“At last they cleared the room and began, and a strange sight it was…”
Tag: spirituals
Epstein: “Sinful Tunes and Spirituals” (1978)
Black Folk Music to the Civil War
Carter: “The Legacy of the African-American Spiritual” (2010)
“They found a secret door to take them into that world where the tears are wiped away…”
Allen &c.: Slave Songs of the United States (1867)
“The musical capacity of the negro race has been recognized for so many years that it is hard to explain why no systematic effort has hitherto been made to collect and preserve their melodies…”
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Willis, 1850s?)
Wallis Willis created the song “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” sometime before 1862; we like to pair it with this 1862 photograph by Concord, NH’s own H.P Moore.
The Hardtacks 