. He wrote this simple but charming tune to accompany the familiar paraphrase of Psalm 23 which comes from the Scottish Psalter of 1650; 'The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want'.
