Tag Archives: spiritual

Let My People Go: Moses in African American Spirituals

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The traditional lyrics and melody. Burleigh, H.T. “Go Down, Moses (Let My People Go!),” in Negro Spirituals (New York: G. Ricordi, 1917),https://library.duke.edu/dig italcollections/hasm_n0708/.

After relentless, long and hard days working in the fields, enslaved black people had little in forms of comfort. Singing spirituals was one way for enslaved people to come together, to sing about their hardships, to praise God, and to lift their spirits. Although some scholars, such as George Pullen Jackson,1 have argued that spirituals stem directly from white Protestant music, spiritual songs centered on Moses and the Israelites’ escape from Egyptian slavery, such as “Go Down, Moses”, highlight how the slave experience distinctly shaped African American spirituals.

In the numerous songs featuring the biblical character of Moses, “Go Down, Moses” is the most popular. This as well as other Moses songs directly reflects enslaved people’s longing for freedom. For many enslaved people, Moses was representative of the brave “conductors” of the Underground Railroad, such as Harriet Tubman, that guided enslaved people to freedom.2 The lyrics of “Go Down Moses” indicating that Moses, someone who did not have as much power as the Pharaoh, could defy him and demand “to let [his] people go!” was incredibly powerful for enslaved people who dreamed of defying their master. In many ways it became a way of defying their master even if they did not run away.3

Although this version of “Go Down Moses” remains the most popular, other versions also highlight connections between the African-American slaves and the Israelites. In John Davis’s version of “Go Down, Moses”, he reveals that the chariot symbolizes the Underground Railroad and the “rivers rolling” as the rivers that runaway slaves would cross though to lose their scent.4 Although the lyrics are different, the message remains the same: a dream and a reflection on the fight for freedom.

Krehbiel’s assertion that “Nowhere save on the plantations of the south could the emotional life which is essential to the development of true folksong be developed”5 rings true in “Go Down, Moses”. Although whites may have shared Christianity with enslaved blacks, they could not emote the same connection with the enslaved Israelites. The emotion present in the slow, melancholy song in the video and sheet music above reveals the deep sadness of living in slavery and a longing for freedom that only enslaved people could understand.

1 Jackson, George Pullen. “Negro-Borrowed Tunes are Traced Back to Britain: Did the Black Man Compose Religious Songs?,” in White and Negro Spirituals, Their Life Span and Kinship: Tracing 200 Years of Untrammeled Song Making and Singing Among Our Country Folk, (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1943): 264-289.

2 “Georgia islands: Biblical Songs and Spirituals,” Southern Journey 12 (1998): 14.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Krehbiel, Henry Edward. “Songs of the American Slaves,” in Afro-American Foksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music, (1914): 22.

Who gets to be American?

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People of color are often treated as as outsiders and struggle to be viewed as fully American, rather than a hyphenated version of it. Much of this is rooted in the fact that it was not until relatively recently that people of color in the United States were even considered citizens. Now, even those who are American citizens constantly have to prove that they are “American” enough. A key characteristic of a “normal” American that is implied but never explicitly stated is that one must be white. Without whiteness, loyalty to the United States as well as true “Americanness” is always questioned.

The assumption that one must be white to be American is visible in the history of black spirituals. In Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music by Henry Edward Krehbiel, the exclusion of black spirituals within the label of “American folk music” is highlighted. Krehibel explains how many writers acknowledge the “interesting character of the songs, but refuse them the right to be called American” (Krehibel, 1962). This denial of “American” status is continually brought up throughout Krehibel’s writing. After all, “they were created in America with American influences and by people who are Americans in the same sense that any other element in our population is American” (Krehibel, 1962). Well, all except one thing: they weren’t white.

“Travelling Scraps” from the Freedom’s Journal in 1828

 

Creating boundaries to determine who is and is not really American is evident in this article from a newspaper from the Freedom’s Journal written in 1828. This was written by a black man educated in the North about his travel experience to Maryland, a state where slavery was still widely present at the time. When describing his experience in Baltimore he states that a black man from the north can never feel at home because:

 

 

“when we come to talk of liberty – of the rights of citizenship – of his evidence in a court of justice against his fairer brethren, we cannot but perceive that there is little justice doled out to [a man of colour]”

It does not matter that this man is from the north and educated. He still will not be treated as having the same rights of citizenship as a white man. This history around citizenship and rights of black people contributes to the modern conception of who is “American”. The deeply embedded racism in slavery and later in determining citizenship status caused black people to struggle to gain American citizenship. This contributes to the reason why the default race of an American is white. This notion, however, is not only attributed to citizenship status, as even currently, people of color who are American citizens since birth still have to prove that they belong. Maintaining whiteness as the norm prevents people of color from being included in the status of “American” just as black spirituals were excluded from being considered American folk music. This exclusion helps to maintain the unjust treatment of people of color in the United States by pinning them as outsiders and not truly American.

 

Sources:

Fort Dearborn Publishing Co. Map of the United States of America. 1901. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/3f4636795.

Henry Edward Krehbiel. Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1962.

“Travelling Scraps.” Freedom’s Journal (New York, NY), August 15, 1828.

There is a Balm in Giliead

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There Is a Balm in Gilead is a well-known African-American spiritual with a rich history. Its origins cannot be pinpointed, a fact common to folk songs; however, musicologists have traced back to the first print publication as a way of identifying their mark of beginning. Most musicologists agree that the first publication of this particular spiritual is found in “Folk Songs of the American Negro” published in Nashville in 1907 and written by John Wesley Work, II who I will discuss later.1

The Original Jubilee Singers. John Wesley Work, Folk Song of the American Negro (New York: Negro University Press, 1915), 102.

The track here, recorded in December 1909 by The Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, was integral in the dissemination of this spiritual, especially to predominantly white audiences in the early 20th century. The Jubilee Quartet was a smaller product of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers which was a larger ensemble that toured on behalf of Fisk University, a university for African-Americans which opened after the end of the Civil War. The Fisk Jubilee Singers are best known for their performance tours which featured numerous spirituals and brought financial profits to support the university.2 Because of financial burdens, the ensemble was forced to cut down to a quartet in the early 1900s.3

“In the early days it was looked upon as a curiosity in the world of song, beautiful, entertaining but transient, for the world never considered it more than a commodity, through which one or two Negro schools maintained themselves.”4

This quote from John Wesley Work II, the conductor, arranger, and lead tenor for the Jubilee Quartet communicates some dissonance between the performance of spirituals in concerts so heavily influenced by financial motivations and the root of spirituals in the hardships of African-American slaves. Work was a leading force in collecting spirituals from oral tradition and transcribing them for publication and performing them on tours, yet acknowledged the history behind them in his book, attempting to go beyond the simple “commodity” that he felt audiences were attuned to.

“The reason why the Negro songs are so full of scripture, quoted and implied, is that for centuries the Bible was the only book he was allowed to “study,” and it consumed all his time and attention.”5

Balm in Gilead first published in John Wesley Work II’s book “Folk Song of the American Negro” (Page 43).

As we have brought up in class, spirituals often make reference to biblical passages. Balm in Gilead, in particular, centers around a text from Jeremiah 8:22 about hoping and longing for a better place.

The tension between origins and performance authenticity has been central to the discussions we have been having around black folk music in class. I continue to wrestle with whether it is appropriate to perform spirituals as a white person or to program them for concerts of predominantly white ensembles. Is there a way to respect and embody the grief that encompasses the ancestry of spirituals? Have we completely changed the intention or purpose of spirituals to suit our own needs, therefore exerting privilege, or is this just the nature of all folk music?

I welcome your thoughts toward these questions in respectful comments to this post.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers and Their First Record

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http://media.loc.gov/playlist/view/5A9DB5B664340160E0538C93F1160160

In 1871, George White organized the Fisk Jubilee Singers at Fisk University in Tennessee, in order to raise money for the school. They were a group of black students from Fisk University who performed spirituals in the concert setting. While previous black concert artists performed standard white repertoire, the Fisk Jubilee Singers gave performances of black music, and this music did not follow the prevalent minstrel stereotypes. In 1898, John Wesley Work II, a later director of the group, helped get the Fisk Jubilee Singers recorded. This recording here is “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which was one of the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ best tunes of the time.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers had a major influence on the introduction of the spiritual into American repertoire, but the group had to adapt their style in order to have that effect. The director of the group, John Work, carried out a deal with Victor Talking Machine Company in hopes of reaching a wider audience. In Richard Crawford’s America’s Musical Life, he states that the purpose of the Fisk Jubilee Singers was to bring the history of Southern slaves into the present culture of Northern urban Protestants. The Jubilee singers dressed very properly and were polished in both behavior and musicality. They also didn’t sing in a dialect. This recording from Victor seems to have the typical sound of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, but it may not be representative of how the slaves in fields would have sung these songs. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were working against preexisting stereotypes and a racist society, so they found a more appealing sound that still maintained the idealized fervor of slave music to resonate with the white audiences. This reflects the idea of white people adapting music from other cultures or forcing others to match their own tastes of music, like we can see with Theodore F. Seward’s arrangement of Go Down Moses, in that it takes a standard spiritual and sets it within white hymnody.

While they did everything they could to appeal to their white audience, and were successful in that, they were still not always taken seriously. Even the Victor record company claimed that “they sometimes excite to laughter by their quaint conceptions of religious ideas.” The white audiences thought of them as novelties. Yet, Victor praises the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ emotional appeal to all. We should be grateful for the contributions of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, as they helped with the acceptance, development, and preservation of spirituals. It is also important to acknowledge their struggles in promoting this music and how that has affected the development of the genre.

Sources

Brooks, Tim. Lost Sounds. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2004. Accessed October 2, 2017. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5406/j.ctt2jcc81.19.pdf?refreqid=search%3Ab6add585f9e3810555f5c47c576075a2

Crawford, Richard. America’s Musical Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.

Fisk University Jubilee Singers. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Victor B-8420, 1909. mp3 Accessed October 2, 2017. http://media.loc.gov/playlist/view/5A9DB5B664340160E0538C93F1160160

Roy, William G. Reds, Whites, and Blues. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Accessed October 2, 2017. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctt7rgqw.5.pdf?refreqid=search%3Aeac284c272f71c57421ddda9fc0c5238

 

How An Architectural Interior Designer Captured the Evolution of the African American Spiritual

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http://ezproxy.stolaf.edu/login?url=https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity|recorded_cd|72058

It isn’t often that an architectural interior designer from Detroit with a battery-operated reel-to-reel tape recorder captures a vitally important moment in history, but Carl Benkert, a man who happened to fit the aforementioned description, managed to accomplish just that. In the year of 1965, when the Civil Rights movement was in full swing, and protesters were marching from Selma, Alabama to the State Capitol in Montgomery for access to the voting registration, Benkert recorded live freedom songs, chants, and speeches that were released in a documentary-album, “Freedom Songs: Selma Alabama.” One of the tracks (found in the hyperlink above), titled “Steal Away, Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” caught my attention as it captures the spirit and constant evolution of the complex African American Spiritual.

While other musical traditions in North American such as Sacred Colonial Songs or American Indian music contain a strong and definitive presence of responsorial singing, African American spirituals have a unique take on the matter that seems to maintain traction throughout the 19th and early 20th century. Known as the “singing man” by many, spirituals have generally been led by one singer who introduces melodic material that is then repeated and varied upon by the “congregation,” or participants. In Benkert’s recording, Hosea Williams, a Civil Rights leader and member of the Souther Christian Leadership Conference, acts as this “singing man,” providing the melodies of two spirituals, which are answered by his fellow protestors. In addition to this call-and-response style comes an element of improvisation and variation that has been present throughout the history of spirituals. Author of 1867’s “Slave Songs of the United States” William Frances Allen touches on this subject, describing how “there is no singing in parts as we understand it, and yet no two appear to be singing the same thing.” This improvisatory tradition can be found in “Freedom Songs: Selma, Alabama” through the various declamatory vocables, including a man shouting “Come on,” and the distinctive bass and soprano voices.

SUDDEN AND WILD TANGENT: BUT WAIT, AREN’T THESE PERFORMERS SIMPLY LOWERING THE THIRD AND THE FIFTH TO ACHIEVE THESE VARIATIONS? NO, I’M GLAD YOU ASKED.

While using buzzwords such as “loose harmonies” are decent descriptions for the Western-oriented reader, listening to varied live music is the best way to capture the true distinction found in African American music. By comparing two saxophone players from different backgrounds, such as Kenny G. and Charlie Parker, we can quite easily see the emotional, personal, and distinct differences that cannot be captured through Western imitation or transcription.

END OF SUDDEN AND WILD TANGENT.

Another simple means which connects spirituals of the 18th and 19th century and the civil rights movement is the purpose behind and use of biblical texts. As put in the Crawford text, many original spirituals fashioned traditional biblical stories into songs of a “sober dignity and moral force” that were sung in ways that “condemned slavery, affirmed faith in God, and tapped the depths of human souls.” In other words, found not in our beloved textbook, spirituals were transformed in ways that signaled and led the ways for racial equality. To see such iconic pieces as Steal Away and Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen still being presented and utilized in a constant fight for equality during the March to Montgomery is a testament to the inherent emotional core of African American spirituals.

In describing the spirituals recorded during the Montgomery March, Benkert captures the idea behind this musical “core”:

“The music was an essential element; music in song expressing hope and sorrow; music to pacify or excite; music with the power to engage the intelligence and even touch the spirit.”

 

SOURCES:

Crawford, Richard. America’s Musical Life: A History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.

Freedom Songs: Selma, Alabama. Folkways Records, Streaming Audio. Accessed October 3, 2017. http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Crecorded_cd%7C72058. 
KennyGuille. “Kenny G – Titanic (My Heart Will Go On).” Youtube. Dec. 28, 2007. Accessed Monday, Oct. 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qzUJphkVZs
 Kirkland, W. M.. “Hosea Williams (1926-2000).” New Georgia Encyclopedia. 23 December 2016. Web. 02 October 2017.
rgsmusicargentina. “Charlie Parker – Ornithology.” Youtube. Jan. 23, 2017. Accessed Monday, Oct. 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2tvlp7RnlM

Tuskegee Institute Singers

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Booker T Washington, the founder of both the Tuskegee Institute and the Tuskegee Institute Singers

The Tuskegee Institute is a private, historically black university in Tuskegee, Alabama. The school was founded on July 4, 1881. Three years after the school’s founding, the Tuskegee Institute Singers was formed but the by the founder of the college, Booker T Washington. The choir’s mission was to “promote the interest of Tuskegee Institute”. The ensemble’s primary purpose was to provide music at the school’s vesper services and perform at other significant functions on campus. The ensemble began as a quartet consisting of students: Hiram H. Thweatt, John F. McLeMore, Warren Logan and Robert H. Hamilton. The choir grew in size and fame as the years passed.

History class at Tuskegee University in 1902

William L. Dawson, director of the Tuskegee Choir beginning in 1931

In 1931, the choir reached 100 singers and was now under the direction of William L. Dawson. It was Dawson who brought the Tuskegee Choir to Carnegie Hall in 1932. This performance sparked further prestigious performances such as performing for President Hoover at the White House and sang on  ABC, CBS, and NBC radio networks in the years to follow. The Tuskegee Singers were the first African American performing organization to appear at Constitution Hall. During the term of John F. Kennedy, the choir was invited to sing at the National Christmas Tree Lighting in Washington DC.

The Tuskegee Choir continues to flourish today under the direction of Dr. Wayne Anthony Barr. They have toured across the United States performing at many churches and colleges releasing many recordings of their timeless spirituals such as   “Go Down Moses” (National Jukebox).

Citations

 

1Johnston, F. B., photographer. (1902) [History class, Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama]. Alabama Tuskegee, 1902. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/98503043/.

2 Jones, P. P., photographer. (1910) Booker T. Washington / Photo by Peter P. Jones, 3631 State St., Chicago. , 1910. [Approximately] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2013649123/.

3 Tuskegee Institute Singers . “Go down Moses.” Camden, NJ; 31 Sept. 1914.

4 [William Dawson, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly right / Moss photo, N.Y]. , None. [Between 1930 and 1950] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/93510796/

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