Negro Spirituals: Book Resources

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This is the Story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Between 1871 and 1878, the Jubilee Singers presented concerts featuring the Negro spirituals that won the applause and admiration of the Western world. The rise and renown of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers form one of the most celebrated stories of post-Civil War America. THe book explores the Christian missionary ideals and convictions that spawned the Fisk Jubilee Singers during the 1870s and guided the ensemble throughout its travels.

"The American Negro," Arthur Schomburg wrote in 1925, "must remake his past in order to make his future." Many Harlem Renaissance figures agreed that reframing the black folk inheritance could play a major role in imagining a new future of racial equality and artistic freedom. In Deep River Paul Allen Anderson focuses on the role of African American folk music in the Renaissance aesthetic and in political debates about racial performance, social memory, and national identity.

Deep River elucidates how spirituals, African American concert music, the blues, and jazz became symbolic sites of social memory and anticipation during the Harlem Renaissance.

From joyous gospel to deeply felt blues, this wonderful collection contains vintage songs sung and played through the years by black Americans — at work, in church, and for pure entertainment. Included are spirituals, blues, work songs, and a variety of social and dance songs.

This important volume was originally compiled in 1940 by Dr. John W. Work, the noted musicologist affiliated with Fisk University and the celebrated Fisk Jubilee Singers. In it, he discusses the origins and history of black American folk music, the influence of slavery and African cultures, and the lyric significance of such much-loved songs as "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," Steal Away to Jesus," "Lord, I Want to Be a Christian," and "John Henry." These informative notes lead up to the heart of the book: the complete words and music for 230 religious and secular songs, including "Study War No More," "Keep Me from Sinking Down," "You May Bury Me in the East," "Rock of Ages," "Go Tell It on the Mountain," and many others.

This is an indispensable treasury of music for singers, musicians and all readers seeking a comprehensive sourcebook of black American folk music.

This stirring collection of Negro spirituals, edited by the great Negro poet James Weldon Johnson and arranged for voice and piano by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, presents 120 of these melodic-and intensely moving-religious folk songs for contemporary performance. The original language has been faithfully preserved in this convenient performing edition, so that the spirituals can be sung today exactly as they were more than a hundred years ago. The songs are prefaced by James Weldon Johnson's masterful discussions of their origins, musical quality, and historical significance. Above all, he stresses the essential dignity of the Negro spirituals, which, though no doubt inspired by the religious faith of their masters, 'are purely and solely the creation of the American Negro.'