This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: The Sacred Music of the African American Diaspora

Cabinet Card of the Fisk Jubilee Singers

This page has tags:

Contents of this tag:
2. Gary Clark, Jr.
3. Ella Fitzgerald at the Downbeat Club in New York. Dubbed "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular jazz singer in the United States for more than 50 years. With an unparalled vocal range and exceptional tone and phrasing, she sang everything from ballads to “scat songs” for a global audience, sold 40 million records, and won 13 Grammy awards. Photo by William P. Gottlieb, courtesy of the United States Library of Congress's Music Division
4. BB King B.B. King is possibly the most well known blues musician in the world. He was part of the early blues scene on Beale Street in New York in the 1940s and was instrumental in the evolution and definition of the genre. A virtuoso guitarist, King developed a sophisticated and distinctive playing technique, integrating elements from early blues guitarists like Blind Lemon Jefferson to create a unique style that influenced many later blues and rock guitarists. Photo by John Shearer/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images
5. Beyonce Knowles Beyoncé Knowles-Carter is a singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. She rose to fame as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best- selling girl groups of all time. As a solo artist, she has become one of the world’s bestselling music artists and an outspoken advocate for social justice issues. She has been listed among Time's 100 most influential people and ranked as the most powerful woman in entertainment. Photo courtesy of Theo Wargo/Getty Images for TIDAL.
6. Thomas A. Dorsey
7. Yolanda Adams
8. W. C. Handy circa mid 1930s W.C. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters and blues musicians in the United States. Handy did not create the blues genre but was the first to publish music in the blues form, adapting the blues he heard on the street into a series of compositions that helped spark America’s first blues craze, including “Memphis Blues,” “Yellow Dog Blues,” “Beale Street Blues,” and “St. Louis Blues.”
9. Kendrick Lamar
10. NWA The rap group NWA is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential groups in the history of hip hop music. They were among the earliest pioneers of the gangsta rap genre. Drawing on their experiences with racism and excessive policing, NWA wrote intensely political music, with depictions of drugs, crime, and women that caused considerable controversy. Their sharp, staccato style and raw, authentic lyrics led the genre in new directions and continue to impact the development of hip-hop.
11. Mahalia Jackson performs at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam
12. Marian Anderson at the Easter Concert at the Lincolm Memorial
13. Cabinet Card of the Fisk Jubilee Singers
14. Ma Rainey
Contents of this tag:
1. Exhibit 02- The Legacy of the Fisk Jubilee Singers The tradition of the concert spiritual – a more formal, arranged version of the songs sung by slaves – began with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The popularity of the Fisk Singers and the warm reception of their music inspired other choirs to follow in their footsteps. The concert spiritual tradition continues at many historically black colleges, churches, and community choirs today. African American composers, past and present, who are masters of the concert spiritual include John Wesley Work, Jr. R. Nathaniel Dett, Hall Johnson, Jester Hairston, and Moses Hogan. Part of the "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" exhibit at California State University Domniguez Hills. Photo by Beth McDonald, February 2020.
2. Albert McNeil and the choir of People's Independent Church
5. Fisk Jubilee Singers Gold and Blue Album
6. Chicago's Famous Williams Jubilee Singers
7. Cabinet Card of the Fisk Jubilee Singers

This page is referenced by:

The Legacy of the Fisk Jubilee Singers The Fisk Jubilee Singers were instrumental in preserving the unique American musical tradition known today as spirituals. In 1866, Fisk University was founded in Nashville, Tennessee as the first American university to offer a liberal arts education to “young men and women irrespective of color.” By 1871, the five-year-old university was facing serious financial difficulty. To avert bankruptcy and closure, Fisk's treasurer and music director, George L. White gathered a nine-member student chorus, consisting of four black men (Isaac Dickerson, Ben Holmes, Greene Evans, Thomas Rutling) and five black women (Ella Sheppard, Maggie Porter, Minnie Tate, Jennie Jackson, Eliza Walker) to go on tour to earn money for the university.

The Jubilee Singers' performances were a departure from the familiar "black minstrel" genre of white musicians' performing in blackface and early performances were met with confusion and hostility. As the tour continued, audiences came to appreciate the singers' voices, and the group began to be praised. In early 1872 the group performed at the World's Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival in Boston, and for President Ulysses S. Grant at the White House in March of that year.

In a tour of Great Britain and Europe in 1873, the group, by then with 11 members, performed for Queen Victoria. The queen, fascinated by the singers, commissioned a massive portrait of them which still hangs in the university’s Jubilee Hall. They continued to tour and perform and between 1875 and 1878 raised an estimated $150,000 for the university.

The Jubilee Singers are credited with the early popularization of the Negro spiritual tradition among white and northern audiences; many were previously unaware of its existence. They broke racial barriers in the US and abroad in the late 19th century and influenced many other troupes of jubilee singers who would go on to make their own contributions to the genre, such as the Original Nashville Students, Chicago’s Williams Jubilee Singers, and the Los Angeles- based Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers. The Jubilee Singers perform to this day. In 2017, they were inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame.

Hear the Fisk Jubilee Singers perform "I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray" and "Rockin' Jerusalem"
From Spirituals to Soul
African American music has always been characterized by the ever-changing circumstances of African American life. Africans brought to the United States as slaves brought their musical traditions with them. Many of their activities, from work to worship, were rooted in song. As African American slaves were Christianized, their songs evolved to incorporate Christian hymns and psalms, resulting in the spiritual, which served as a way to express the community's new faith, as well as its sorrows and hopes. After the Civil War, as freed African Americans moved north and west to work in the industrial and railway industries, the agricultural songs of the slave era developed to suit these situations. These new songs eventually gave birth to the gospel and the blues, whose influence can be heard across genres from soul to rock’n’roll and R&B. In the early 20th century, the melding of African American musical traditions with music from other parts of the world led to an explosion of musical styles, including ragtime, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, funk, and disco. During the 80s and 90s, the emergence of hip-hop and rap took African American musical traditions in new directions, drawing on the legacy of old forms to create a distinctive art form as grounded in social protest as the early spirituals. Modern African American artists and musicians continue to rediscover, remix, and reinvent their musical history in ways that have a profound impact on the shape of musical culture of the United States.