Authoritative study traces the African influences and lyric significance of such songs as Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and John Henry, and gives words and music for 230 songs. Bibliography. Index of Song Titles.

The work of James Weldon Johnson (1871 - 1938) inspired and encouraged the artists of the Harlem Renaissance,a movement in which he himself was an important figure. Johnson was active in almost every aspect of American civil life and became one of the first African-American professors at New York University. He is best remembered for his writing, which questions, celebrates and commemorates his experience as an African-American.

Originally published in 1867, this book is a collection of songs of African-American slaves. A few of the songs were written after the emancipation, but all were inspired by slavery. The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves could, of crushed hopes, keen sorrow, and a dull, daily misery, which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice swamps. On the other hand, the words breathe a trusting faith in the life after, to which their eyes seem constantly turned.

Spirituals performed by jubilee troupes became a sensation in post-Civil War America. First brought to the stage by choral ensembles like the Fisk Jubilee Singers, spirituals anchored a wide range of late nineteenth-century entertainments, including minstrelsy, variety, and plays by both black and white companies. In the first book-length treatment of postbellum spirituals in theatrical entertainments, Sandra Jean Graham mines a trove of resources to chart the spiritual's journey from the private lives of slaves to the concert stage. Graham navigates the conflicting agendas of those who, in adapting spirituals for their own ends, sold conceptions of racial identity to their patrons. In so doing they lay the foundation for a black entertainment industry whose artistic, financial, and cultural practices extended into the twentieth century. A companion website contains jubilee troupe personnel, recordings, and profiles of 85 jubilee groups. Please go to: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/graham/spirituals/

A New Perspective for the Use of Dialect in African American Spirituals: History, Context, and Linguistics investigates the use of the African American English (AAE) dialect in the musical genre of the spiritual. Perfect for conductors and performers alike, this book traces the history of the dialect, its use in early performance practice, and the sociolinguistic impact of the AAE dialect in the United States. Felicia Barber explores AAE’s development during the African Diaspora and its correlations with Southern States White English (SSWE) and examines the dialect’s perception and how its weaponization has impacted the performance of the genre itself. She provides a synopsis of research on the use of dialect in spirituals from the past century through the analysis of written scores, recordings, and research. She identifies common elements of early performance practice and provides the phonological and grammatical features identified in early practice. This book contains practical guide for application of her findings on ten popular spiritual texts using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It concludes with insights by leading arrangers on their use of AAE dialect as a part of the genre and practice.

Fight On brings together three dynamic elements to tell the story of the African American Spirituals tradition: fifty-nine paintings from a series by Aaron F. Henderson, the lyrics of fifty-six spiritual songs, and narrative writings by scholars of art and culture, and Henderson himself. The elements come together to make this more than an art book, a lyric book, autobiography or cultural commentary. Fight On is a celebratory document of African American culture, giving evidence to how Black people in a nation that grew rich and powerful on the strength of their unpaid labor survived and liberated themselves.Two things have been a consistent in the life of Aaron F. Henderson: making art and listening to spirituals-at home, in church, and later in college. He has also always valued history, the scholarly work required to write it, and recognizes its power expressed in different ways, including music. Fight On reveals how music has served as medicine, spiritual sustenance and a means of communication for Black people in general, and himself in particular. He studies great African American thinkers, such as W. E. B. Du Bois who in The Souls of Black Folk called spirituals sorrow songs that "articulate messages of the slave to the world," messages of suffering, despair, freedom, faith, hope, and the power of the spirit. Henderson references Frederick Douglass who wrote about the double meanings in their words and how every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The paintings in Fight On show us the spirit of Harriet Tubman who used the spirituals as a signal of her arrival to facilitate the escape of others by way of the Underground Railroad. The songs kept people working in the fields, on the railroads and marching during the civil rights movement. The songs are the foundation of Black music, i.e., blues, jazz, R&B, gospel, Rock & Roll, rap, and hip hop. Du Bois said it this way "by fateful chance the Negro folksong---the rhythmic cry of the slave---stands today not simply as the sole American music.

This thorough, well-researched exploration of the origins and development of a rich and varied African American musical tradition features authentic versions of over 40 folk songs. These include such time-honored selections as "Wake Up Jonah," "Rock Chariot," "Wonder Where Is My Brother Gone," "Traveling Shoes," "It's Getting Late in the Evening," "Dark Was the Night," "I'm Crossing Jordan River," "Russia, Let That Moon Alone," "Long John," "Rosie," "Motherless Children," three versions of "John Henry," and many others. One of the first and best surveys in its field, Negro Folk Music, U.S.A. has long been admired for its perceptive history and analysis of the origins and musical qualities of typical forms, ranging from simple cries and calls to anthems and spirituals, ballads, and the blues. Traditional dances and musical instruments are examined as well. The author — a well-known novelist, folklorist, journalist, and specialist in African and African American cultures — offers a discerning study of the influence of this genre on popular music, with particular focus on how jazz developed out of folk traditions.