Fisk University

Fisk Jubilee Singers

Featured Songs:

A little talk with Jesus makes it right
The Angels Changed My Name
Every time I feel the Spirit
Go, tell it on the mountain
Ride on, King Jesus
Swing low, sweet chariot
There is a balm in Gilead
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Collections of Spirituals:

Note: Many of these collections had multiple printings; only the first printings of different editions are listed here. For more detail and an index of songs, see Southern & Wright (1990).

Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University (24 songs, 32 pp., NY, 1872): Archive.org

Jubilee Songs Complete, as Sung by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University (61 songs, 64 pp., NY, 1872): U. Wisconsin

The Jubilee Singers and Their Campaign for Twenty Thousand Dollars, ed. Gustavus Pike (61 songs, 221 pp., Boston, 1873): Archive.org

Slave Songs of the Jubilee Singers (66 songs, 68 pp., London, 1874): WorldCat

The Singing Campaign for Ten Thousand Pounds, ed. Gustavus Pike (71 songs, 274 pp., NY, 1875): Archive.org

Ten New and Popular American Slave Songs, Being the Additional New Songs of the Jubilee Singers (London, 1875):

The Story of the Jubilee Singers, with Their Songs, ed. J.B.T. Marsh (104 songs, 227 pp., London, 1875): WorldCat

The Story of the Jubilee Singers, with Their Songs, ed. J.B.T. Marsh, 2nd ed. (104 songs, 232 pp., London, 1875): PDF [1876]

The Story of the Jubilee Singers, with Their Songs, ed. J.B.T. Marsh, 6th ed. (112 songs, 248 pp., London, 1876): Archive.org [1877]

The Story of the Jubilee Singers, with Their Songs, ed. J.B.T. Marsh, rev. ed. (128 songs, 265 pp., NY, 1883): HathiTrust

The Story of the Jubilee Singers by J.B.T. Marsh, with Supplement, ed. F.J. Loudin, new ed. (139 songs, 311 pp., Clevelend, 1892): Archive.org

Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Jubilee Singers (1884)

Part 1 Enlarged: HathiTrust
Part 2 Enlarged: HathiTrust

New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, ed. F.J. Work (47 songs, Nashville, ca. 1902): WorldCat

Folk Songs of the American Negro, ed. F.J. Work

[Not numbered] (91 songs, 96 pp., 15 May 1907): Sounding Spirit
Number 1 (62 songs, 64 pp., 2 July 1907): HathiTrust
Number 1 Revised (62 songs, 64 pp., 2 July 1907): PDF
Number 2 (59 songs, 64 pp., 15 May 1907): Sounding Spirit

Folk Song of the American Negro, ed. J.W. Work (64 songs, 132 pp., Nashville, 1915): Archive.org

American Negro Songs, ed. John W. Work (230 songs, 259 pp., NY, 1940): WorldCat

Manuscripts:

Henrietta Myers Collection on the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Library of Congress:
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70972594

John Wesley Work III Papers, 1915-1971, Library of Congress:
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70972612

Adam Knight Spence and John Wesley Work Collection, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library:
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38476761

Fisk University Archives & Special Collections:
https://www.fisk.edu/academics/library/special-collections-and-archives#J

Recordings:

Fisk Jubilee Singers in Chronological Order (Document Records, 1997)

Volume 1 (1909–1911): Amazon
Volume 2 (1915–1920): Amazon
Volume 3 (1924–1940): Amazon

The Gold and Blue Album, dir. John W. Work (Folkways Records, 1955): Amazon

Spirituals in Hi-Fi: Concert in Paris (1958): WorldCat

Jubilee: A Musical Tribute to Fisk University Live (Rejoice, 1985): WorldCat

Fisk University Jubilee Singers (Warner Bros., 1993): WorldCat

Rise, Shine!: The Fisk Jubilee Singers Live in Concert (Fisk, 1999): WorldCat

Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory, The American Experience [PBS Video]: Archive.org

In Bright Mansions (Curb Records, 2003): Amazon

Sacred Journey (Curb Records, 2007): Amazon

There Breathes a Hope: The legacy of John Work II and His Fisk Jubilee Quartet, 1909-1916 (Archeophone Records, 2010): Amazon

Roll Jordan Roll (Suncoast Music, 2015): Amazon

Find it on Amazon:

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Related Resources:

“The Jubilee Singers After 40 Years,” Fisk University News, vol. 2, no. 5 (October 1911): WorldCat

Arna Bontemps, Chariot in the Sky: A Story of the Jubilee Singers (Philadelphia: Winston, 1954): WorldCat

J.M. Richardson, A History of Fisk University, 1865–1946 (Tuscaloosa, 1980): WorldCat

Eileen Southern, “Fisk Jubilee Singers,” Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), pp. 132–133.

Eileen Southern & Josephine Wright, African-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale, and Dance, 1600s–1920: An Annotated Bibliography, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Black Music (NY: Greenwood Press, 1990): WorldCat

Dena J. Epstein, “The Story of the Jubilee Singers: an Introduction to its Bibliographic History,” Essays in Honor of Eileen Southern, ed. J. Wright and S.A. Floyd Jr. (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1992): WorldCat

Toni Passimore Anderson, The Fisk Jubilee Singers: Performing Ambassadors for the Survival of an American Treasure, 1871-1878, dissertation (Georgia State University, 1997): WorldCat

Robert M.W. Dixon, et al., Blues & Gospel Records 1890–1943, 4th ed. (Oxford: University Press, 1997).

Andrew Ward: Dark Midnight when I Rise: the Story of the Jubilee Singers who Introduced the World to the Music of Black America (New York, 2000): WorldCat

Sandra J. Graham, The Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Concert Spiritual: The Beginnings of an American Tradition, dissertation (New York University, 2001): WorldCat

Jason Ball, Maintaining an Educational Institution: The Fisk Jubilee singers and Their Efforts to Operate and Expand Fisk University from 1871–1878, dissertation (University of Toledo, 2002): WorldCat

Tim Brooks, “The Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Popularization of Negro Spirituals,” Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890–1919 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 2004), pp. 192–214: WorldCat

Sandra J. Graham, “On the Road to Freedom: the Contracts of the Fisk Jubilee Singers,” American Music, vol. 24, no. 1 (2006), pp. 1–29: WorldCat

Toni P. Anderson, “Tell them we are Singing for Jesus”: the Original Fisk Jubilee Singers and Christian Reconstruction, 1871–1878 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010): WorldCat

Sandra J. Graham, Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018): Amazon

Sandra J. Graham, “Jubilee Singers,” Grove Music Online:
https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2249936

Fisk Jubilee Singers, Fisk University:
http://fiskjubileesingers.org/