Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry
Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry

Author: Sandra Jean Graham

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2018-02-26

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0252050304

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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/

Slave Songs of the United States
Slave Songs of the United States

Author: William Francis Allen

Publisher: Applewood Books

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1557094349

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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.

Sinful Tunes and Spirituals
Sinful Tunes and Spirituals

Author: Dena J. Epstein

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780252071508

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Awarded both the Chicago Folklore Prize and the Simkins Prize of the Southern Historical Association From the plaintive tunes of woe sung by exiled kings and queens of Africa to the spirited worksongs and "shouts" of freedmen, in Sinful Tunes and Spirituals Dena J. Epstein traces the course of early black folk music in all its guises. This classic work is being reissued with a new author's preface on the silver anniversary of its original publication.