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Overview

As Donna M. Cox, professor of music at Dayton University, writes, "From the moment of capture, through the treacherous middle passage, after the final sale and throughout life in North America, the experience of enslaved Africans who first arrived at Jamestown, Virginia … was characterized by loss, terror, and abuse." Slavery remained a common practice and legal in the United States from 1619 until December 1865. As Cox writes, "From this tragic backdrop one of the most poignant American musical genres, the Negro spiritual, was birthed" (Cox 2020). Out of this plight of oppression, the enslaved African in America retained their innate cultural heritage of music to express their innermost soul. Most pronounced of these was their expression of sorrows, joy, hope, and longing for a better life."

Be ready to:

Identify and articulate the difference between a spiritual and a hymn.

Identify the role the Great Awakening played in the development of the African American spiritual.

Define the African American spiritual, including the different aspects regarding its origin.

Describe the role of the invisible church in the authentic development of the spiritual.

Describe a typical worship service that took place in the invisible church.

Describe the importance of Slave Songs of the United States that was published in 1867.

Describe lyrical/coded themes mentioned in the spirituals.

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Performance Practice

Nineteenth-century descriptions of indigenous African American religious music provide a glimpse of the overall character of how this music was performed. The label folk spiritual is useful to identify this genre as a product of the antebellum SIDE NOTEThe period before the Civil War, when slavery was still the law of the land. South. The descriptions included in the 1867 publication Slave Songs, a compilation of 136 songs, almost all of which are religious, is instructive.

The compilers of this text-William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison-established unequivocally that folk spirituals were sung neither in unison nor in harmony. "There is no singing in parts as we understand it and yet no two [persons] appear to be singing the same thing" (Allen, Ware, and Garrison 1965 [1867], v). This heterophonic texture The simultaneous rendering of slightly different versions of the same melody by two or more performers. can be heard on the recording of "I Want to Go Where Jesus Is,"♫ made by the singing preacher and pastor Dr. C. J. Johnson (1913-1990). Although Johnson is a product of the twentieth century, William T. Dargan classifies Johnson's "singing style [as] rooted in the slave church" (Dargan 2006, 84).

Even though tempos were known to vary, folk spirituals had a characteristic regular pulse, with the text viewed as subservient to rhythm. Based on his personal observations, William Francis Allen notes, "The negroes [sic] keep exquisite time in singing and do not suffer themselves to be daunted by any obstacle in the words. The most obstinate Scripture phrases or snatches from hymns they will force to do duty with any tune they please" (Allen, Ware, and Garrison 1867, iv).

Slave Songs

Musical Textures Found in Music
Monophonic Single Melodic Line Polyphonic Two or more simultaneous melodies Homophonic Single melody with accompaniment Heterophonic The simultaneous rendering of slightly different versions of the same melody by two or more performers

As discussed earlier, the call-and-response or leader-chorus structure played a dominant role in antebellum spiritual performance practice. This specific structure juxtaposed short phrases sung by an individual with responses sung by the group. The constant repetition of the response allows and encourages everyone to participate, while variation was provided by the leader or soloist who was free to make textual, melodic, and rhythmic changes at will. In some instances, the soloist or leader ends the call before the response begins; in others, overlapping call-and-response results when the solo lead continues after the group response begins. One account offers this description: "… the leading singer starts the words of each verse, often improvising, and the others, who 'base' him, as it is called, strike in with the refrain, or even join in the solo, when the words are familiar" (Allen, Ware and Garrison 1965 [1867], v). Here is an example:

I Don't Feel Weary

CALL: I don't feel weary and no ways tired
RESPONSE: O glory hallelujah
CALL: Just let me in the kingdom while the
world is all on fire
RESPONSE: O glory hallelujah (ibid.,70).

The call-and-response form is a strong marker of the pervasiveness of African cultural memory in the lived experiences of New World slaves. Erich von Hornbostel, an African music scholar and pioneer in the field of ethnomusicologyEthnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions, or contexts of musical behavior, in addition to the sound., wrote in 1926 that call-and-response was a uniquely African characteristic of African American music. He conceded that call-and-response "occurs in European folksongsA song originating among the people of a country or area, passed by oral tradition from one singer or generation to the next., but in African songs it is almost the only one used" (quoted in Epstein 1983, 56-7).

Donna M. Cox

"From the moment of capture, through the treacherous middle passage, after the final sale and throughout life in North America, the experience of enslaved Africans who first arrived at Jamestown, Virginia...was characterized by loss, terror, and abuse."

Steal Away

O, walk together children
"Steal away
steal away
steal away to Jesus
Steal away
steal away home
I ain't got long to stay here"