No-one would deny that Christianity has contributed a huge amount to musical culture of the world. Afterall, written music has its origins there and hymns have made up most of the backbone of modern music. Still, I personally believe that the negro spiritual has been the best expression of christianity through music. Maybe its the simple unpretentiousness of them or their association with slavery - thus lending a certain authenticity to the messages and morals - or maybe, I dunno, I just don't like white people's religious music. Regardless, they make up one of the greatest repetoires of folk songs in history and are perhaps more important than any other genre of the 18th and 19th century.
Actually, I'm going to start this post with a song that was not originally a negro spiritual, or even an American song, but which was later inaliably identified with the genre. That song is, of course, "Amazing Grace".
Now if you're one of those genuinely strange people who doesn't know this song, here's a recording by Judy Collins from the early 70's. Generally, I don't like Judy Collins, because she represents a horribly, horribly polished and fake branch of so-called "folk music", but her recording of this, backed by a choir, is pretty perfect:
"Amazing Grace" is one of the oldest songs I'll be dealing with on this blog,it was published in 1779 by ex-slave trader John Newton. This is significant - there were absolutely shiteloads of hymns written in the 17th and 18th century and if we were simply dealing with Christian hymns that influenced negro spirituals I could come up with any number by the likes of Isaac Watts. What makes "Amazing Grace" significant is that it was written by an ex-slave trade trader in (allegedly) a fit of religious and moral guilt over his profession and the song became something of an anthem for the whole abolitionist movement and later for enslaved African-Americans.
The symbol used by the Quakers and other abolitionists in Britain in the 18th century - "Am I not a man and a brother?"
Ironically, this most theistically uplifting of musical genres grew out of cultural opression and repression - when African slaves were brought to America, all elements of their African culture and heritage was obliterated; they were all brought under the arm of Christianity and had any attempts at breaking into African songs or rituals forcefully beaten out of them. When sitting in church, benches would be pushed close together to prevent the slaves from getting up and dancing.
To quote negrospirituals.com:
Rural slaves used to stay after the regular worship services, in churches or in plantation “praise houses”, for singing and dancing. But, slaveholders did not allow dancing and playing drums, as usual in Africa. They also had meetings at secret places (“camp meetings”, “bush meetings”), because they needed to meet one another and share their joys, pains and hopes. In rural meetings, thousands slaves were gathered and listened to itinerant preachers, and sang spirituals, for hours. In the late 1700s, they sang the precursors of spirituals, which were called “corn ditties”.
However, the very basis of Christianity condemns slavery as a sin and it is this fact that eventually made Christianity the enemy of slavery and a tool for its abolition. Trying to provide a timeline for negro spirituals is practically impossible, since, even compared to white folk songs, documentation of the songs is practically non-existant. However, there were a few books published in the mid 19th century that were collections of negro slave songs, often including spirituals, the first and most significant being "Slave Songs Of The United States" in 1867.
If you want to actually read the book, here's a full scan of it:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/allen/allen.html
Not a lot of the songs documented are that well known today, but there are a few that are pretty famous. The most famous is probably "Michael, Row The Boat Ashore". It was big during the American 1960's folk revival and, as such, here's a version by Pete Seeger from 1963:
Pete can get on my tits sometimes with his often patronising attitude, but this is pretty cool. Another well known song from the book is "Nobody Knows the Trouble I Seen", sung here by legendary "voice of God" Paul Robeson:
One of the most popular and lasting negro spirituals is "Go Down, Moses", also known as "Let My People Go". Unlike a lot of spirituals, the song is not jubilant and uplifting, but sombre and ominous - the song's relevance has no doubt been emphasised due to the obvious parallels made between the plight of the Israelites and African-American slaves. I mean, it is one of the few slave songs that actually contains the phrase "Let my people go" and so has been put forward as one of the great songs of defiance and determination. The song was first published in 1872 by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the premiere black vocal group of the era, but some sources have dated the song as having been sung as early as 1853. One of the best versions of the song is from Preston Sturges' 1941 existentialist screwball comedy, "Sullivan's Travels":
Probably the most famous negro spiritual is "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". Interestingly, the song had an official author, Wallis Willis, a freedman (newly emancipated slave) who composed the song sometime before 1862. Whether he based it on an earlier song he had heard or actually thought it up himself doesn't really matter, though - the song became basically the anthem for African-Americans and arguably remains so until this day, although I'd like to suggest it has more universal status. It has been suggested that the lyrics to the song referenced the "underground railroad", the secret means for slaves to escape to the freed states. It was popularised by the Fisk Jubilee Singers starting in the 1870's and took from there. If, somehow, you haven't actually heard this song, you're probably sectioned. But still, here's a version by vocalist(and clearly a massive Paul Robeson fan) Kevin Maynor. Trying to find decent versions of this song is hard, bytheway, because almost all the versions I see are either "clever reinterpretations" (shite) or sung by overdramatic "soulful" singers (really shite):
After the abolition of slavery, the most famous singers of negro spirituals were the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a group of African-American students from Fisk University who formed in 1871 as something of reaction against the blackface minstrel shows who claimed to bring the "authentic" sound of the freed black slaves to the stage.
The Fisk Singers were an acapella vocal group whose dignified and, admittedly, middle-class renditions of negro songs (and a few Stephen Foster songs) provoked both praise and criticism across America and Europe. Probably for the same reason in both cases - they didn't confirmed to the stereotyped image of blacks that had been instilled in people's minds. They still exist today as a group, albeit (shockingly) with none of the original members; it is something of a tradition in Fisk University. The original Fisk singers made recordings as early as the turn of the century, but they often sound very old and creaky today. A lot of them can be found public domain on the internet, but here's a very good recording made in 1926 of "Keep A' Inchin' Along":
With the birth of various new recording markets, spirituals became widely spread throughout popular culture. Even genres like the supposedly Satanic medium of the blues and the supposedly white-washed country music recorded a lot of negro spirituals.
Artists like Blind Willie Johnson and the Reverend Gary Davis who were usually (and inaccurately) labelled as country blues artists had repetoire composed almost entirely of religious material, albeit played with a bluesy, raggy guitar accompaniment. Here's Reverend Gary Davis playing "Children of Zion" and looking badass on Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest in the mid 1960's:
And take this beautiful version of "All God's Chillun Got Wings" by cowboy vocal group, the Sons Of The Pioneers - a great defence against the percieved image of country music as white washed or racist:
In the 1940's, Thomas A. Dorsey combined the negro spiritual with jazz, R&B and pop influences and created gospel music. Gospel music is often thought of as interchangable with the negro spiritual, but it really is a very different kind of music - take a listen to this recording of the Golden Gate Quartet, one of the most popular gospel groups of the 30',s 40's and 50's singing the negro spiritual, "Joshua Fit The Battle" in the gospel style:
Of course, in the 20th century, negro spirituals had their biggest revival during the civil rights movements, but that's really an issue for another time....
Twang goose, muds!
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