Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry

by Sandra Jean Graham

Website Recordings

Web Recording 3.1. Excerpt from "Roll, Jordan, Roll" as recorded by a Fisk Jubilee Quartet in 1909. Singers: John Wesley Work II, first tenor; James Andrew Myers, second tenor; Alfred Garfield King, first bass; and Noah Walker Ryder, second bass. From Fisk Jubilee Singers: In Chronological Order, vol. 1, 1909–1911 (Vienna: Document Records DOCD-5533).

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Web Recording 3.2. Excerpt from "Roll, Jordan, Roll" as recorded by Jim Europe's Singing Serenaders, a male chorus, in 1919. From The Earliest Negro Vocal Groups, vol. 2, 1893–1922 (Vienna: Document Records DOCD-5288).

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Web Recording 4.1. Excerpt from "The Great Camp Meeting" as recorded by a Fisk Jubilee Quartet in 1916. Singers: John Wesley Work II and James Andrew Myers, tenors; J. Everett Harris, baritone; and Lemuel L. Foster, bass. From Fisk Jubilee Singers, vol. 2, 1915–1920 (Vienna: Document Records DOCD-5534).

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Web Recording 4.2. Excerpt from "Great Camp Meeting" as recorded by the Southland Jubilee Singers in 1921. The repeat of the opening chorus has been omitted for this example. From Earliest Negro Vocal Groups, vol. 4, 1921–1924 (Vienna: Document Records DOCD-5531).

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Web Recording 6.1. Excerpt from the commercial spiritual "De Gospel Train Am Coming" as recorded by Harry C. Browne with the Peerless Quartet (white) in 1917 (composer unknown). Browne recorded numerous other commercial spirituals included on this CD, such as "Keep in de Middle ob de Road," "Climb Up Ye Chillun, Climb," and "Balm of Gilead." From Harry C. Browne: Early Minstrel Songs, Recorded 1916–1923 (British Archives of Country Music).

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Web Recording 6.2. Verse and chorus of James Stewart's commercial spiritual "Angel Gabriel" as recorded by Harry C. Browne in 1916. From Harry C. Browne: Early Minstrel Songs, Recorded 1916–1923 (British Archives of Country Music).

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Sandra Jean Graham is an associate professor of music at Babson College. Her articles on spirituals and blackface minstrelsy have been published in American Music, the New Grove Dictionary of American Music (2nd ed), and The Oxford Handbook of Music Censorship (Oxford, 2014).